Divorce

Happy Sunday. Today, as we continue to study The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about divorce. At the time that Jesus walked the Earth, there was teaching that divorce was allowed for all sorts of reasons, just really anything. If she was a bad cook, you could divorce her. If she wasn't pretty enough, you could divorce her.

If her parents moved to your town to be near their daughter, you could divorce her. If her feet were wrong or her nose misshapen, you could send her packing. I'm not kidding, the list was endless. And if we laugh at them, look at our no fa divorce laws today. We can get get out of our marriages for any reason whatsoever.

When Jesus begins to speak of divorce in Matthew 5:31, he says this: "It was also said who, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce." Jesus was about to turn their world upside down in the next statement. In verse 32, Jesus said, "But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." The only Clause that would allow divorce and then remarriage for the innocent victim is infidelity.

What's interesting to me is all that is not said. If a woman husband beats her but is sexually Faithful, is that okay? If a man or a woman runs away and never returns, to the one that is left, are they just supposed to leave the lie down? What about people that were divorced before they became a Christian? Don't they have a new beginning, as stated in 2 Corinthians 5:17?

There there a lot of questions, but there's no mistaking that Jesus wants us to take our marriages seriously. In Malachi 216 we are told that God hates divorce. That is true. I want to be very clear: God hates divorce, but God never hates the divorced person.

Over the years I've seen, U, been with victims of failed marriages, and I've seen a few of them who thought that they were second class citizens. They would disqualify themselves from things that God would have encouraged them to do. I think we can learn a great deal from a familiar story. It's found in John chapter 8.

There we are told, "Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the temple. A crowd soon gathered. He sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the very Act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd." We're not told what they did with a man. Doesn't really matter in those days.

"'Teacher,' they said, 'this woman was called in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says the stoner. What do you say?' They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, 'All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.' Then he stooped down again and rode in the dust.

"When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Jesus stood again and said to the woman, 'Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you?' 'No, Lord,' she said. And Jesus said, 'Neither do I. Go and sin no more.'"

One of the best things that a married person can do is to love their spouse. This world needs great examples of marriage. God is cheering for us. If you're divorced, God loves you and can use you and make the most of your new beginning.

Pray with me. God, thank you for your word. And sometimes it's tough, and sometimes it's hard. Help us to take what you say seriously, and the vows we make, let us take them seriously now as you give us this new day. In Jesus name, amen.