Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): This is Telling the Truth, the ministry of Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Today Charles Price is with us again as a guest speaker. He's speaking about divorce in today's message, teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. It's an encouraging message you'll want to hear, so stay with us.

Stuart Briscoe: Charles Price came into our lives as a young teenager in England. He was an outstanding young man with a great heart for God and a great desire to get into ministry, which is precisely what he did.

In addition to his Bible school leadership and his international preaching, he then became the senior pastor or the lead pastor of People's Church in Toronto, Canada. Now hope you will welcome him into your hearing opportunities and your meditation on God's word. Welcome, Charles Price.

Guest (Female): In their two-message series "Worry Less", Stuart and Jill Briscoe help you break free from worry and experience the joy and peace God wants for you. We'll send you a copy of this resource plus Jill's booklet "Me Worry?" as thanks for your gift today to help others experience life in Christ. So call today to request your copy of "Worry Less" and "Me Worry?" 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Here's Charles Price with today's message.

Charles Price: Let me read Matthew chapter 5 and verse 31. This is part of the Sermon on the Mount, which we are looking into at the moment, and it says: "It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

Now if you turn over to Matthew chapter 19, we have another occasion when Jesus addressed this subject with a little bit more detail. Matthew chapter 19 and verse 3: "Some Pharisees came to Jesus to test him. They asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?' 'Haven't you read,' he replied, 'that at the beginning the creator made them male and female and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh." So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.'"

"'Why then,' they asked, 'did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?' Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness and marries another woman commits adultery.' The disciples said to him, 'If this is a situation between a husband and a wife, it is better not to marry.'"

Now that's as far as I'm going to read. Keep a finger in Matthew 19 and a finger in Matthew chapter 5 because I want today to talk about this very difficult and painful subject of divorce. In addressing this whole subject of divorce, I hope that what I have to say will give you hope. I trust that if you're in a situation where marriage is a struggle for you, that you'll find hope. If you're in a divorce situation, you'll also find hope in what I have to share with you.

Matthew chapter 5, remember Jesus contrasts a series of ethical issues where he begins by saying, "You have heard that it was said," and then he either quotes the law of Moses or the way the Pharisees had interpreted the law of Moses. And having quoted that to them, he then says, "But I say unto you," and gives his own statement.

The difference is not that Jesus is revising or rewriting the law, but he's going to the very heart of it and dealing with the cause, not simply with the effect. So when he said, "You have heard it said you must not commit adultery," well, "you should not murder" was the first one. "You should not murder," that was the effect. But I say unto you if you're angry with your brother, deal with that because that is the cause.

When he said, "You have heard it said you must not commit adultery," that is the effect. I say to you if you look at a woman and lust after her, that is the cause; you're already guilty. One is external, one is internal. One is about activity, the other is about attitude. And the gospel is not first and foremost about changing our behavior and what we do. That is simply a fruit of the gospel, which is changing the heart.

As Jesus said in Matthew 15 and verse 19, "Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander." Many of those are covered in the Sermon on the Mount. If that's where they come from, how do you deal with them? You deal with them in the heart.

And that's why the teaching of Jesus is not just about what we do, it's about what we are, and that's where he is at work within our own lives and experience. Now we come to this very important yet very difficult issue of divorce. Divorce is a painful fact of life. Those who have experienced it know the pain of it most.

And there are many here this morning, without doubt, you know the pain of divorce either through your own experience of divorce or because in your own family you have experienced that. And if you are a child of a couple that had divorced, you will know the pain of that. When my wife Hilary was 18, her parents divorced and the pain of that is still with her and probably will be throughout her life.

Now the reality is that many marriages have become a place of torment, not a place of fulfillment, enjoy, and protection and peace. And I want to talk not just academically or doctrinally. I want to talk pastorally. We must understand what Jesus teaches and then the wider context of what scripture teaches, and in so doing, I know we're opening some pains and wounds. It is deeply personal for many of us.

It used to be that divorce was very rarely found in Christian evangelical circles. To our shame, that is no longer true. The divorce rates amongst Christians are apparently very similar to those in the world at large. George Barna, who is a well-known researcher, has written that we rarely find substantial differences between the moral behavior of Christians and of non-Christians.

We would love to be able to report that Christians are living very distinct lives and impacting their community because of that. But in the area of divorce rates, they continue to be roughly the same as the world. The church no longer has the moral authority to speak about marriage and divorce in our world with any credibility at all.

We have bought into the myth that marriage is a convenience. You can opt in and when it's tough or rough or you've got better options, you can opt out. In fact, it seems to me that many Christians, and I'm talking about Christians, have evidently rejected biblical teaching about love, about sex, about marriage, and about divorce. Rejected it. Don't want it. And choose to live differently and of course reap the consequences in the process.

Now when the Pharisees asked Jesus about divorce in Matthew 19, his answer to them was not to answer the question about divorce, but to talk about marriage. And therefore I want to do it that way because if we're going to understand divorce, we must understand it in the context of understanding what marriage is and why divorce is an aberration of that.

So I have three points I want to talk about. First of all, I want to talk about the fact that marriage is a commitment. Now of course we could spend a lot of time just talking about this and there are many things I have to leave unsaid. But the starting point in marriage is not that it is a convenience but that it is a commitment.

Here is God's first word on the subject in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24. He said a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh. That is they become united, they become committed. Marriage is not a mixture of physical desire plus vague sentimentality plus social security like a provisional sexual union that can be terminated when the love dissolves or grows stale or you simply want to move on. It is a lifelong commitment.

Guest (Male): This is Telling the Truth and today guest speaker Charles Price is sharing from the Sermon on the Mount to give you biblical insight about Christians and divorce. Stay here, he'll be right back. Anxiety, fear, and worry can keep you in a painful state of uneasiness and limit you from truly experiencing the incredible joy and peace God wants you to have.

We want to help you break free from worry and embrace God's abiding peace with Stuart and Jill Briscoe's encouraging two-message series "Worry Less". This powerful series shines a critical light on the root cause of worry and gives you practical guidance on how to rule your anxieties instead of having them rule you. It's fresh encouragement straight from God's word to help you overcome the stresses of life whatever they may be, so you can start living with more joy.

We'll send you the "Worry Less" series as well as Jill's booklet "Me Worry?" as our thanks for your gift today to help you share the healing truth of God's love with people around the world through the resources and teaching of Telling the Truth. So call today to request your copy of these resources when you give. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org.

Guest (Male): Use your phone to make a spiritual connection with the free Telling the Truth mobile app. Listen to daily programs, read and comment on devotions and relevant study plans, and share your thoughts and prayers on the community wall. Get the Telling the Truth app through your app store today. And remember you can give to support Telling the Truth right on our mobile app. Here's Charles Price once again.

Charles Price: Now that is lost in the world at large. They say it's your right that you're free to. Marriages are disposable like the paper cups you pick up at McDonald's and Tim Hortons and throw away when your coffee is drunk. In scripture it's very different. In scripture, and I have chosen my words carefully here, love and marriage are for the tough-minded, not for the sentimental.

It's where husband and wife commit themselves to their relationship where they work away at it, loving and caring for each other, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health until death separates them. Not a convenience for better, for riches, for health until something else comes along and if it's tough, well, back out.

And all marriages have their struggles. Don't kid yourself, all marriages have their struggles. All couples have to work on building a good marriage. We've bought into this Hollywood myth of glamour and eternal youthfulness and always looking good. That isn't true. And if that's your idea, children will get in the way. So will the fact that your spouse has ideas of their own.

Marriage is a determined commitment to seek each other's good, to cherish one another, to shelter one another, to protect one another, to nurture one another, to look after one another, to edify one another, to be patient with one another, to love one another. It's about the nurture and security of children. They aren't just a nice appendage, "Oh isn't this wonderful we've had a little baby isn't he cute?"

This is a huge commitment to an extremely vulnerable human being. And it's providing a safe environment where the children believe that it's permanent and secure. When Jesus said in Matthew 19 they are no longer two, but one, therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate, he is saying this is a divine ordinance.

And by the way when it says that whom God has joined together don't let anyone separate, please don't come up with the excuse somebody came to me with this morning: "God didn't join us together. We made a mistake, we joined ourselves together." No, that's not what it's talking about. The marriage itself is God's ordination and if you choose to marry somebody, you are joined together before God, by God. He instituted marriage.

It's a divine ordinance, it's not a convenience. And when Jesus said this, the disciples responded in Matthew 19:10 by saying, "If this is the situation between a husband and a wife, it is better not to marry." They were saying, "Wow, if it's that final, if it's that level of commitment, it's better not to marry."

And Jesus said, "You're right, and if you can get hold of that, get hold of that. And if you're not prepared for that, don't marry." If this is a trial run we'll see if it works, if it doesn't we'll put it down to bad experience but we'll move on. That is not marriage in scripture. And because God's will and purpose is the permanence of marriage, then divorce is not the will of God.

In fact God states unambiguously in the book of Malachi, "I hate divorce." And of course so do most of us, especially if you've been part of it. You probably hate it more than anybody because you know it is a breaking of something designed to be very precious and designed to be permanent. So that's my first point and there's lots more that could and should be said about all of that, but marriage is a commitment.

Now against that background, the second point I want to make is that divorce is a concession. That is that Jesus concedes that divorce does take place. Now in verse 31 of Matthew 5, he said, "It has been said, anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce." Where that had been said was by Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 24. And I'm going to read you, if you'd like to turn to Deuteronomy 24, because this is an important statement by Moses about divorce.

Where it says Deuteronomy 24 verse 1: "If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him," that's a very ambiguous phrase we'll come back to that in a few minutes, "because he finds something indecent about her," also ambiguous, "and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house."

"And if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband who divorced her is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord."

So the whole statement there is if a man divorces his wife and she marries somebody else and then he dies or that marriage breaks up, she must not come back to the first husband. You do not treat marriage in that kind of lightweight way where you come in and you come out. You're not playing around. This is serious business. If you're out, you are out. Close the door. That's what Moses is saying there.

Now that's not the debatable point. The debatable point is, or the point of discussion with Jesus was, what is this "something indecent" quote-unquote that enables the husband to give a certificate of divorce to his wife? Well of course the different rabbinic schools tried to interpret this in the best way they knew, and there were two major rabbinic schools: the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel.

They were a generation or so before Jesus but they are still highly regarded today by Jewish people. And the school of Shammai interpreted the phrase "something indecent about her" as meaning that when the husband married his wife, he understood that she was a virgin. But then he discovered that she was not. And you can read in Deuteronomy 22 how he might make that discovery and what kind of evidence needs to be produced for or against that fact.

And therefore Shammai taught that this was divorce on the ground of an illicit sexual relationship before the marriage. Some who were in the school of Shammai extended that to extramarital sexual relationships, i.e., adultery that may have taken place after the marriage as well. That was the school of Shammai, they interpreted this very narrowly in that way.

Guest (Female): Charles Price with a teaching on divorce today on Telling the Truth. He'll be back in a minute to wrap things up. But first, life is full of stressful situations, so it's no surprise that so many of us these days struggle with things like anxiety, fear, and worry.

That's why Stuart and Jill Briscoe created their two-message series "Worry Less" to help you take hold of the peace and joy God intends for your life. It's our thanks for your gift of support today. These encouraging messages uncover the root cause of worry and give you practical guidance straight from God's word on how to overcome worry so that it doesn't overwhelm you.

Plus when you give today, we'll also include Jill's booklet "Me Worry?" as an extra thank you. Generous friends like you keep broadcasts like this one going, reaching others with God's healing love so they can experience God's peace and the joy of life in Christ. So if you haven't given before, consider a gift today to help keep God's word going out around the world to you and many others.

And remember to request your copy of "Worry Less" and "Me Worry?" when you call and give. Just call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Here's Charles Price with some final thoughts today.

Charles Price: The school of Hillel interpreted this same phrase "something indecent about her" in the broadest possible way. If a man finds anything he considers offensive, that would be sufficient. Hillel himself actually cited, and I quote, "If she burned the toast." I didn't realize they had toast in those days, but they apparently did, and if she burned it, this was a good... presumably repeatedly if she burned his breakfast.

If she nagged him, if she committed the crime of getting old, if she lost her looks, if he met a nicer one, all these were as loose as that. One rabbi wrote, "If she ceased to find favor in his sight." Well that is as broad and as ambiguous as you can imagine. Now for those who held this view, which were many, many of the Jewish people, marriage had become treated very lightly.

You may have noticed by the way it's all about husbands divorcing wives, which was true under Jewish law. A wife could not divorce her husband. The reason being that the husband was supposed to protect his wife. She was supposed to be protected by him, not in need of the law in her own case.

So when Matthew writes this, writing to Jews as he was, he just cites that. Mark's gospel, written to Gentiles, cites Roman law which permits a woman to divorce her husband. But in this instance it speaks from the man's perspective of divorcing his wife. And we need to think very carefully about this because what they were saying basically is whatever the grounds are for divorcing your wife, give her a certificate, do it legally, do it tidily, make it final.

Now before I come back to that, let me talk a bit about this clause "marital unfaithfulness" that is used here by Jesus in Matthew 5, where he says, "Anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness." The word used here is not the word for adultery, it is the word "porneia".

It's the word from which we get our English word "pornography" and normally it refers to fornication, that is a word for premarital sexual relations, which is partly how Shammai interpreted Moses in that kind of way. The word for adultery is a different word, and in fact when he says, "Anyone who marries a divorced woman causes her to commit adultery," he uses the different word for adultery.

Guest (Female): Thanks, Charles. Before we go, just a reminder that when you give to support Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one, we'll send you the Briscoes' two-message series "Worry Less" and Jill's booklet "Me Worry?"

These encouraging resources will help you start to worry less and live with more joy. So please request your resources when you call and give at 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. We're glad you've chosen to listen to Telling the Truth today. Come back next time for more encouragement to help you experience life.