Investment Tips for Divorce
GNLCC 11/18/2007 Hosea 2:16-20 Matthew 19:1-10
(Much of this message comes from me listening to Dr. John Ortberg Of Menlo Presbyterian Church in Menlo CA. You may go to their website and see the message as it was originally done. It is available in print, audio and video on their website. This version is available in audio and video on our website.)
We have been going through our investment tips for building relationships and the one area we have not dealt with fully is divorce. We need a biblical understanding of divorce, because it will affect many of our lives in all different kinds of ways. Divorce can be one of the most painful things that people experience. One of the reasons I left family law, was because I saw just how painful divorce was in people’s lives.
The best way to prevent divorce is to start out right. If you’re thinking about getting married to someone, and you know Jesus, and you have made a commitment to Him, and that other person in your life does not know Jesus, I want to warn you, I want to encourage you, I want to plead with you, I want to say it as strongly as I possibly can: Do not get married to someone who does not share that ultimate faith commitment. Just don’t do it! Let the person go now, before you regret it later.
I encourage those of you who are married and are both following Christ, to reconsider if you think divorce is a viable option for you. I can tell you that the divorce process gets a lot worse before if gets better. There are severe emotional strains, financial strains, and spiritual strains that enter into the couple’s lives that they have not fully considered. There is severe damage to the family and to the church.
In many cases it would be far easier to surrender your situation and your obedience to Christ and try to work things out, rather than ending the marriage. I say this to those in which both people are actually trying to live for Christ. The Bible stresses the sanctity and the commitment involved in marriage.
If you each do what Jesus tells you to do toward the other person, your marriage can be turned around if you really want to turn it around. Remember the marriage you have belongs to more than just the two of you. We all have a duty to help you keep it together.
Yet God knows the human heart, and how wicked and deceitful in can be. One person alone cannot build a great marriage or even turn around a marriage. God recognizes that people change and it is often not for the better. There are provisions in God’s word, for when divorce is allowable. We all need to know what is allowable and what is not. People are going to ask you for your opinion.
As your pastors we want you to be prepared from a biblical perspective on divorce, and what the word of God actually teaches about it. Otherwise you may read a passage like Matthew 19 and walk away feeling condemned and guilty over something that is not actually being taught in the passage.
Now you’re really have to put on your thinking cap this morning, and follow with me in going through both the Scriptures and history to come out with a biblical perspective.
Much of what is said in church about divorce is not what the Bible teaches. Much of what the world says about divorce is also not what the bible teaches. So let’s plow into this together. This will be a teaching message more than a preaching message. We need both to become all that God wants us to be.
I want to say from the outset, that I have Dr. John Ortberg from Menlo Park Presbyterian Church helping me with some of this material. He in turn got some help from David Instone-Brewer with some of the research. Now let’s get into our teaching for today.
Way back in the ancient world, before Jesus and even before the Old Testament, the ancient near east was pretty much governed by the Hammurabi Code. Some of you have heard about this code when you were in highschool. If you were a wife, under that code your husband could divorce you at any time and for any reason just by walking out of the house.
Let’s call the fellow Ray. If Ray went walking, you’d be stuck with the kids, if there were any. You’d have no money. Let’s say that you had sons and found some way to raise them. They might get old enough to work the farm and start making some money.
If Ray found out about it, he could return anytime he wanted to, reclaim you and the kids and the money and the farm. What that meant was, if you were a wife and your husband left, even though technically you could remarry, the reality was that no man would ever marry you if they knew that Ray was hanging around out there somewhere and could come back.
So, if you were a woman in that world and your marriage broke up, you were in trouble. About the best news you could get was that Ray had had a heart attack and died. That was the only way you’d be safe with your own money.
Women were very vulnerable in the ancient world and always at the mercy of men. They had very few rights. One of the striking aspects of the Law of Moses, compared to the law of the ancient near east, was its concern for women. It was clear from Genesis that God’s intent for marriage was that it be a permanent commitment from a husband and wife.
But we know from history and personal experience that God’s intent is not always carried out in our lives because of this thing call sin. Sin is that ability we have to reject God’s plan and do our own thing. So it should not come as a surprise that marriages would be affected by sin.
So God told Moses what to do in these cases. We find in Deuteronomy 24:1 where Moses: When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some indecency in her, he writes her a certificate of divorce
and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house. (Deuteronomy 24:1).
At first glance this doesn’t seem a whole lot different, but that certificate that was given, invested the woman with power. The “certificate” was a way of protecting the woman, because it meant that Ray first husband could never come back and reclaim her or her property. The certificate always had a phrase on it: You are free to remarry any Jewish man, or any Jewish woman that you wish.
Deuteronomy here mentions divorce on the grounds of “indecency.” The word indecency in the original Hebrew language meant sexual immorality. So a certificate of divorce could be granted for the cause of sexual immorality which means the person cheated on the other person.
So there was no disagreement on divorce on the grounds of sexual unfaithfulness by anybody. But then, were there any other grounds for divorce. What about things like abuse or abandonment. What if Ray was beating you up or spending all the money on drugs leaving you and the kids homeless but he didn’t go out with other women. Were there other cases that involved other provisions for divorce?
When we do not find something directly stated in Scriptures then we look to the other Scriptures for guiding principles. Those other cases are covered as well if we look at another passage on divorce. In Exodus 21:10-11, The law here covers the question, “What happens if a man takes a second wife?” and it’s designed to protect the interests of the first wife: If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her (the first wife’s) food, her clothing or her conjugal love. If he does not provide her with those three things, she is free to go without payments of money. (Exodus 21: 10-11)
Once again, the law is seeking to protect the woman. Again we see the presence of sin twisting what God intended. God did not intend for us to have multiple husbands or wives. But human nature being what it was, people insisted on doing what they wanted to do.
Men started taking on second wives. In this case, the husband takes a new wife and, human nature being what it is, the new wife tends to get the good stuff, so the law said, “ When he (the husband) married his first wife, he made a vow to provide support (food and clothing) and love. So, if he breaks that vow, then the first wife is free to leave, free to get a divorce, free to get a certificate, and free to remarry.”
Over time the rabbis, who were the Jewish religious leaders looked at these two passages as the ones that were to govern the laws of divorce for God’s people. They come to the conclusion that: Here is the principle that is involved: Based on these texts, marriage involves a vow, and those vows include three primary promises: fidelity—to be faithful . . . no sexual unfaithfulness (Deuteronomy 24); to provide—food, clothing sexual intimacy and affection. (Exodus 21);
Marriage is a vow: to be faithful, to provide for daily physical needs and to love. When these vows are broken, the victim of the broken vows has a right to get divorced. Male or female . . .. That would include the right to be remarried.
There was no such thing in Judaism as a divorce that did not include the right to remarry. That was the reason you would be given the “certificate.” The rabbis, religious leaders would debate what constituted the breaking of these vows, because they took them very seriously. How much food was included in that promise? What about clothing? How about conjugal love? This is the kind of thing that rabbis did. They came up with rules around the idea of physical intimacy.
The husband had to offer to be physically intimate with his wife at least twice a week, or she had the right to divorce him if he didn’t do it. They made exceptions in some cases. For instance, if he was a donkey driver, he only had to offer it one time a week. Maybe he didn’t make it home every night depending on his route.
Did the rabbis believe that Biblical grounds for divorce could include things like abandonment or abuse? Of course they did. Abandonment would simply be the extreme form of breaking the vow to provide. Abuse would be the extreme form of breaking the vow to love. Marriage was a vow to be faithful, to provide and to love. It was serious to break any of the three.
In Israel, those would be grounds for divorce. That did not mean that anybody thought God believed divorce was a good idea. It was not, but this was a way of preventing worse injustice and suffering when vows were broken. That’s the framework for marriage and divorce in ancient Israel.
Now let’s leave the Old Testament and move up to the New Testament Period . In Jesus’ day, there was a new discussion around the issue of divorce. Two of the most famous rabbis who lived a twenty or thirty years before Jesus and were the big teachers of their day were named Hillel and Shammai.
They were the big guns of their day and would have had their own religious tv program today along with their own bible school. Their students and followers were loyal to whichever one of the two they followed. Now Hillel had one view of the passage in Deuteronomy 24:1 , where Moses says a man can divorce his wife for “a cause of sexual immorality in the Hebrew language.”
Now Hillel reflected on this text and kept thinking and thinking about it and said: Moses could have said that a man could divorce his wife “for sexual immorality,” but he includes this phrase: “for the cause of sexual immorality.” Why does he include that phrase?
The rabbis loved the text. They loved every word and believed that no word was random or redundant. Hillel reasoned that this word must refer to another cause, a different grounds for divorce beside sexual immorality. Since it was just the word “cause,” Hillel concluded that it must mean “any cause.”
In other words, Hillel said that Deuteronomy 24 meant that a man could divorce his wife for two reasons: sexual immorality or any cause. Hillel was a man. The rabbis in his school were men. They decided that this “any cause” divorce would be available to only one gender. Anybody want to guess which gender that was? Men. Husbands. “Any cause,” Hillel said, covered just about any fault you could conceive of. Again, rabbis would list different faults they believed a husband could divorce his wife for under this “any
cause” provision. They listed things like:
• If a wife spoiled her husband’s dinner, he could divorce her.
• If she walked around with her hair unbound, her husband could divorce her, because that was considered improper.
• If she argued in a voice loud enough to be heard in the next house, he could divorce her.
One drawback to the “any cause” divorce was it was more expensive. If the husband could prove that a spouse had committed adultery or abuse in court, then a husband would not have to pay a ketubah—the marriage inheritance that was promised at the wedding. If he got the “any clause” divorce, then he had to pay the inheritance, so it was more expensive.
Hillel is saying: Now there’s a new divorce option available. It’s never before been available in the history of Israel … the “any cause” divorce … available to any husband.
Soon, as you might imagine, it became the most popular form of divorce in Israel. If you had the money to pay what was promised to the family at the time of the marriage, you could just get out of the marriage, if you were a man.
Although you may not have known that you knew, many of you know of a case in the Bible where an “any cause” divorce was considered,. Do you remember the story in the New Testament where Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant? In Matthew 1:19 it says: Because Joseph did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce Mary quietly. (Matthew 1:19)
Now that word “quietly” is not just a vague adjective. It is a technical term. What Joseph decided was he would not take Mary to court and prove that she was guilty of adultery, which would have let him off the hook for the marriage inheritance promise. He decided to get an “any cause” divorce. No proof of adultery. No scandal.
That means he would have to swallow the financial cost and support the child. That’s exactly the situation that is referred to in the story of Mary and Joseph. It was an innovation of Hillel. Now this interpretation by Hillel should show us that it is possible to find things in the Scripture that God never intended to be there. You need to be careful when people have some new teaching, because chances are, it’s some form of error.
The other important rabbi, Shammai, disagreed. He said: No. Deuteronomy 24:1 refers only to divorce being allowed for sexual immorality. Of course, Shammai would have agreed that divorce could also happen, on the basis of Exodus 21, when the vow for provision was broken, or when the vow for love was broken.
But that was not the controversy at the moment. Only the word “cause” in Deuteronomy 24:1 was causing the problem Shammai said, listen, “when it comes to Deuteronomy 24:1, An “any cause” divorce is wrong and a bad interpretation of the text. It’s just plain wrong.” So you have this battle raging between those who support the any cause divorce and those who supported the only three causes (faithfulness, support and conjugal love).
In Jesus’ day, this caused a big debate between the religious leaders who followed Hillel and the religious leaders who followed Shammai, and everybody wanted to know exactly where every rabbi stood on this subject. It’s like the way, in our day, we ask politicians, “Where do you stand on capital punishment, etc. Are you pro life or pro choice?”
This brings us to Jesus: Some Pharisees came to Jesus to test Him or trap Him. They asked Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” (Matthew 19:3) Now many people read this verse and they think this is a question asking Jesus can you ever get a divorce. That’s not what is being asked. Everybody knew that you could get a divorce for certain causes. Because the Old Testament had given causes. No religious teacher would be trying to trap Jesus by asking him something that was not debated. Divorce was in the Old Testament.
If I asked you if you were pro choice or pro life, you knew I would be talking about what? Abortion. But I didn’t mention the word did I. You know from twentieth century America what I am asking. The same thing here, when they mention the word “any cause” anywhere near the word divorce, somebody is talking about the debate between Hillel and Shammai. The religious leaders would not be asking if divorce could only be granted for one cause or no cause at all.
What they’re asking is: Jesus, how do you interpret Deuteronomy 24:1? Do you agree with Hillel or Shammai? They’re not really even interested in Jesus’ answer. The text says: They came to test or trap him. Well what is the test or the trap.
A little background may help here. In that day, the ruler in Galilee was a man named Herod. Herod had been married to his first wife, but while he was married, he fell in love with another woman—Herodias. Unfortunately, Herodius was also married … married to Herod’s brother. So Herod got a divorce from his first wife, and he talked Herodius into divorcing his brother so he could marry her.
John the Baptist heard about this and confronted Herod about it. He said: It is not lawful for you to have Herodias as your wife, … because you got an ‘any cause’ divorce to get her.(Mark 6:18) John the Baptist was a Shammai kind of a guy. Does anyone here remember what happened to John the Baptist?
Herod cut off his head because Herodias did not like him condemning their divorce. This is a loaded question, and they know it. They know that Jesus is probably a Shammai kind of guy and if they can get him to publicly declare it, maybe Herod would get rid of Jesus, just like he got rid of John the Baptist. They probably intended to steer the next question in the direction of Herod’s marriage. This is why they pose the question to Jesus.
But Jesus is always a step ahead of our schemes and he neutralizes their trap by his anwer. So he goes back to the very beginning of the Law. In Genesis, it says: A man shall leave his father and mother. The two shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24) By the way, in the Hebrew it just says, “they shall become one flesh.”
What Jesus is doing when he adds “two” is saying that polygamy (having more than one wife at a time) is not really God’s plan either. “The two shall become one.” God’s purpose for marriage is for a husband and a wife make a permanent, intimate commitment.
The Pharisees say: Why then did Moses command that the man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?(Matthew 19:7) Jesus replied: Moses permitted you to divorce, because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. (Matthew 19:8) Now here is the problem. Jesus goes on to say says, . 9”“I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."
To understand this passage you have to understand the Hillel Shammai debate which is what is going on in this passage. If I ask you the question, should 16 year olds be able to drink on the weekends at parties. What would your answer be. You automatically supply the word alcohol.
When Jesus mentions the only cause for divorce was for for the cause of sexual unfaithfulness, the people automatically knew he was talking about Deuteronomy 24:1. They would not assume he was throwing out the passage in Exodus 21. Everyone agreed on Exodus 21, but it was that word “cause” in Deuteronomy 24:1 that created the controversy.
Jesus is saying if you do the “any cause” deal, you’re wrong. If you do that and get remarried—which would have been the expectation in that culture— that’s adultery. Because the only grounds Jesus mentions here is sexual immorality, some people have thought that the New Testament position is that the only Biblical grounds for divorce—or for divorce and remarriage—is adultery.
This has led to anguish and heartbreak and confusion, and sometimes tragedy. Some people think that if a person is abusive, addicted to drugs, tries to kill someone or more, the person cannot get a divorce, however if the person has sex once with another person, then divorce is okay.
That is not what Jesus teaches in this passage. Jesus is dealing with the “any cause divorce in Deuteronomy 24:1” and Jesus is putting limits back where they were originally intended on that passage. Anyone reading it in the first century would recognize that in the same way, we quickly understand the phrase, “you should not drink and drive.” We know this phrase has nothing to do with drinking pepsi, lemonade or water. It may appear to others as an all inclusive prohibition, but we know it is not.
First century readers understood the debate: What is your interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1? Jesus’ response to that, when pushed, was: I’m a Shammai guy. I’m against “any cause” divorce. He would have shared the understanding that Biblically, where the vows of marriage (Deuteronomy 24:1 and Exodus) are broken, and where there is hard-heartedness, then divorce may well be the only option.
I want to be very direct here for a moment. If you are in an abusive situation, if you or your children are in danger, then get out now. Get safe. Too often, the church has not spoken clearly on this. Wise Christian counseling can help; being in Christian community is important. Do not think that obedience to God means remaining in a situation where you or your children’s lives are in danger. That is not Biblical. It is not loving. It is not wise. It is not Jesus’ teachings. Get safe now.
We see another indicator that the Apostles and early church understood that this was Jesus’ teaching in Paul’s writing to the church at Corinth. You need to know that marriage as an institution, in the Roman world, was not in great shape. The Emperor, Caesar Augustus, had seen that Roman men were avoiding marriage so that they could engage in multiple relationships, sexual relationships, even affairs.
Caesar was so concerned by the lack of legal sons being born into Roman households that he actually established a law in 18 BC making it compulsory for Roman citizens to get married. If you got divorced, within eighteen months you had to be remarried. Partly because of this, divorce was very easy in Rome. By Roman law, you could get a divorce just by walking out the door.
That’s how the divorce went in ancient Rome. The world that the early church faced was full of wide-scale living together , sexual immorality, compulsory marriage laws, and divorce as easy as walking out the door. Marriage was a disaster.
Paul writes to the little church at Corinth and says, “Don’t do that. Don’t live like that. Honor your marriage vows. Don’t sink down to the Roman bar. Live up to God’s standard. Even if you’ve married an unbeliever, and you’ve become a Christian, you seek to honor your promise to that person.”
Now there is further teaching: But if you’re married to an unbeliever, and the unbeliever leaves, (Again, in the Roman world, that is a divorce.) let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances. (1 Corinthians 7:15) In other words, if your spouse abandons you, then the marriage is over, and you are free to remarry - in the Lord, Paul adds a little later . . . in other words “to a believer.”
Paul would not understand himself to be amending Jesus; he’s not tacking on additional grounds for divorce; he is not adding abandonment as another grounds for divorce in addition to adultery. He would have understand that he and Jesus were in agreement with the framework that they grew up and were teaching out of … that the teaching of the Old Testament was that marriage was a vow to be faithful, a vow to provide and a vow to love.
Sexual faithfulness includes not having an affair with another woman, but it also includes not having a life of chronic indulgence in pornography or something similar. It is a vow, and God’s intent is that it is to last forever.
Paul teaches that if two people claim to love the Lord and are living for God, and they separate from each other, they are to either reconcile with each other or else remain unmarried. There is nothing in Scripture to support the position, we love each other and we love God, but we’re getting a divorce because we don’t see some things eye to eye, meaning we’re going to get an any cause divorce. The world refers to it as the no-fault divorce.
Sometimes vows are broken. That does not mean that divorce is OK, even if vows are broken. Sometimes in churches, people have been legalistic about this and said, “My spouse has been unfaithful to me one time. Now ,automatically, I have grounds for divorce.” Not necessarily. The key is hard-heartedness. Remember the religious leaders said, “Why did Moses command us to get divorced?” Jesus answered, “No. No. Moses did not command. Moses permitted divorce, because of hard-heartedness.”
The idea here is that even if a marriage vow is broken, if a spouse is repentant . . . if they are softhearted, willing to reconcile, then seek to rebuild the marriage. But if the spouse refuses to repent . . . if there’s a stubborn, hard-hearted, defiant decision to reject reconciliation, reject intimacy, reject God, reject His ways, reject rebuilding, then it may well be that divorce is the only option. When there is the breaking of vows, and a chronic hard-hearted spirit, then it is the only way.
That’s the teaching of Jesus and the Scriptures, I believe, on the issue of divorce and remarriage, but I want to say a few pastoral words, because we’ve been through a lot of information, but this is not a non emotional subject. Everybody has been or will be touched by divorce in some way or another. Some of you here have had your heart broken by it. Some of you have been beat up by it and are wondering, “Is there any life after divorce?” Yes there is.
Let me tell you about one more divorce in the Bible, and about what happened on the other side. The most striking picture that the prophets used to describe God’s relationship to Israel was that it was a marriage. God made a covenant with Israel, because He loved her. They took a vow: God would provide for her, care for her and love her. She was to love God in return. But God’s people were unfaithful to Him.
If you go through the Old Testament often idolatry is compared to—is expressed as a form of—adultery. Idolatry is giving something other than God first place in your heart. It is unfaithfulness. It leads to one of the most amazing and heart wrenching statements in all of Scripture. This is God speaking: I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. (Jeremiah 3:8)
Do you understand what that is saying? God goes through a divorce. In the Book of Malachi, God says: I hate divorce. (Malachi 2:16) A lot of people in churches know that statement. Do you want to know why God hates divorce? He’s been through it. This will blow your mind. If you don’t hear the anguish in God’s heart, then you don’t know it yet. God says: I’ve been through all the humiliation of being rejected.”
God says: I know all about the pain of betrayal. God says: I know all about the anguish of broken vows from hard-hearted people. The prophets of Israel say that God is a divorcee. So God invented the first divorce recovery program at a place called Calvary. And the price for the course was one blood stained cross. Jesus paid that price for all of us—for you and for me— and God was the first one to go through it. It’s still in session for anyone who wants to come.
There is love and compassion at the cross for hard-hearted vow breakers like me. When it comes to this divorce, we are all on the wrong side of it. We have all been unfaithful to God. On the most important spiritual level, every one of us has been unfaithful. We are all divorcees. We all need the cross. That’s what we want to be as a church.
By the way, all of us need this Jesus, and if you don’t know Him, you can turn your life over to Him. You can come to the cross, go through the divorce recovery program and come out the other side and be recommitted to God. You can do that today.
If you’re already in a marriage, and you’re struggling, and you can feel your heart getting hard, if there’s anyway we can help serve, we’d love to do that. You can find support at Marriage Sensation, at Sisters In The Lord and at Men Who Excel . We can help you get counseling from a Christian counselor, at the New Life Counseling Center. if that would help.
Maybe you’ve been through a divorce. Maybe you have fought desperately to avoid it. Maybe you shoulder a fair amount of responsibility and guilt. You can get healing from God. You can know grace and forgiveness. You don’t have to be stuck in anger or guilt. I think what God is saying to all of us is: If you’ll let me, I’d love to heal your heart right now.
free to remarry - in the Lord, Paul adds a little later . . . in other words “to a believer.”
Paul would not understand himself to be amending Jesus; he’s not tacking on additional grounds for divorce; he is not adding abandonment as another grounds for divorce in addition to adultery. He would have understand that he and Jesus were in agreement with the framework that they grew up and were teaching out of … that the teaching of the Old Testament was that marriage was a vow to be faithful, a vow to provide and a vow to love.
Sexual faithfulness includes not having an affair with another woman, but it also includes not having a life of chronic indulgence in pornography or something similar. It is a vow, and God’s intent is that it is to last forever.
Paul teaches that if two people claim to love the Lord and are living for God, and they separate from each other, they are to either reconcile with each other or else remain unmarried. There is nothing in Scripture to support the position, we love each other and we love God, but we’re getting a divorce because we don’t see some things eye to eye, meaning we’re going to get an any cause divorce. The world refers to it as the no-fault divorce.
Sometimes vows are broken. That does not mean that divorce is OK, even if vows are broken. Sometimes in churches, people have been legalistic about this and said, “My spouse has been unfaithful to me one time. Now ,automatically, I have grounds for divorce.” Not necessarily. The key is hard-heartedness. Remember the religious leaders said, “Why did Moses command us to get divorced?” Jesus answered, “No. No. Moses did not command. Moses permitted divorce, because of hard-heartedness.”
The idea here is that even if a marriage vow is broken, if a spouse is repentant . . . if they are softhearted, willing to reconcile, then seek to rebuild the marriage. But if the spouse refuses to repent . . . if there’s a stubborn, hard-hearted, defiant decision to reject reconciliation, reject intimacy, reject God, reject His ways, reject rebuilding, then it may well be that divorce is the only option. When there is the breaking of vows, and a chronic hard-hearted spirit, then it is the only way.
That’s the teaching of Jesus and the Scriptures, I believe, on the issue of divorce and remarriage, but I want to say a few pastoral words, because we’ve been through a lot of information, but this is not a non emotional subject. Everybody has been or will be touched by divorce in some way or another. Some of you here have had your heart broken by it. Some of you have been beat up by it and are wondering, “Is there any life after divorce?” Yes there is.
Let me tell you about one more divorce in the Bible, and about what happened on the other side. The most striking picture that the prophets used to describe God’s relationship to Israel was that it was a marriage. God made a covenant with Israel, because He loved her. They took a vow: God would provide for her, care for her and love her. She was to love God in return. But God’s people were unfaithful to Him.
If you go through the Old Testament often idolatry is compared to—is expressed as a form of—adultery. Idolatry is giving something other than God first place in your heart. It is unfaithfulness. It leads to one of the most amazing and heart wrenching statements in all of Scripture. This is God speaking: I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. (Jeremiah 3:8)
Do you understand what that is saying? God goes through a divorce. In the Book of Malachi, God says: I hate divorce. (Malachi 2:16) A lot of people in churches know that statement. Do you want to know why God hates divorce? He’s been through it. This will blow your mind. If you don’t hear the anguish in God’s heart, then you don’t know it yet. God says: I’ve been through all the humiliation of being rejected.”
God says: I know all about the pain of betrayal. God says: I know all about the anguish of broken vows from hard-hearted people. The prophets of Israel say that God is a divorcee. So God invented the first divorce recovery program at a place called Calvary. And the price for the course was one blood stained cross. Jesus paid that price for all of us—for you and for me— and God was the first one to go through it. It’s still in session for anyone who wants to come.
There is love and compassion at the cross for hard-hearted vow breakers like me. When it comes to this divorce, we are all on the wrong side of it. We have all been unfaithful to God. On the most important spiritual level, every one of us has been unfaithful. We are all divorcees. We all need the cross. That’s what we want to be as a church.
By the way, all of us need this Jesus, and if you don’t know Him, you can turn your life over to Him. You can come to the cross, go through the divorce recovery program and come out the other side and be recommitted to God. You can do that today.
If you’re already in a marriage, and you’re struggling, and you can feel your heart getting hard, if there’s anyway we can help serve, we’d love to do that. You can find support at Marriage Sensation, at Sisters In The Lord and at Men Who Excel . We can help you get counseling from a Christian counselor, at the New Life Counseling Center. if that would help.
Maybe you’ve been through a divorce. Maybe you have fought desperately to avoid it. Maybe you shoulder a fair amount of responsibility and guilt. You can get healing from God. You can know grace and forgiveness. You don’t have to be stuck in anger or guilt. I think what God is saying to all of us is: If you’ll let me, I’d love to heal your heart right now.
Sermon Outline Pastor Rick
Investment Tips For Divorce
Hosea 2:16-20 Matt 19:1-10
A. Our Series On Relationships 1. Painful Reality Of Divorce
2. Costs-Emotional, Financial, Social
3. Surrender To God
4. Developing A Biblical Understanding
5. Thanks John Ortberg & David Instone
Brewer
B. Before The Old Testament Time
1. The Hummarabi Code—Divorce
2. Meet Ray- Walk Out Walk In
3. Technically Never Free To Remarry
C. Divorce Under The Law Of Moses
Deuteronomy 24:1 (NASB)
1 "When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house,
1.The Importance Of The Certificate
2. Indecency-Sexual Immorality
3. Complete Agreement
4. Other Grounds
Exodus 21:10-11 (NASB) 10 "If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights. 11 "If he will not do these three things for her, then she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.
5. Fidelity, Provisions, Sexual Intimacy
6. Divorce-Always Right To Remarry
7. Debate Over how Much
8. Abandonment & Abuse
D. Period Between Old & New Testament
1. Two Religious Leaders Teachings
2. Hillel & Shammai
3. Hillel- Because , Cause—Must Mean
There Were Other Causes
4. Hillel—For Any Cause All Covered
5. Any Cause-More Expensive
6. Matthew 1:19 Mary & Joseph
7. Financial Support Included
8. Shammai- Any Cause Wrong
9. Battle Over Deut. 24:1 Not Exodus 21
E. Divorce Question To Trap Jesus
Matthew 19:3 (NASB)
3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?"
1. Whose Side Are You On
2. Trap Herod-John The Baptist Divorce
3. Expect Jesus To Be Shammai
Matthew 19:7-8 (NASB)
7 They said* to Him, "Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?"
8 He said* to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.
4. Hillel- Shammai Debate
5. No-one Fighting Exodus 21
6. Like Drinking & Driving
7. Leave Abusive Situations
8. Divorce Ancient Rome
9. Paul Teaches The Corinthians
1 Corin. 7:15
10. Two Believers Should Reconcile
11. Forgiveness Is An Option
12. Unrepentant - Hard Hearted
F. God Knows What Divorce Is Like
1. There Is Love & Compassion
2. Jesus Part Of The Recovery Option
3. Where Can I Get Help
4. Moving Beyond Where You Are
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