Give Me Jesus: Jesus As Mitigator: Matt. 19:1-12; Mark 10:1-12

I. The Assumption vs. 1-3

A. Mark says that Jesus was teaching, Matthew says He was healing. He was doing both. The Pharisees ask a question that has nothing do with what is going on. Why? Because they were trying to trap Him!

B. Because they didn’t care about the people Jesus was healing, they only cared for themselves.

C. The question was taking Deut. 24:1 way out of context. The Sadducees said that you could divorce your wife for any reason, spoiling your dinner, speaking ill of her mother-in-law, or you found a prettier woman. The Pharisees said only for adultery, as though it was a command. Deut. 24:1 ““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,”

D. People divorce for way too many reasons nowadays. Some people had no business getting married to start with.

II. The Correction vs. 4-9

A. Marriage is one man, one woman for life!

B. There are only 2 genders. Male and female.

C. The Pharisees saw it as a command, but it was not a command, but allowance. (Law and Death ex All those transgression that had to do with adultery was punishable by death, so it would have been to death do us part. But if someone didn’t want them to die, they put them away quietly).

D. If you divorce (even if for a good reason) the consequences are the same. I Cor. 7:12-16 “But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?”

III. The Consideration vs. 10-12

A. The disciples saw this as so radical that they wondered why anyone would ever marry. Why? Marriage is hard. It’s harder when the only way out is death.

B. Marriage isn’t for everyone. Quit making out like it is. We get that messed up theology from the Catholics. I Cor. 7:8-9 “But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

C. If you are single and God doesn’t want you to marry, then don’t be pressured into it. If you want to marry let God handle it, and quit measuring people against unrealistic standards.

D. So what about abuse? Usually, there is infidelity going on, and once they lay a hand on you or they hurt a child, they’ve abandoned you in every way except for their physical presence! (Adrian Rogers ex)

E. If the divorce happened before salvation, it is under the blood and not the unpardonable sin. Acts 10:15 “Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.””

F. If divorce was not biblical, but they married the wrong person what then? Ask for forgiveness from spouse (and make it as right as you can [Ben’s story ex]) and from God. Give forgiveness. If you were wronged and you’re bitter ask God to help you. Matt. 6:12 “‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Isaiah 1:18 ““Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.”

John 8:7 “But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.””

“There is a dangerous precipice, a dangerous cliff, called divorce. And our job, our duty, as a church is to build a wall as high as we can, as strong as we can, and say to our kids, “Don’t fall over that precipice. It’s dangerous. It’s destructive. Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” But, my dear friend, for those who do, for whatever reason, not only are we going to keep the wall up here, but we’re going to keep an ambulance down there. And we’ll keep plenty of gas in it to minister to those people and show them the love and the grace of God that every one of us have received. And that’s the kind of a church we need to be and every church needs to be.”- Adrian Rogers.