Norbie, Donald: Matthew 1994-23 ~ Matt 19-Marriage Is Permanent

There's a lot of confusion today in the world about, uh, the family, about the marriage relationship. In fact, there have been, uh, many concerned in our country, in politics and in, uh, various other academic realms where- that are deeply concerned about the family. They say the problem, the basic problem in this country is the breakdown of the family. And because of this, uh, there's a lot of concern. What can we do to help the family? And oftentimes the thought is, well, maybe more money, more educational programs, or something like this. But basically, it's a spiritual problem, and here in Matthew nineteen, the Lord tells really what the Lord desires. The Lord Jesus expresses what God's will is for the family. We'll start with verse one of chapter nineteen. It came to pass when Jesus had finished these sayings that he departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. The great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there. The Pharisees also came to him, testing him and saying to him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? He answered and said to them, have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away? He said to them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. His disciples said to him, if such is the case of the man with his wife, it's better not to marry. But he said to them, all cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He was able to accept it, let him accept it. And little children were brought to him that he might put his hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, let the little children come to me, do not forbid them, for such is the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them and departed from there. I call this section that runs through chapter twenty Kingdom Standards. In other words, he's going to be giving some of the standards God has for his people. Kingdom standards. And this first section, he emphasizes marriage is permanent. And societies and cultures everywhere have realized that it's important that they're, uh, that marriage be respected, that it's very important to the happiness of a nation, of a culture, that marriage be honored and be respected. Even in heathen societies or in non-Christian societies, this is emphasized very strongly. For a marriage, I remember we once went to a, a, and it was a very big, uh, important celebration. Family's there, friends are there. Here are these two people, they're getting married. And so a great deal is made of it, a lot of importance is laid on it. And the point is that people in general realize the family's important. It's vital. If the family breaks down, then a whole culture, a whole civilization begins to deteriorate. And so in these verses, the, uh, the Lord is emphasizing the permanence and the importance of marriage, of the marriage vow. Question is brought up to him by, uh, some of the Pharisees, and they're trying to catch him. They want to get him into a theological argument where they can, uh, find fault with him. And, uh, they ask him the question, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And among the Jews, there were, um, two schools of thought, basically. One that said, no, the only reason for a divorce would be, uh, for adultery, something like that. The other school would say, well, if she doesn't please him in some way or another. If she, he doesn't like the way she cooks, if, uh, he's displeased with her, if some other woman, uh, seems more interesting to him, and they basically were very permissive about marriage. So they come to the Lord and they, they, uh, want to get his view. Let's get him into a theological argument and discussion here, and then we can, we can find fault with him. Uh, if he's too strict, we'll find fault with that. If he's too liberal, we'll find fault with that. Now, Jesus, in his, uh, talk here, says, as he answers them, he says, let's go back to the beginning. Let's go back to creation, and let's find out what God had in mind when he made a man and he made a woman. What did he have to say about it? What did he do? And I want to read those verses, some of those verses in Genesis one. Genesis chapter one. Speaking of creation, in verse twenty seven, it says, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. God blessed them. God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And verse twenty four of chapter two, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. So this is what the Lord Jesus does. He goes back to creation. Yeah, it doesn't go back to the law with... given by Moses. He goes back to creation itself. He doesn't talk about, well, what the Roman laws are or what people around are doing. He says, let's go back and see what God had in mind when he created. He created them, male and female. He made us different. And there are basic differences, more than just, uh, physical differences. There are emotional differences, there are spiritual differences. I know when I'm, uh, for example, having a Bible study in the jail. I have one with the women, it's a much more emotional kind of a situation. Last week, when I had a Bible study with some of the women, two of the women just broke down, started weeping, and they were really emotionally upset over what they had done, what they were doing to their children, to their families. This, this crying, broken heart. More emotional. You don't find the men breaking down as easily and weeping, although they do at times, but we're different. God's made us different, and we can be grateful for those differences. No point in saying there's no difference except just the physical anatomy part of you that's different. We are different, created differently, and so that together, man and wife can, uh, bring a, a beautiful balance into life and into their relationship. Now it says he, God will bless them, and he said, be fruitful and multiply. Now there's some people today who believe that the sin that they committed in the garden was to have a sexual relationship, and that's a very twisted concept. In fact, I remember being in Mexico, and uh, some of the Mexican men there, the attitude they had was that, uh, that was the sin Adam and Eve committed. They had a sexual relationship, and therefore sex is wrong. And so if, if I have a sexual relationship with my wife, I'm sinning, really. The God will forgive me, but I'm sinning. And then the attitude is, so it doesn't really matter if I'm not with my wife and I have another woman, that's sin too, maybe a little more sinful, but... See, their thinking is all warped about this area. The devil looks- loves to have us do that. But we have to remember that God created man and woman. He created us differently sexually, and he, he said the sexual relationship is good. Have children, have a family, enjoy your family. I bless you in doing that. Sex itself is not sinful in marriage. It's blessed. But the devil likes to twist that and get people thinking all confused. But Jesus said, let's go back and look at, uh, how God created. When he created, how many women did he make for the man? Well, he made one woman, one man. Now, he could have made half a dozen. Now, oftentimes with animals, you may find it out in the, uh, mountains in the forest, for example, you may find one buck with, uh, several does. He has a harem, and animals function that way. But when God made the man and woman, he made one man, he made one woman, and he said, that's my ideal. This is what I have in mind for marriage, and this is what will produce happiness, because he was concerned for man's happiness and blessing. So one man, one woman. This is the ideal, and uh, otherwise there's not going to be real happiness. I want to read a verse in Malachi chapter two, the last book of the Old Testament. And uh, in this, he's talking about divorce. He's talking about how God hates divorce. And, uh, he, he says this in verse fifteen. it's kind of interesting. He says, did he not make one? Although he had the remnant of the Spirit, and why one? He seeks a godly offspring, therefore take heed to your spirit, let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. In other words, I think what he's saying here is, God made one woman for the man. Now he had plenty of resources left. He had the remnant of the Spirit. In other words, there was, uh, the resource of the Holy Spirit who could have made a number of women, but he made one. One woman for one man because he desired a godly offspring. And the truth is, when a man gets involved with a number of women, even if it's legal, if it it's legal to marry more than one woman, there is not happiness. You know, the Mormon Church taught this in the beginning, and some Mormons still practice it. But if you've read any accounts written by some of these wives, like a a wife of Brigham Young or Joseph Smith, and, uh, telling of their relationship, you'll find there's an awful lot of unhappiness. There's jealousy, there's confusion. It just isn't right. In Genesis, we read about, uh, Jacob, you remember? He loved Rachel, he wanted to marry Rachel, and then Laban, the father, deceived him, gave him Leah first, and then said, all you can have Rachel too. So he ends up with two wives. Now, did that make for happiness? No, it says there was a lot of unhappiness. The two wives are jealous of one another. They're, they're, uh, uh, wanting his affection. They're wanting to be really loved by Jacob. And Rachel, it says, that was his favorite. It's interesting, in situations where a man has more than one wife, he'll have a favorite wife. And that's the one he's really, in a sense, married with. That's the one he wants to spend time with. That's the one that he takes into his confidence, he shares with. Uh, the other wives he may sleep with, but here's the one, that's his favorite wife. He really loves her. And it just shows, really, that God has made us as men, uh, and the woman too. One man, one woman. That's going to produce happiness. But as you read the story of Rachel and Leah, there's just a lot of unhappiness. Poor Leah, she knows she's not loved the way Rachel is. So she says, well, if I can have children, that'll make him love me. And so God lets her have children. She has one child after another, and she's desperately wanting his affection. She wants the affection of Jacob so much, and she says, well, surely now he'll he'll love me. I've I've born him several sons, and and he still loves Rachel most of all. There's a lot of unhappiness. And the truth is, you know, if there's this, uh, commitment to one another, man- one man, one woman, God says, that'll produce happiness for you and for your children. Talking to a man the other day, and his wife had been writing some letters to another man or that, and he's all upset, and there's the jealousy and the anger here and the hostility, uh, because he says, I, you know, she should be married to me. And, uh, yet he himself hasn't been above reproach as far as that relationship. So God says, and the Lord Jesus here says, look, God made one man, he made one woman. This is for your happiness. This is for the good of your children. This is for the good of society. That's the creation ideal. And then also I want to emphasize the fact that God designed marriage to for a public covenant, as he says in Malachi, uh, chapter two and verse fourteen, he says, yet you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth. She is your companion and your wife by covenant. In other words, uh, here's a wife you've taken, you've entered into a covenant relationship, a promise, a binding agreement between two people, and it's been a public open thing, and that's what legal marriage is. That's the kind of marriage God desires. This business of some people saying, well, you know, we're going to live together, but we're not going to let people know about it, and uh, we won't be publicly legally married. Uh, it's not right, because there isn't that commitment, there isn't that, uh, binding that there needs to be of a covenant. Whereas you take these vows, you are promising, most serious, solemn promise you make in your life, to be faithful and loving and loyal to that wife, to that husband. You know, I've performed quite a number of marriages, and, uh, I, uh, always stress that fact. You are making a commitment for life. If you don't want to make that commitment, back off from it now and say, no, I don't want to be married. But if you're making the, this commitment and you're taking these vows, it's a covenant before God and these witnesses, we say. It's very solemn. God is looking on. God is witness to what you're doing. You're making this promise to one another, to be faithful and loyal until death parts you. So it's a very, very solemn covenant, and that's the thing that we have to emphasize, of course, and this is why marriage is a happy e- time, and it's a public event, and it's a time when the friends are there, family is there, all are witnessing this covenant, this solemn promise you are making to one another. And that helps you realize too how important it is and how solemn it is, and you, you don't enter into it lightly. This isn't something like buying a car where if you're dissatisfied a week later, you say, I'm gonna trade it in. This is a binding promise for life. Now, what that does, of course, is it gives tremendous security to the wife and to the family, to the children. There's nothing more distressing for children than to have their parents arguing, threatening divorce, fighting, uh, saying, I'm gonna leave you. If you don't straighten up, if you don't do what I want, I'm, I'm quitting. And children are caught in the middle, and they're, you know, they love both parents, and they're afraid, what's going to happen? What's going to happen to our family? What's going to happen to our home? And it's a terrible way for children to have to grow up. And sad to say, there are many children that grow up in that kind of situation where they're, they're confused and they're unhappy and they're wondering what's going to happen. Am I going to have my mother? Am I going to have my father? Is our home going to last? And it's a very painful time for the children. So God stresses this bond is permanent. And the Lord said it's not just a... a human ordinance. It's not just a human law. Sometimes people say, oh, that's just, you know, it's just a human law. It's just the government of the US law, and uh, you know, uh, we have a lot of crazy laws anyway, and this is another one of them, and our ideas about marriage have changed, about the sexual relationship and so forth. So, uh, uh, you know, I can break it then. I can disregard it because it's just a human law. Now, he doesn't say that at all. He says, what God has joined together, let not man separate. So in this marriage, when you enter into a public marriage, into a covenant relationship, God joins you together. That's what he says. It isn't simply either that, uh, uh, we'll say the two are Christian. If you're unbeliever, the marriage relationship is still designed by God and intended by God to be permanent. So he says what God is doing to death. So it's a wonderful thing to, to see, uh, people faithful until death parts them. And it's a relationship that grows and that deepens and that becomes more beautiful, really, as the years go by. This last time when I was away for meetings, uh, we visited an older man who's retired. All his life he'd gone to sea and, uh, uh, been a captain of a boat, but, uh, he'd lost his wife. Lost her about a year ago, I think he said. Been married sixty years, he said. Beautiful marriage, wonderful marriage, and he began to cry, tears running down his face. He says, you know, I don't want to live. He says, I've asked God to just take my life. I don't want to live anymore. Tears running down his face. Why? Because he says, six years of marriage, and uh, so painful, so painful to lose my wife. That's what God designed. That's what he says I want. God, what God has joined together, let not man separate. So the Lord stresses very strongly how important, uh, marriage is and how we shouldn't enter into it lightly. And then how when we're married, we must work at it. It's always, in any marriage, I think, there are some conflicts. Now, I've heard people say, my husband and I never had an argument. Well, I don't know. I don't know how they did it or what happened, but, uh, most marriages, you have some disagreements, you have some arguments. Uh, you don't always see eye to eye. There are differences. But what do you do? How do you handle it? Do you threaten divorce, or do you say, well, so we disagree. We work through our disagreements. We're married. Whether we disagree or not, we're going to work at this. We're not quitting. God has joined together, let no man separate. And God says, this is for your happiness, this is for your good. Now they raise the question. They say, why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and put her away? They say, well, you know, you're being, you're not agreeing with Moses. Moses is the great lawgiver, and how come Moses commanded you to divorce? Well, Jesus says, wait a minute. He didn't command divorce. He says, because of the hardness of your heart, he permitted you to divorce your wife, but from the beginning it was not so. In other words, he says, it wasn't God's ideal, it wasn't God's will. This was a, something that was permitted, but not designed by God. I want to read those verses in Deuteronomy four that, uh, they were referring to. Deuteronomy four, these verses here about divorce under the law. Well, I've got the wrong, uh, twenty four is what I want. That's better. I looked at four and I thought, hey, that isn't right. Deuteronomy twenty four. Now we're in the right chapter. Deuteronomy um twenty four and verse one. When a man takes a wife and marries her, it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house. When she's departed from his house and goes and becomes another man's wife, the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house. Or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. You shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance. Now, Jesus said, okay, God, Moses permitted divorce. Wasn't God's desire, wasn't God's will. It was a permission, he said, because of the hardness of your heart. Because they lived in the world where divorce was permitted, and, uh, because of the hardness of your heart. So sometimes laws, the laws of a country, the laws of a state, in a sense, accommodate sin. They yield to sin. And you can think of how, in the case of divorce, that's very true. Our laws in this country have gradually become weaker and weaker with regard to marriage. Divorce has been made more e- much more, uh, easy to get. So there's been an, an accommodation. In fact, many people today would say, well, if most of the people think it's okay, then it's okay. And so let's make the laws to adjust to what people are doing. And the law accommodates, it bends to suit the sinful practices of men. And so you see that's true with regard to divorce. Divorce is so easy now. It used to be it was difficult in most states to get a divorce. You might have to prove there was adultery involved to get a divorce. That was true of states. And in fact, in many states, adultery was punishable by a jail sentence, or fornication, or homosexuality. These were criminal offenses. Not anymore. Now, has the act itself changed? No, not at all. People's attitude has changed. And so what our country has done is just weaken the laws to fit in with what most people are thinking or doing. And the same is true of abortion. Amazing when you think of the changes in our national thinking and in the laws in the last thirty, forty years with regard to abortion. You know, it used to be a doctor who was caught performing abortions, uh, illegally this way, he could be really imprisoned, he could be given a heavy sentence. Today, a doctor can perform those same abortions and become wealthy and be perfectly legal, absolutely legal. In fact, the law will defend his right to do that, and the law will even today in our country, uh, imprison people who protest it. So you can see how things have changed. Now, what Jesus is saying is, well, God hasn't changed. Moral standards haven't changed. Sometimes the law will accommodate the, uh, the weakness and sin of man. But Jesus goes on to say this. I say to you, whoever can divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. Whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery. And what he's saying is, the thing that will destroy marriage, really, is for a person to break his vows and to get involved with another person. To become sexually involved with another person than your own spouse. And when you do this, it's a betrayal, you're being unfaithful, and now you're destroying the very, uh, nature of marriage. They too shall become one. Now you're breaking that. The man, if he's involved, or the woman is saying, I'm going to be one with someone else. And so Jesus said, uh, that destroys the very idea of marriage. This is why, um, immorality is so destructive, why if it's tolerated. That's why if married people, married men, for example, or women, start getting involved in pornography, uh, their thinking now is becoming defiled and wicked, and it's going to destroy their whole idea of loyalty and love toward their spouse. So the Lord is very strong against sexual immorality. In the Old Testament, adultery was punishable by death. Now, by the time you get to the New Testament days, that's not being done. Uh, the Roman law was that we're, they were the only ones who were allowed to take life under Rome, and so the Jews simply were not carrying out that penalty, the death penalty for adultery. And someone might say, well, even though from this scripture I would have a right to divorce my wife, if she comes back to me and if she's repentant, or if the husband comes back and he's repentant and is broken, should I take him back? Should I take her back? Should I, uh, forgive her? And I think that here we can say, yes, uh, grace may forgive one. And I want to read in Hosea in the Old Testament, the account there that, uh, we have concerning the prophet. He married a woman, Hosea married a woman who was unfaithful to him, became unfaithful to him. She got involved, she became a prostitute even. And she ended up being bought and sold. She was, uh, a female slave, finally. And, uh, the Lord said to this man, to Hosea, in chapter three and verse one, he said to him, go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who looked to other gods and loved her the raisin cakes of the pagans. So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and one and a half omers of barley, and I said to her, you shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man. Thus I will also be toward you. So God says to Hosea, take her back. In fact, go out and buy her. She's on the market. Buy her back and love her and forgive her and restore her. And God said, by doing this, you're going to be an object lesson of the love that I have for Israel and of my forgiveness for Israel. In spite of all they've done, in spite of all their unfaithfulness, God says, I will forgive them. I will take them back. And Hosea was told to do this. And so we say, yes, grace may forgive. It's not easy, and I think there has to be real repentance if the person wants to be forgiven, goes out and does it again, wants to be forgiven, and some men work their women that way. I think there's a time a woman has to say, no more. No more, you're not coming back again. And in this day when there's so many sexually transmitted diseases, a woman, or a man for that matter, places himself at risk with someone who isn't faithful. Some of us knew a man here locally who died just recently of AIDS, and, uh, he'd been living a loose life, uh, some years ago, came home to his wife and, uh, gave her AIDS. She died before he did, but he's dead now. One of his children has is infected. Very sad, very sad. So a person, I don't think a Christian feels obligated, you know, I have to keep on forgiving this person, he's going to play around. There is a place where, uh, no more. But if there's repentance, maybe there's just one incident, then grace may forgive. Although I don't think it's obligated to. I don't think a person has to forgive. The Lord says adultery here breaks the bond. But in many cases, maybe it's just been one case, and for the sake of the family and for the sake of the children, a wife will forgive a man, and I think, uh, the Lord can give real happiness in that if there's true forgiveness and, uh, a restoring then of the relationship. Then he goes on to talk a little bit about celibacy. Big word. Celibacy simply means you're not being involved or active sexually with another person. You choose to remain single and to, uh, remain chaste. And, uh, here he says, uh, they raised the question. His disciples said to him, uh, if this is true, and when you get married, it's so binding and so forth, uh, and uh, in view of the problems that can come, maybe it's better not to marry. They get a little bit, uh, frightened, and it is kind of frightening in the day in which we live. I've talked to young people who said, I'm afraid to get married. I don't want to get married because all my friends have married and gotten divorces. And I don't know you can trust a woman, or a woman can trust a man to be faithful. So there can be a lot of fear even today of entering into that commitment. He goes on to talk, mention this. He says there are those who are born eunuchs. In other words, they're, they're born without being sexually developed. He says there are some who've made themselves eunuchs, or have been made eunuchs, it says, by others, by men. In other words, something that the, uh, kings would do at times with men who they would have working in their households, they would castrate them, they would make them eunuchs, so that they wouldn't feel they had any problems with any of their women. So that was something that was done at times. Then he says there's some who make themselves units for the kingdom of heaven's sake. And I think what he's saying here is there are some who choose not to marry in order to serve the Lord better. There was a man in the Chad in Africa, Dr. John Ollie, who was greatly used of the Lord. And he went out there perhaps seventy years ago, I forget the exact time, very primitive conditions, and he lived, he worked among the villages, he gave himself to getting the gospel out, and the Lord used him in a wonderful way. He was a medical doctor, and he used that in, in working with the people. Someone asked him one time, uh, Doctor Ali, uh, haven't you ever sometimes wished you'd married? Hasn't it been kind of a lonely life? You've been, uh, here in Africa all these years, and he stayed there, I think it was over thirty years, never went out. Finally, when he went out, he was on his way back to Australia, where he'd come out from, and he died before he even got back. He lived his life really for the Lord. But they asked him that. They said, haven't it been lonely at times? Haven't you thought at times, or you'd like to have a wife and a family? And, uh, John Ollie said, well, he said, you know, I felt so called to this kind of work, and I didn't feel free to bring a wife into this situation, for I'm living under such difficult circumstances and primitive villages and so forth. So he said, I just never married for that reason. I've given myself to the Lord's work. And that can be commendable. God calls some and uses some in that way. They make themselves. In other words, they give up the blessing, the happiness of marriage in order to, in a more full way, give themselves to serving the Lord. That's true also that those who are married can, uh, do things that a person who is single can't do. It's very difficult for a single man to tell parents how to raise their children or how to, uh, resolve their marriage problems and so forth. There's a work for both, but Jesus just points out here that there are some who choose not to marry. They choose to give themselves to the Lord, to his work, and for the kingdom of heaven's sake. Marriage is important. He stresses it very strongly here, the importance of marriage. When we have a marriage celebration, we make it very special. When Kelly, who used to be with us, was married, it was a special occasion. There was a large crowd there, about four hundred and fifty people came to that wedding. There was, uh, all the family was there. They stood and they took their vows very solemnly before the Lord and before these witnesses. And, uh, that's what it should be. It should be a solemn occasion, should be a happy time, but there ought to be that realization, marriage is permanent, and we are taking these vows before.