I invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verses 1 to 12. And as we read this text of Scripture, you'll think that we chose this text because it's Valentine's Day weekend, when you see what it's about. So, I want you to turn there with me. We didn't choose it because it's Valentine's Day weekend. It's just the next text in the Gospel of Mark that just happens to be on Valentine's Day weekend. And if you don't have a copy of the Bible, there's a handout in your bulletin where we've printed out the text for you so you can read along with us. I don't know what you did for Valentine's Day yesterday, but have you heard somebody say, “my forever Valentine”? Have you heard that phrase, right? Maybe some of you have used that phrase. Usually, it's used by married people saying you're going to be my valentine for the rest of our life, but just the fact that we need to say “forever Valentine” kind of gives a commentary on where Valentine's Day is at these days. And a lot of people probably just spent Valentine's Day with someone they will not be spending future Valentine's Days with. In fact, our passage is all about divorce and adultery. So Happy Valentine's Day everybody.
And I want to invite you, as we read the Scripture, to stand up for the public reading of God's Word. And I encourage you to give this your full and undivided attention. No-Fault Divorce and adultery have become very common in the United States of America, the state of California. We should all pay careful attention to what Jesus has to say to us here today. This is Mark, chapter 10. Please follow along as I read, starting in verse 1.
And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them. And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
That's the reading of God's Word. Please go ahead, grab your seat, and if you’ve got that handout, I would love for you to take some notes as we go through this passage together. And the key word of this passage is that word for “divorce”. That is the question that the Pharisees asked. So if you've got the handout, just underline the word “divorce” there in verse 2, and then you can see later on, in the house with his disciples, Jesus clarifies even more about divorce in verses 11 and 12, if you could underline the word “divorce” there in 11 and 12, so they ask a question, and it's going to lead to Jesus teaching his disciples. But in verse 4, where it says, “send her away,” a certificate of divorce, underline, “send her away,” because that's what divorce really means. The husband sending his wife away. That is also that same word there in verse 4.
And so, what the Pharisees are presenting to Jesus is that it's okay for a man to get a certificate of divorce and send his wife away. It's okay even going back to the Law of Moses. Now let's start in verse 1, and let's work our way through this. We need to see that between Chapter Nine of Mark and chapter 10, we've left Capernaum up there by Galilee in the north, and we've come down to Judea in the South. In fact, now we're beyond the Jordan River. So, we have a map here we'd love to throw up on the screen, and that red area, Perea, is where we are right now. So, we're down towards the south in Judea, but then we're beyond the Jordan, and so it was a region known as Perea.
We're back now to where John the Baptist was baptizing people in the Jordan River and people were coming all the way out from Jerusalem. Remember, Jerusalem is the capital city. Jerusalem is the headquarters for the Jews. But they were coming out from Jerusalem to see John the Baptist out there in the wilderness by the Jordan River. Well, now the crowds are finding Jesus out there. And where the crowds go, the Pharisees go. And you have to understand when they ask this question. Look at verse 2 here. Notice how it says that “the Pharisees came up in order to test him.” So, Jesus is doing what is his custom. I love how it says that at the end of verse 1, Jesus is teaching the crowds. If Jesus, if he gets a crowd of people, he's going to start teaching them. If it's the Sabbath and people are going to the synagogue, he's going to open up the Scriptures and start teaching. That's his custom.
Well, you’ve got to see that the Pharisees came up in order to, what does it say there, everybody? In “order to” what? To “test him.” This is not a legitimate question. They're not really trying to figure out what they should think about divorce. They're not really trying to get a good answer from Jesus that will give them wisdom about their life or how to talk to other people. This whole question is smoke screen. They're trying to get Jesus in trouble. They're trying to create controversy. Right now, the crowd is for Jesus, and they want to turn the crowd back to them. This question comes out of jealousy, envy, and even is an attempt to destroy. Hey, I know something we could bring up with Jesus that'll get him in trouble. Hey, Jesus, what do you think about divorce? Now, if you read the commentaries, they're going to describe how different rabbis among the Jewish people at this time, they had different thoughts about divorce. And so, this rabbi would teach this, and this rabbi would teach that. So, it was divisive. If you went with this rabbi, you would upset these people. If you went with this rabbi, you would upset these people. And so, if you read the commentaries they're going to say, hey, this is they're just trying to bring him into the controversy of the religious leaders of the Jews. Well, I can tell you, as someone who's never been following the Jewish rabbis, divorce is plenty enough controversial without knowing what any Rabbi thinks about it.
I can tell you right now that this will not be some people's favorite sermon that they ever hear at this church. In fact, this might be some people's last sermon they ever hear at this church. All right, that says how it went last year. We had this idea on Valentine's Day weekend. Let's talk about what Jesus says about divorce from Matthew 19. Yeah, that didn't go very well, right? And now, by the sovereign grace of our Almighty God, here we are the very next Valentine's Day weekend.
Alright, divorce is a controversial subject. You're talking about a lot of people's families. You're talking about a lot of people's experiences. You're talking about people who have different thoughts about it. Hey, if we can get Jesus talking about divorce, people won't like what he says. Hey, Jesus, is it okay? Is it lawful to get divorced? We've got him now. This is a trap. And you need to see how Jesus responds. In fact, it's interesting to note the difference between how Jesus responds in front of the crowd and then what he teaches his disciples in the privacy of this house that they're in by the end of our text. So, you’ve got to see they are looking to stir up trouble. They're testing him. Go back to chapter 8, verse 11, and notice how they have already tested him in chapter 8, verse 11 of the gospel of Mark.
We haven't talked about the Pharisees for a minute. So, I want to remind everybody that they “came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.” Hey, if you're really who you say you are, who the people say you are, prove it to us. Give us a sign. Give us a miracle. And they're saying this in chapter 8. How many miracles has Jesus already done at this point? How many people has he healed? How many demons has he cast out? How many times has he taught the crowd great and profound things like they've never heard before in their lives, and now they're like, you need to prove it to us. Give us a sign, and they're testing him. They have no desire to really follow Jesus. They want to get Jesus in trouble. In fact, they're just following the game plan that was laid out all the way back in chapter 1.
Go back to chapter 1 of Mark and we'll see the original testing that happened here with Jesus. It happened out there in the wilderness. If you look at Mark 1, verse 13, it says, “he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by” who, everyone? Satan. And it's the same word there, here. It's translated, “tempted”; you could translate it “tested.” it's the same Greek word. Yeah. And some of you might even know that when Satan is testing Jesus, when he's tempting Jesus, it doesn't say this in Mark, but you might know it from Matthew. You might know it from Luke. What did Satan use? Or we could say, what did Satan abuse? What did Satan twist when he's testing Jesus? Does anybody know what it was? The Scripture. He uses the Scripture itself to try to get Jesus to fail his test. And so, the Pharisees, although they would deny it, they're just following in the way of their true leader, who is Satan himself. And they're going to use Scripture, even the idea of the law, and they're going to try to twist it to get the answer that they want, and to stump Jesus, to get Jesus in trouble with the crowd.
Okay, so now let's go back to Mark 10, now that we have been reminded of their evil motives and that this whole thing is a setup from the beginning. Look how Jesus responds. And verse 3, what does Jesus go right to what does Jesus use as the source of authority to answer the questions of life? He says, “What did Moses command you? Why are you asking me if it's lawful for divorce? Don't you know what is said in the Law of Moses?” In Matthew 19, a similar account. He says, “Have you not,” what have you not read, like, why are you guys asking me a question that God already wrote down the answer once and for all. And so, Jesus immediately brings up, well, what did Moses say about it? And then here's their answer, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”
I mean, if you just read that, it almost sounds like they just said, Moses, he's cool with divorce. He said, you just write a certificate and then you just send your wife away, yeah, Moses, he was for it. He was with it, yeah. I mean, that is such a twisting of what Moses actually said. That is a flat out lie, that is a complete misrepresentation of Moses. And here's what I want to make sure for you, because this happened to me. I grew up going to church, and I did this terrible thing, but I didn't know any better at the time. I thought, if the Pharisees said, that’s what Moses said, well, the Pharisees must have been right, because the Pharisees are teachers of the law, and so I thought it must have been okay to get divorced in the Law of Moses. And what we have today is this bifurcation of the Bible where we've kind of split the Bible into two parts. And a lot of us, we only know the new part, and we don't know the old part, the Hebrew Scriptures. Because if you were fluent in the language of Deuteronomy, the second telling of the law by Moses, you would understand how strictly against divorce Moses really is, and you would realize that they have completely twisted and reinterpreted Moses.
And then look at what Jesus says to them in verse 5. “Jesus said to them, ‘because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.’” Jesus goes and says, Yeah, you guys are trying to say something about Moses, but really the issue is your hardness of heart. That's why Moses had to say what he said. And so, they're trying to act like the issue is God's law, but Jesus is saying the issue is their heart. And what Jesus actually does as they're misrepresenting Deuteronomy is when he uses this phrase, “hardness of heart,” he quotes a word from Deuteronomy that is used in the Greek translation of Deuteronomy. He quotes Deuteronomy back to them. So, what might go over our heads is they're having a Deuteronomy conversation here. Okay, so I need everybody to grab your Bible and turn back with me to Deuteronomy 24. And if everybody, if you've got a Bible, let's go back to the original source material, and let's see what the Pharisees are misrepresenting. And then let's see what Jesus is referring to when Jesus says, “the hardness of your heart.” So, I hope that everybody can turn with me.
I don't know when the last time you darkened the door of Deuteronomy was, but hey, what did you do on Valentine's Day weekend? I studied Deuteronomy at my church. That's what I did. Turn there with me right now, Deuteronomy 24, and let's get this down for point number one: What Jesus is saying is that “The problem is not with God's law, but our hearts.” The problem is not like it's hard to understand what God was saying about divorce. But the problem is, our hearts want a different answer about divorce. That's the issue. It's not the clarity of God's Word. The issue is that we are not being cut to the heart by God's Word. Our hearts want evil things. Our hearts want their own way, their own desires. And so, the part about the certificate of divorce is here in Deuteronomy 24. And so you can see it says in Deuteronomy 24, verse 1, “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house.” So you can see, is there a certificate of divorce? Yes. Does the husband send her away? Yes. So, do they quote things that are in Deuteronomy 24, verse 1? Yes, they do. They just leave out this little important part right here where it says, “because he has found some indecency.” And that word, that Hebrew word for “indecency,” if you look that word up in the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures, it is often translated, “nakedness,” yeah, the reason he's divorcing his wife and sending her away is he has found out that she has been with someone else besides him. That's the reason there would be divorce, because there's already been adultery, there's already been some sexual immorality outside of the marriage. That's why there's a certificate in sending away. Oh, we just happened to leave the indecency part out when we brought it up to Jesus.
See, now, adultery is something that even the Pharisees would have known was very serious. Maybe you can remember when Jesus says to the Pharisees, you say, I haven't committed adultery. And then what does Jesus say? But even if a man looks with lustful intent, he's already committed adultery in his heart. So, they would have still had some kind of line at adultery, but they're trying to act like divorce is okay. Well, no divorce. The whole reason there was divorce here in Deuteronomy 24 was because there was indecency, because there was adultery. And go back to Deuteronomy 22 and there's all kinds of laws here about adultery, and they took adultery way more seriously than we do now in the state of California. Look at Deuteronomy 22:22. There are a whole lot of laws you could read here in Deuteronomy 22, but let's just get straight to the summary, Deuteronomy 22:22. “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall” what everyone? Die. Did you ever think adultery would equal the death penalty? That's how it was originally put into the law of Moses. And so, “if a man is found with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.” And so really, what the man could be doing if he found out his wife was committing adultery is he could be raising the alarm that a crime has been committed that would deserve the death penalty. But instead, the man could just get a certificate of divorce, and he could send her away without doing that. That's what Deuteronomy 24 is saying. In fact, who is a man that you might have read about in the Bible that thought perhaps his wife had become pregnant and he desired to put her away secretly. Does anybody know who I'm talking about? What's his name? Joseph. And he was going to do that with Mary, until an angel came and told him that Mary was great with child, with the Son of God, Jesus Himself? And so, he didn't put Mary away quietly, because he found out there had been no indecency, but it was a work of God.
And so, this kind of indecency could have deserved the death penalty, but no, there was a way that you could just send your wife away without her being put to death. Do you see how the way the Pharisees are acting like, is it okay to get divorced? You can just get a certificate, you can send your wife away. It's completely missing what was the real issue in Deuteronomy, it's a total misrepresentation. People want to find a way to do divorce without going through God's law, God's way. And the Pharisees are actually promoting divorce, trying to get Jesus to shut it down, because they know, if you speak against divorce, people won't like it, and they'll come after you. And so, Jesus is like, oh, you guys want to go to Deuteronomy. Well, how about the hardness of your heart? And he's referring to that. Go back to chapter 10, verse 16, maybe you know the main verse of Deuteronomy, which is the greatest commandment, to love the Lord your God with all your heart. So, Deuteronomy really gets into your heart, where you fear God, where you love God, and everything that you do to obey God all comes from your heart. So, get God's Word on your heart. Teach it to your children. Walk out God's Word in your life, because if it's in your heart, then you'll love God, and then you'll live for God.
And so, the issue is not with the things God has said. And sometimes it can be hard for us to understand books like Deuteronomy, because It's an ancient writing about a long-ago culture and a foreign language. It can be hard for us to totally relate to it, but the issue is not with God's Law. The issue is with our heart. Look what he quotes, Deuteronomy, 10, verse 16. It says, “Circumcise, therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer” what? Stubborn. The problem is you are hard-hearted. The problem is, what's going on inside of you? Circumcision was the symbol of being a Jew for the men, and he says, Yeah, you can't just be one of God's people on the outside, it's got to happen on the inside. There has to be a change in your heart. You have a hard heart, and you need a new heart. And Deuteronomy is starting to set up this idea that the Prophets will continue, that God is going to take out a heart of stone and he's going to put in this new heart and his Spirit. That's what people really need. And so, he says, Yeah, you guys are looking for a way to do divorce, because the issue is your heart.
And so, I want everybody here to see the conversation that just really happened from Deuteronomy and how they misrepresented it. And then Jesus got to the real issue, which isn't what God says about divorce, it's about what's going on inside of you. Now go back to Mark 10, now that we kind of understand the exchange here. And let me just make it very clear to everybody who's here today, it's great to see so many of you here this morning, on a Sunday morning, to worship the Lord and hear from his Word. Let's just make it very clear that you're going to hear somebody say, Jesus didn't say anything about fill in the blank, whatever the hot issue of the day is. Jesus didn't say anything about homosexuality. Jesus didn't say anything about transgenderism, or whatever the issue is that's going on. Well, Jesus didn't say anything about that. Notice how Jesus is quoting the law of Moses. Okay, so this whole idea that Jesus had to specifically say it, Jesus is saying, “Have you not read?” Have you not heard? What did Moses say? What did the prophets say? Jesus is acting like all the Hebrew Scripture that came before him, he's saying, “I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill the law.”
Jesus isn't thinking that he needs to re say all the things that have already been said. No. When people come and challenge him, he's like, why are you asking me? Don't you already know what Moses wrote? Don't you already know the Law? So, this idea, well, I never heard Jesus say it. Jesus is standing on the foundation of Moses and the Prophets, and he's expecting people to know what God has already said. So, you can't separate scripture like that. You can't act like what Jesus said is really important, and what other writers of the Bible said is of lesser importance. That's not how Jesus talked about Scripture himself. Jesus acted like you should already know this, because you should listen to Moses. You should listen to the Prophets. They will teach you God's way. In fact, notice what Jesus does. Now here in verse 6, he says, “But from the beginning of creation,” you guys want to talk about divorce, we should really go back to marriage. We should really go back to the foundation of God's love plan for man. And so, notice the quotes there. Halfway through verse 6, “’God made them male and female.’” He quotes something there, and then notice new quotes there. In Verse 7, “’Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” And then the quotes end. So, he quotes one scripture in verse 6, he quotes another scripture in verse 7 into verse 8, and then after the quotes in verse 8, he gives his own commentary, “so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together? Let not man separate.”
So, Jesus says, hey, before we just jump into your hard-hearted question about divorce, what's God's plan from the beginning? Let's go back and let's see how God made them male and female, and how the man is going to leave his father and mother, and he's going to hold fast to his wife and the two. This is the amazing thing about marriage. This is what's so awesome about God's design, is that two people actually become one flesh, and this work that God does to join them together. Jesus is now quoting Genesis 2:24, the most quoted verse in all of Scripture about marriage is Genesis, 2:24, so let's go back to the very beginning. Everybody, grab your Bible, and let's go back and let's remember this is before the fall into sin. This is before the curse. This is before it gets all messed up, when God is creating the world at the end of all the days of his creation, God looks at what he made, and God said that it was good. But on the sixth day when God creates Adam, which is the Hebrew word for man, Adam, we know him as when he makes Adam, then God says, something is not good. “It is not good for the man to be alone.” And so what does he do? He creates woman. And at the end of there being Adam and Eve, he says, in Genesis 2, and you can see the poetic way that the Adam describes her as “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,” she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And then here's the statement. This has always been God's plan from the beginning, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother.” Can we notice that the parents are one male and one female, and the man is going to now leave growing up in the house of his father and mother, and he's going to be joined together, he's going to cleave to his wife, and they are going to become one flesh.
That has always been God's plan. So, people are like, well, God doesn't say anything about this. No, actually, from the very beginning of creation, there was a clear plan that God had, you had a father and a mother, and then the man one went to be with the woman, and they became one flesh, so that possibly they could even become the father and the mother, and it could continue. Go back to chapter 1 and look how it puts it here in chapter 1, verse 26 of Genesis, when God said, “Let us make man in our image.” So, here's the Father and the Son and the Spirit. And they're saying we're going to make man to have in a spirit, a soul and a spiritual being is what we're going to make man to be. And so, they let us make man in our own image. And then it says in verse 27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them, and God blessed them” because they're both mature. When they are created, they have an appearance of time and age that never took place. Adam is a fully grown man. Eve. She's a woman, and he says to them, as he blesses them, God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.” And then it talks about the fish and the birds and the animals. But clearly, the idea of being fruitful and multiplying and filling the Earth is about this husband and this wife, the original marriage, having children, and through their children, populating our planet. This has always been God's plan, and so Jesus, he quotes these sources as authoritative.
Jesus is not embarrassed about Genesis. Jesus quotes Genesis like everybody's supposed to know Genesis, like, Genesis reveals God's design for your life. Genesis reveals God's love plan for mankind. Hey, you leave your parents’ house, you get joined to your spouse, and you live as one, and through that, God might bless you with your own children, your own family. And so, Jesus is saying, that's what God did. And if God joined them together, let no man separate what God joined together. So, if you are married, and praise God, we've got some brand, brand new married people here. And praise God, we've got some people married for over sixty years. Can we give them a round of applause one more time here this morning? We are supportive of everybody's marriage here at the church. And if you are married, here's something you need to know is that God, I don't know who officiated your wedding, who was there as your witnesses, maybe your best man or your maid of honor, but it was actually God that joined you together. God didn't just make marriage back in the beginning, in Genesis. No, Jesus is saying something so profound.
Let's go to Mark chapter 10 again, and let's look at his commentary on Genesis 1 and 2 that he refers to. He is saying “What therefore God has joined together.” He's saying God didn't just like invent marriage and then let it go, and we'll see how it works. That's not what he's saying. He's saying whoever God has joined together, as in every single couple that gets married before God, God is the witness of their covenant, and God has is the one who joins them together as one to be companions that you your marriage is something unique in your life, because it's something that God did when he made two people in his math where one plus one somehow equals one, that's something God did in you, and you should give God glory for what he did in that marriage. And if God has joined something together, who are we to undo what God did? Who are we to unmake what God made? No. If God joined you together, let no man separate. Now this word “separate,” this is so important that you understand what it means here. It's a very similar word to the idea of divorce. And if God has married you, you should not come up with the idea that you can divorce or separate. What God has married you're going against God. See, this is why we really need to talk about this. Because your marriage is not just between you and your spouse. Your marriage is before God, and God has authority over your life, over your marriage.
And so, this is what I see happen. It happens almost every year here at the church, if not even multiple times a year where somebody here at our church, somebody that seemed to me like my brother or sister in Christ, somebody that was a beloved member of our church family. They start to think a certain way about their marriage, where their marriage starts to feel insufferable, their marriage starts to feel like a trap. And they start to think, I don't know how much longer I can do this. This is feeling very suffocating to me. This isn't feeling good to me. And so, they start to think maybe I don't want to continue in my marriage. And so, they're looking for a way. And I've seen this happen time and time again here at this church with people that I would have never seen this coming. But now they're trying to figure out, how can I be right with God and send my spouse away? They're starting to think the way of the Pharisee. They're starting to think, well, this can't be good, and because this isn't good, I don't think I should keep doing this. And because my spouse is like this, I don't think I should have to keep enduring that. And they start to look for ways to divorce. And here's the thing, they want to separate what God has joined together. And they get so focused, you can get into a tunnel vision where you see some problem with your spouse, but what you lose perspective on is what God has to say about it.
And so, I need to say this to our church, because I don't know who might start thinking, Man, this is so difficult, so challenging to be in this marriage, that you start to let your thoughts linger on going out the back door. Now, I don't want to minimize or deny how challenging many marriages might be, but when you start thinking it could be better to avoid this conflict, if I just wasn't in this relationship, I want to encourage you don't let your thoughts linger on that, because you start thinking that's what I should do, and then you find other people who validate that kind of thinking. And you it's very easy to start vilifying your spouse as the reason. And then there, we're not talking about when they commit adultery, we're not talking about when they leave you. We're talking about when you start looking for a reason to get divorce. And Jesus is saying, If God has joined it together, who are you to separate it? Don't let your thoughts go down that path.
Now go to 1 Corinthians 7, where it uses this word, “separate”. I want to try to show everybody what Jesus means when he says, “What God has joined together, let no man separate,” because God has taken two and made them to be one. Now God has put us together in a complementary way as husband and wife; that is not meant to be undone. And so, in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 10, he gets to this idea, it says to the married, “I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband.” Okay? And then there's this part, if you do, “if she does, she should remain unmarried and or be reconciled to her husband.” If you do, separate from your spouse, don't go be with somebody else. Then you’ve got to remain unmarried, or eventually you should try to get back together with your spouse. But the first thing was, don't do it. Don't separate. And then it says the same thing in verse 11, “the husband should not divorce his wife.” So, notice here this word separation is used kind of as a synonym to divorce. Hey, hey, I want to just say this to those who are married. You might think, oh, this is so hard. It might be easier. The grass might be greener, wouldn't it? Could it possibly be better to get out of this? Okay? Well, that thought might come to your mind, but according to the scripture, don't let your mind go down that path. Don't keep thinking about that. No, don't. Don't separate you. Don't. Don't let those thoughts dwell. Don't go find the people who will reaffirm that feeling or that opinion. Don't keep pointing out all the things that make your marriage difficult or that are hard to interact with your spouse about no to the married I give this charge, and it's not from me, it's from the Lord. The wife should not separate from her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. That's God's will. That's God's plan. What's the answer to the Pharisees’ question? No, God doesn't want his people to get divorced. That's never been God's design for marriage, that they would be married for some time, and then it would end and it now in verse 15, it does say, “but if the unbelieving partner separates,” if the other person, if they're not a believer, if they're not a Christian, and they don't want to be married to a Christian, well then it says, Let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.
Now, if you flip your hand out over, you'll see we've got some recommended sermons on the back because we've talked about this issue before. One of them, you'll notice, was last Valentine's Day weekend, Jesus in defense of marriage. And in that sermon, we went over the times where you might end up divorced, but you did not do the separating; you did not do the sin. And we talked about times when the spouse commits adultery, or maybe where this spouse does separate from you. So, if you want to hear more about that, you should go listen to that sermon. In fact, it's important for me to say that there are many brothers and sisters here at our church who are divorced, but they did not sin in that divorce. In fact, that divorce is still a very heavy thing for them, because maybe their spouse did separate from them, or their spouse did commit adultery, and so that is a pain in their life, and they need to hear from us, their brothers and sisters encouragement, and we need to lift them up, because that's a hard thing for them to be divorced by their spouse. And so, we need to pray for those brothers and sisters, and we talk about that in that previous sermon. But what I want you to see here is that this separation is not what God wants you to do, and it's just not the way that God is himself.
Go with me to Romans, chapter 8, and this is the other sermon that's listed there. Jesus doesn't do divorce there in Romans 8:35-39. go look at this text here at the end of Romans 8. This is an amazing text of Scripture, a very encouraging and assuring promise from our God. And maybe you're familiar with Romans 8, and all of the encouraging passages here that nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. And now here's what you need to see, is that the word here for “nothing can separate us,” you can see it there in verse 35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Well, when you know that that it's that same Greek word that Jesus uses in Mark 10, what God has joined together, let no man separate. Or in 1 Corinthians 7, when it's telling the husband or the wife, don't separate from your spouse. That's the same word used here. And doesn't that make so much sense? Because Jesus, He is the Savior, and we the church. We are often referred to as the bride of Christ, and that he initiated love with us. Jesus chose to love us, not based on our love for him. No, he chose to love us even when we were still dead in our sin, even when we were ungodly, even when we were enemies of God. God loved us. He sent his Son Jesus, and Jesus chose to lay down his life to die for your sin.
See, this is how husbands are commanded to love your wives as Christ loved the church. And so, let me ask all the husbands here, who can separate us from the love of Christ? The answer, as we'll see, is nothing is ever able to separate us from the love of Christ. So that's the way we're supposed to then love in our marriage, an inseparable kind of love, a love that cannot be divided. This is the example of love that we are to follow. This is the love that we have received ourselves in our own salvation. Is anybody here on Valentine's Day weekend thankful that Jesus loved you enough to die for your sins? No greater love than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. That's what Jesus did. And now that you know Jesus died for you, now that you know he paid for your sins, is there anything that can separate you from the love of Jesus? Read this passage with me. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It's almost like it's almost like those are vows. When you think about it, remember the vows from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, and sickness and in health till death do us part. But see, even that has limits, like the fact that we're going to die, this has no limits. I mean, look, it goes through a list of all the bad things that can happen to you, won't separate you from the love of Jesus. Then it starts bringing up, like spiritual things like angels or demons, can't separate you from the love of Jesus. Then it starts saying things happening right now or even the future, can't separate you from the love of Jesus. Anything high in the heavens, anything down in the depths of hell, there is nothing able to separate you from the love of Jesus.
Jesus doesn't do divorce. He loves his people all the way to the end. And so, let's get this down for point number two: “God's plan for Love has no separation.” God's plan for Love has no separation, that that's not what God has done for us. That's not what God is commanding us to do in our marriages. There’s no plan for separation. God's not going to separate from you with his love for you. Why would you then separate husbands from the one that you are there to love? And just like we are all the Bride of Christ, and we submit to Jesus as our Savior and our Lord, so wives submit to your husbands. Well, if you're going to follow Jesus, who would never separate from you, why would you then separate from your husband? If you know the gospel, if you know who Jesus is, separating love doesn't make sense. That's not his example. That's not what he does for you. That's not what you should pass on to your spouse. And so yes, if your marriage is hard, if your marriage is difficult, the answer is not to separate in your marriage. The answer is to learn how God loves you with an inseparable love, and to let that love define your life, and to show that love to your spouse, you can show that love to that to your spouse, no matter what they're doing, whether they believe or don't believe, whether they're rude or whether they're doing their role as a husband or wife, you can still learn to love even people who aren't loving you, because that's what Jesus did for us. And his love, nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus.
So, Jesus, that's what he's getting back to. He's getting back to, if God's put it together, God's not about separation. Now go back to Mark 10, because it's fascinating to me, these last three verses, we go into the house with the disciples. And I don't know where this house is, because we we've been learning about Jesus teaching to the disciples lately. In Mark, chapter 9, we spent weeks together in the house in Capernaum, where he taught them many things. So, are we all the way back to Capernaum in the house, or is this some house now down in the south, across the Jordan, there in Perea, down in the area of Judea? And so, I don't know what exactly the house is, but I find it to be fascinating that the disciples want to keep talking about this subject, and Jesus gets super specific and clear in what he says here. Jesus says, Yeah, let's make it very clear to you guys, if you divorce your wife and you marry another, you just committed adultery, and if the wife divorces her husband and goes to be with someone else that is also adultery. So, everyone needs to notice that now, when he's privately teaching his disciples, he is explicit and specifically clear. Yes, divorce leads to adultery.
Now, let's think that through, because I think it's not only interesting, it could even be instructive. Jesus didn't say that in front of the crowd when the Pharisees were trying to start a fight. In fact, going through the Gospel of Mark, it makes so much sense to me, because we've already read about how John the Baptist was beheaded, and what was the problem that led to them killing John the Baptist? He told King Herod that he shouldn't be with his brother's wife, that her divorce wasn't legitimate and he was committing adultery. They killed John the Baptist over saying this, wow, so you could see what the Pharisees were trying to do, were they trying to get Jesus killed? The answer to that is, yes, and they're going to keep trying to get Jesus killed.
But Jesus wants to teach his disciples, and Mark wanted all of us to know, yes, this is the real answer if you really have a sincere desire to know what you should do in your life. You should not get divorced, because if you leave your spouse and go to be with someone else, that will be adultery. And remember, they still had some kind of idea that you don't want to commit adultery.
We have lost that idea in the state of California. I don't know if you know this, but on January 1, 1976, the Consenting Adults Sex Act took place under Governor Jerry Brown, which made adultery legal in California. Did you know that at the beginning of 1976, adultery was still illegal in our state until 1976 How have the last 50 years been for the state of California? We've got No-Fault Divorce; adultery is now legal for consenting adults. How many of us have heard that phrase now, consenting adults? That was a law passed in our state in 1976, where we started to act like adultery was okay. Jesus wants everybody to hear now, if you get divorced and you're with somebody else, that's adultery. That is not okay, that's what he's saying. And that's heavy, that's intense to say that out loud, that there's a reason you're talking about it in the house, because people have been divorced, people have joined with someone else, and so you start talking about this, it gets very intense in the room, but the clarity is right there in verses 10 to 12.
And this idea of adultery is like crossing a line that cannot be crossed. Adultery is like, if it gets discovered, it's a sin deserving of death. They still had that thought, and they still were like, we're going to find ways to do what we want, but we can't call it adultery, because we know Adultery is wrong. Well, Jesus wants to clarify. No, it is adultery and it is sin before God. Go over to Luke. Go to Luke, chapter 18. Let me show you sometimes that it talks about this idea of adultery in the Scripture, because there are two ways you can go with what Jesus is saying there, particularly if you have committed adultery or if you have gotten divorced. And there are many people here at our church who have done those things.
And so, how should you then think about it, and let me just remind you, if you have this idea, well, I haven't gotten divorced or I haven't committed adultery, let's just go back to what Jesus said, that even if you think you haven't committed adultery, even if you have looked at another woman who's not your wife with lustful intent, you are already guilty of adultery in your heart, so be careful about justifying yourself and acting like you have no sin, because that's the Pharisee way, and that's what happens here in Luke 18. Look at verse 9. “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.”
See, there's two ways we can go on this. You can try to justify yourself, or you can confess your sin to Jesus and get justified. And I've heard both. I've had many intense conversations with people about divorce here at this church, being here the last eleven years in Huntington Beach, I won't forget the day that a woman showed up at the church and said, I need to talk to a pastor. And I began to talk to this woman, and I said, what brought you here today? And she said, I really want to divorce my husband, and I was trying to find a place that would tell me it's not okay to do that, that would actually tell me what God said. And this was the only place I could think of around here. So, I drove here today. I've talked to a lot of people about divorce, and I've heard people share their true story of how their marriage was and how they end up getting divorced and who they were with after that. And I listen, and I try to care and I find that if you just ask questions and you have a genuine interest in caring for people's lives, people will start to tell you all kinds of things. And I asked this important question. So looking back on that, was that right for you to get that divorce? And we're talking about situations where there was not adultery, the spouse didn't leave them, they just wanted to get divorced.
And I'll say, was it right for you to do that. And some people, they will fill my ears with all the problems of their spouse, and they will justify why they did that, and they will hold on to that was the right thing for me to do. And other people will break down with tears, and they will say, do you think God will forgive me for it? See, can you agree with what Jesus said in the house to his disciples? See, do you agree with Jesus or not? It comes down to you. Do you agree that Jesus says, if somebody commits divorce and then they go with somebody else, that's adultery? Are you ready to say, Wow, if Jesus says that's how it is, then I agree with him, and I'm going to confess my sin. I'm going to call it what Jesus calls it, or are you going to say, no, that's not how it is for me. See, I've heard people go both ways on this. I've heard people and they're going to go down, maybe all the way to the end. I was not wrong, even though, according to Jesus, what they did was sin. They're going to say it was not, and they're going to argue with Jesus. And then other people are broken, they're contrite, and they want to be justified for what they have done. Which one are you? Can you agree with what Jesus says about our sin? Or do you want to hold on to justifying yourself?
Go with me to 1 Corinthians 6, and you can see here in 1 Corinthians, chapter 6. See some of those conversations, when I look back now, so many of these conversations have been challenging and difficult, but some of them have become some of my favorite moments in the history of this church, because some people, what they did in that conversation is they completely turned themselves in, and they said it was wrong when I did this, it was wrong when I wanted to do that, it was wrong when I committed adultery over here. And they stop trying to hide it, and they stop trying to cover it up, and they stop trying to say it's okay, and they just turn themselves in. In fact, some of those people are now my dear brothers and my dear sisters in Christ. Some of them are right here this morning, worshiping Jesus with all of their hearts. Look what it says here in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9, it makes it very clear, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” Do you want to make it to God's kingdom? Well, you can't if you're unrighteous. Well, what does that mean? Let's get more specific. “Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral nor the idolaters, nor the adulterers, that's what we're talking about, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” If you live in your sin, you can't go to the kingdom. What does it mean to live in sin? Well, there's a bunch of examples right there, and don't let people lie to you. Don't let people justify those sins. Don't let people act like you can live that way and still go to the kingdom. You can't. That's what it's saying right here. But look at what it says, “And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” And I'm blessed to know some people who got divorced here at this church. I'm blessed to know some adulterers. They've become my dear friends because they didn't deny that it was sin. They turned themselves in, and they've been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. They've been sanctified. They've been set apart from that sin. God has now declared them to be righteous.
Let's get this down for point number three: “We can deny our sin, or we can turn ourselves in.” Those are the two options of what you can do with what Jesus says here today. You can justify yourself, or you can be justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. And I am so thankful to see people who, yeah, they got divorced, yeah, they committed adultery. But look what Jesus has done to save them from their sins. Praise the Lord Jesus for his mighty salvation. And if you're someone who's been divorced or committed adultery, I want you to hear the good news that Jesus is willing to save you if you confess your sins to him. He's already died for those sins. He's teaching you what that sin is, so you can agree with him about it, so you can confess it, so that you can be saved.
And to close our service, I'd like to invite everyone to stand as I pray to conclude our time together. Please pray with me about this.
Father, we come before you in the name of your Son, Jesus, and we hear that they tried to test him on that day, that they tried to get him to say something about divorce that would get him in the same trouble that John the Baptist got in. And so, God, we know that this is controversial, and I pray for everybody hearing this sermon here today, that they would not harden their heart, but I pray that You would give us ears to hear as Jesus takes us back to Deuteronomy, as he takes us back to Genesis, as he takes us back to your love that nothing can separate us from. And then as he gets into the house and says to the disciples, yeah, that's how it is if there's divorce, and they go on from there, there's adultery. And God, I just want to take a moment right now with our whole church here, I want to thank you for some of those who are even here this very day, and they have been divorced and they have committed adultery, and even those who haven't done that, but they've sure thought about it in their heart, and you have forgiven us for those sins. You have washed us, you have sanctified us, you have justified us, you have made us new and set us on a different path than that old way. And we all together in our hearts right now, we worship the name of your Son, Jesus Christ for our salvation, and we are filled with joy knowing that the love that Jesus has for us, nothing can separate us from that love. And so, let us go love our spouses. Let us go love one another. Let us go love with the love that we have freely received. Let us now give that love away. And I pray for those who are here today and they're still trying to act like no, when I did this, it was okay. I pray that they could hear these words of Jesus, these controversial words, and they could receive them, that they could agree with them, that they could say yes, that was wrong. What I did before God, before are the witness of my marriage, and God, will you please forgive me for it? God, we know that everyone who confesses their sin, he is faithful and just. You are faithful and just Father to forgive us for that sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, so that we would be a part of your kingdom. But if we want to be a part of your kingdom in the future, we need to agree with you about our sin now. And so I pray that even in this service today, there would be people who would hear what Jesus says, and they would agree that it was sin. Please forgive me, and they would turn to you and find your love. So, we pray this in Jesus’ name. And everybody said, Amen.
Have a great day, everybody. Thanks for being here.