What do I know with Isaac Carroll
What do I know with Isaac Carroll
Chapter 19, The Biblical View of Marriage: Understanding God's Heart on Divorce
Welcome to the podcast. I'm Isaac Carroll, and this is what Do I Know. In today's Bible study, we are going to be starting chapter 19 of Matthew, verse 1. When Jesus had finished these words, he left Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, and large crowds followed him and he healed them there.
Speaker 1:Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing him and asking Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? And he answered and said have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And he said For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no person is to separate. They said to him. Why then did Moses command us to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away? He said to them because of your hardness of hearts, moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way, has permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery. The disciples said to him If the relationship of a man and his wife is like this, is it better not to be married? And he said to them Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. All right, let's stop here at verse 12.
Speaker 1:Now, as a man who's been divorced not once, but twice, I can personally attest to what it felt like reading this for the first time. Both me and my wife had both been married before, and when we got together we weren't in the church. We both had kids from prior marriages and we were a blended family. When we started going to church together and started coming to know the Lord, I wanted to adhere my life and everything about my life to God's Word, felt in love with the Word, felt in love with Jesus about my life to God's word, fell in love with the word, fell in love with Jesus, totally radically changed and wanted to abide by everything God's word said. And then I come to these words not just these, it's several times through the New Testament where Jesus says that if a man marries a woman who's been divorced, he commits adultery. If a man divorces a woman and marries another woman, he is committing adultery. And me and my wife, for us to be together was adultery, and we just got our family together in church and now God's Word was telling me we had to separate. Now you may not know this, but there's a precedence for this in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:If you read Ezra, ezra 10, starting in verse 1, it says While Ezra prayed and made this confession, weeping and falling face down before the house of God, a very large assembly of Israelites men, women and children gathered around him, and the people wept bitterly as well. Then Shekaliah, son of Jehiel, an Elamite, said to Ezra we have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the people of the land. Yet, in spite of all this, there is hope for Israel. Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all the foreign wives and their children, according to the counsel of my Lord and of those who tremble at the command of our God. Let it be done according to the law. Get up, for this matter is your responsibility and he will support you. Be strong and take action. These men sent away their wives and their children because it did not hold to the law of God.
Speaker 1:Here in Matthew, jesus is telling me that if a man marries a woman who's been divorced, he's committing adultery.
Speaker 1:And I was guilty. So what was I to do? I knew God had brought this woman into my life. I knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt and it just didn't make sense and I cried out to God and I wept bitterly. And then God in his kindness, he brought me to this passage in 1 Corinthians.
Speaker 1:Now, paul had been talking about marriage and whether to be buried or not to be married, and in chapter 7 and verse 17, it reads like this it says Regardless, each one should lead the life that the Lord has assigned him and to which God has called him. This is what I prescribe in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man still uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised, for circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commandment is what counts.
Speaker 1:Each one should remain in the situation he was in when he was called. Were you a slave when you were called? Do not let it concern you. But if you gain your freedom, take the opportunity For he who was a slave, was called by the Lord his Lord's freeman. Conversely, he who was a freeman when he was called is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of men. You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each of one should remain in the situation he was in when God called him. Well, the situation I was in when God called us was together, and now we were both coming to Christ together. So thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus that he had made a way for us to conform to his word and still be together now.
Speaker 1:I don't want to make it seem like this is the same kind of thing or that I understand what Abraham was going through when he was asked to sacrifice his son, but I understood the heart of it and and it hit me you had to be willing to give up anything and everything for God. Since then, I've really come and by searching God's word, I've come to understand the grief and the thing that God hates and why God hates divorce. I know a lot of people in the church that have been divorced and remarried who were in the church when they got divorced still in the church, as they got remarried, still in the church as they got remarried, and this greatly, it grieves me. And why does it grieve me? It's because I know it grieves God. God's word is very adamant about divorce and why Can you imagine if God so readily divorced us?
Speaker 1:I mean, think about it. We are the bride of Christ and we're not even married yet. We're the bride. We haven't been married.
Speaker 1:Jesus made a promise that he would come back for his bride. He went to make a place, he made a marriage proposal and he went away to make a place for us. He's going to come back for his bride and it's the marriage supper of the Lamb. It's the reflection of our relationship with God. Imagine how easy it would be because of our unfaithfulness, because of our disobedience, how easy it would be for Christ to say I renounce that promise because you guys didn't hold up to your end of the stick. None of you have. But he's been more faithful to his promise than we have to our own vows in marriage, than we have to our own vows in marriage. It says to have and to hold, for better or for worse, until death do us part. So help us God.
Speaker 1:We say these vows before God as if they mean something, but what do they really mean to us? As long as it's convenient for me, as long as both parties are okay with it, that's not what God called us for, and I believe that's why the devil has destroyed the sanctity of marriage to the point it is today, because it's a reflection of God. God is the husband, we are the wives. A wife is supposed to be obedient and faithful to the husband, and God proved his point. He laid down his life for us to provide all things for us. He has been faithful in his vows. We need to likewise be faithful in ours.
Speaker 1:Marriage should not be so readily discarded. It should never be discarded in light of this truth. He doesn't call us into happiness. He doesn't call us into happiness. He doesn't call us into convenience. He calls us into obedience, and we should be obedient to this, to this vow that we make to another human being. Because Jesus says when a man leaves his father and mother and he joins into his wife, two become one flesh. One flesh, not two. And whenever we were ripping that apart for the sake of our own desires or her desires or whoever's desires and maybe I'm so passionate about this because I've seen firsthand the destruction and the pain that divorce causes.
Speaker 1:It destroys lives, it destroys children, families. It's very destructive and it pains not only people but God himself, who made the sanctity of marriage something that should last forever. His marriage to us will last forever as a reflection. We should be obedient to that covenant we make before God as long as we live, and I hate it that marriage has become such a byword, especially in the church. It should never happen in the church and we need to be better at conveying this to new believers and to our fellow man. I know and I'm not trying to grieve people who have been divorced. I myself have been divorced twice and I know the kind of pain this thing causes. But what I'm trying to point out is moving forward, we need to be more adamant and more steadfast on our convictions of staying true to God's covenant. All right, I think this marriage and divorce thing should be something we dwell on and reflect on. I'm going to end this one here. Until then, stay faithful, guys. I love you. Goodbye.