All right, so we're gonna get started tonight.
You guys, we're gonna talk about divorce and remarriage.
This is a really important subject.
So many people have asked for this session
ever since the beginning of just what we do
with this movement, people have asked for a session on this.
So many people have so much confusion around this topic
and a lot of people have a lot of shame.
They have a lot of shame around this topic.
They have a lot of guilt around this topic.
They have a lot of fear around this topic.
In fact, many people have come to me and said,
hey, when people find out that I'm divorced
and they don't want to talk to me on the dating app
because they don't believe in remarriage,
they don't believe that people are allowed to remarry
and therefore they don't wanna talk to me
because in their mind, I'm not allowed to remarry.
I have to stay single for the rest of my life.
A lot of the people that come to me and ask about this
are people that have been divorced
because of the reason of abuse.
Some kind of physical, mental, verbal, emotional,
spiritual abuse was happening in their marriage
and they had to get out.
It wasn't a divorce, it was a rescue mission.
They had to get out of that marriage
and it is a hard pill to swallow to believe
that you had to leave pretty much to save your own life,
mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically
but now you're never allowed to be happy ever again.
You're never allowed to have another love story
because you chose wrong the first time
because that's difficult.
And then of course, a lot of different denominations
teach this and they perpetuate this that,
oh yeah, you can get divorced if you want to
but you're gonna have to stay single
for the rest of your life.
You're gonna miss out on the promises of God for your life.
You're basically gonna be disqualified from a lot of things
and that keeps a lot of people
in abusive situations, doesn't it?
It keeps a lot of people from getting divorced
because there's so many churches and denominations
that are completely against divorce.
They have hung their hats on the hook of God hates divorce.
They have built their buildings
on the rock of God hates divorce
and so that equals God also hates divorced people.
That is kind of the insinuation that they give out
and so yeah, you can do it if you want to
but you're gonna be in disobedience to God's word
because under any circumstance,
God wants you to stay in the marriage, okay?
That's what they're teaching.
That's what they're insinuating.
That's what they're preaching
that no matter what it is, you just need to pray harder.
You need to fast more.
You need to love them.
Some very misogynistic men,
we're not saying this to hurt your feelings
but it's just the truth.
Some very misogynistic denominations
will actually ask the woman,
well, what are you doing wrong?
Why aren't you making him happy?
Why is he treating you that way?
You must not be a good wife.
I mean, I've heard everything you can imagine from people
when it comes to this subject, okay?
And let's see the hands of the people.
I would assume that everyone that's coming to this session
would be people that are divorced
but maybe you've come
because what if you meet someone who's been divorced?
Maybe you just wanna hear this teaching for that reason.
So no matter why you're here, I'm glad you're here
but let's see the hands of the people
that are actually divorced that are here.
Can we see the hands?
Keep them coming.
Go ahead and put them up, please.
Okay, it looks like about half,
maybe a little bit more than half.
All right, all right, all right, all right.
Okay, great.
So for all of you that are divorced,
go ahead and put in the chat any version
of what I just talked about that you heard
when you were considering divorce.
Anything that well-meaning,
once again, I believe that those people are well-meaning.
I believe that they're only telling you
what they've been taught
but people have been taught wrong, okay?
That's what I'm gonna prove to you in the word of God today.
People have been taught wrong when it comes to divorce, okay?
They really have.
And so it's really important
that you know the truth about this
because some of you are gonna be freed from shame tonight.
You're gonna be freed from your personal disqualification
because you're divorced.
You're gonna be freed from any guilt
that you've been carrying.
You're gonna be free from the fear that if you remarry,
you're gonna be perpetually living in sin and go to hell.
You're like, that's crazy talk, Jackie.
No, I felt that way when I got remarried.
I was scared all the time, like, oh my gosh,
am I like living in adultery?
And like, am I living in adultery
that I can never be forgiven of
because I'm willfully committing it now
in marriage for the rest of my life.
And then when I die, I'm gonna go to hell.
I mean, seriously, if you think that's crazy talk,
I'm telling you, I was brainwashed
with that old type of teaching to the point
where I was scared that I wasn't remarried legally
in God's eyes, and that he didn't honor my marriage,
that he wasn't in my marriage,
and that I was just basically living in sin.
Cause I've heard lots of people say that
about remarried people.
Lots and lots and lots of things.
You said, I do, you have to keep the promise.
Once married, it's for life.
If you get divorced, you're not following God.
Everything that you just said has been said to me.
You would have been put under church discipline
if you would have stayed in that church.
Yes.
Once people knew how bad my situation was,
they didn't blame me.
Okay, that's great.
My pastor told me to let my husband divorce me
cause he was acting as an unbeliever
and he was abusing me and cheating.
Okay.
God hates divorce, you're a Christian.
So really what people are,
the message that people are sending,
even though once again,
I don't feel like people are doing this maliciously.
I want to be very clear about that.
I think that people, this is just what they know.
This is what they believe.
And this is, they're trying to help you in their mind.
Like, oh, don't do that.
That's sin, that's bad.
You can't do that.
But they do believe this and then they push it on us.
And the problem is, is it causes a lot of problems.
And so the message that it's sending
is that God hates divorce more than he hates abuse, right?
He hates divorced people.
He isn't going to allow you to have the same type
of promises or access to him
if you are constantly living in a perpetual state
of disobedience to his word.
And so we want to debunk that stuff tonight.
I was told I would never be under God's protection
without a husband.
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff.
All right, so get ready to take some notes.
Once again, I will tell you that I was rowing this boat.
For those of you that have been afraid of these things,
you've been really worried about,
you haven't been remarried, obviously you're single
and that's why you're in here,
but you've been afraid of remarrying for these very reasons.
And you've just, like I said,
you've just been feeling a lot of shame over this area.
I believe you're going to get a lot of freedom tonight.
I really do.
I know you will.
And you'll get the same type of freedom that I have gotten.
And that is why I'm going to teach this to you tonight.
My pastor, I had an amazing pastor
when I lived in Columbus, Ohio.
Some of you might know him, Jim Baker.
He's an incredible guy.
He's not the guy that stole all the money,
totally different Jim Baker, all right?
Just want to make sure for all you old school people,
it's not the same guy.
But he did, he does, he teaches a lot on kingdom
and he did an amazing,
he did an amazing teaching on divorce and remarriage.
And so, so it really set me free.
And I want to teach you guys that same,
that same sermon tonight,
that same, those same lessons tonight,
because once again, I believe that it's time,
it's time for you to get out from underneath
all of that wrong teaching
and get free and walking fully in God's kingdom.
So Father God, we thank you for your kingdom.
We thank you that your kingdom is vast, God,
and it's yes and amen.
We thank you that Jesus came
to establish your kingdom on earth.
We thank you that we have been invited to live
in the finished work of the cross.
The law of the prophets has been fulfilled, Lord.
We are able to walk in freedom.
Jesus died, he died on that cross for us
and he died on that cross as us.
We died with him that day
and now we are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
We no longer are under the law.
We are only under the law of love
and that we are able to freely live in your kingdom.
And so I pray tonight that any idols of religion,
any false teachings,
anything that's going to keep your sons and daughters back
from the abundant life that Jesus talks about
in John 10, 10, anything,
that it would come to the surface,
that it would be revealed, that it would be healed,
that they would truly be able to access the freedom
that Christ died for and shed his blood for.
And that we ask right now, if there are any,
there's any shame, that there's any guilt,
that they would be able.
clearly see what's rooted, where it's rooted, so that they can repent of that, repent of believing
those ideologies that keep them from feeling fully loved and fully accepted in the beloved,
and that they could absolutely be able to talk to other people about this exact same thing, Lord,
and just perpetuate the truth on this subject to others. In Jesus name, amen.
Jack, excuse me, it's Christy. Before we go any further, we are not recording to the cloud. Should
I do that? We're not going to record to the cloud, Christy. We're live streaming on Facebook.
Just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Thank you.
And you're muted. Yep, I'm aware of that. All right, ladies and gentlemen, there's going to be
a lot of teaching tonight. All right, a lot of teaching, and we have a short amount of time to
get it in. And so I'm going to ask that you save all of your questions, all of your comments,
all of your unmuting until the end, so that we can get it all in. It's really important that we do.
You can watch this and replay. You can take more notes and replay. I will try to save a few minutes
for Q&A at the end, but I really, really want to make sure that we get all this in. Does everyone
understand that? Is that cool? All right. All right. All right, guys. All right. Nobody says,
when I grow up, I want to be divorced. You guys didn't say that when you were little, did you?
Oh, when I grow up, I want to be divorced. No, that was not a dream of our hearts.
Everyone that has your hands up, you can go ahead and put your hands down. A lot of little hands
up right now. I want to make sure, because I probably will ask you a few questions. I want
to make sure that those responses are authentic and not just from before. So that's nobody's dream
of anybody's heart to be divorced. But the problem with modern Bible teaching, and it's not just on
this subject, you guys, the problem with modern Bible teaching is that a lot of times it's out
of context. It just is. It's out of context. First of all, people don't understand the Jewish customs,
the deeper meanings of the things that are mentioned in the Bible, the symbolism that is,
that is behind a lot of things that are mentioned in scriptures, because we're not Jews.
Okay. Most of us are not Jews. Now there might be a few Jews in here. You know, I found out
through one of those, those lineage, like 23andMe and Ancestry, that I do have some Jewish blood,
which is not surprising because I'm a very shrewd person. But at the same time, I was not raised
with any type of Jewish customs, no Judaism. So I don't understand any of that stuff. I do have
some really amazing Jewish friends that have explained a lot of stuff to me, and I really
appreciate that. And if you don't have a Jewish friend, find yourself one. Ask God to give you a
Jewish friend. You want to know why? Because Jewish, Jewish people that have been raised in
Judaism, not secular Jews, people that have been raised, you know, religiously in Judaism,
they can fill in a lot of blanks for you. A lot of, a lot of blanks about what things meant and
why things were done this way and not that way, because we just don't know. We don't, you guys.
And it's really important that we have those blanks filled in because there's so much of
that is being taught by Gentile white people in America, and it's out of context. It's not
taking into account the audience, the time period back then, the customs of the time period, the
deeper meanings of the words that are being used, which by the way, were not English. They were
Hebrew or Greek, the questions that are being asked in those scriptures or the questions that
are being answered. Does everyone understand that? Basically, I'm telling you something that's going
to hurt your feelings. A lot of what you've been taught from the Bible is probably not quite correct.
That's scary, isn't it? Because you're like, well, I built my life on that. Well, that's where Holy
Spirit comes in. Remember when Jesus met the woman at the well that was Samaritan, and he said,
there's coming a time when you have to worship in spirit and in truth. Remember that little
conversation? Well, that's why we need Holy Spirit, because Holy Spirit has one job. His job is to lead
us into the deeper teachings of Jesus, to finish the work that Jesus started when he brought the
kingdom to earth. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it already is in heaven, right?
And so Holy Spirit's job is to lead us into deeper truth.
He is the counselor, he is the comforter, he is the teacher.
And so if you're not leaning into him
when you're reading scripture,
when you're reading the Bible,
actually reading the Bible
could be a dangerous thing for you.
Yep, I said it.
Reading the Bible without the help of Holy Spirit
actually could pull you further away from God.
Not draw you near, but actually separate you from him.
Because there's a lot of things in there
depending on how they've been taught to you
and how they've been translated to you
that could actually keep you from really being able
to receive grace and mercy and kingdom ideologies and ideas
and really have that abundant life.
Does everyone get that?
And unfortunately, this topic is one of those topics.
And it's been a very important topic
ever since the beginning of time.
Marriage, divorce, remarriage
has been one of the biggest topics
talked about in religious circles
since the beginning of time.
And I'm gonna show you that tonight, okay?
Really important.
So we have the Old Testament,
us, like I said, us Gentile Christians
know that as before Jesus.
And then the New Testament is Jesus' time, right?
And so the Old Testament can be very confusing.
If you read the Old Testament,
there's a lot of weird stuff
that happened in the Old Testament.
A lot of stuff that could make you think,
God is just not that nice.
There's a lot of bad, scary stuff going on back here.
People getting eaten by bears
because they made fun of Baldy because, you know, whatever.
And then fires falling down from heaven
and consuming people.
And then over here, you got this sister,
she's turned into a pillar of salt
simply because she looked behind her shoulder.
And then women are treated terribly, right?
Everyone's like, oh, Esther, I love the book of Esther.
Do you?
Because it actually seems to be about human trafficking
in one way, shape or form.
Yeah, there's a lot of things.
And that's why we can't just read the Bible.
We have to read the Bible.
We have to read it with Holy Spirit
and with an understanding of, like I said,
once again, the deeper meanings
and the symbolism behind things, right?
We do, we have to.
So I want us to start focusing
for a few minutes on Matthew 5.
So go ahead and go there.
You can read it in whatever translation you want to,
but we're gonna talk about the kingdom of God tonight.
The kingdom of God that John the Baptist announced it.
Okay, he preached the kingdom.
He said, hey, there's a new dawn coming,
a new era coming.
There's a new thing that's coming.
Come on and get ready for it.
Come and let me baptize you into it.
You know, he was preaching that.
He said that there would be one that came after him
that's sandals he was not worthy enough to unloose.
He was talking about Jesus.
He basically said, I'm gonna tell you about this kingdom,
but this guy is gonna demonstrate it.
He's gonna show you what it looks like, right?
He's gonna bring it with him.
I'm gonna tell you that it's coming,
but he's gonna actually bring it.
Amen?
It's talking about Jesus there.
And so this, Matthew five has a lot of times
we call it the sermon on the Mount.
It's like, basically, if you watch that,
if anyone watched that show, The Chosen,
it's part of Jesus's big debut of his teaching.
It's like one of his first like put on, you know,
where he's announcing this kingdom that John was preaching.
He's beginning to tell people what it looks like.
He's beginning to teach about what does it look like?
Remember, all of these people
have been living under the law.
Whether they were Jews or not Jews,
there was the law of the land.
Then there was the law of the Jews, Judaism,
the law of Moses is what they called it.
There was all of those laws coinciding.
There were the Romans lived under a certain law,
the law of the land.
And then there was the law of Moses
that the Jews lived under the Roman law
and they lived under the law of Moses.
But Jesus was coming
and he was preaching something completely different.
And you guys, I don't think that we appreciate
how different the Sermon on the Mount was
from what was being taught to people
or the law that they were living under at the time.
You guys, this was crazy talk that this man came
to talk about.
We read it and we're like, oh yes,
blessed are the merciful because they will obtain mercy.
We think it's great.
But you have to understand how different it was
to the hearers back then.
Can you appreciate that?
Okay, all right.
So let's go ahead and just take a quick look at Matthew 5.
So if you start there at verse one,
you see that.
that he went on the mountain side and he began to teach the crowds.
And then he has the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit,
blessed are they that mourn, blessed are the meek.
Let's go ahead and skip on down through all of that.
Then he talks about how your salt and light in the earth.
He starts talking in these parables and these riddles.
He starts talking about all these different things, but I want you to
skip all the way down to verse 17.
And in the translation that I am reading from here, which is the new
international version, the NIV, this little segment of Matthew five
is called the fulfillment of the law.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
For truly, I tell you until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest
letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the
law until everything is accomplished.
Therefore, anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and
teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of God.
But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called
great in the kingdom of God.
For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the
Pharisees, those were the religious folk of the time.
They were the professional religious people and the teachers of the law.
You will certainly not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whoa.
Them's fighting words, Jesus.
You see what he's saying here?
He's saying, if your righteousness just comes from the law of Moses, if it's
just religious righteousness, like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law
of Moses, you're not going to come into the kingdom.
I came to bring the kingdom.
You can't come into the kingdom.
If you're still going to live under these laws, the way they are.
And then let, and then he starts talking about this.
You have heard that it was said to the people long ago.
What's he talking about?
The law of Moses, you shall not murder.
Do you guys know that?
You, we always talk about the 10 commandments, right?
The law of Moses, but you guys, the law of Moses is so much
more than the 10 commandments.
Do you guys know that right now?
Modern Jews, modern Jews in Israel or anywhere else where they're
practicing modern unorthodox or orthodox Judaism, they have 661
statutes that they have to follow.
That's a lot of rules y'all.
They got rules about rules.
Their rules have rules.
Okay.
Cause that's just like, that's just, that's the human nature, right?
God says one thing and then we add like 15 things to it.
That's what we do.
And so he says, you've heard it said you shall not murder.
Well, I don't know about you guys, but this has not been a
real hard one for me to keep.
I've never murdered anyone.
I don't plan on murdering anyone.
You know, I'm not, you know, I'm not a murderer.
I'm not going to murder anyone.
And so for a lot of people, they're like, Hey, I got it.
Whoa, I'm not going to murder anyone.
I can check that box.
I am definitely for sure.
Not going to break that rule.
But he says, but I tell you, remember, this is the kingdom.
He just said in the verse before, unless your righteousness surpasses
that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, because they're
just telling you all you have to do is keep from murdering someone.
Right.
But he's saying, I'm telling you that if you're angry at your brother or
sister, then you've murdered them.
If you say Raqqa, which is fool.
If you call your brother or sister a fool, you will be in danger of hellfire.
Whoa.
What is he saying?
He's saying murder is more than just this.
It's it's a, it's a matter of the heart.
We could actually call this passage of scripture, the heartwork you guys.
Cause that's what it is.
Next verse.
Therefore, if you're offering your gift to the altar and you remember that your
brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of
the altar and go and be reconciled to them and then come and offer your gift.
Settle matters quickly with your adversary.
Who is taking you to court?
Do it while you are still together on the way.
We're on the way, walking to the court.
Okay.
Adultery 27 verse 27.
You have heard it said you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that
anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed
adultery with her in his heart.
You guys, are we serious here?
Everyone's committed adultery according to Jesus, especially in the porn, the
porn era that we live in good grief.
You know, you can't even walk down the street without seeing half naked people, right?
And then he goes on to say, if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and
throw it away.
What are you talking about, Jesus?
It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown
into hell.
And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one part of your body than your whole body to go into hell.
You guys, what is he doing?
He's raising the standard to heart stuff.
It's not just about you following the letter of the law.
It's not about ritual.
It's about your heart.
You could be righteous in your following of the law and be unrighteous in your heart.
He's like, he's basically telling everyone the kingdom is about your heart.
It's about your heart.
Remember, he told the Pharisees, you're like, you're like tombs.
You're white, you're washed white on the outside, but inside of you is dead man's bones.
Doesn't matter if you're crossing every T and dot and every I on the outside, what does
your heart look like?
And then you guys in the same vein, you can't separate the next scripture from what Jesus
is talking about because it's the very next thing he says.
He says, it has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.
That's the law of Moses.
You guys.
But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality makes her
the victim of adultery and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Now you guys, this is the scripture that lots of churches and denominations take out of
context and they say, if you didn't get divorced because your, your person was cheating on
you, then you are, you are, you are committing adultery.
If you get married again and anyone who, anyone who marries you is committing adultery.
Okay.
And so we're going to debunk that tonight because I'm going to tell you the history
of what Jesus is saying right now, who wants to learn about it?
All right, I'm excited.
You guys want to learn about it?
Okay.
So Jesus is saying at all, all of Matthew five, Jesus is doing what the sermon on the
Mount, all of the teachings about the law that he's doing.
He is establishing the difference between the, the law, the righteousness that comes
from the law, legalism, and the righteousness that comes from the heart kingdom.
That's what he's doing here.
He's contrasting old righteousness.
That was all about your works and keeping the law and new righteousness, which is all
about your heart, religion versus kingdom living.
Does everyone see that he's contrasting that who is that someone, someone right there is
just smiling.
I can't see your name, but you're like, yeah, yeah, I like it.
All right.
So in the first contrast that we just read, Jesus says, you may have obeyed the command,
do not murder, but you can still have a heart full of anger, contempt, and malice, right?
And in the kingdom, you can be free from anger.
You can be free from anger.
You can't come into the kingdom with a heart full of anger, contempt, and malice.
He says, you know, you might have obeyed, do not commit adultery, but you can look at
a person with a lustful, with a lustful heart, with lustful intent and commit adultery in
your heart.
But I'm coming to give you a heart free from lust, right?
That's what he's saying.
And so right now we're going to talk about the last contrast that I want to really, really
get into tonight.
And that's Matthew five verses 31 and 32, write it down.
And it was said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.
Now a lot of you don't realize this because once again, you're not a Bible scholar and
you're not a Jew, but Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 24, write that down.
That's what Jesus is quoting from y'all.
Remember a lot of times during Jesus's speeches, especially in front of religious folk, he
is quoting the laws of the prophets and the laws of Moses.
Okay.
But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality
makes her commit adultery.
And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Now once again, you have to see the order that Jesus addresses these.
It's very important, you guys, we can't just read the Bible, we have to read the Bible.
And we have to take into account the audience, the time period, the deeper meaning, the questions
that are being asked and the questions that are being answered.
Amen.
Very important.
Jesus doesn't mince words.
Okay.
He's crazy like a fox.
You got to believe that he's talking about these things in order for in this order for
a reason.
Okay.
So he says, if you had a heart that was free from anger and free from lust, how many divorces
do you think would occur?
Whoa.
Do you guys see that he's talking about?
If you weren't so angry, if you weren't so lustful, and then he's talking about divorce
right after that, he did, he did that on purpose.
You guys, very important that we see that.
So before we fully unpack that verse, Matthew 5 31 and 32, I want to give you some history
leading up to that verse.
Okay.
We're going to walk through a lot of information.
I'm just going to warn you.
I need you to be patient.
I need you to roll up your sleeves with me and listen really hard.
Okay.
So 1700 BC, you guys, we'll go all the way back.
We're going to kick it old school to 1700 before Christ, way back in the ancient world.
This is before Jesus.
It's before the old Testament.
The ancient East was pretty much governed by the Hammurabi code.
It's H-A-M-M-U-R-A-B-I.
Some of you heard about this when you were in high school, you were taught it in history.
The whole world, the ancient near East, especially was governed by this code.
This was kind of like the law back then, all of you that live in America, we're governed
by the constitution.
The old ancient world was governed by this code.
Okay.
Remember, this is not a religious code.
Why?
Because the old Testament hasn't happened yet.
The, you know, Moses hasn't happened, Jesus, none of that stuff.
Okay.
There's no old Testament.
All right.
So if you were, so I just want to let you know, if you were a wife under that code,
your husband could divorce you at any time for any reason, just by walking out of the
house, what you guys, all your husband had to do to divorce you was just walk out of
the house.
Just leave the house.
I mean, and obviously not come back, leave the house.
That was the signal to you and to everyone else in the community that your husband just
divorced you.
And if you had any kids, guess what?
They'd be there with you still.
You'd have no money because the men were the ones that made the money back then.
You'd have kids, no money.
And your husband's allowed to do this.
He's allowed us to leave you.
So let's say you are able to somehow make some money.
Maybe you have some sons that are older and they're going to work the farm.
They're going to turn a profit.
Okay.
Great.
Wonderful.
You're going to, you're going to live to see another day.
You're going to have enough money or food to get by, even though your husband has done
this.
But here's the problem, you guys under this code, your husband could return any time he
wanted to and reclaim you reclaim the farm, reclaim the money, reclaim the kids.
So if he went off and he was gallivant with other people and he heard that, you know,
Oh, you know, Sarah, she, she made good on that farm.
She's, she's pulling it down.
She's got all kinds of crops and money and she's doing good.
Or if he just got out there and there just wasn't anything better out there for whatever
reason he left for, he could come by, he could come back and lay his claim to you.
And for that reason, you guys, if a man left a wife and walked out of the house and left
her, no, one's going to touch that woman with a 10 foot pole.
She could not get remarried.
And the reason why is because no one's going to remarry you unless your husband's dead.
Unless they know that your husband's dead and there's no way that he can come back and
claim you reclaim his property.
Basically you're his property.
If, if there's no way that he can reclaim you, then maybe you could get remarried if
you were a widow.
But if you were not a widow and your husband was just alive out there somewhere, you're
in big trouble because you're destitute now and you have no way of remarrying because
no one is going to remarry you.
So in that day, divorce involved a lot of contention because there was no livelihood.
You had no money, you had no finances, none at all.
So women were very vulnerable in the ancient world.
You guys very, very vulnerable.
So let's move forward.
So that's 1700 BC.
Let's move forward to 300 years guys to 1400 BC.
One of the most.
Spiking aspects of the law of Moses compared to that law,
that code we just talked about of the ancient Near East,
was its concern for women.
I know we feel like the Old Testament
is totally against women, didn't care about women,
but I'm gonna tell you right now
that the law of Moses,
one of the contrasting aspects of it
from the law of the land before,
the code of the land was its concern for women.
It was clear from Genesis that God's intent for marriage
was that it be permanent commitment
between a man and a wife.
And if it did break up, Moses said,
when a man, this is Deuteronomy 24 one,
this is what Jesus was referring to
when he was talking in Matthew five, Deuteronomy 24 one,
when a man takes a wife and marries her,
and then she finds no favor in his eyes
because he has found some indecency in her,
he writes her a certificate of divorce
and puts it in her hand and sends her out of the house.
You guys, that certificate was a way of protecting the woman
because it meant that her first husband
could never come back and reclaim her.
It meant that she could remarry.
She would not be accused of being an adulteress.
She would not get stoned to death.
That certificate was a merciful thing for women.
It gave them the right to remarry.
I want you guys to hear this.
In ancient Israel, the certificate of divorce
gave you the right to remarry.
That's what it was for.
Without the certificate under the ancient code,
you just had to sit there destitute
for the rest of your life because no one would marry you
because your husband could reclaim you.
Under the law of Moses, God commanded Moses
because of the hardness of their hearts
that they would give a certificate of divorce
doing what?
Freeing the woman to remarry, you guys,
so that she could once again be married
and have a livelihood.
Do you see the law of ancient Israel?
So why is Christianity saying we can't ever get remarried?
Ancient Israel said we could.
Come on, y'all.
All right, can't just read the Bible.
You got to read the Bible.
So the certificate, you guys need to know this.
That certificate had a phrase on it.
Do you want to know what the phrase was?
You are free to remarry any Jewish man
or any Jewish woman that you wish.
That's what the certificate said.
Holy mother of Pete, said Marie Finney.
Everyone take a drink break.
I need a drink.
I'm talking a lot.
All right, so Deuteronomy mentions
on the grounds of indecency.
That's what it says.
So it was interpreted, indecency was interpreted
to mean for the cause of sexual immorality, okay?
Now this raises the question, what about other causes?
Was there provision for divorce
because of abuse or abandonment?
Those cases were covered as well in a roundabout way.
And here's how, in Exodus 21,
we find another classic text on divorce, right?
And in this text, the law here covers the question,
what happens if a man takes a second wife?
All right, and I want you to see how much God loves women
and how much he's protecting women.
First of all, he told Moses to give them
the decree of divorcement,
because remember, they don't want to reconcile.
They have hard hearts.
And he's like, well, have them do that certificate
of divorce to protect vulnerable women, right?
So we can get remarried.
And then once again, in Exodus 21,
he wants to protect the interests of the first wife
if a man decides to take a second wife.
Look how good our God is.
Look at how good.
Exodus 21, nine through 11.
If he takes another wife to himself,
he shall not diminish the first wife.
He won't diminish her food, her clothing,
or her conjugal love.
If he does not provide her with those three things,
she is free to go without payments of money.
Once again, the law is seeking to protect the woman.
In this case, the husband takes a new wife,
and because human nature is what it is,
the new wife tends to get the good stuff, right?
So the law said when the husband remarries,
if he not remarries, but takes a second wife,
he's got to treat his first wife right.
He made a vow.
He made a vow to her to provide support,
food, clothing, and love.
And so if he breaks that vow,
then the first wife is free to leave.
free to get a divorce, free to get a certificate, free to remarry.
That's what this scripture is saying.
Now guys, over time, the rabbis, which were the theologians of the day, those were the
professional religious guys of the day. They looked at those two passages
and those two passages became the classic text in the scriptures that govern divorce.
You guys, in Judaism, in the ancient times with the Jews, those two scriptures
are the two scriptures that base everything they believe about divorce and remarriage on.
That's it. Those two. All right. So over time, the rabbis looked at these two scriptures and
they began to form their opinions about those. And the rabbis decided this, that based on those
two pieces of texts, marriage involves a vow. It's a covenant, right? And that covenant includes
three primary promises. Write these down, please. This is what the rabbis decided. You guys,
according to scripture, the rabbis decided that that covenant that you make when you get married,
it includes these three primary promises, the promise to be faithful.
That includes no sexual unfaithfulness. That's Deuteronomy 24, the promise to provide
that includes food, clothing, and so on. That's Exodus 21 and the promise to love
that includes sexual intimacy and affection, honor, respect. That's Exodus 21. You guys,
the promise to be faithful, the promise to provide the promise to love.
When these vows are broken, the victim of the broken vows has a right to get divorced.
This is according to Judaism, male or female.
And that always includes, please listen, that always includes the right to be remarried.
If any of these vows are broken, the covenant is broken. And that person, the victim of the broken
covenant has the right to get divorced. And that would include that certificate of divorce,
which would give them the right to be remarried. Am I going too fast?
I know it's a lot guys, but you can come back and listen to the replay.
Of course, when you're divorced, you, you have the ability to be remarried, Rachel.
There was no such thing in Judaism, you guys, as a divorce that did not include the right to remarry.
That was the entire idea behind the certificate in the first place.
Now the rabbis would debate what constituted the breaking of these vows.
Okay. Because they're taking this very seriously. So how much food was included in the promise to
provide food? You know, what kind of clothing did you have to provide in order to not break this
vow? How about conjugal love? How many times do you have to have sex a week to be showing that
person the proper amount of affection to, to, to, uh, to be, you know, being intimate. And that's
the kind of thing that rabbis do. You guys, they came up with rules around the idea of physical
intimacy. Remember the Jews have 661 statutes to kind of try to do. They love rules. And so
they started to come up with rules around these three promises. The husband had to offer to be
physically intimate with his wife at least twice a week, or she had the right to divorce him if he
didn't. Now you guys, I'm not, I'm not making this up. These are the actual rules. Listen,
the husband had to be physically intimate, or he had to offer at least to be physically intimate
with his wife at least twice a week. And if he didn't, she had the right to divorce him. Now,
there's some, some exceptions and you guys are going to laugh at the exceptions. If he was a
donkey driver, he only had to offer it one time a week. Cause that's like being a trucker, right?
You're not at home that much you're out on the road. So guys, if he drove to, if he rode a donkey,
if he was a donkey driver, he only had to offer to have sex once a week to be physically intimate
once a week. Now, but if he was unemployed, this is real, you guys, these are real rules.
If he was unemployed, the husband had to make the offer, at least make the offer of physical
intimacy every night, seven nights a week, or his wife could divorce him. Cause I, you know,
he doesn't got nothing else to do, right? He's not working. I'm not making that up. You guys.
All right, so did the rabbis believe that biblical grounds for divorce could include
things like abandonment and abuse?
Of course they did, you guys.
Of course they did.
Abandonment would simply be the extreme form of breaking the vow to provide.
Abuse would be the extreme form of breaking the vow to love.
In Israel, you guys, in ancient Israel, those would be grounds for divorce.
Now that doesn't mean that anybody thought that divorce was a good idea.
It doesn't mean that anybody thought that God was okay with divorce.
But this was a way of preventing worse injustices and suffering.
When those vows are broken, suffering happens.
So I just want you guys to see that this is the framework for marriage and divorce in
ancient Israel.
Now I want us to skip forward.
We went to 1700 BC, we went to 1400 BC.
Now we're going to skip forward to 5 BC, just about the time of the birth of Jesus.
Guys ready?
So right around the time of the birth of Jesus, there was a new development, you guys, and
you know what it was?
We started worshiping our pastors.
It's like, oh, I follow Stephen Furtick.
Oh no, no, I follow Joel Osteen.
I like what Joel Osteen teaches.
Oh no, but I like what Stephen Furtick teaches.
All right.
That happened in ancient Israel around 5 BC.
Two of the most famous rabbis, and they lived just decades before Jesus, and they're the
ones that dominated the rabbinic teachings back then.
Their names are Hillel and Shammai.
Those were the Joel Osteen's and the Stephen Furtick's, or you just put in whatever pastor
you guys like.
You like Bill Johnson, whatever.
These were the two rockstar rabbis of the times, and because they were the big dogs
among the rabbi's schools, you know, the religious schools, the synagogues were founded around
them to interpret the law.
So basically you were either a Hillel guy or you were a Shammai guy if you were a rabbi.
You either follow the teachings of Shammai or you follow the teachings of Hillel.
Does everyone get it?
Okay.
So Hillel looked at the law in Deuteronomy 24.1 where Moses says a man can divorce his
wife for a cause of sexual immorality, and he reflected on that text, and he said Moses
could have said that a man could divorce his wife for sexual morality, but he included
the phrase for the cause of sexual immorality.
So why did Moses include that phrase?
This is what Hillel reflected on, because, you know, I'm just going to tell you, rabbis
love to sit around and hear themselves talk, all right?
They loved words, they're word guys, and they believe that no word was random or redundant.
So Hillel reasoned and decided that the word, that this word, cause, in that writing of
Moses, that word cause must refer to another cause, not just sexual immorality.
So since it was the word cause, Hillel concluded that it must mean any cause.
That's what he decided.
He's like, oh, you know, what Moses really meant was this.
I know he said this, but what he meant was any cause, any cause at all.
So in other words, Hillel said that Deuteronomy 24 meant that a man could divorce his wife
for two reasons, sexual immorality and any other thing he wanted.
You guys, seriously.
Now Hillel was a man and the rabbis in his school were men.
So that works for them, right?
So they decided that this any cause divorce would be available to only one gender, men,
husbands, any cause.
Hillel said that cover just about any fault you could conceive of, right?
And so rabbis would list different faults they believed a husband could divorce his
wife for under this any cause provision of divorce.
And they listed things like if a wife burnt the food, he could divorce her.
If she walked around with her hair unbound, he could divorce her.
If he considered her improper in any way, shape or form, she smelled bad.
He didn't like having sex with her.
He could divorce her.
If she argued in a voice loud enough for the neighbors to hear, he could divorce her.
All right.
If she wanted to watch a chick flick, he could divorce her.
Anything you guys, any reason at all.
And I'm sure that you guys kind of are catching on that if he saw someone better than he wanted,
than her, he could divorce her. Any cause means just what you think it means. It means any cause.
So there is one drawback to the any cause divorce that Hillel was saying that, uh, Deuteronomy 24
meant, and that was, it was expensive. You guys. Okay. Because if the husband could prove now,
if the husband could approve that his wife committed adultery in court, then he could get
the adultery divorce. But if he wanted the, any cause divorce, he had to give back the,
the inheritance that he got at the wedding for the wife. Okay. It was called the, um, the Keteba.
I think it's pronounced Keteba, Keteba, K E T U B A H Keteba. So if he was just getting the
regular old, the regular old, any cause divorce, he had to give that back. And so that made it
more expensive, right? So Hillel was saying, there's a new divorce option available. It's
never been before available in the history of Israel. It's the, any cause divorce available
to any husband, not to wives, only to husbands. Very important that you guys understand that.
So as you can imagine, it became the most popular form of divorce in Israel. Do you know how many
men just decided to go ahead and divorce their wives? It's kind of like the seventies in America,
you guys divorce became, uh, no contest divorce. I don't know if you guys know this, but before the
seventies, you had to prove you had to prove stuff in court. You you're the judge could decide
whether or not you could get divorced. You couldn't just get divorced. If you wanted to,
you had to prove that that person was unfaithful. They were committing adultery that they've done
something else heinous to you that would cause a judge to side with you and allow you and grant
you a divorce. But in the seventies, basically we got no cause divorce. Didn't we? We got fast
divorce. We got microwave divorces. And then what did people do? Everyone started divorcing each
other. And that is what happened in ancient Israel. Men started leaving their wives and
divorcing them for the any cause divorce, because now it's super easy. There is a case of an any
cause divorce, or at least one that was being considered in the Bible to kind of give you an
example. Do you guys remember the story in the new Testament where Joseph finds out that Mary is
pregnant and he doesn't, he doesn't know is by the Holy spirit yet. Remember that story, Matthew
one 19, it says, because Joseph did not want to expose her to public disgrace. He had in mind to
divorce Mary quietly. You guys, the word quietly is not just a vague adjective. It's a technical
term. What Joseph decided was he would not take Mary to court and prove that she was guilty of
adultery. And he could, because she was pregnant y'all. And once again, he didn't know it was by
Holy spirit yet. So it'd be very easy for him to take her to court and get a divorce based on
sexual immorality. But he didn't want to do that because he, this is how good of a man, this man
was. And that would have led him off the hook. You guys, he wouldn't have had to pay that.
Back, but he would rather pay the Ketubah than embarrass her publicly. So he decided he was
going to put her away quietly. Meaning he was just going to get in any cause divorce,
no proof of adultery and no scandal. Look at how good of a man Joseph was. You guys, wasn't he good?
Come on, let's hear it for Joseph. Let's hear it for the boy. Come on. All right. I saw someone
give the boy hand. That was perfect. All right. Cause that's the next verse of that song.
So this means that he was going to have to swallow the financial cost. He was going to
have to support the child. That's exactly the situation that is referred to in the story of
Mary and Joseph. This was the innovation of Hillel. He was able to get an any cause divorce.
Now let's go on and talk about the other rock star, the rockstar rabbi, Shamai. Shamai disagreed
about what Deuteronomy 24 said. He wasn't for the any cause divorce. He said that Deuteronomy 24 one
refers only to divorce being allowed for sexual immorality. Of course, Shamai would have agreed
that divorce could also happen on the basis of Exodus 21. Can't, you can't separate those two.
You guys, the vow for provision was broken. The vow for love was broken. So what he was saying
is that divorce can only happen when adultery has been committed on faithfulness. The vow for
provision is broken or the vow for love is broken. Those are the only reasons that you can divorce
your spouse. And, and obviously he's not just speaking to men only, but to women as well,
where Hillel was saying men could do this. Shamai is saying men and women can only get
divorced for these three reasons. So he's, he, he said that an any cause divorce is wrong,
that it's a bad interpretation, that it's not correct. So in Jesus's day, you guys,
So let's fast forward to Jesus.
Let's fast forward to the Sermon on the Mount,
all the things where Jesus is asked by who?
By the Pharisees, by the religious folks,
his opinion on things.
Remember, because Jesus was supposed to be a rabbi.
And all the rabbis either followed Hillel's teachings
or Shammai's teachings.
So basically they're asking Jesus,
are you a Hillel guy or are you a Shammai guy?
Rabbi, which teachings are you following?
So this was a big debate, you guys,
Deuteronomy 24, Exodus 21,
between the rabbis that followed Hillel
and the rabbis who followed Shammai.
And everybody wanted to know exactly
where every rabbi stood on this subject.
It's like politicians.
Everybody wants to know where they stand on abortion.
Everyone wants to know where they stand
on capital punishment, right?
So this was the debate of Jesus's time.
Where do you stand on Deuteronomy 24 and Exodus 21?
So that brings us back to Matthew 19, three.
Let's read this now.
You guys, let's read the scripture now
in the light of what we just learned.
Some Pharisees, who are the Pharisees?
They're the religious guys of the day, right?
It says they came to Jesus to test him and trap him.
They asked him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife
for any cause?
They're trying to find out.
Are you a Hillel guy?
Are you a Shammai guy?
Now they're not asking him,
rabbi, is divorce always against the law?
Because you guys, that was never debated.
That was not part of the debate.
Divorce was part of Moses's law.
No rabbi would have ever asked,
is it lawful for us to follow Moses's law?
It was in the law.
They're asking Jesus, how do you interpret Deuteronomy 21?
Do you agree with Hillel or do you agree with Shammai?
And they're not even interested in Jesus's answer.
You know why?
Because it says that they came to test or trap him.
Now I wanna give you a little background here
that might help you with this.
In the time when they're asking this question,
the man that was in charge, his name was Herod.
The ruler of the day during this timeframe is Herod.
And Herod had been married to his first wife,
but while he was married to his first wife,
he fell in love with another woman, Herodias.
Unfortunately, Herodias was married to his brother.
Scandal.
So guess what Herod did?
He divorced his first wife
and he got a no cause divorce, you guys.
He divorced his first wife
and he talked Herodias into divorcing his brother
so that he can marry her.
That must make Christmas really awkward, y'all.
I don't know.
Very awkward holidays for this family.
You guys, if you're not putting two and two together,
this is what John the Baptist lost his head over.
John the Baptist was beheaded.
He was beheaded because he called Herod out.
He said, it's not lawful for you to have Herodias
as your wife because you got
an any cause divorce to get her.
That shows you right there
that John the Baptist was a Shammai guy, wasn't he?
Wasn't he?
Yes.
And that's Mark 6, 18.
If you guys wanna see the little speech
where John the Baptist calls him out.
And we already know that he put John in prison.
He was so ticked off that John called him out like that,
that he put John in prison and he took his head off.
He beheaded him.
Okay.
So you guys, the Pharisees are trying to trick
and trap Jesus because they already know
that Herod did the no cause divorce.
And if they can trick Jesus into saying he's a Shammai guy,
they have charges against him
that they can bring before Herod
and Jesus can lose his head too.
You guys see that?
That's what they're trying to do here.
So that's a very loaded question
and that's why they pose it to Jesus.
So Jesus answers, cause Jesus ain't afraid.
He's not afraid.
He's gonna say exactly, he knows what they're up to.
He knows their hearts.
Remember, Jesus always knew people's hearts.
And so what does Jesus do?
He takes them all the way back to the first book
that Moses wrote, Genesis.
So this is Matthew 19, verses four and five.
Jesus answered them and said,
have you not read Genesis?
You guys, I just love Jesus.
He is the goat.
He is the OG.
He is.
If you guys don't think he's spicy,
then you just got it all wrong, right?
Cause he's.
talking to the religious leaders of the day.
And he's like, did you not read Genesis?
Have you not read in Genesis that he who created them
from the beginning made them male and female and said,
therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother
and hold fast to his wife.
And the two shall become one flesh.
You guys, you got to see what Jesus just did right there.
The original text in Genesis, you guys only says,
and they shall become one flesh.
A man shall leave his father and mother
and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.
But Jesus added the word too.
And the two shall become one flesh.
What was he doing?
He was saying polygamy is not God's plan.
Don't you love how Jesus gets it all in you guys?
He gets it all in there.
And the two, not the three, not the four,
not your harem over there, brother.
The two, one and two, male and female,
the two shall become one flesh.
All right, and so he's saying God's purpose for marriage
is a husband and a wife making a permanent
intimate commitment.
And so the Pharisees ask, this is Matthew 19,
verses seven and nine, why then did Moses command
that the man give his wife a certificate of divorce
and send her away?
And Jesus said to them,
because of the hardness of your heart,
Moses allowed 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, once again,
that's Exodus 21, that includes the three vows,
unfaithfulness, abandonment, and lack of love,
and marries another, commits adultery.
Jesus is saying that if you divorce someone
with one of these any cause divorces and remarry,
you are committing adultery.
Why? Because it was an invalid divorce.
There was no biblical reason in Deuteronomy 24,
and that's the passage that they're debating here,
that you can be divorced in besides the breaking
of those three promises in the covenant.
You guys, Jesus was saying, I'm a Shammai guy.
Now, every single one of you guys that have been divorced
have been divorced because the breaking of your covenant.
Every single one of you,
whether it was physical unfaithfulness,
whether it was the abandoning of supporting you emotionally,
physically, in material possessions,
whether it was some sort of verbal abuse,
whether it was the withdrawal of love,
every single one of y'all is divorced
righteously under the law.
Every one of you.
All right, moving on.
All right, so let's summarize some points
from the passage in Matthew 19, okay?
Divorce was never God's original intention.
Jesus said it wasn't from the very beginning,
but it's because of the hardness of hearts.
God allows divorce because people's hearts
can become so hard and so unrepentant and stubbornly sinful
that a divorce would be a more loving option
than to live like that.
And just because a man or woman has given their spouse
a certificate of divorce and done everything legally right,
it does not mean that he or she has done right
or has been a good person with respect to the relationship.
A person is forced into adultery
because the any cause divorces were not valid
from God's perspective.
It was a groundless divorce, okay?
Now, a lot of, like I said, a lot of churches
that don't understand these scriptures,
they don't understand the history of these scriptures
or even what's being talked about
in these conversations between Jesus
and the religious leaders of the day.
Because of that, a lot of people have been told
a lot of things that are not true.
And it's really hurt people's feelings
because people are like, well, if my husband beats me
and beats our children, is addicted to drugs,
but he's never gone out and had sex with someone else,
I have to stay married to him.
And for you guys, same thing.
If my wife goes out and she spends all the money
and she gets us into terrible debt
and she goes and she stays with her mom
and she abandons me and doesn't talk to me anymore
and or she's verbally, physically,
mentally, emotionally abusive,
but she's not having sex with another man,
I have to stay married.
And the church, the modern church
and a lot of denominations would tell you yes.
But it's not true. It isn't. It's not true at all.
So, remember when Jesus is talking about.
When Jesus is talking about the being divorced for that reason of sexual immorality. He is talking about all of Exodus 21, all the vows of Exodus 21 provision and love faithfulness, every single one of them.
That's really important.
All right. So,
I want to see what else we're already at 810. I want to see what else I want to.
All right, I think that I'm going to really quickly just go over Paul's teaching on the same scripture. So let's move forward to 55 ad.
Now you know Apostle Paul.
He's writing to the church at Corinth you guys.
And you guys need to know what was happening during the time of his epistle to Corinth, a lot of people don't know what was happening in Corinth.
During the time, people don't know what was happening in the Roman world. During 55 ad. So first of all you need to know that marriage as an institution in the Roman world was not in great shape.
During 55 ad. The Emperor at the time Caesar Augustus had seen that Roman men were avoiding marriage.
Roman men were not getting married you guys.
So they could engage you know in multiple relationships, sexual debauchery sexual relationships affairs all the things they were not getting married.
And so he wanted them to get married because under Roman law, you couldn't have a legal son unless it was born within a marriage. And so there was no legal sons being born in the Roman households.
And so Caesar actually established a law in 18 BC, making it compulsory for Roman citizens to get married.
And I want to tell you guys, if you got divorced, you had to get remarried within 18 months.
It was the law. If you got divorced, you had to get remarried within 18 months was the law that Caesar put into place back then.
And why is that, because it was easy to get a divorce in Rome.
They had the no cause divorce, or any cause I'm sorry divorce. In fact, it was called divorce by separation.
It goes way back to that early early code from 1700 BC, you could just divorce someone by walking out the door.
And so that world.
It faced all of the problems of that. Okay, the early church that was there in Corinth, they faced all of that, you know all of that law of the land that was around them wide scale sexual immorality compulsory marriage laws where you have to get remarried within
18 months, and divorce was as easy as walking out the door so you guys can see that marriage was a disaster in the world that the that the early church in Corinth was living in.
Do you guys see that.
Okay, so Paul writes to that little church, that little church plant in the middle of this big bad gross nasty culture that it's living in. And he says don't live like that.
Don't break your marriage vows. Don't sink down to the Roman bar.
Live up to God's standard okay, even if you're married to an unbeliever, and you've become a Christian, you know, seek to honor your promises to that person.
Guys, this is this is first Corinthians seven.
This is not an accident. This is the same scriptures where he talks about staying single, and the gift of singleness, and he wishes that people had the gift of singleness and you can see why now right because marriage was just a hot disaster.
It was a train wreck, where they were living in the culture that they were part of, because you guys remember these people started following Jesus but they were from the Corinth culture they lived in Corinth.
This church plant was in Corinth these people were raised up in this culture under Caesar Augustus under all this crazy stuff, all the sexual immorality and walk out the door divorces and all the crazy stuff.
Mark is saying Corinth was also a sailor stop known for incredible sexual debauchery. There you go. There you have it.
So, he goes on to teach you guys but even if you're married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever. This is important.
First Corinthians 715 this kind of shows you that that any cause divorce thing that was happening. But if you're married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever leaves.
Remember in the Roman world that was considered a divorce.
It says let them do so.
A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances, you guys please I want you to
to see the teaching here. Even though Paul was definitely a
Shema guy, meaning that you could only get divorced for the
three reasons of unfaithfulness, abandonment, and withdrawal of
love. Okay. He was saying, if, if your if your unbeliever,
spouse decides to divorce you for any cause, meaning they just
walk out the door for just any cause, you haven't been
unfaithful, you haven't withdrawn your support or your
love, go ahead and let them go. Because even though under the
old law, that would mean that you are now going to commit
adultery, because any cause divorce is not lawful. Remember,
guys, it's not someone has to break that covenant. It says
that you're not held to that, because you're not bound in
those circumstances, because that person's not a believer.
They're not under the kingdom of Jesus, right? Do you guys see
that they're not under the kingdom law? In other words,
Jackie is not here right now. And it made me she's back
and I'm back. Can't keep me down. I don't know. I don't
know. Lord help us. Okay. So in other words, if your spouse
abandons you, then the marriage is over and you're free to
remarry in the Lord. Paul adds that a little later to a
believer. He said, Okay, look, if you just became a believer,
and your unbelieving spouse divorces you by walking out the
door, they're doing the whole any cause divorce things, you
are free to remarry. Go ahead and let them go. But this time,
make sure you marry a believer. Make sure you marry a believer,
you're free to remarry in the Lord. So Paul, you guys, it's
really important that you understand that this is for all
you guys as well. Do not marry an unbeliever. For all of you
that asked me, do they have to be a believer? Do not marry an
unbeliever. Do not marry an unbeliever. Okay, don't date an
unbeliever. Don't court an unbeliever. Don't marry an
unbeliever. All right. So let's go through the divorce, the
justifiable reasons for divorce, again, adultery, unfaithfulness,
abandonment, and abuse. And that is abandonment is abandonment,
all different forms of abandonment, someone can
financially abandon you, they can mentally abandon you, they
can emotionally abandon you. Abuse is an extreme form of
breaking the vow to provide or to love, you know. And remember,
divorce is okay, because divorce is not okay. But the decree of
divorce that was given to, to God's people was because of one
reason. And that is the hardness of hearts. Remember, the
religious leaders asked Jesus, why did Moses command us to get
divorced? And Jesus said, Moses did not command you to get
divorced, he permitted you to get divorced because of your own
hard hearts. So the idea here is that even if a marriage vow is
broken, if the spouse is repentant, if they're soft
hearted, if they're willing to reconcile, then seek to rebuild
the marriage, you guys. Right? Even if even if someone breaks
one of those vows, one of those promises, but they're not hard
hearted, they're repentant, they're soft hearted, they're
willing to reconcile, then we seek to rebuild the marriage.
But if that spouse refuses to repent, if they're stubborn, if
they're hard hearted, if they're defiant, if they reject
reconciliation, if they reject intimacy, if they reject God,
they reject his ways, they reject reconciliation. And
there's no there's nothing else you can do. Like I said, it's
not a divorce. It's a rescue mission. Guys, I had a student
once, you know, she found out in the first year of marriage that
her husband fathered a child with someone else. She was
willing to forgive him. She was willing to co parent with that
other woman, that child, she was willing to, to reconcile the
marriage. He didn't want to he had a hard heart. He didn't want
to he didn't want to be with that woman he impregnated
either. He didn't want to be with anyone. He wanted to go
back to his philandering ways and go sit at bars on barstools
and flirt with women and have sex with whoever he wanted. He
was unrepentant, his heart was hardened. And so she had no
choice but to divorce him. He didn't want he didn't want to be
forgiven. Sometimes people don't want to be forgiven. Do
you guys get that?
Okay.
So hard hearts make divorce necessary a lot you guys.
They do. And it's necessary to go ahead and divorce when when one or both people's hearts are hard because it, it avoids greater harm, because when someone's heart is hard, they're capable of anything.
And that's why God made it permissible for us.
Kingdom hearts are not hard you guys.
Kingdom hearts are not hard.
Our hearts are soft.
They are. And so it's really important that we understand that as we head into these marriages that we want to keep those vows of the covenant. We want to make sure that we have a soft heart.
We want to continue to soften our hearts towards each other.
It's not about divorce being okay.
It's about how can I use the resources of the kingdom of God to resolve difficulties with my spouse to make our union rich and good before God.
I'm not coming on here to let you know hey don't worry about it. You know if you get into one of these bad marriages you can always get out God's okay with it.
No, it's not about divorce being okay.
God doesn't want you to live under the shame of divorce or the guilt of divorce but he also wants you to be able to fully step into the kingdom.
If I have a kingdom heart full of love, full of concern for the honest good of all involved in the marriage, then guess what, that's the best divorce proof I can have isn't it.
If after divorce, ladies and gentlemen, I'm living proof of that I've been remarried for 15 years. My marriage is not perfect but I can honestly tell you guys that we come against difficulties with each other with softened hearts.
We do. We talk through things we forgive each other.
David I've had to forgive him more than anyone I've ever had to forgive in my entire life and vice versa.
We've heard each other a lot. We've also helped each other a lot.
Because when you're when you get married, you're going to hurt that other person because you know there's a lot of trauma that's going to come to the surface, and the more hard work you can do before the marriage, the better, but you are going to hurt them.
It's ridiculous and unrealistic for us to think we're not going to hurt each other we are going to hurt each other whether overtly or covertly, but the bottom line is, is that you're going to have to have a soft heart with each other.
If you want to make marriage work.
And you guys I want you to know that God got a divorce.
I know a lot of people are like what are you talking about. Yeah, so I want to tell you about one more divorce in the Bible.
Before we end tonight, and that's God's divorce. So the most striking picture of what the prophets are describing
with God's relationship to Israel.
Okay. Is that it was a marriage.
The most striking picture of what the prophets described God's relationship to Israel, as was a marriage. God made a covenant with Israel, because he loved her.
And what did he what did he vow, the same thing that we vow when we get married you guys he vowed to be faithful to her to provide for her to care for her to love her to be intimate with her, and she was to love God in return wasn't she.
But God's people Israel were unfaithful to him. And if you go through the Old Testament. If you read through it, you're going to see that that Israel was very adulterous very unfaithful took other lovers other gods, so to speak, so often as a form of adultery, if you will, of unfaithfulness.
This leads to one of the most amazing and heart wrenching statements in all of scripture you guys, Jeremiah three eight.
I gave faithless Israel.
I gave that adulterous, I gave her her certificate of divorce, and I sent her away because of all her adulteries.
Wow.
Do you understand what God is saying.
God said I went through a divorce, God went through a divorce for all of you that have been divorced. I want you to really take that to heart. God knows what it's like to be divorced.
And that's why in the book of Malachi God says I hate divorce.
You guys that's why he says it is because he experienced it. He's been through it.
If you don't hear the anguish if you don't hear the anguish in God's heart in Jeremiah three eight, then you don't know God's heart yet.
God says, I've been through all the humiliation of being rejected. I know all about the pain of betrayal. I know all about the anguish of broken vows from hard hearted people, some of you guys need to get ahold of this.
it. I know what that feels like. So God invented the first
divorce recovery program you guys at a place called Calvary.
And the price for the course was one blood stained cross. And
Jesus paid the price for all of us for you for me, for our
hard hearted spouses that were no longer married to for all of
us. God was the first one to go through it. Maybe you were the
hard hearted spouse, he paid, Jesus paid the price for all of
us. And in Hosea 219, you get to hear about that. In that day
declares the Lord, I will betroth you to me forever.
Forever, I will betroth you in righteousness and justice in
love and in compassion. You guys, God did divorce Israel.
But guess what? He has engaged all of us now even us wild
branches that are grafted into the vine. As the we are the
bride of Christ, aren't we? We're engaged again. We're the
bride of Christ that happened after the finished work of
Calvary. So there's love and compassion at the cross for all
of us. All of us hard hearted vow breakers. All of us have
fallen short of the glory of God. All of us when it comes to
this divorce that God had, we're all on the wrong side of
it. You guys, we've all been unfaithful to God. And this is
why any church that divides people up into superior
non-divorced people, first class Christians, and inferior beat up
divorce second class Christians is theologically errant. And
it's spiritually destructive because we're all divorcees. We
all are. We've all been unfaithful. We all need the
cross. All of us. All of us need that reconciliation plan.
All of them do. All of us do. And our future marriage is
needed as well. The only way that you're going to have a
successful finished future marriage is if the cross is in
the middle of it. Amen. Amen. All right, you guys, that's all
I have for you tonight. I know it was a lot. I hope you enjoyed
it. Once again, I'm very thankful to Jim Baker for
teaching me this. I know that he got some of his teachings from
others as well that studied out all of this. He break law over
the years, and I'm thankful that we get to stand upon the
work of all of those teachers that have come before. Father,
thank you. Thank you for people who are willing to take the time
to rightly divide the word of God. Thank you for people who
are willing to take the time to make sure that people are not
believing things that are not true about your word, Lord. We
thank you, God, that we can live in the finished work of the
cross. We can live in the kingdom. We don't have to live
underneath the pressure and the burden of shame and guilt and
sin any longer, that we can step into everything that you
have for us, all of your mercy, all of your grace, and that
grace is not just a saving power, but it also is an
enabling power for us to have amazing relationships with each
other and with our future spouses, to have softened
hearts, kingdom hearts that forgive, kingdom hearts that
have grace, kingdom hearts that have mercy, kingdom hearts that
see not just what people do, but why they do it. Father, I thank
you for a kingdom heart. I thank you that you're releasing
kingdom hearts. Your word says that you would take our hearts
of stone and that you would make them hearts of flesh again. I
declare that over each and every one of my brothers and sisters
and myself, that we would not have hardened hearts, that we
would have soft, supple hearts, God, that you could mold and
shape after your own heart, Lord, that we become more and
more and more and more like Jesus, that marriage and family
is your maturity process for us, that marriage and family is
your sanctification process for us. Let it be so in Jesus name.
Amen. So does anyone feel free, more free that's been divorced?
Does anyone feel like you're finally beginning to understand
some of these scriptures in the Bible? Hopefully I taught it
well, I tried my best. I know it's a lot to digest. And I
really, really want you guys to be free. Free like me, baby. Oh,
I'm so glad, Rachel. Thanks so much, you guys. Okay, so I have
time for just a couple questions if we want to go ahead. I can
ask, I can answer like two or three questions if we want to go
ahead, but I have to jump off here soon.
I sent you a couple of questions, but I'll ask them
here if you like. Yeah, I'm looking to see as well. Go
ahead. Someone asked, does the non victim also have the right
to remarry to the person they adulterated with? Are you guys
that's going to cause a lot of logistical problems in
family. And I know a lot of people, even people in this group where their spouse that cheated
actually remarried that person that cheated, they actually maybe even impregnated the person
they were cheating with. And then they divorced you and they married that person. And now they
have a child together. And now the children that you had together now have to go over to that house
and be with that other parents and those children that are born, you know, from that adulterous
affair. And you guys, it gets very complicated. And that's where grace has to come in. We have
to have a lot of grace, only the supernatural power of God will help you to forgive such a
thing and be able to live continuously in a situation like that. Right? Right, guys, for sure.
And so, but I believe that God can do that for you. I really do. I believe that he can do that
for all of us. And so the short answer to that is don't have a hardened heart. Yes, that person is
free to remarry. They can marry the person they cheated with. God can redeem all things. The
finished work of the cross can redeem all things. But are you going to be able to live in harmony
and in peace? That's up to you. Remember, the Bible says live, live in peace with all men
as it's in your control to do so. Meaning control your responses. You can't control
anyone else. You can only control yourself. And let's be Holy Spirit controlled. All right,
so that answers that question, hopefully. Once the certificate of divorce is given,
you guys, both people are free to remarry. You can remarry. What do we got? Any other questions?
Yes, I'm getting ready to send you one if I can find my chat. Sorry.
You see that one? It says, I'm slightly confused. Why did Jesus say sexual immorality if that
included all three of the things, lack of love, faithfulness, and providing?
So first of all, you have to understand because that is, first of all, Jesus is just answering
the Pharisees question. And so it's like, it's the same as asking, do you believe,
do you believe that it's okay for a 16-year-old to drink? Now, I didn't say to drink alcohol. I
just said, hey, do you, Christy, do you believe that it's okay for a 16-year-old to drink?
You do, you know, back, they used to have near beer, used to be able to drink at 18. Hey,
do you think it's okay for an 18? Do you think that you think it's right for an 18-year-old to
drink? I mean, they are an adult, you know, do you think it's all right for an 18-year-old to drink?
Now, Christy, because of the culture that she's been raised in, she's already going to,
she's already going to surmise that I'm talking about alcohol,
right? I don't have to say drink alcohol because she already knows because of our culture that
that has to be what I'm asking. Same thing with the Pharisees question and Jesus's answer.
Any first world Christians, any first world people, not just Christians, but any first world
Jews, okay, would know what the Pharisees were asking. They were asking, what's your stance on
Exodus 21? What's your stance on Exodus 21? And remember, sexual immorality in Exodus 21 had
already been decided and translated into abandonment, unfaithfulness, and abuse.
So Jesus didn't have to re-spell that out. It was already,
it's already surmised, it's already inferred, if you will. Does that make sense for everyone?
Does anyone else have any other questions? I see another one. Someone said,
it's been amazing and biblical, but I'm curious about one thing. I hear that it is acceptable
for a variety of good reasons for someone to divorce their spouse, but what about those of
us who were divorced properly because they were adulterous or abandoned their spouse,
or one of the other two items, can they remarry without committing adultery?
I already answered that question.
There's another one. With marriage being a maturing and refining process,
if someone in their 40s has never married, does that mean they're not yet fully matured and
refined, or does lifeline singleness also help someone become matured and refined?
You guys be very, very careful in your own minds and hearts that you don't make, you know, you don't become like, you know, rigid in your thoughts and your ideas.
Sometimes we do that as we get older, you know, don't make hard, fast rules for something, you know, we always, we can always mature more, you know, God provides us with all kinds of opportunities to mature, not just marriage and family.
Okay, so don't don't don't make everything into a formula.
Any more questions.
there's one that i'm looking for, and that will do it, but this has been wonderful according to everyone, so thank you from everyone.
Okay, this says it's your teaching so in no way, do I want to disrespect that, but I believe in.
But I believe in.
agonize a GUNH apostrophe s and that the New Testament divorce passages are wrongly translating a polio a P o l u o as divorce when Apollo Leo to a Hebrew Jewish audience only means separation, but divorce is actually the biblia apostasy and excuse me for.
Okay.
I thanks christy I see that whole thing so first of all, like I said once again not my teaching fully.
It is my teaching i'm teaching it i'm adding you know little bits here and there, but these teachings are some from some of the best Bible teachers.
And some of the best theologians and so you know you can agree to disagree, and if you don't agree with this teaching then you're free to just move on and believe whatever you want.
we're not here to debate it.
So that's the end of that alright, so what else we got.
that's all of it thanks.
All right, I appreciate you guys bless you guys, I hope some people got free tonight, I know when I was first taught.
All of these all the historical meanings and all of the true translations and definitions and especially the history behind the rabbis and behind this like I said very, very important subject in ancient Israel.
It was very, very freeing for me, and you know I knew deep deep down in my heart somewhere that God was not going to leave everyone out.
That got married to someone who mistreated them and that he wasn't going to hold that against us because God is a good God and he's a good daddy you guys.
You know, and there are so many reasons that people get divorced there's so many things that cause hardness of heart, but let's just make let's make a.
Not a vow but let's make a decision tonight that we are going to continually allow God to soften our hearts, so that we can be kingdom people.
We want to be kingdom people all right in everything that we do not just in our marriages and so let's make a decision now that we are going to allow God to continue to lead us further and further and further into his kingdom by the power of his spirit amen.
Amen alright everyone have an amazing night, and I will see you soon bye.