Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Marriage was designed by God to be something that was regarded as holy and regarded as uniquely important. Why? When marriage works, kids work. When marriage works, society works. When marriage works, family enterprises are built.

When marriage works, academia doesn't steal the mind and the heart of children. When marriage works, life works, societies work. And that's why the enemy goes out of his way to do everything that he can to destroy marriage.

Guest (Male): We’ll be in Mark chapter 10 today on Light on the Hill. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? That seems like a good question on the surface posed to Jesus by the Pharisees, but the motive behind the question was to trip Jesus up and entrap him. Of course, our Lord saw right through it and handled the situation perfectly.

We'll look at this interaction today. While this section of scripture does convey something important about marriage and remarriage, there's a bigger picture we don't want you to miss. Here's Pastor James Kaddis with more.

James Kaddis: So here's something that's kind of interesting that men like me face on a day-to-day basis. And as a matter of fact, I think this is something we deal with in the church, we deal with it in Christianity. It's something that we deal with—let's just even stop and not even focus on Christianity per se, let's just talk about human nature. But it is something that we face a lot, and that is, we oftentimes want to know where the line is.

And then once we identify where the line is, then what we seek to do is get as close to that line as we humanly can get. And we think that that is actually a reasonable way of looking at things because when we toe the line, it somehow in our mind it gets us to think that it allows us to advance in new ways, to develop deeper understandings of things, and to grow. And I think it's really unfortunate because it is so opposite of the principles that we know in the scriptures are being taught to us.

It literally defies everything. And it's funny because we use this phrase oftentimes, "pushing the Overton window." And on so many different respects—not that I want to get into a discussion about Overton or any of these other things—we find ourselves in a world and a society where we're seeking to do it. We want to take things to the limit because we want to know where the limit is and then we want to go right either just past that limit or maybe a little bit before the limit.

And it tends to be this characteristic within human nature. And the problem is, when we begin to develop that mindset, we begin to have that attitude, one of the things that it does—which, by the way, it does a lot of very bad things—but one of the things that it does perhaps most consequentially, especially for purposes of the study that we're having right now, is it causes us to ignore the fundamentals behind why those rules exist or why those reasons were put into fruition.

And I think that what we oftentimes do in a world that is falling apart is we spend a lot of time examining the letter of the law while ignoring what the real spirit of the law is. Now we had this discussion, especially near the beginning of Mark, we had the discussion of what the letter of the law is all about versus what the spirit of the law is and the consequentiality that may exist when the spirit is ignored while the letter is being adhered to.

And I would argue that even more importantly than adhering to the letter of the law, that you will understand the spirit of the law because if you understand the spirit of the law, what the spirit of the law will do to you is it will keep you away from seeking to find the outer edge of the boundaries and then pushing towards them. And it's really important to understand this because what a lot of people might not recognize or think or understand or be able to discern is that when rules were put into place, they were put into place to give us the outer and deeper boundaries that we want to stay away from in order to put into effect or put into cause in many ways an outcome that's beyond favorable, an outcome that's actually healthy, and an outcome that is very good.

And one of the things that I've talked about on a day-to-day basis is how righteous and how consequential it can be when you examine the spirit of what God says in his word versus what the letter may very well be because if you understand the spirit, then the letter will no longer be an issue to you. Jesus did this for us, by the way. When we were going through Matthew, I walked you guys through this. Jesus said, "Listen, you've heard it said thou shalt not murder," right? But I tell you, if you have anger in your heart, then you've already committed murder. He made it more consequential. Why? Because the spirit of the law, when it's honored, it holds to a much more stringent standard and that standard is kept by recognizing what the heart of the rule actually is.

And I think that oftentimes what we do is we forget that. And something that's really important you have to understand: when you recognize and embrace what the spirit of a particular law may be, or when you look at a boundary that's being created that is so far inside what the real boundary may be, those people that honor those boundaries oftentimes come out winning more than they do when they seek to push the lines. I can give you some big examples of this.

I got a nasty letter, a nasty email recently—matter of fact, it may even be a few days ago, I don't remember, it was a comment—because in our mindset series, I think it was being produced because of the radio show. Right now we're doing our Christian mindset series on the radio. And so on the Christian mindset series, I had named Dave Ramsey as an illustration for a person who has a view concerning Christian debt that isn't quite biblical. And when they heard that, they automatically turned off the radio or turned off the audio and didn't want to listen to me after that.

And what they did not hear is they did not hear what I said after that situation. I said, "Hey, I don't agree with the biblical precedent behind the idea that all debt is evil or all debt is wrong, but the one thing that I love and respect and admire men like Dave Ramsey for, and men that I will always recommend because of, is that he teaches believers to stay so close to the spirit of the law that in staying close to the spirit of the law, he enables them to not walk in bondage, right?"

And if you really come to think about it, his view on avoiding debt is something that applies to literally 95% of the people that are in debt. Like it makes sense. Why? Because most of them are looking at the rules, most of them are looking at the boundaries, but they're not looking at the spirit that drives it. And that's why I love and embrace men like him and oftentimes encourage people to look at the type of material that he's outputting because it is based biblically in what is in essence the spirit that drives the general principles that most people tend to ignore.

Now I bring all of this up because when we get into a passage like Mark, this passage, chapter 10, this is a very controversial passage to a lot of people. If somebody's listening to me, and odds are 50% of the people that are listening to this Bible study—whether it be on the radio, whether it be online later, maybe even in this room—the percentage in this room might not be as high, but I would venture to say that 50% of the people in this room will become personally, or listening to me, will become personally offended by me simply repeating what Jesus says concerning the subject of marriage.

Because if I repeat what Jesus says concerning the subject of marriage, then it would mean an overwhelming amount of people who have gotten married inside the church and outside the church are committing adultery. Now that's a hard statement to make. I have had people leave this church before because they had bad marriages and then they came to me and they said, "Pastor James, we're both praying about getting married and we would like you to do premarital counseling." And I'd have them come into my office and I'd say, "Tell me your story. I want to know. Are there any previous marriages? Is there any..."

And I'll look at them and I'll say, "Look, I appreciate the fact that you want me to do premarital counseling, but I'm not going to do premarital counseling for you and I'm certainly not going to marry you because if I counsel you in premarital counseling, I am going to support an action that I believe will be a sinful action. You biblically are not allowed to marry another person." Now that gets harsh. "Well, but this happened and that happened and this happened and that happened." I'm not arguing with you. This is not my personal perspective. This is not my personal opinion. You violate God's word if you're to enter into it.

Now, if somebody comes to me and they say, "Well, I've been divorced and now I'm remarried and this is my wife," okay, well then obviously I'm not going to say go get a divorce because you're unbiblical. There's a whole different precedent that gets set there. But the issue here, and the one that's remarkable, is that the average person that will look at this passage will focus on the last verses that we're going to reach today. Let me read those verses to you. Jesus says this in verse 11 as he's talking to his disciples—and we're going to go back to it—he says, "And he saith unto them, whosoever shall put away his wife—meaning divorce his wife—and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery."

Most people will hear that and think that that applies to everybody else except to them. When in reality, an overwhelming majority of the time, if you are in a position where you have divorced and remarried, it is considered, based on the words of Jesus and the law of God, unbiblical. Now I am not here to emphasize what is controversial to a lot of people because an overwhelming majority of the people that I minister to who are married right now have been in previous marriages.

So my goal is not to get in this exchange over what was right and what was wrong when people come to me all the time. They come to me having done things that were blatantly unbiblical. But the bigger issue here, and the one that's more consequential and the one that's significant, is that this passage was designed to show us more about the spirit of the law rather than the letter. Let me explain what I mean when I say this. The world that we live in right now is falling apart. It's imploding in some areas and in other areas it's exploding.

Society, no matter where we go, appears to be normal by any stretch of the imagination. It feels as though anywhere you go, you are running into blatant unhealthiness. People's perspective on marriage is broken, people's perspective on children is broken. Societies have lost their cohesion. We don't watch out for the most vulnerable in society. There's so much that's broken. We lose our minds and kick and scream over police officers killing black men at the tune of 19 per year, when by the time we end this day in this country, we will have murdered 1,800 black babies in the womb.

And that, by the way, is with a mechanical abortion. That's with going to the abortion doctor and having the doctor murder the baby. If you include chemical abortions, that number doubles. Do you understand? We are killing the tune of a million black babies a year in this country. 2.3%—it's no longer three—2.3% of the childbearing population in this country are black women, yet we are murdering 55%. 55% of the abortions that are taking place are black babies.

You want to know how we were able to achieve it? And I hate saying we, but do you want to know how this country got so comfortable with the culture of death? We started attacking marriage. And it was happening years and years ago. When the institution of marriage is successfully attacked, the consequences become death. If the institution of marriage was not under fire the way that it has been over the last couple hundred years, you would not be able to get away with drag queens in libraries. Abortion would become something that was inconsequential because it would never happen.

If the institution of marriage was something that was respected and understood and recognized with the spirit of the law that creates the boundaries for how marriages are supposed to be run, you would not have the level of exploitation that we are seeing day in and day out. You wouldn't have many of the property problems we're seeing. You wouldn't have the financial problems that we're seeing. You would not see sexual immorality happen the way that it's happening right now. You would not see the breakdown in every area of society, education. You would not see the insanity that is manifesting itself within every kind of context that you can imagine.

The problem with a passage like this is everybody spends so much time looking at the rule, which is something that the Pharisees wanted to focus on. But Jesus was saying, "No, there's a bigger picture here." And that's the area that as a spiritual leader you're not recognizing. And because you're making a major out of the minors, you are creating a problem that is so deeply consequential that it has a radically destructive effect on everything that is around you. When I sit down and I do premarital counseling—you can ask anybody that I've done it with—one of the things that I try to do with everything in me is break that couple up.

I go out of my way to make sure that they understand that they are called by God to do what they're going to do because one of the things that I say is when you enter into this relationship, this is it. There's no other chance. The only time you will face the possibility of marrying another spouse is if your spouse dies. And the reality of it is if your marriage is the way that God intended for it to be, you might very well have a difficult time actually remarrying after your spouse dies. Why? Because marriage was designed by God to be an institution that is permanent till death.

Marriage was designed by God to be something that was regarded as holy and regarded as uniquely important. Why? When marriage works, kids work. When marriage works, society works. When marriage works, family enterprises are built. When marriage works, academia doesn't steal the mind and the heart of children. When marriage works, the digital revolution, as they're calling it, doesn't have the kind of effect that it has. When marriage works, kids aren't being babysat with iPads.

When marriage works, you don't have an immense amount of children that are being victimized to being injected with every kind of medicine in the book. When marriage works, life works, societies work. And that's why the enemy goes out of his way to do everything that he can to destroy marriage. And Jesus gets confronted with a very difficult question by a group of men who are trying to entrap him. And the way that he answers the question is so remarkably genius that only somebody filled with the spirit and well-acquainted with the truth of God's word would completely and totally understand it.

Look, to the point where the passage that I just read to you was a reflection of a group of disciples who at the moment did not understand what Jesus was trying to get to. What the disciples did after they heard Jesus say what he said was go back to Jesus for clarity on the rule, but didn't even begin to understand how consequential the history lesson that Christ gave was. Look at what happens here. This is verse 1 of Mark chapter 10. "And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judea by the farther side of Jordan: and the people resort unto him again; as he was wont, he taught them again."

By the way, it's very interesting, this is the area of Judea. This would be what people call the West Bank, probably deeper into Jordan than most would know. So it's interesting being the fact that... anyway, I'm not going to get into the whole Palestinian nonsense, but I should probably always... every time I see Judea being spoken of, it always makes me think of that. But look what happens in verse 2. "The Pharisees came to him, and asked him, 'Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?' tempting him." So what are they doing? They're trying to entrap him. They want to know if it's okay to get a divorce, for a man to divorce his wife.

Here's the thing. If Jesus says it's not okay, if he just says, "No, it's not okay," then he puts on blast every single major teacher who were regarded as spiritual leaders in that culture and in essence degrades his credibility. If he says, "Yes, it's okay," then the people that saw Jesus as being different, who spoke outside the traditional thinking and taught with authority, wasn't who he is. Jesus, of course, in his brilliance because he is truly God, recognizes the mechanism of entrapment that they're seeking to utilize and ignores it altogether.

He sees an entrapping question being asked to him and he uses it as a launchpad to teach the people a very powerful lesson. I don't know about you, but when I see Jesus do things like this, I oftentimes ask the Lord to give me the kind of wisdom that it takes to be able to answer people this way. I love the fact that we live in a world filled with people that are trying to get you on a fact but don't understand the spirit that drives those facts.

And to understand how remarkably wise a person is when they ignore the temptation to defend their credibility based on what they know or don't know and take the time to explain the core of the issue that's actually being brought up. There's a big, big, big issue that goes hand in hand with that principle. I pray on a regular basis that God would give me the ability to be able to answer to the core issue as opposed to the fringe or to the issue that is widely regarded as the consequential technicality because what God has to say and the lesson that he's bringing is far more significant.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill. What you just heard is one part of a study in Mark’s Gospel from Pastor James Kaddis. You can hear it again at lightonthehillradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Not long ago, Pastor James released his new book on the first half of Revelation. It's entitled "The Last Book." He points out that Revelation isn't a book of fear but rather a book of hope. Pastor James will help you understand the world we live in and current events through a biblical lens, preparing your heart for what lies ahead. Get a copy by going to lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon.

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James Kaddis: Look what Jesus says. Verse 3, I love this. "And he answered and said unto them, 'What did Moses command you?'" Now that's a pretty, pretty hefty comment because he just turned the tables. By the way, there's a real biblical principle involved in this. It's something actually that I've learned in learning how to raise my children. And early on, from a very, very, very young age—as a matter of fact, when my children were at the youngest of ages where they could comprehend something—they will oftentimes come to me and ask me a question.

And when I know they're asking me a question that they know the answer to, my instant response to them will be, "What is the answer?" And then when they answer the question, my statement to them is, "You're not allowed to ask questions that you know the answer to. You're not allowed." It's not only a form of deception, but it is a pattern in which you will begin to step into to use what you're learning as a tool for manipulation instead of a very powerful mechanism for growth.

Jesus is doing something that's remarkable. Jesus is not answering the question because he knows that they know the answer. And as a matter of fact, their intimate knowledge of the technicalities that go with that answer is so deeply rooted within them that he turns the table by calling them on the carpet and asking them to answer the question. Now what they say is super, super interesting because there's a moment of clarity that comes with their answer and Jesus uses that as the launching pad to just take off.

Guest (Male): The rest of this message will be shared next time we meet for Light on the Hill, a daily presentation of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.