The NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - What Does The Bible Say About Divorce？ Part 2

00:00:00.000 Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform.

00:00:03.940 I get it.

00:00:04.620 It's annoying.

00:00:05.380 Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.

00:00:07.660 When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm so that

00:00:12.440 our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.

00:00:16.280 You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries

00:00:20.820 aren't.

00:00:21.860 We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.

00:00:26.980 You're doing a great job.

00:00:28.160 We've got several hundred reviews so far, but we'd like to reach a thousand reviews

00:00:32.960 by the end of this year, the year of our Lord, 2024.

00:00:36.900 If you haven't left a review yet, take a moment and help us achieve our goal.

00:00:41.980 Continuing our series this Lord's Day through the gospel according to Matthew.

00:00:45.960 Our text for today is Matthew chapter 5, verse 31 through 32.

00:00:50.320 We're picking back up where we left off last week.

00:00:54.280 I told you that this would be at least two parts, perhaps even three parts.

00:00:57.860 We'll see, I hope, by God's grace, Lord willing, to finish today on these two verses.

00:01:03.020 It's only two verses, but this particular subject matter has been neglected,

00:01:07.940 either neglected or wrongly taught in the evangelical church for a few decades at this point.

00:01:15.060 The subject matter from these two verses, as you'll see just in a moment, deals with the topic of divorce.

00:01:21.560 So again, our text for today, this is part two, carrying over from last week.

00:01:26.180 Our text for today, the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 5, verse 31 and 32, the Bible says this.

00:01:34.740 It was also said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.

00:01:40.660 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.

00:01:48.020 And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

00:01:51.760 This is the word of the Lord. 0.88

00:01:54.120 All right, please be seated.

00:01:56.180 We'll go ahead and dive in.

00:01:57.540 Our primary focus, if you were with us last week, was in regards to adultery, divorce, and remarriage.

00:02:06.180 Adultery, divorce, and remarriage.

00:02:09.760 Lord willing, what I hope to cover today is on the second clause.

00:02:15.520 There are only two clauses that we find in the scripture to be biblically permissible for getting a divorce.

00:02:22.000 One is adultery.

00:02:23.180 But the second that we'll try to give attention to this morning is abandonment.

00:02:28.620 And I briefly got into this concept, painting the picture for you last week, that adultery and abandonment are not entirely unrelated.

00:02:37.620 But in many ways, perhaps it's better to view the two as simply two different sides of one coin.

00:02:45.360 Two different sides of the same singular coin.

00:02:48.320 On the one hand, you have adultery, which is breaking the marriage covenant by engaging in covenant relationships that are reserved for marriage alone and engaging in these covenant relations outside of the marriage.

00:03:04.240 Whereas abandonment is the deliberate forsaking of the proper engagement of these covenant relations within the marriage.

00:03:12.040 And the Apostle Paul is very clear about this in 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

00:03:18.320 In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, he says that when it comes to the marital duty that each spouse has to one another,

00:03:28.100 that you cannot deprive one another in marriage unless by mutual consent.

00:03:34.740 And even then, only for a time, temporarily.

00:03:38.840 And even then, it must be mutual, it must be temporary, and it must be purposeful.

00:03:44.920 And the only purpose that's given as a sufficient or acceptable purpose is for the purpose of devoting yourselves to prayer.

00:03:56.040 In the same way that as an individual, you might temporarily fast from eating food so that you might indulge yourself in prayer.

00:04:06.940 If you're fasting, you stop eating food, but you don't start praying more.

00:04:14.140 Well, then that's not a fast. That's a diet.

00:04:18.260 But if it's actually a spiritual discipline, it's actually fasting,

00:04:22.300 then you're not just ceasing to eat food, but you're also replacing one discipline with another.

00:04:31.320 You're saying, as it were, that a man shall not live by bread alone,

00:04:35.940 that I believe that when God says this in his word is true

00:04:39.200 and I'm not ultimately relying on temporal things

00:04:42.960 and the sustenance of my own physical flesh,

00:04:46.540 but ultimately it is that which is spiritual that matters most

00:04:50.980 and I'm relying on the food that comes from God alone.

00:04:53.960 I'm relying on Christ and I'm going to him with prayers and petitions,

00:04:59.000 relying on his faithfulness alone.

00:05:03.060 So that's what it is to fast.

00:05:05.240 It's to, I'm ceasing eating food for a time, and during that time, I'm going to up my prayer game, so to speak.

00:05:15.020 So I'm not, it's not that I'm just not eating, and everything else about my life during this season remains the same.

00:05:21.760 That would not be a true fast.

00:05:24.500 That would simply be dieting, intermittent, immediate fasting, you know, trying to lose some weight.

00:05:33.220 But you can't call it a spiritual discipline.

00:05:36.420 So, too, when it comes to the marriage covenant, fasting from covenant relations within the marriage needs to be mutual.

00:05:46.340 It needs to be temporary and it needs to be for the purpose of prayer.

00:05:51.140 And then, even then, coming back together and sooner rather than later, the Apostle Paul says, so that you might not fall into temptation.

00:06:02.020 He says, because the world is filled with various temptations.

00:06:05.940 And it's for that reason that each man should have his own wife and each wife her own husband.

00:06:11.520 I also said last week that when it comes to the body of the husband and when it comes to the body of the wife in marriage, 0.84

00:06:22.160 that although the husband is clearly labeled by Scripture as the head of his wife in all matters,

00:06:29.520 When it comes to his physical body, this is the one arena within the marriage covenant where there is an equal authority.

00:06:42.180 The wife has rights to her husband's body, and those rights are at the same level as the husband's rights to the body of his wife.

00:06:55.400 And that's why there must be mutual consent.

00:06:58.280 There are many other things within the marriage

00:07:00.800 where the husband, he should do so graciously,

00:07:03.560 he should do so prayerfully.

00:07:05.940 There's all the qualifiers,

00:07:08.140 but still at the end of the day,

00:07:09.700 this is what the word of God teaches.

00:07:11.820 There are plenty of things in the marriage covenant

00:07:14.060 where the husband and wife can disagree

00:07:15.700 and the husband can simply exercise his authority

00:07:18.860 in a loving way, a loving manner and say,

00:07:21.500 I'm sorry, I wish we agreed on this, but we don't.

00:07:25.540 And so we're going to go with my decision.

00:07:27.660 And that's perfectly biblical. However, when it comes to depriving one another of covenant relations, he actually, the husband, as much authority as the Bible gives him, he actually doesn't have authority to do that as an executive decision.

00:07:42.060 It is only by mutual consent that you can deprive one another. So what does this mean? What's my whole point in laying this theological framework?

00:07:50.680 It means that renewing the covenant, renewing the covenant within marriage is a really big deal.

00:08:00.200 It's a really big deal.

00:08:03.080 And denying the covenant and those covenant relations which are specific to that marriage and that marriage alone,

00:08:13.420 denying these, the absence of these, this covenant renewal within marriage, the absence of that

00:08:20.960 regular covenant renewal is a big deal. Every other decision, so long as it's not contrary to the word

00:08:29.000 of God, a husband really does have an executive authority. He shouldn't wield that executive

00:08:36.700 authority in a domineering manner, but he does have it. And for the record, if your biblical 0.58

00:08:44.580 view of male headship boils down at the end of the day to, well, when the husband and wife disagree,

00:08:53.220 they should just decide to pause on making the decision for a month and devote themselves to

00:08:58.140 prayer. And if they still can't agree after praying for a month, they should go and seek

00:09:02.500 counsel from the elders in the church.

00:09:05.020 And if the elders in the church don't 0.92

00:09:06.660 side with the wife, which let's be

00:09:08.580 honest, 99% of evangelical

00:09:10.820 churches, if you go and get

00:09:12.680 advice from your pastors, they

00:09:14.600 will essentially tell you some version

00:09:16.700 of happy wife, happy life.

00:09:19.000 They will agree with her and

00:09:20.540 override your 0.98

00:09:21.980 male authority in your home.

00:09:25.020 Your pastors 0.99

00:09:25.720 will absolutely, as hypocrites, 1.00

00:09:29.240 override your home. You need 0.99

00:09:30.620 to know that, men. 99% of churches, the pastors don't believe the Bible. They'll preach it,

00:09:36.560 but they will not live it. They will come into your marriage and they will override your 0.98

00:09:43.620 authority, cut out your legs from underneath you and reaffirm feminism and egalitarianism 1.00

00:09:50.700 in your marriage. And now whatever conflict you already had in your marriage, it will now be 1.00

00:09:55.380 multiplied by 100 because your wife will now have affirmation from those that she sees as spiritual

00:10:01.420 authorities who essentially just gave her a biblical it's not really biblical but a biblical

00:10:08.300 permission to rebel against her husband and that is marriage counseling in the evangelical church

00:10:14.200 99 out of 100 times so when that doesn't happen which is extremely rare back to my analogy here

00:10:23.200 Most people think that biblical headship boils down to if we disagree, then we just don't do anything.

00:10:28.480 We're at a standstill and we'll pray for a month.

00:10:30.580 If we still disagree, we go and seek out the pastors.

00:10:32.780 And in this hypothetical scenario, let's just say that you have the rare pastors who still don't affirm male headship,

00:10:40.240 but they at least don't affirm, you know, boss, babe, happy wife, happy life theology.

00:10:46.280 And so they say, you know what?

00:10:47.680 Well, this one is really a wash.

00:10:49.140 It could go either way.

00:10:50.500 We're 50-50.

00:10:52.120 So the elders, they don't break the tie.

00:10:53.920 Well, then in that scenario, in that scenario alone,

00:10:57.280 you disagreed, you waited for a month,

00:10:59.680 you prayed, you sought counsel.

00:11:01.980 Even the counsel said you could go either way.

00:11:04.400 It's a 50-50% toss-up.

00:11:06.520 In those scenarios, which will occur

00:11:08.320 over the course of a 50-year marriage,

00:11:10.300 maybe three or four times,

00:11:12.080 then and only then the husband gets to decide.

00:11:15.440 In other words, what kind of headship, 0.53

00:11:17.200 what kind of authority does a husband have?

00:11:19.920 None.

00:11:22.160 Mel Hedges, what is it good for?

00:11:25.340 Absolutely nothing, said the Christian church for the last, I don't know, 70 years or so.

00:11:32.960 So if you can't tell already, if you're visiting, I don't believe that.

00:11:37.480 I'm one of those crazy guys who gets in trouble because I believe what every single Christian always believed for 6,000 years until about 15 minutes ago, which makes me a far right radical. 0.82

00:11:48.980 In other words, a completely normal guy, even outside of the Christian world, by every metric ever available until about 1940, 1950. 0.91

00:12:01.840 So, crazy. 0.67

00:12:04.620 So, all that being said, the Bible's view of male headship, especially in the home, is a really big deal.

00:12:11.700 and it does not give all of the disclaimers and qualifiers 0.62

00:12:15.600 that squishy, effeminate, evangelical pastors 0.70

00:12:18.860 constantly provide. 0.94

00:12:21.760 And yet, here's the point, back to the text.

00:12:24.920 Here's the point.

00:12:26.020 When it comes to the covenant relations within a marriage,

00:12:29.260 on that issue,

00:12:32.100 the male headship thing doesn't get the final say.

00:12:36.220 That's a big deal.

00:12:37.360 That's my whole point in framing this theologically.

00:12:39.820 Male headship, according to God, really big deal. 0.59

00:12:42.860 When it comes to the renewing of the covenant, covenant relations, 0.71

00:12:46.360 you know what I'm talking about, adults.

00:12:48.160 We're family integrated, so that's, you know, I try to just be appropriate.

00:12:52.580 I'm not trying to be silly and speak in code, but I'm trying to be appropriate.

00:12:56.040 Those covenant relations within a marriage, that's the one thing.

00:13:02.140 The Bible says, uh-uh, husband doesn't get the final say on that one.

00:13:06.640 He doesn't get executive authority. 0.50

00:13:08.040 authority. That one has to be mutual. The wife has the wife's authority over the body of her husband

00:13:14.880 is equal to the husband's authority over the body of his wife. That's a really big deal for the 0.98

00:13:20.800 Bible to say that. And so then what does that mean? Well, this is, oh my goodness, Joel, you just

00:13:25.880 discovered it. You know, the feminists are getting excited, you know, not you guys. But, you know,

00:13:31.460 it's like Joel just provided a biblical argument for me to make my case for, you know, why the

00:13:37.160 Apostle Paul, I have always hated him, but maybe I can hate him a little bit less because maybe he

00:13:42.600 was groundbreaking, you know, for the time and swimming up against the cultural current, you

00:13:47.500 know, and the world was steeped in toxic, you know, masculinity. But Paul was at least carving

00:13:52.560 out some kind of ground for future feminists that we could live by. No, it's not what he's doing.

00:13:58.120 What the Apostle Paul is doing is he is saying that adultery and abandonment are not two entirely unrelated issues.

00:14:10.300 But again, they are two separate sides of one singular coin, and they're both a big deal because covenant is a big deal.

00:14:20.840 And you can break that covenant, according to Scripture, in two ways, not just one.

00:14:27.000 You can break that covenant by engaging in covenant renewal relations outside of the marriage, a betrayal.

00:14:38.040 Or, not merely, you can break the covenant by the presence of covenantal relations outside the marriage,

00:14:45.020 or the absence of covenantal relations within the marriage.

00:14:50.500 That's the point.

00:14:52.160 And just to put one more practical qualifier, right?

00:14:55.420 That's the theology.

00:14:56.400 Now, in terms of the practical qualifier, the Bible does not put a time limit or a schedule.

00:15:07.040 So my pastoral and practical counsel to you, brothers and sisters, is don't be legalistic.

00:15:14.120 God's law matters, but where the Bible really is silent, don't try to make extra biblical man-made laws.

00:15:21.980 So don't, I don't think anybody would do this,

00:15:23.880 but just to be abundantly clear,

00:15:26.140 you don't need to go around

00:15:27.480 to other marriages in the church and say,

00:15:30.340 has it been 48 hours?

00:15:35.240 I hope you've been praying

00:15:36.660 without ceasing these last 48 hours

00:15:38.860 because it's the only legitimate excuse. 0.98

00:15:41.400 Don't be silly about this. 0.97

00:15:44.660 You know the theological principle now. 0.98

00:15:47.080 There have been guys,

00:15:49.280 there have been pastors,

00:15:50.280 well-known pastors who have tried to get really technical and that to be fair i think their intent

00:15:56.140 was they were trying to simply be practically helpful those guys who have done that i've never

00:16:01.800 seen it go well those sermons always age poorly i'm going to learn from those mistakes and not

00:16:09.900 make it myself we have no such rule here at covenant bible church that you know thou shalt

00:16:16.000 blank every two days or three like and I also think that there is a permissibility in scripture

00:16:23.620 when a couple has been married for years and years and is getting older because part of the purpose

00:16:30.240 of this is the renewal of the covenant but again the text in first corinthians 7 Paul says uh the

00:16:35.860 mutual if you're one it has to be mutual two it has to be temporary this this depriving um and

00:16:42.880 And three, it's for the purpose of prayer.

00:16:45.140 But then notice a fourth component that he lists is he says, but then be brought back together because there is much temptation.

00:16:52.800 And the fact of the matter is that if you are in your 60s and 70s, you are not immune.

00:16:59.180 So don't let anyone boast lest he fall.

00:17:05.340 Steve Lawson was pretty old.

00:17:08.380 And he fell.

00:17:10.060 So don't be arrogant.

00:17:12.200 Okay, so don't take this the wrong way, what I'm about to say.

00:17:15.140 However, there is a sliding scale in the way that God has physically designed us

00:17:20.280 to where the whole purpose of Paul saying it needs to be temporary

00:17:23.540 and then come back together because there's much temptation in the world.

00:17:27.300 Typically and biologically, ordinarily, the person in their 60s

00:17:32.620 is probably not going to be quite as tempted as the young married couple in their 20s.

00:17:39.260 And so the young married couple in their 20s,

00:17:40.800 again, not for either couple, young or old,

00:17:43.800 will I be sitting here putting a time limit on it?

00:17:46.540 That's silly.

00:17:47.560 Don't do that.

00:17:48.620 But as a generality, a general principle,

00:17:51.740 I do think that there is more allowance

00:17:54.100 when you're older than when you're younger.

00:17:57.420 If you are newlyweds, even for the newlywed,

00:18:00.420 I won't put a time limit on it.

00:18:03.280 But as a general counsel, pastoral counsel,

00:18:05.680 So if you're newlyweds, get to it and enjoy God's good gift.

00:18:13.780 And if you're older, maybe not going to be quite as ambitious.

00:18:22.060 But there's Bible verses for that, too, to always rejoice in the wife of your youth, remembering her.

00:18:31.700 Remember, this is the woman I married 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago.

00:18:37.340 She is a godsend.

00:18:39.800 She is a beautiful woman in whom my heart, after 50 years, half a century, still delights.

00:18:49.160 And I show her my affection in many different ways.

00:18:52.180 And occasionally in a particular way.

00:18:58.020 Okay.

00:18:59.820 All right.

00:19:00.240 So all that being said, that's all I'll say for that.

00:19:03.520 But the big idea, as it pertains to divorce and remarriage, right?

00:19:07.460 That's our primary text, Matthew chapter 5, 31 and 32.

00:19:11.280 As it pertains to divorce and remarriage, the big idea is that there are two biblical clauses of permissibility for divorce.

00:19:20.460 There are.

00:19:22.180 Adultery, that one is the one that most of us are aware of.

00:19:25.540 And that's explicitly said in our primary text, Matthew 5, 31 and 32.

00:19:31.080 But in cross-referencing, getting a larger theological view of this topic of divorce and remarriage,

00:19:36.660 abandonment does come into play as well.

00:19:40.080 Those are the only two.

00:19:41.720 So let's look at 1 Corinthians 7, verse 10 and 11.

00:19:44.780 I've given you a lot of stuff from 1 Corinthians 7, but let's hone in on these two verses now.

00:19:49.620 To the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord.

00:19:53.640 Now real quick, what does that mean?

00:19:55.540 Because this is, again, where the liberal theologians, they get real excited, real excited.

00:20:00.860 They're like, oh, it's right there in Scripture.

00:20:04.400 Paul bifurcates and distinguishes what's from God and what's just his idea.

00:20:10.120 And if it's his idea, well, then we know that that's just, you know, it's just culturally rooted for that time and that place.

00:20:19.480 and by today's standard, you know, it's misogynistic

00:20:24.000 and we don't have to believe it anymore.

00:20:26.580 That's not what Paul is saying.

00:20:28.380 In these parenthetical statements,

00:20:30.700 you find in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 10,

00:20:33.460 he says, not I, but the Lord.

00:20:36.240 And then you find just a little later

00:20:38.640 in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 12,

00:20:43.160 he says the opposite, I, not the Lord.

00:20:47.720 So in verse 10, he says,

00:20:49.680 Not I, but the Lord says this.

00:20:52.900 And then in verse 12, he says,

00:20:54.740 I'm saying this, not the Lord.

00:20:57.720 What does he mean by that bifurcation?

00:21:00.420 My word, this is a saying from me,

00:21:02.940 versus this is a saying from the Lord.

00:21:05.980 What he's talking about,

00:21:07.320 notice he doesn't say,

00:21:08.380 this is me saying it, not God,

00:21:11.840 not the Bible, not God's law.

00:21:14.580 No, he says specifically the Lord.

00:21:16.800 Why does he say the Lord?

00:21:17.960 He's referring to the Lord Jesus.

00:21:20.400 And he's referring to the teachings,

00:21:22.540 the explicit verbatim teachings of the Lord Jesus

00:21:25.960 during his earthly ministry.

00:21:28.880 So when Paul says, I say this, not the Lord,

00:21:31.700 he's not saying this command doesn't come from God

00:21:34.500 and you can therefore dismiss it.

00:21:36.920 No.

00:21:37.980 He's saying this command is coming by apostolic authority,

00:21:41.160 which is divine,

00:21:42.940 and it has been inscripturated for us

00:21:45.640 by the work of the Holy Spirit.

00:21:47.940 It's Bible.

00:21:49.040 It is God's Word.

00:21:50.480 And it's just as authoritative as the red letters. 1.00

00:21:53.080 Don't be a red letter Christian. 0.83

00:21:55.800 No, be a whole Bible Christian.

00:21:58.900 All of it is God's Word. 0.63

00:22:00.520 What's the words of Jesus that matter?

00:22:02.080 Uh-huh.

00:22:02.560 The whole Bible.

00:22:03.820 That's the words of Jesus.

00:22:05.500 It's all the words of God.

00:22:08.200 So when Paul says,

00:22:09.480 this is from the Lord, not me,

00:22:11.180 he's saying this is one of the things

00:22:12.840 that you might find familiar.

00:22:14.720 It's one of the things

00:22:15.800 that Jesus explicitly said himself

00:22:18.420 in the flesh

00:22:20.660 during his earthly ministry.

00:22:23.500 And when he says,

00:22:24.240 now this one is not from the Lord,

00:22:26.520 Jesus didn't say it

00:22:27.560 during his earthly ministry,

00:22:28.660 but I'm saying it

00:22:29.780 with apostolic authority

00:22:31.400 that comes from Jesus.

00:22:33.600 So they're both authoritative.

00:22:35.660 Okay, here we go.

00:22:36.420 Back to the text.

00:22:37.780 1 Corinthians 7, verse 10 and 11.

00:22:40.040 To the married,

00:22:41.600 I give this charge, 1.00

00:22:42.680 not I but the Lord the wife should not separate from her husband but if she does she should remain 0.77

00:22:50.240 unmarried or or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife so

00:23:00.320 he's saying Jesus taught not to divorce now a little later notice verse 12 chapter 7 first

00:23:08.420 Corinthians 7, verse 12 through 15, Paul says, to the rest I say, not the Lord, if a brother has a

00:23:15.640 wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him. So you're a Christian man, your wife is 0.99

00:23:22.720 an unbeliever. Perhaps Paul is describing a situation where both of you are unbelievers and 0.99

00:23:30.540 then the husband later, after having been married to the wife, he comes to saving faith. He hears the

00:23:36.620 preaching of the gospel the holy spirit gives him a new heart and the gifts of faith and repentance

00:23:40.820 and he becomes a christian but his wife doesn't in those scenarios where the husband now is a

00:23:46.660 christian but the wife is not paul says with apostolic authority so this is god's word

00:23:52.800 it's just not a teaching explicitly espoused by jesus during his earthly ministry paul says

00:23:58.440 if a brother as a christian man has a wife who is an unbeliever but she although she's an

00:24:05.900 unbeliever, she's married to a Christian husband, she disagrees with him about certain things, but 0.67

00:24:11.700 she consents to remain in the marriage, to live with him, then in those cases, he should keep his

00:24:18.060 wife. He should not divorce her. If a woman, vice versa, has a husband who is an unbeliever, and she's

00:24:25.660 a Christian, and he, the unbelieving husband, consents to live with her, then she should not divorce him. 0.91

00:24:31.020 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife. 0.86

00:24:34.660 And vice versa, the unbelieving wife will be made holy by her believing husband. 0.96

00:24:41.920 So, the unbelieving husband is made holy by his unbelieving wife. 0.95

00:24:46.200 And the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. 0.99

00:24:49.220 Otherwise, your children would be unclean. 0.55

00:24:52.860 But as it is, they are holy.

00:24:55.000 This is another example which is, again, it is a big deal.

00:24:59.300 because what's being espoused here

00:25:03.040 is not just that the husband,

00:25:05.080 because he would be the federal head

00:25:07.120 of the covenant household. 0.91

00:25:09.400 So the whole household is wrapped up

00:25:11.280 in this marriage covenant.

00:25:13.800 And the children are simply the covenantal fruit

00:25:16.620 of this marriage covenant.

00:25:18.340 But the head of this covenant is not the wife,

00:25:21.820 but rather the husband.

00:25:23.820 And so typically you would think

00:25:25.540 with biblical language

00:25:26.820 that it would only be covenantally cleansing for the whole house

00:25:32.800 if the husband was a Christian. 0.56

00:25:35.820 But here again, the Apostle Paul surprises us

00:25:39.780 and says, even if the federal head of the house,

00:25:45.220 namely the husband, is unregenerate and an unbeliever,

00:25:49.380 but the wife, in a particular case, happens to be the Christian,

00:25:54.780 Her Christianity is potent enough to sanctify her husband, her unbelieving husband,

00:26:01.300 so that the children are not unclean, but rather holy.

00:26:07.180 Which is an extraordinary statement to be made in the Bible,

00:26:12.400 which is very clearly, text after text, patriarchal and not matriarchal.

00:26:19.920 And yet this is the teaching here.

00:26:21.860 And so the point is, again, the point is that covenant matters and that this covenant is so intimate and so potent and so divinely inspired and instituted by God himself that the husband doesn't actually have, although he has much authority in this matter,

00:26:47.100 he does not have the authority to deprive his wife as an executive decision made only by him.

00:26:54.380 The two must agree.

00:26:56.040 Her authority comes into play, her authority over his body, her rights to his body.

00:27:02.200 And also when it comes to divorce, the believing husband as head of his wife, 0.89

00:27:10.500 he has, by God's grace, he is able to sanctify his unbelieving wife

00:27:15.200 so that the children are holy.

00:27:17.900 And even the wife, 0.99

00:27:19.600 if she happens to be a Christian 0.89

00:27:21.000 and her husband is an unbeliever,

00:27:23.100 she is able to sanctify,

00:27:25.140 her faith is potent enough 0.97

00:27:27.100 to sanctify her unbelieving husband

00:27:29.300 so again, the children are holy. 0.98

00:27:32.900 And in these cases

00:27:33.880 of one spouse being a believer,

00:27:35.580 the other spouse not,

00:27:37.980 if the unbelieving spouse

00:27:39.820 consents to remain in the marriage, 0.97

00:27:42.440 the Christian spouse,

00:27:43.720 whether it be husband or wife,

00:27:46.280 should not seek out a divorce.

00:27:50.700 However, going on in the text,

00:27:54.980 but if the unbelieving partner,

00:27:56.960 this is 1 Corinthians 7, verse 15 now,

00:27:59.780 but if the unbelieving partner,

00:28:01.740 the unbelieving spouse,

00:28:02.820 be it husband or wife,

00:28:04.760 chooses to separate,

00:28:06.520 and they leave,

00:28:07.880 then let it be so.

00:28:09.500 In such cases,

00:28:10.980 the brother or sister, 0.91

00:28:12.040 that is the believing husband or the believing wife,

00:28:15.400 who has been left, they didn't do the leaving,

00:28:17.880 but they were left by their unbelieving spouse,

00:28:20.640 are not enslaved.

00:28:22.980 Now, notice this real quick, the language.

00:28:25.220 It doesn't just say that they're not guilty.

00:28:29.420 You would think that the Apostle Paul would say that in these cases,

00:28:32.420 the believing spouse, husband or wife,

00:28:34.600 who was abandoned by the unbelieving spouse,

00:28:37.360 they're not guilty of that divorce. 0.96

00:28:40.040 They're not guilty.

00:28:40.720 But he doesn't say that. He actually goes further. When he says not enslaved, that assumes

00:28:47.480 the minimum standard of being absolved of moral guilt. But he's saying actually even further than

00:28:54.880 that. He's saying not only are you not guilty, but you're also no longer bound. You are no longer

00:29:01.540 enslaved to the marriage covenant. And so here's my position. For the record, anytime I say my

00:29:10.240 position just assume what i'm saying is here's a position from an old dead guy a lot smarter and a

00:29:18.520 lot godlier than me that i read and adopted that's what i mean when i say my position i don't think i

00:29:25.520 have any position that is original to me and that's saying something because you're talking

00:29:30.840 about a guy who occasionally does a video on mermaids even with mermaids i can cite some dead

00:29:38.120 guys i'm not saying they're the most reliable dead guys in that case you know but i can cite

00:29:43.100 some other guys i got it from somewhere i didn't just make it up um if you really want to read

00:29:48.980 someone interesting read um king james you know the guy who's responsible for the king james bible

00:29:54.720 he has a whole almanac of like his recordings and findings on because because guys during that age

00:30:02.560 i mean even martin luther for instance all right so so to not just make it about king james because

00:30:06.560 people say, well, he wasn't a theologian. King James was probably a better theologian than you

00:30:12.760 are, to be frank. But Martin Luther was definitely a better theologian than you and me. And Martin

00:30:20.640 Luther believed, that dude believed in some fairies. I'll tell you that right now. And King 0.93

00:30:26.620 James, he took it a lot further. He believed in fairies and he believed in vampires and a bunch 0.78

00:30:30.880 of different things because some weird things were happening in that time period and they didn't know

00:30:36.760 how to explain them and so they were doing their best to kind of like you know record and categorize

00:30:42.740 different spiritual beings and spoiler you know the nutshell version is they decided i don't think

00:30:51.380 it's just as simple as two categories of angels and demons but that there are elemental spirits

00:30:56.560 that are bound, you know, to certain geographic regions

00:31:01.480 like nymphs and fairies and a river goddess

00:31:05.080 or this or that, and some of them are fallen

00:31:07.340 and some of them are benevolent

00:31:08.980 and there's this and there's that

00:31:10.380 and we can laugh at them

00:31:12.240 and they might have been wrong.

00:31:14.020 I'm not, these guys, it's not the Bible.

00:31:15.540 It's not infallible, but I'll just say this.

00:31:20.280 They absolutely could be wrong,

00:31:22.220 but also I have a sneaking suspicion 1.00

00:31:26.400 that we're the stupidest generation 1.00

00:31:27.920 that there's been in a really long time. 1.00

00:31:29.980 And so I wouldn't be so quick to be arrogant.

00:31:32.940 We think that we can explain away everything

00:31:35.140 with, you know, hashtag the science.

00:31:37.760 But remember that the scientists

00:31:39.660 are the same guys who told you

00:31:41.620 that if you're sitting down in a restaurant,

00:31:44.180 the virus will go over your head

00:31:45.680 and you can take your mask off.

00:31:49.740 And that a boy can be a girl

00:31:51.520 and a girl can be a boy.

00:31:53.500 And that, you know,

00:31:54.620 In the case of bald eagles, we know what's in that egg,

00:31:58.300 and it's actually like a federal fine and crime to destroy it.

00:32:02.820 But when it comes to the womb of a mother, we have no idea what's going on there.

00:32:07.260 It might be a fire truck, you know.

00:32:08.680 We'll never really know until the baby is delivered.

00:32:11.720 So I don't have a lot of faith in the scientists today, you know. 1.00

00:32:17.920 And so fairies and Martin Luther. 1.00

00:32:23.360 I'm a believer. 0.96

00:32:24.120 So, all right. Anyways, the point is my view on divorce and remarriage comes from better men than me.

00:32:33.240 It's not my personal view. I didn't invent it. I didn't make it up.

00:32:37.700 None of my views are invented, even even the wacky ones.

00:32:41.620 So all that being said, let me use a little bit.

00:32:45.820 I've been using Calvin last week throughout this little mini two week series.

00:32:50.300 So let me use Calvin again, and then I'll use some of the Westminster standards.

00:32:56.220 John Calvin, he says this,

00:32:58.280 Christ condemns as an adulterer the man who shall marry a wife that has been divorced.

00:33:05.660 This, and I put it in bold in your notes, is undoubtedly restricted to unlawful and frivolous divorces.

00:33:13.360 So what Calvin's doing is he's taking the words of Christ,

00:33:16.040 And then he's cross-referencing those with other portions of Scripture that speak about marriage and divorce, namely the teachings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, as well as Romans chapter 7.

00:33:27.160 And he's making a larger, cohesive theological position.

00:33:34.160 He's saying that, yes, Christ says at face value, if we only had these two verses in Matthew chapter 5, 31 and 32,

00:33:41.660 Christ says that a man who was previously married to another woman and has a divorce, if he remarries now to someone else, that he is committing adultery. 0.99

00:33:54.120 That is true. That is what Christ says. 0.99

00:33:56.960 But Calvin adds in his commentary, this is undoubtedly restricted to not just all divorces, but those divorces which were unlawful and frivolous.

00:34:08.040 that Jesus isn't saying this as a blanket principle.

00:34:12.980 He's saying that a man who has been divorced

00:34:16.220 and now marries another woman

00:34:17.860 is committing the act of adultery

00:34:21.180 if the previous divorce was without biblical cause,

00:34:26.260 if it was an unlawful, unbiblical, frivolous divorce.

00:34:31.560 And he goes further.

00:34:34.580 In like manner, Paul enjoins those 0.52

00:34:37.640 who have been so dismissed to remain unmarried

00:34:42.500 or to reconcile with their husbands.

00:34:45.960 In other words, if there's a divorce that was frivolous,

00:34:50.860 that was without biblical cause,

00:34:52.660 and the biblical cause, again, what is it?

00:34:55.620 Twofold, they're not unrelated or arbitrary.

00:34:59.200 It's two different sides of the same coin,

00:35:01.300 adultery and abandonment.

00:35:03.660 Those are the only two clauses that are biblical

00:35:06.440 that make it permissible to get a divorce.

00:35:08.660 If you have been divorced

00:35:10.720 without those two causes,

00:35:13.180 your spouse abandoned you

00:35:14.640 or your spouse committed adultery.

00:35:20.680 If it's not one of those two things

00:35:22.800 and yet you got a divorce anyways

00:35:24.660 and today you're single,

00:35:27.360 then according to scripture,

00:35:29.220 you should remain single

00:35:30.620 or seek to be reconciled to your former spouse.

00:35:33.900 That's what the word of God says.

00:35:35.280 Now, let me add a couple of clarifiers, because let's just be honest.

00:35:42.120 America. America loves her some divorce. 1.00

00:35:46.640 Can I get an amen? America loves apple pie. 1.00

00:35:51.960 America loves football and America loves divorce, adultery and abortion.

00:35:59.880 I mean, let's just like that's where we're at.

00:36:02.500 It's like, man, I wish that Trump was stronger in his rhetoric, you know, against against abortion.

00:36:10.500 Yeah. Join the choir. Me too. Absolutely. 1.00

00:36:14.480 Have I been disappointed? Absolutely.

00:36:18.580 But let's just acknowledge for a moment that I've been reliably informed.

00:36:25.780 politicians tend to say the things

00:36:29.020 that they think the most people will agree with

00:36:31.520 so that they can be elected.

00:36:33.400 Did you know that that's how politics work?

00:36:36.900 And I'm not making a moral argument right now saying,

00:36:40.180 and therefore, it's okay.

00:36:42.360 That's not my point.

00:36:43.560 My point is that if you want a litmus test,

00:36:48.280 you know, a thermostat

00:36:49.140 to kind of gauge the temperature of the room,

00:36:53.480 the American room,

00:36:54.380 Trump is 0.93

00:36:56.160 a very accurate

00:36:58.700 thermostat

00:36:59.280 and the fact that Trump has moved

00:37:02.280 pretty far to the left

00:37:04.500 at least in his rhetoric

00:37:06.400 I'm praying that he'll govern to the right

00:37:08.840 you should pray also

00:37:10.480 and I will use whatever influence

00:37:12.960 I have to hold

00:37:14.880 him accountable and say

00:37:15.900 Mr. President

00:37:17.200 you have an obligation under God

00:37:21.000 to protect

00:37:22.760 and defend the sanctity of life.

00:37:25.240 Fear God and repent

00:37:26.880 of your murderous wicked ways.

00:37:30.720 So we can hold him accountable.

00:37:33.300 We can call him to repentance

00:37:35.200 and we can pray that he governs

00:37:37.300 far to the right.

00:37:38.500 Right now as he's campaigning,

00:37:41.200 his campaigning rhetoric,

00:37:42.900 we'll see how he governs,

00:37:44.760 but his campaigning rhetoric

00:37:45.920 is a good bit to the left

00:37:47.940 of where he was in 2016.

00:37:51.380 And I'll tell you why.

00:37:52.800 I'm not making an excuse for that.

00:37:54.160 I'm not saying that it's moral.

00:37:55.620 Here's my point. 0.62

00:37:57.140 The reason why is because America loves abortion. 0.98

00:38:02.020 Didn't even think it was possible,

00:38:03.800 but America loves abortion substantially more in 2024 0.99

00:38:09.100 than she already loved abortion in 2016.

00:38:14.360 And that's why Trump is saying the things that he's saying.

00:38:17.700 So we love abortion.

00:38:19.480 And here's the deal.

00:38:21.420 How'd you get on to abortion? 1.00

00:38:22.640 I thought we were talking about divorce and remarriage.

00:38:24.480 Well, listen, it's never a bad Sunday to condemn abortion. 0.55

00:38:28.760 Okay, so you just that one you can just do every single week.

00:38:31.980 And you're probably you're probably going to be in good standing.

00:38:36.640 But as it relates to our topic, abortion runs downstream.

00:38:41.720 You need to see the correlation from adultery and divorce.

00:38:45.180 it is because we have a country that is rampant in adultery and divorce

00:38:52.420 that we have so much of an appetite for abortion.

00:38:58.880 Abortion runs downstream of the sexual revolution

00:39:03.800 and men and women in our country wanting to cast off all bonds, 0.65

00:39:14.300 covenantal bonds that God established

00:39:16.160 between husband and wife

00:39:17.620 and do whatever they want in that arena. 1.00

00:39:22.300 That's why abortion is such a big deal. 0.96

00:39:25.000 That's why the desire for abortion 0.99

00:39:27.620 is at an all-time high.

00:39:30.680 The correlation between divorce and adultery

00:39:33.420 and the demand for abortion, 0.57

00:39:36.420 that correlation is quite obvious.

00:39:41.680 And as adultery goes down,

00:39:43.760 and divorce goes down, by God's grace, 1.00

00:39:46.060 I believe that the demand for abortion

00:39:48.360 would go down as well.

00:39:51.920 So, all that being said,

00:39:54.880 a couple disclaimers here.

00:39:57.380 So Calvin says,

00:39:58.820 you actually can remarry

00:40:00.260 if you are divorced for a biblical cause,

00:40:02.680 the two biblical causes being

00:40:04.640 adultery or abandonment.

00:40:08.000 Adultery or abandonment,

00:40:09.320 two sides of one coin.

00:40:11.220 Your spouse abandoned you,

00:40:12.560 and you were innocent in the matter. 0.92

00:40:15.180 It doesn't mean that you're not a sinner,

00:40:16.580 that you didn't ever raise your voice, 0.99

00:40:17.980 that you didn't.

00:40:18.740 You could have loved better.

00:40:20.220 You could have led better.

00:40:21.800 You could have submitted better.

00:40:23.140 If you're the wife, all these different things. 1.00

00:40:25.180 Certainly you are a sinner, 0.99

00:40:26.440 saved by grace like everyone else.

00:40:27.840 But innocent in the matter,

00:40:29.780 meaning they ultimately abandoned you

00:40:31.840 and not the other way around.

00:40:33.480 Or they ultimately committed adultery against you

00:40:36.900 and not the other way around.

00:40:38.680 In that instance, they would be the guilty party.

00:40:41.640 you would be innocent, declared in an ecclesiastical court by the church,

00:40:47.780 innocent in the matter.

00:40:49.660 And because that was not a frivolous divorce, but a biblical divorce,

00:40:54.040 in those circumstances, you would be free to remarry.

00:40:57.660 If it was not a biblical divorce,

00:41:00.600 you got divorced because you just didn't like each other.

00:41:03.200 You just couldn't get along.

00:41:04.940 Here's the deal.

00:41:05.520 in those cases the bible says remain single or return and reconcile to your previous spouse

00:41:13.220 now because this is how i got on the whole america loves divorce and adultery because our nation is

00:41:19.840 just divorce and remarriage is rampant in our nation within the church sadly as well

00:41:28.600 there are many instances with people who got a divorce they didn't have biblical cause

00:41:34.260 and then they entered into another marriage

00:41:37.440 instead of going back or remaining single.

00:41:40.560 And so that person might be asking,

00:41:42.300 well, what do I do now?

00:41:44.500 So now here come in my disclaimers,

00:41:47.140 some pastoral disclaimers.

00:41:49.080 How then shall we live?

00:41:50.400 If I messed up and I messed up twice,

00:41:52.780 I got a divorce that I shouldn't have

00:41:54.300 and then I entered into another marriage

00:41:56.620 that I shouldn't have.

00:41:58.080 How then shall I live?

00:42:00.140 Number one, there is no scriptural evidence

00:42:02.620 to support that parties remarried

00:42:04.660 after being divorced on the grounds

00:42:06.400 of their own adultery, abandonment

00:42:08.660 or divorce for petty or unbiblical reasons

00:42:11.440 are living in an ongoing

00:42:13.480 continual state of sin.

00:42:17.520 What the text says,

00:42:18.740 what multiple biblical texts say

00:42:20.320 is that if you got a divorce

00:42:21.520 without biblical cause

00:42:22.780 and you entered into a new marriage,

00:42:24.400 then you committed adultery.

00:42:27.360 But you are not committing adultery

00:42:30.740 nonstop in a continual

00:42:32.820 state. In other

00:42:34.960 words, a third

00:42:36.980 wrong won't make it right.

00:42:39.240 You got a divorce that you shouldn't have.

00:42:41.460 You got remarried

00:42:42.880 when you shouldn't have.

00:42:45.060 And now you're

00:42:46.840 coming into more biblical convictions

00:42:48.840 on this matter of divorce and remarriage

00:42:50.980 and you're thinking, oh no, I shouldn't have done

00:42:52.920 that. And now I'm in this

00:42:54.820 other marriage and I shouldn't

00:42:56.780 have been, so I guess I'll

00:42:58.860 divorce her too or i'll divorce him too no that would just be now piling up a third offense

00:43:05.940 and that doesn't fix it two wrongs don't make a right well three wrongs don't make a right 0.99

00:43:11.640 so what do you do what you do is you repent before god you say lord i was ignorant i was dumb

00:43:18.980 i'm sorry please forgive my sin you repent before your current spouse sweetheart i'm sorry

00:43:26.440 I didn't know these things.

00:43:29.600 And you probably didn't

00:43:31.480 because most evangelical pastors

00:43:33.200 don't teach these things.

00:43:34.960 I didn't know these things.

00:43:36.380 I'm sorry, but I got a divorce.

00:43:38.120 You know this, sweetheart.

00:43:39.480 I've told you this.

00:43:40.400 My divorce, you know why I got that divorce.

00:43:42.320 It wasn't actually a biblical divorce.

00:43:45.300 It wasn't for biblical cause.

00:43:46.580 I wasn't abandoned.

00:43:49.480 And adultery was not committed against me.

00:43:54.320 So I shouldn't have gotten that divorce.

00:43:56.440 But I did, which means it was an unbiblical divorce, which means I was not free to remarry you. 0.75

00:44:02.120 But I did.

00:44:03.320 And here's the good news, saints.

00:44:05.520 All that's a sin.

00:44:07.260 All that was a sin.

00:44:09.080 But the good news is that you are not in a continual, ongoing state of sin.

00:44:13.240 And there's a difference in saying, I sinned, and saying, I'm sinning.

00:44:17.860 There's a difference.

00:44:19.300 And here's the good news.

00:44:20.480 God is sovereign over all things, including suffering and even sin.

00:44:26.440 And so the solution moving forward is to repent to God, I'm sorry, and name your sin and prayer before the Lord.

00:44:34.320 Repent to your current spouse, this is what I did.

00:44:37.360 And the way that I'm going to seek to make it right is trusting, first and foremost, in the shed blood of Jesus Christ that covers sin.

00:44:44.740 And number two, by trying to be the very best spouse I can in this marriage to you.

00:44:49.520 And then lastly, if you have an ability to,

00:44:53.660 some kind of relational correspondence,

00:44:55.940 confessing that sin to your former spouse

00:44:58.360 that you sinned against, saying, I'm sorry.

00:45:01.200 And if there were any children from that previous marriage,

00:45:05.060 confessing and repenting to them as well

00:45:06.660 and asking their forgiveness.

00:45:08.800 After that, what you do is you move on

00:45:12.340 and you try to have the most God-glorifying marriage

00:45:14.780 you possibly can.

00:45:16.840 And you know what?

00:45:17.780 That's the beauty of the gospel.

00:45:20.100 I've learned this time and time again.

00:45:23.040 And I don't always do it perfectly myself.

00:45:25.460 Here's the beautiful thing

00:45:27.260 about the Christian religion and the gospel.

00:45:29.740 When you find out you messed up,

00:45:32.600 and when you find out you even messed up really bad,

00:45:35.240 and it's embarrassing, you have egg on your face,

00:45:37.320 here's the beautiful thing about being a Christian.

00:45:39.740 You don't have to move the goalpost.

00:45:43.800 You don't have to go back and rewrite the history.

00:45:47.420 You don't actually have to double down.

00:45:50.660 You don't have to find some way to rewrite the record to where it will.

00:45:55.200 But actually, I didn't.

00:45:57.080 Here's the good.

00:45:58.000 I thought, at least you guys correct me if you think I'm wrong.

00:46:00.680 I thought that the whole idea of being a Christian and believing the gospel of free grace for sinners was that when you mess up and you got egg on your face, you don't have to do a walk of shame.

00:46:12.500 but you also don't have to pretend you never messed up

00:46:16.800 and lie about it.

00:46:18.160 What you can do is you can stand before God and men

00:46:21.500 and say, I messed up and Jesus died for it

00:46:25.740 and I'm covered.

00:46:28.700 And then you just get to move on.

00:46:31.160 And it's great.

00:46:33.200 That's great.

00:46:34.060 That's the gospel.

00:46:35.740 That's the gospel.

00:46:37.720 I messed up in my marriage.

00:46:39.300 but jesus died for it i'm going to own it and then i'm going to be the best husband i can

00:46:46.360 or the best wife i can that's what we do that's that's what christians do okay let's go ahead and

00:46:55.460 land the plane now this is from the westminster confession of faith chapter 24 says this it is

00:47:03.280 lawful so now talking about abandonment these kinds of things um and remarriage in those cases

00:47:09.120 It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent.

00:47:17.100 Yet, now right there, what it's getting at is this.

00:47:20.520 It's saying marriage is not, right?

00:47:23.380 So the Westminster divines are denying Rome, as you'll see in this.

00:47:28.640 You can barely get through any paragraph of any chapter without them, you know, making fun of the papists and their idolatry, which I'm here for.

00:47:37.600 That's fine.

00:47:38.480 I won't give them a hard time for that.

00:47:42.180 But what they're saying here is they're saying,

00:47:44.440 number one, marriage, unlike Rome,

00:47:48.320 marriage is not a sacrament.

00:47:50.100 It's a divine institution.

00:47:51.540 It was established by God, but it's not a sacrament.

00:47:53.280 We have two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

00:47:55.660 So marriage is not a sacrament.

00:47:57.380 And as such, as it not being a sacrament,

00:47:59.800 God instituted, divinely instituted marriage,

00:48:02.120 and he gave it as a gift,

00:48:03.420 but he didn't give it exclusively to the church.

00:48:06.840 God gave marriage to mankind,

00:48:09.820 not to his people exclusively,

00:48:12.980 but to all people.

00:48:14.360 So what they're saying in this very first line,

00:48:16.260 it is lawful for all sorts of people to marry

00:48:18.320 who are able with judgment to give their consent.

00:48:21.680 What they're saying in this is Muslims can marry

00:48:26.980 and it's a legitimate marriage.

00:48:31.420 And for Muslims, who we love,

00:48:35.100 we wish them a very pleasant conversion to Christianity.

00:48:40.180 But it doesn't mean that in the meantime

00:48:42.240 that their marriage is illegitimate.

00:48:44.600 Legitimate marriage, 0.98

00:48:46.760 illegitimate religion, 1.00

00:48:48.340 we love you, hate Islam, 1.00

00:48:51.220 love the Muslims, 1.00

00:48:52.900 and wish you a pleasant conversion to Christianity.

00:48:55.460 For Jews, same thing.

00:48:58.280 Two Jews get married,

00:49:00.100 legitimate marriage. 1.00

00:49:02.400 Illegitimate religion, 1.00

00:49:03.620 hate Judaism, love Jews, 0.99

00:49:07.920 and wish you a very pleasant conversion to Christianity. 0.60

00:49:12.160 And you can fill in the blank.

00:49:13.740 Hindus, atheists, all across the board. 0.68

00:49:17.000 But here's the deal. 1.00

00:49:18.820 What you can't do theologically,

00:49:21.820 and I bought into this, I don't know,

00:49:23.800 maybe for a minute, like very briefly,

00:49:27.480 but then it's just kind of wrong in its face,

00:49:29.140 and so I didn't hold this view very long.

00:49:31.420 But maybe five, six years ago,

00:49:32.720 I remember thinking,

00:49:33.620 Well, when Paul says, you know, that the unbelieving, you know, spouse is made holy by the believing spouse so that the children are not unclean. 0.90

00:49:41.500 He's just he's just saying that those children who are holy, right, because this is the Baptist temptation. 0.81

00:49:48.120 They want to somehow, you know, say, well, the children aren't really holy. 0.93

00:49:51.800 And it's like, well, no, they are.

00:49:54.080 And I think you can still be a credo Baptist and yet also embrace the Bible.

00:49:59.760 The Bible says they're holy.

00:50:01.200 And so what the Baptist is tempted to do is say,

00:50:03.060 well, when the Bible says holy in that context, 0.99

00:50:05.440 really all it means is that the children aren't bastards. 0.95

00:50:09.620 And I'm not trying to use, you know, 0.98

00:50:11.560 like in the technical literal sense.

00:50:14.000 It just, when the Bible says that they're holy,

00:50:15.960 the Bible is just trying to say 0.87

00:50:16.900 that the children are legitimate children 0.97

00:50:19.420 by saying that the marriage is legitimate, 0.98

00:50:22.480 that a Christian husband and a non-Christian wife 0.54

00:50:26.320 or a Christian wife and a non-Christian husband 0.96

00:50:28.160 still constitutes a legitimate marriage 0.98

00:50:30.880 and therefore the children are not bastards 0.96

00:50:34.220 but rather legitimate children. 0.97

00:50:37.440 Okay, but logically, play that out.

00:50:40.600 What if there's no believing spouse?

00:50:43.620 What if it's not one belief?

00:50:45.380 Because Paul's making the argument

00:50:46.440 that the children are holy

00:50:48.740 because there's at least one believing spouse.

00:50:50.460 That's the whole thrust of his argument.

00:50:52.820 What if there's not even one believing spouse? 0.99

00:50:54.920 What if it's an unbelieving wife 0.93

00:50:56.180 and an unbelieving husband? 0.98

00:50:58.080 Well, in that case, if holy just means legitimate, 0.89

00:51:01.540 because the marriage is legitimate,

00:51:03.320 then you're basically espousing the theology that says

00:51:05.960 you've got to have at least one Christian in the marriage

00:51:08.000 to make the marriage a legitimate marriage 0.52

00:51:10.140 so that you have legitimate children. 0.97

00:51:13.060 So then if you have a marriage with two unbelievers, 0.87

00:51:16.400 two atheists or two Muslims,

00:51:18.060 you would be saying,

00:51:19.860 we don't recognize any of these marriages as being valid

00:51:23.200 and we don't recognize any of their children

00:51:25.160 as being legitimate children. 0.98

00:51:28.480 And that's a common Baptist L. 0.98

00:51:32.100 That's the Baptist trying so hard 1.00

00:51:35.400 to not baptize babies 0.99

00:51:37.520 that he's willing in the process

00:51:40.500 to delegitimize like 80% of the children in the world. 0.50

00:51:47.080 So don't be that Baptist. 0.79

00:51:48.800 Be a better Baptist.

00:51:50.080 I'm still a Baptist.

00:51:50.960 I think it's the way. 1.00

00:51:51.660 Just don't be a silly Baptist. 0.99

00:51:53.940 Be a better Baptist. 0.99

00:51:54.720 So all that being said,

00:51:57.500 The point is, marriage is given not just to Christian people, but all people.

00:52:02.460 It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent. 0.95

00:52:07.840 Yet, almost done here, it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord. 0.69

00:52:13.700 They have a moral obligation. You need to marry a Christian spouse. 1.00

00:52:17.260 And therefore, such as professed, the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels or papists or other idolaters. 1.00

00:52:27.120 There they go. 1.00

00:52:28.260 They couldn't help themselves. 0.94

00:52:30.520 Adultery or fornication committed after a contract.

00:52:34.860 Now, in this case, contract instead of covenant.

00:52:38.560 Notice, this is speaking not of the marriage.

00:52:42.300 The marriage hasn't yet transpired,

00:52:44.600 but the contract is actually referring to the engagement or betrothal.

00:52:49.900 Adultery or fornication committed after a contract being detected before the marriage.

00:52:55.340 this would be like Joseph and Mary, right?

00:52:58.760 They were betrothed.

00:52:59.920 There was a contract,

00:53:00.820 but they had not yet married.

00:53:02.560 So in those kinds of cases

00:53:04.340 where fornication or adultery

00:53:06.220 is found out before the marriage,

00:53:10.380 that giveth just occasion

00:53:12.920 to the innocent party

00:53:14.740 to dissolve the contract,

00:53:16.380 to call off the wedding.

00:53:17.900 In the case of adultery

00:53:19.560 after the marriage,

00:53:21.120 it is lawful for the innocent party

00:53:24.240 to sue out a divorce,

00:53:26.200 to pursue a divorce.

00:53:28.400 And after the divorce,

00:53:30.320 to marry another,

00:53:32.380 as if the offending party were dead.

00:53:35.840 Classic Westminster divines.

00:53:37.840 They just, 1.00

00:53:38.660 that's how old dead guys talk. 1.00

00:53:40.300 They just, 1.00

00:53:41.480 these guys, 0.98

00:53:43.060 the Puritans were not concerned

00:53:44.520 about right-wing watch.

00:53:46.460 They just said things.

00:53:48.960 Yeah, of course, this is true.

00:53:50.200 They just said it as a matter of fact.

00:53:52.400 All right.

00:53:54.240 Although, continuing now, although the corruption of man be such as to unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage, yet nothing but adultery, and here it is, here's the language, or such willful desertion.

00:54:11.880 So two clauses, adultery or abandonment, as can no way be remedied by the church or civil magistrate.

00:54:20.440 They can't be brought together for whatever reason.

00:54:24.460 They're unwilling to reconcile.

00:54:27.460 Nothing but that.

00:54:28.860 Adultery or willful desertion that cannot be remedied, reconciled by the church or the state,

00:54:36.080 is cause sufficient for dissolving the bond of marriage.

00:54:40.060 And here's the whole idea.

00:54:41.880 the Westminster view of divorce and remarriage

00:54:46.640 in a nutshell is this

00:54:47.880 whatever is sufficient for divorce

00:54:51.320 is also sufficient for remarriage 0.99

00:54:54.540 it's really only modern Baptists 0.85

00:54:58.260 like Votie Bauckham who I greatly respect

00:55:02.340 or like John Piper

00:55:04.760 who I kind of respect

00:55:07.720 I can't say greatly

00:55:10.480 But it's really a modern Baptist phenomenon. 0.96

00:55:14.560 This kind of halfway house of there are cases when you can divorce, but you still can't remarry.

00:55:21.220 The more traditional position that I found in my reading, and a lot of the 1689 guys agreed with the Westminster guys.

00:55:28.840 So if you just go back a little further in history, the position was actually on divorce and remarriage was a lot simpler.

00:55:36.280 How simple was it? This simple.

00:55:39.500 If you have cause for divorce, the same thing that lets you out of the marriage lets you enter into another marriage.

00:55:48.960 If you can get out of the marriage, then that marriage bond really is dissolved.

00:55:54.420 And if it's dissolved, then you're no longer enslaved.

00:55:57.620 You're no longer covenantally bound.

00:55:59.760 The covenant really is over.

00:56:02.000 And if the covenant really is over, then you really are free to form a new covenant, a new marriage with someone else.

00:56:10.760 However, all that being said, look back to everything I've said the last two weeks.

00:56:15.300 But there are only two reasons that are biblically sufficient for ending a marriage.

00:56:21.840 That is adultery on the one hand or willful desertion, abandonment on the other.

00:56:28.380 And the last thing that I'm going to say is this.

00:56:32.000 when there is adultery

00:56:34.380 or when there is abandonment.

00:56:38.780 And there is, biblically speaking,

00:56:40.840 there is real permissibility

00:56:44.200 for the innocent party to pursue divorce.

00:56:47.480 When that occurs,

00:56:50.280 keep this in mind as a final disclaimer,

00:56:53.280 the Bible still never says

00:56:54.860 that you have to get a divorce.

00:56:59.940 The Bible just says you can.

00:57:02.000 So you can, you may, and if you do, it is not a sin.

00:57:09.540 But the Bible never says that you must.

00:57:13.120 It simply says that you may.

00:57:15.700 So my counsel is, in those scenarios,

00:57:20.260 that if the spouse who committed adultery, the guilty party,

00:57:23.860 were willfully deserted,

00:57:26.080 if there's any way that you could pursue them unto repentance,

00:57:29.980 that they would truly repent of their adultery

00:57:33.240 or truly repent of their abandonment.

00:57:37.740 If there's any way that they might be willing

00:57:40.980 to be reconciled,

00:57:42.540 then don't get a divorce

00:57:44.960 and seek to be reconciled

00:57:48.360 in the way Christ himself is reconciled

00:57:50.840 time and time again to a sinful church

00:57:54.100 that rather than sending her away, 0.98

00:57:56.980 he takes her back and washes her

00:57:59.740 by His blood. 0.50

00:58:01.920 And let it be a testimony

00:58:03.040 and a picture of the gospel

00:58:04.420 of the eternal marriage

00:58:06.060 between Christ and His bride.

00:58:09.440 But sadly, because we do live

00:58:11.360 in a fallen world,

00:58:13.740 there are these caveats

00:58:15.640 provided in Scripture.

00:58:17.220 There are cases where divorce

00:58:18.960 is permissible

00:58:19.800 because there are some cases

00:58:21.640 where adultery or abandonment happens

00:58:24.320 and the guilty party

00:58:26.300 refuses to repent.

00:58:29.560 And in those cases, God in his mercy towards the innocent party allows that bond to be dissolved

00:58:35.720 so that you're not miserably enslaved for the rest of your life.

00:58:40.800 But that is a mercy of God.

00:58:43.020 In the same way what Jesus said, Moses allowed you this because your hearts were hardened.

00:58:47.700 So too, even today in this gospel age of the New Testament church,

00:58:51.820 God allows these two reasons for biblical divorce because we live in a fallen world with hardened hearts.

00:58:58.640 And because God is merciful and allows us to walk through this world without making it more difficult than it already is.

00:59:06.980 Because of that, God gives two reasons where he will allow for divorce.

00:59:12.040 But even in those two reasons, you may divorce, but nowhere does the Bible say you must divorce.

00:59:18.720 And if you can reconcile for the glory of God and as a picture of the gospel, I believe that that's better.

00:59:25.620 Let's pray.

00:59:26.320 Father, bless your word to your people.

00:59:27.740 help us to hide it in our hearts

00:59:31.180 and to live it out in our lives

00:59:33.380 for your glory and for our good.

00:59:35.840 We pray this in Jesus' name.

00:59:37.040 Amen.

The NXR Podcast - November 03, 2024

THE SERMON - What Does The Bible Say About Divorce？ Part 2

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript