Continuing the Matthew 5 series, the speaker defines biblical divorce grounds strictly as adultery or willful desertion, citing Westminster Confession and Calvin to reject modern "halfway house" views that permit divorce without remarriage. He argues against feminist overrides of male headship, asserts mutual consent in marital duties per 1 Corinthians 7, and clarifies that while God permits these two reasons due to a fallen world, the Bible never mandates divorce. Ultimately, the sermon urges prioritizing reconciliation and repentance over dissolution whenever possible to reflect the gospel's mercy rather than enslaving the innocent party. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Adultery and Divorce Explained00:02:48
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Continuing our series this Lord's Day through the gospel according to Matthew.
Our text for today is Matthew chapter 5, verse 31 through 32.
We're picking back up where we left off last week.
I told you that this would be at least two parts, perhaps even three parts.
We'll see.
I hope by God's grace, Lord willing, to finish today on these two verses.
It's only two verses, but this particular subject matter.
Has been neglected, either neglected or wrongly taught in the evangelical church for a few decades at this point.
The subject matter from these two verses, as you'll see just in a moment, deals with the topic of divorce.
So, again, our text for today, this is part two, carrying over from last week.
Our text for today, the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 5, verse 31 and 32, the Bible says this.
It was also said, Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.
But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.
And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
We'll go ahead and dive in.
Our primary focus, if you were with us last week, was in regards to adultery, divorce, and remarriage.
Adultery, divorce, and remarriage.
Lord willing, what I hope to cover today is on the second clause.
There are only two clauses that we find in the scripture to be biblically permissible for getting a divorce.
One is adultery.
But the second that we'll try to give attention to this morning is abandonment.
And I briefly got into this concept, painting the picture for you last week, that adultery and abandonment are not entirely unrelated, but in many ways, perhaps it's better to view the two as simply two different sides of one coin.
Two different sides of the same singular coin.
Covenant Renewal in Marriage00:16:09
On the one hand, you have adultery, which is breaking the marriage covenant by engaging in covenant relationships that are reserved for marriage alone and engaging in these covenant relations outside of the marriage.
Whereas abandonment is the deliberate forsaking of the proper engagement of these covenant relations within the marriage.
And the Apostle Paul is very clear about this in 1 Corinthians 7.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, he says that when it comes to the marital duty that each spouse has to one another, that you cannot deprive one another in marriage unless by mutual consent.
And even then, only for a time, temporarily.
And even then, it must be mutual, it must be temporary, and it must be purposeful.
And the only purpose that's given as.
A sufficient or acceptable purpose is for the purpose of devoting yourselves to prayer.
In the same way that, as an individual, you might temporarily fast from eating food so that you might indulge yourself in prayer.
If you're fasting, you stop eating food, but you don't start praying more, well, then that's not a fast, that's a diet.
But if it's actually a spiritual discipline, it's actually fasting, then you're not just Ceasing to eat food, but you're also replacing one discipline with another.
You're saying, as it were, that a man shall not live by bread alone.
That I believe that when God says this in His Word is true, and I'm not ultimately relying on temporal things and the sustenance of my own physical flesh, but ultimately it is that which is spiritual that matters most, and I'm relying on the food that comes from God alone.
I'm relying on On Christ, and I'm going to Him with prayers and petitions, relying on His faithfulness alone.
So that's what it is to fast.
It's to, I'm ceasing eating food for a time, and during that time, I'm going to up my prayer game, so to speak.
So I'm not, it's not that I'm just not eating and everything else about my life during this season remains the same.
That would not be a true fast.
That would simply be.
Dieting, intermittent, immediate fasting, you know, trying to lose some weight, but you can't call it a spiritual discipline.
So, too, when it comes to the marriage covenant, fasting from covenant relations within the marriage needs to be mutual, it needs to be temporary, and it needs to be for the purpose of prayer.
And then, even then, coming back together and sooner rather than later, the Apostle Paul says, so that You might not fall into temptation.
He says, because the world is filled with various temptations.
And it's for that reason that each man should have his own wife and each wife her own husband.
I also said last week that when it comes to the body of the husband and when it comes to the body of the wife in marriage, that although the husband is clearly labeled by Scripture as the head of his wife in all matters, When it comes to his physical body, this is the one arena within the marriage covenant where there is an equal authority.
That the wife has rights to her husband's body, and those rights are at the same level as the husband's rights to the body of his wife.
And that's why there must be mutual consent.
There are many other things within the marriage where the husband should do so graciously.
He should do so prayerfully.
There's all the qualifiers, but still, at the end of the day, this is what the Word of God teaches.
There are plenty of things in the marriage covenant where the husband and wife can disagree, and the husband can simply exercise his authority in a loving way, a loving manner, and say, I'm sorry, I wish we agreed on this, but we don't, and so we're going to go with my decision.
And that's perfectly biblical.
However, when it comes to depriving one another of covenant relations, he actually, the husband, as much authority as the Bible gives him, He actually doesn't have authority to do that as an executive decision.
It is only by mutual consent that you can deprive one another.
So, what does this mean?
What's my whole point in laying this theological framework?
It means that renewing the covenant, renewing the covenant within marriage, is a really big deal.
It's a really big deal.
And denying the covenant and those covenant relations which are specific to that marriage and that marriage alone, denying these, the absence of these, this covenant renewal within marriage, The absence of that regular covenant renewal is a big deal.
Every other decision, so long as it's not contrary to the Word of God, a husband really does have an executive authority.
He shouldn't wield that executive authority in a domineering manner, but he does have it.
And for the record, if your biblical view of male headship boils down at the end of the day to, well, When the husband and wife disagree, they should just decide to pause on making the decision for a month and devote themselves to prayer.
And if they still can't agree after praying for a month, they should go and seek counsel from the elders in the church.
And if the elders in the church don't side with the wife, which, let's be honest, 99% of evangelical churches, if you go and get advice from your pastors, they will essentially tell you some version of happy wife, happy life.
They will agree with her and override your male authority in your home.
Your pastors will absolutely, as hypocrites, override your home.
You need to know that, men.
99% of churches, the pastors don't believe the Bible.
They'll preach it, but they will not live it.
They will come into your marriage and they will override your authority, cut out your legs from underneath you, and reaffirm feminism and egalitarianism in your marriage.
And now, whatever conflict you already had in your marriage, It will now be multiplied by 100 because your wife will now have affirmation from those that she sees as spiritual authorities who essentially just gave her a biblical, it's not really biblical, but a biblical permission to rebel against her husband.
And that is marriage counseling in the evangelical church, 99 out of 100 times.
So, when that doesn't happen, which is extremely rare, back to my analogy here, most people think that biblical headship boils down to if we disagree, then we just don't do anything.
We're at a standstill and we'll pray for a month.
If we still disagree, we go and seek out the pastors.
And in this hypothetical scenario, let's just say that you have the rare pastors who still don't affirm male headship, but they at least don't affirm, you know, boss, babe, happy wife, happy life theology.
And so they say, you know what?
Well, this one is really awash.
It could go either way.
We're 50 50.
Right?
So the elders, they don't break the tie.
Well, then in that scenario, in that scenario alone, you disagreed, you waited for a month.
You prayed, you sought counsel, even the council said you could go either way.
It's a 50 50% toss up in those scenarios, which will occur over the course of a 50 year marriage, maybe three or four times.
Then and only then, the husband gets to decide.
In other words, what kind of headship, what kind of authority does a husband have?
None.
Male headship, what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, said the Christian church for the last, I don't know, 70 years or so.
So, if you can't tell already, if you're visiting, I don't believe that.
I'm one of those crazy guys who gets in trouble because I believe what every single Christian always believed for 6,000 years until about 15 minutes ago, which makes me a far right radical.
In other words, a completely normal guy, even outside of the Christian world, by every metric ever available until about 1940, 1950.
So, crazy.
So, all that being said, the Bible's view of male headship.
Especially in the home, it's a really big deal.
And it does not give all of the disclaimers and qualifiers that squishy, effeminate evangelical pastors constantly provide.
And yet, here's the point back to the text.
Here's the point when it comes to the covenant relations within a marriage, on that issue, the male headship thing doesn't get the final say.
That's a big deal.
That's my whole point in framing this theologically.
Male headship, according to God, Really big deal.
When it comes to the renewing of the covenant, covenant relations, you know what I'm talking about, adults.
We're family integrated, so that's, you know, I try to just be appropriate.
I'm not trying to be silly and speak in code, but I'm trying to be appropriate.
Those covenant relations within a marriage, that's the one thing that the Bible says uh uh, husband doesn't get the final say on that one, he doesn't get executive authority.
That one has to be mutual.
The wife has the wife's authority over the body of her husband.
Is equal to the husband's authority over the body of his wife.
That's a really big deal for the Bible to say that.
And so then what does that mean?
Well, this is, oh my goodness, Joel, you just discovered it.
You know, the feminists are getting excited, you know, not you guys.
But, you know, it's like Joel just provided a biblical argument for me to make my case for, you know, why the Apostle Paul, I have always hated him, but maybe I can hate him a little bit less because maybe he was groundbreaking, you know, for the time and swimming up against the cultural current, you know.
The world was steeped in toxic masculinity, but Paul was at least carving out some kind of ground for future feminists that we could live by.
No, it's not what he's doing.
What the Apostle Paul is doing is he is saying that adultery and abandonment are not two entirely unrelated issues.
But again, they are two separate sides of one singular coin, and they're both a big deal because.
Covenant is a big deal.
And you can break that covenant, according to Scripture, in two ways, not just one.
You can break that covenant by engaging in covenant renewal relations outside of the marriage, a betrayal.
Or, not merely, you can break the covenant by the presence of covenantal relations outside the marriage or the absence of covenantal relations within the marriage.
That's the point.
And just to put one more practical qualifier, right?
That's the theology.
Now, in terms of the practical qualifier, the Bible does not put a time limit or a schedule.
So, my pastoral and practical counsel to you, brothers and sisters, is don't be legalistic.
God's law matters, but where the Bible really is silent, don't try to make extra biblical man-made laws.
So don't, I don't think anybody would do this, but just to be abundantly clear, you don't need to go around to other marriages in the church and say, has it been 48 hours?
I hope you've been praying without ceasing these last 48 hours because it's the only legitimate excuse.
Don't be silly about this.
You know the theological principle now.
There have been guys, there have been pastors, well known pastors, who have tried to get really technical.
And to be fair, I think their intent was they were trying to simply be practically helpful.
Those guys who have done that, I've never seen it go well.
Those sermons.
Always age poorly.
I'm going to learn from those mistakes and not make it myself.
We have no such rule here at Covenant Bible Church that, you know, thou shalt blank every two days or three.
And I also think that there is a permissibility in Scripture when a couple has been married for years and years and is getting older, because part of the purpose of this is the renewal of the covenant.
But again, the text in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says the mutual, one, it has to be mutual.
Two, it has to be temporary, this depriving.
And three, it's for the purpose of prayer.
But then notice a fourth component that he lists is he says, but then be brought back together because there's much temptation.
And the fact of the matter is that if you are in your 60s and 70s, you are not immune.
So don't let anyone boast lest he fall.
Steve Lawson was pretty old.
And he fell.
So don't be arrogant.
Okay, so don't take this the wrong way, what I'm about to say.
However, there is a sliding scale in the way that God has physically designed us to where the whole purpose of Paul saying it needs to be temporary and then come back together because there's much temptation in the world.
Typically and biologically, ordinarily, the person in their 60s is probably not going to be quite as tempted as the young married couple in their 20s.
And so the young married couple, and they're 20, again, not for either couple, young or old, will I be sitting here putting a time limit on it.
That's silly.
Don't do that.
But as a generality, a general principle, I do think that there is more allowance when you're older than when you're younger.
If you are newlyweds, even for the newlywed, I won't put a time limit on it.
But as a general counsel, pastoral counsel, if you're newlyweds, get to it and enjoy God's good gift.
And if you're older, maybe not going to be quite as ambitious, but there's Bible verses for that too.
To always rejoice in the wife of your youth, remembering her.
Remember, this is the woman I married 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago.
She is a godsend.
She is a beautiful woman in whom my heart is.
After 50 years, half a century still delights.
And I show her my affection in many different ways and occasionally in a particular way.
Okay.
Unbelieving Spouse Scenarios00:09:24
All right.
So, all that being said, that's all I'll say for that.
But the big idea as it pertains to divorce and remarriage, right?
That's our primary text, Matthew chapter 5, 31, and 32.
As it pertains to divorce and remarriage, the big idea is that there are two biblical clauses.
Of permissibility for divorce.
There are.
Adultery, that one is the one that most of us are aware of, and that's explicitly said in our primary text, Matthew 5 31 and 32.
But in cross referencing, getting a larger theological view of this topic of divorce and remarriage, abandonment does come into play as well.
Those are the only two.
So let's look at 1 Corinthians 7, verse 10 and 11.
I've given you a lot of stuff from 1 Corinthians 7, but let's hone in on these two verses now.
To the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord.
Now, real quick, what does that mean?
Because this is, again, where the liberal theologians get real excited.
Real excited.
They're like, oh.
It's right there in Scripture.
Paul bifurcates and distinguishes what's from God and what's just his idea.
And if it's his idea, well, then we know that that's just, you know, it's just culturally rooted for that time and that place.
And by today's standard, you know, it's misogynistic and we don't have to believe it anymore.
That's not what Paul is saying.
In these parenthetical statements, you find in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 10, he says, Not I, but the Lord.
And then you find just a little later in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 12, he says the opposite, I, not the Lord.
So in verse 10, he says, not I, but the Lord says this.
And then in verse 12, he says, I'm saying this, not the Lord.
What does he mean by that bifurcation?
My word, this is a saying from me, versus this is a saying from the Lord.
What he's talking about, notice he doesn't say this is me saying it, not God, or not the Bible, not God's law.
No, he says specifically the Lord.
Why does he say the Lord?
He's referring to the Lord Jesus, and he's referring to the teachings, the explicit, verbatim teachings of the Lord Jesus during his earthly ministry.
So when Paul says, I say this, not the Lord, he's not saying this command doesn't come from God, and you can therefore dismiss it.
No.
No.
He's saying this command is coming by apostolic authority, which is divine, and it has been inscripturated for us by the work of the Holy Spirit.
It's Bible, it is God's word, and it's just as authoritative as the red letters.
Don't be a red letter Christian.
No, it's be a whole Bible Christian.
All of it is God's word.
Was the words of Jesus that matter?
Uh huh, the whole Bible.
That's the words of Jesus.
It's all the words of God.
So when Paul says this is from the Lord, not me.
He's saying this is one of the things that you might find familiar.
It's one of the things that Jesus explicitly said himself in the flesh during his earthly ministry.
And when he says, Now, this one is not from the Lord, Jesus didn't say it during his earthly ministry, but I'm saying it with apostolic authority that comes from Jesus.
So they're both authoritative.
Okay, here we go.
Back to the text.
1 Corinthians 7, verse 10 and 11.
I give this charge not I, but the Lord.
The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.
And the husband should not divorce his wife.
So he's saying Jesus taught not to divorce.
Now, a little later, notice, verse 12, chapter 7, 1 Corinthians 7, verse 12 through 15, Paul says, To the rest I say, not the Lord, If a brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, so you're a Christian man, your wife is an unbeliever.
Perhaps Paul is describing a situation where both of you are unbelievers, and then the husband, later, after having been married to the wife, he comes to saving faith.
He hears the preaching of the gospel, the Holy Spirit gives him a new heart and the gifts of faith and repentance, and he becomes a Christian, but his wife doesn't.
In those scenarios where the husband now is a Christian, but the wife is not, Paul says with apostolic authority, so this is God's word, it's just not a teaching explicitly espoused by Jesus during his earthly ministry.
Paul says if a brother, that is a Christian man, has a wife who is an unbeliever, but she, although she's an unbeliever, she's married to a Christian husband, she disagrees with him about certain things, but she consents to remain in the marriage, to live with him, then in those cases, he should keep his wife.
He should not divorce her.
If a woman, vice versa, has a husband who is an unbeliever and she's a Christian, and he, the unbelieving husband, consents to live with her, then she should not divorce him.
For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and vice versa, the unbelieving wife would be made holy by her believing husband.
So, the unbelieving husband is made holy by his unbelieving wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband.
Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
This is another example, which is again a big deal because what's being espoused here is not just that the husband is.
Because he would be the federal head of the covenant household.
So the whole household is wrapped up in this marriage covenant.
And the children are simply the covenantal fruit of this marriage covenant.
But the head of this covenant is not the wife, but rather the husband.
And so typically you would think, with biblical language, that it would only be covenantally cleansing for the whole house if the husband was a Christian.
But here again, the Apostle Paul surprises us and says even if the federal head of the house, namely the husband, is unregenerate and an unbeliever, but the wife in a particular case happens to be the Christian, her Christianity is potent enough to sanctify her husband, her unbelieving husband, so that the children are not unclean but rather holy.
Which is an extraordinary statement to be made in the Bible, which is very clearly, text after text, patriarchal and not matriarchal.
And yet, this is the teaching here.
And so, the point is again, the point is that covenant matters and that this covenant is so intimate and so potent and so divinely inspired and instituted by God Himself.
That the husband doesn't actually have, although he has much authority, in this matter, he does not have the authority to deprive his wife as an executive decision made only by him.
The two must agree.
Her authority comes into play her authority over his body, her rights to his body.
And also, when it comes to divorce, the believing husband, as head of his wife, he has, by God's grace, he is able to sanctify his unbelieving wife so that the children are holy.
And even the wife, if she happens to be a Christian and her husband is an unbeliever, she is able to sanctify, her faith is potent enough to sanctify her unbelieving husband, so again, the children are holy.
And in these cases, of one spouse being a believer, the other spouse not, if the unbelieving spouse consents to remain in the marriage, the Christian spouse, whether it be husband or wife, should not seek out a divorce.
However, going on in the text, but if the unbelieving partner, this is 1 Corinthians 7, verse 15 now, but if the unbelieving partner, the unbelieving spouse, be it husband or wife, chooses to separate, And they leave, then let it be so.
In such cases, the brother or sister, that is the believing husband or the believing wife, who has been left, they didn't do the leaving, but they were left by their unbelieving spouse, are not enslaved.
Historical Views on Remarriage00:04:03
Now, notice this real quick the language.
It doesn't just say that they're not guilty.
You would think that the Apostle Paul would say that in these cases, the believing spouse, husband or wife, who was abandoned by the unbelieving spouse, they're not guilty of that divorce.
They're not guilty.
But he doesn't say that.
He actually goes further.
When he says not enslaved, that assumes the minimum standard of being absolved of moral guilt.
But he's saying actually even further than that.
He's saying not only are you not guilty, but you're also no longer bound.
You are no longer enslaved to the marriage covenant.
And so here's my position.
For the record, anytime I say my position, Just assume what I'm saying is here's a position from an old dead guy a lot smarter and a lot godlier than me that I read and adopted That's what I mean when I say my position.
I don't think I have any position that is original to me and that's saying something because you're talking about a guy who occasionally does a video on mermaids Even with mermaids I can cite some dead guys I'm not saying they're the most reliable dead guys in that case, you know, but I can cite some other guys.
I got it from somewhere.
I didn't just make it up If you really want to read someone interesting, read King James.
You know, the guy who's responsible for the King James Bible.
He has a whole almanac of like his recordings and findings on.
Because guys during that age, I mean, even Martin Luther, for instance, all right, so to not just make it about King James, because people say, well, he wasn't a theologian.
King James was probably a better theologian than you are, to be frank.
But Martin Luther was definitely a better theologian than you and me.
And Martin Luther believed, that dude believed in some fairies.
I'll tell you that right now.
And King James, he took it a lot further.
He believed in fairies and he believed in vampires and a bunch of different things because some weird things were happening in that time period and they didn't know how to explain them.
And so they were doing their best to kind of like, you know, record and categorize different spiritual beings.
And spoiler alert, you know, the nutshell version is they decided.
I don't think it's just as simple as two categories of angels and demons, but that there are elemental spirits that are bound to certain geographic regions like nymphs and fairies and a river goddess or this or that.
And some of them are fallen and some of them are benevolent.
And there's this and there's that.
And we can laugh at them.
And they might have been wrong.
These guys, it's not the Bible, it's not infallible.
But I'll just say this they absolutely could be wrong.
But also, I have a sneaking suspicion that we're the stupidest generation that there's been in a really long time, and so I wouldn't be so quick to be arrogant.
We think that we can explain away everything with, you know, hashtag the science.
But remember that the scientists are the same guys who told you that if you're sitting down in a restaurant, the virus will go over your head, and you can take your mask off, and that a boy can be a girl, and a girl can be a boy.
And that, you know, in the case of bald eagles, we know what's in that egg, and it's actually like a federal fine and crime to destroy it.
But when it comes to the womb of a mother, we have no idea what's going on there.
It might be a fire truck, you know, and we'll never really know until the baby's delivered.
So I don't have a lot of faith in the scientists today, you know.
And so, fairies and Martin Luther, I'm a believer.
So, all right.
Restricting Unlawful Divorces00:02:28
Anyways, the point is, my view on divorce and remarriage comes from better men than me.
It's not my personal view.
I didn't invent it, I didn't make it up.
None of my views are invented, even the wacky ones.
So, all that being said, let me use a little bit.
I've been using Calvin last week throughout this little mini two week series.
So, let me use Calvin again, and then I'll use some of the Westminster standards.
John Calvin, he says this.
Christ condemns as an adulterer the man who shall marry a wife that has been divorced.
This, and I put it in bold in your notes, is undoubtedly restricted to unlawful and frivolous divorces.
So, what Calvin's doing is he's taking the words of Christ and then he's cross referencing those with other portions of scripture that speak about marriage and divorce, namely the teachings of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 as well as Romans chapter 7.
And he's making a larger, cohesive Theological position.
He's saying that, yes, Christ says at face value, if we only had these two verses in Matthew chapter 5, 31 and 32, Christ says that a man who was previously married to another woman and has a divorce, if he remarries now to someone else, that he is committing adultery.
That is true.
That is what Christ says.
But Calvin adds in his commentary, this is undoubtedly restricted.
To not just all divorces, but those divorces which were unlawful and frivolous.
Jesus isn't saying this as a blanket principle.
He's saying that a man who has been divorced and now marries another woman is committing the act of adultery if the previous divorce was without biblical cause, if it was an unlawful, unbiblical, frivolous divorce.
And He goes further.
In like manner, Paul enjoins those who have been so dismissed to remain unmarried or to reconcile with their husbands.
In other words, if there's a divorce that was frivolous, that was without biblical cause, and the biblical cause, again, what is it?
Trump, Rhetoric, and Abortion00:03:01
Twofold.
They're not unrelated or arbitrary.
It's two different sides of the same coin adultery and abandonment.
Those are the only two clauses that are biblical that make it permissible to get a divorce.
If you have been divorced without those two causes, your spouse abandoned you.
Or your spouse committed adultery.
If it's not one of those two things, and yet you got a divorce anyways, and today you're single, then according to Scripture, you should remain single or seek to be reconciled to your former spouse.
That's what the Word of God says.
Now, let me add a couple clarifiers because let's just be honest America loves her some divorce.
Can I get an amen?
America loves apple pie.
America loves football.
And America loves divorce, adultery, and abortion.
I mean, let's just, like, that's where we're at.
It's like, man, I wish that Trump was stronger in his rhetoric, you know, against abortion.
Yeah, join the choir.
Me too.
Absolutely.
Have I been disappointed?
Absolutely.
But let's just acknowledge for a moment that I've been reliably informed.
Politicians tend to say the things that they think the most people will agree with so that they can be elected.
Did you know that that's how politics work?
And I'm not making a moral argument right now saying, and therefore, it's okay.
That's not my point.
My point is that if you want a litmus test, You know, thermostat to kind of gauge the temperature of the room, the American room.
Trump is a very accurate thermostat.
And the fact that Trump has moved pretty far to the left, at least in his rhetoric, I'm praying that he'll govern to the right.
You should pray also.
And I will use whatever influence I have to hold him accountable and say, Mr. President, You have an obligation under God to protect and defend the sanctity of life.
Fear God and repent of your murderous, wicked ways.
So we can hold him accountable, we can call him to repentance, and we can pray that he governs far to the right.
Right now, as he's campaigning, his campaigning rhetoric, we'll see how he governs, but his campaigning rhetoric is a good bit to the left of where he was in 2016.
And I'll tell you why.
I'm not making an excuse for that.
I'm not saying that it's moral.
Here's my point.
Legitimacy of Mixed Marriages00:14:59
The reason why is because America loves abortion.
Didn't even think it was possible, but America loves abortion substantially more in 2024 than she already loved abortion in 2016.
And that's why Trump is saying the things that he's saying.
So we love abortion, and here's the deal.
How'd you get on to abortion?
I thought we were talking about divorce and remarriage.
Well, listen, it's never a bad Sunday to condemn abortion.
Okay, so you just, that one, you just do every single week, and you're probably going to be in good standing.
But as it relates to our topic, abortion runs downstream.
You need to see the correlation from adultery and divorce.
It is because we have a country that is rampant in adultery and divorce that we have so much of an appetite for abortion.
Abortion runs downstream of the sexual revolution and men and women in our country wanting to cast off all.
All bonds, covenantal bonds that God established between husband and wife, and do whatever they want in that arena.
That's why abortion is such a big deal.
That's why the desire for abortion is at an all time high.
The correlation between divorce and adultery and the demand for abortion is quite obvious.
And as adultery goes down and divorce goes down, by God's grace, I believe that.
The demand for abortion would go down as well.
So, all that being said, a couple disclaimers here.
So, Calvin says you actually can remarry if you are divorced for a biblical cause, the two biblical causes being adultery or abandonment.
Adultery or abandonment, two sides of one coin.
Your spouse abandoned you and you were innocent in the matter.
It doesn't mean that you're not a sinner, that you didn't ever raise your voice, that you could have loved better, you could have led better.
You could have submitted better if you're the wife, all these different things.
Certainly, you are a sinner, saved by grace like everyone else, but innocent in the matter, meaning they ultimately abandoned you and not the other way around.
Or they ultimately committed adultery against you and not the other way around.
In that instance, they would be the guilty party.
You would be innocent, declared in an ecclesiastical court by the church, innocent in the matter.
And because that was not a frivolous divorce, but a biblical divorce, In those circumstances, you would be free to remarry.
If it was not a biblical divorce, you got divorced because you just didn't like each other, you just couldn't get along.
Here's the deal.
In those cases, the Bible says remain single or return and reconcile to your previous spouse.
Now, because this is how I got on the whole America loves divorce and adultery, because our nation is just, divorce and remarriage is rampant in our nation.
Within the church, sadly as well, there are many instances with people who got a divorce, they didn't have biblical cause, and then they entered into another marriage instead of going back or remaining single.
And so that person might be asking, well, what do I do now?
So now here come in my disclaimers, some pastoral disclaimers.
How then shall we live?
If I messed up, and I messed up twice, I got a divorce that I shouldn't have, and then I entered into another marriage that I shouldn't have.
How then shall I live?
Number one, there is no scriptural evidence to support that parties remarried after being divorced on the grounds of their own adultery, abandonment, or divorce for petty or unbiblical reasons are living in an ongoing, continual state of sin.
What the text says, what multiple biblical texts say, is that if you got a divorce without biblical cause and you entered into a new marriage, then you committed adultery.
But you are not committing adultery.
Adultery non stop in a continual state.
In other words, a third wrong won't make it right.
You got a divorce that you shouldn't have.
You got remarried when you shouldn't have.
And now you're coming into more biblical convictions on this matter of divorce and remarriage.
And you're thinking, oh, no, I shouldn't have done that.
And now I'm in this other marriage.
And I shouldn't have been.
So I guess I'll divorce her too.
Or I'll divorce him too.
No, that would just be now piling up a third offense.
And that doesn't fix it.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Well, three wrongs don't make a right.
So, what do you do?
What you do is you repent before God.
You say, Lord, I was ignorant.
I was dumb.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive my sin.
You repent before your current spouse.
Sweetheart, I'm sorry.
I didn't know these things.
And you probably didn't because most evangelical pastors don't teach these things.
I didn't know these things.
I'm sorry, but I got a divorce.
You know this, sweetheart.
I've told you this.
My divorce, you know why I got that divorce.
It wasn't actually.
A biblical divorce.
It wasn't for biblical cause.
I wasn't abandoned and adultery.
I was not committed against me.
So I shouldn't have gotten that divorce, but I did, which means it was an unbiblical divorce, which means I was not free to remarry you, but I did.
And here's the good news, saints all that's a sin.
All that was a sin.
But the good news is that you are not in a continual, ongoing state of sin.
And there's a difference in saying, I sinned, and saying, I'm sinning.
There's a difference.
And here's the good news God is sovereign over all things, including suffering and even sin.
And so the solution moving forward is to repent to God, I'm sorry, and name your sin in prayer before the Lord.
Repent to your current spouse, this is what I did.
And the way that I'm going to seek to make it right is trusting, first and foremost, in the shed blood of Jesus Christ that covers sin.
And number two, by trying to be the very best spouse I can in this marriage to you.
And then, lastly, if you have an ability to, some kind of relational correspondence, confessing that sin to your former spouse that you sinned against, saying, I'm sorry.
And if there were any children from that previous marriage, confessing and repenting to them as well and asking their forgiveness.
After that, what you do is you move on and you try to have the most God glorifying marriage you possibly can.
And you know what?
That's the beauty of the gospel.
I've learned this time and time again.
And I don't always do it perfectly myself.
Here's the beautiful thing about the Christian religion and the gospel.
When you find out you messed up, and when you find out you even messed up really bad, and it's embarrassing, you have egg on your face, here's the beautiful thing about being a Christian you don't have to move the goalpost.
You don't have to go back and rewrite the history.
You don't actually have to double down.
You don't have to find some way to rewrite the record to where, well, but actually, I didn't rewrite.
Here's the good.
I thought, at least you guys correct me if you think I'm wrong, I thought that the whole idea of being a Christian and believing the gospel of free grace for sinners was that when you mess up and you got egg on your face, you don't have to do a walk of shame, but you also don't have to pretend you never messed up and lie about it.
What you can do is you can stand before God and men and say, I messed up and Jesus died for it and I'm covered.
And then you just get to move on.
And it's great.
That's great.
That's the gospel.
That's the gospel.
I messed up in my marriage.
But Jesus died for it.
I'm going to own it.
And then I'm going to be the best husband I can.
Or the best wife I can.
That's what we do.
That's what Christians do.
Okay, let's go ahead and land the plane now.
This is from the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 24.
It says this It is lawful, so now talking about abandonment and these kinds of things.
And remarriage in those cases.
It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent.
Yet, now, right there, what it's getting at is this it's saying marriage is not, right?
So the Westminster divines are denying Rome, as you'll see in this.
You can barely get through any paragraph of any chapter without them making fun of the papists and their idolatry, which I'm here for it.
That's fine.
I won't.
I won't give them a hard time for that.
But what they're saying here is they're saying, number one, marriage, unlike Rome, marriage is not a sacrament.
It's a divine institution.
It was established by God, but it's not a sacrament.
And we have two sacraments baptism and the Lord's Supper.
So marriage is not a sacrament.
And as such, as it not being a sacrament, God instituted, divinely instituted marriage, and he gave it as a gift, but he didn't give it exclusively to the church.
God gave marriage to mankind.
Not to his people exclusively, but to all people.
So, what they're saying in this very first line, it is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able, with judgment, to give their consent.
What they're saying in this is Muslims can marry, and it's a legitimate marriage.
And for Muslims, who we love, we wish them a very pleasant conversion to Christianity.
But it doesn't mean that in the meantime their marriage is illegitimate.
Legitimate marriage, illegitimate religion, we love you, hate Islam, love the Muslims, and wish you a pleasant conversion to Christianity.
For Jews, same thing.
Two Jews get married, legitimate marriage, illegitimate religion, hate Judaism, love Jews, and wish you a very pleasant conversion to Christianity.
And you can fill in the blank Hindus.
Atheist, all across the board.
But here's the deal what you can't do theologically, and I bought into this, I don't know, maybe for a minute, like very briefly, but then it's just kind of wrong in its face, and so I didn't hold this view very long.
But maybe five, six years ago, I remember thinking, well, when Paul says that the unbelieving spouse is made holy by the believing spouse, so the children are not unclean, he's just saying that those children who are holy, right, because this is the Baptist temptation.
They want to somehow say, well, the children aren't really holy.
And it's like, well, no, they are.
And I think you can still be a credo Baptist and yet also embrace the Bible.
The Bible says they're holy.
And so what the Baptist is tempted to do is say, well, when the Bible says holy in that context, really all it means is that the children aren't bastards.
And I'm not trying to use, you know, play in the technical, literal sense.
It's just, when the Bible says that they're holy, the Bible's just trying to say that the children are legitimate children by saying that the marriage is legitimate.
That a Christian husband and a non Christian wife, or a Christian wife and a non Christian husband, still constitutes a legitimate marriage, and therefore the children are not bastards, but rather legitimate children.
Okay, but logically, play that out.
What if there's no believing spouse?
What if it's not one believing spouse?
Because Paul's making the argument about the children are holy because there's at least one believing spouse.
That's the whole thrust of his argument.
What if there's not even one believing spouse?
What if it's an unbelieving wife and an unbelieving husband?
Well, in that case, if holy just means legitimate, because the marriage is legitimate, then you're basically espousing a theology that says you've got to have at least one Christian in the marriage to make the marriage a legitimate marriage so that you have legitimate children.
So then, if you have a marriage with two unbelievers, two atheists or two Muslims, you would be saying, we don't recognize any of these marriages as being valid and we don't recognize any of their children as being legitimate children.
And that's a common Baptist L. That's the Baptist trying so hard to not baptize babies that he's willing in the process to delegitimize like 80% of the children in the world.
So don't be that Baptist.
Be a better Baptist.
I'm still a Baptist, I think it's the way.
Just don't be a silly Baptist.
Be a better Baptist.
So, all that being said, the point is.
Marriage is given not just to Christian people, but all people.
It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able, with judgment, to give their consent.
Yet, almost done here, it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord.
They have a moral obligation.
You need to marry a Christian spouse.
And therefore, such as profess the true Reformed religion should not marry with infidels or papists or other idolaters.
There they go.
They couldn't help themselves.
Adultery or fornication committed after a contract.
Now, in this case, contract instead of covenant.
Notice, this is speaking not of the marriage.
The marriage hasn't yet transpired, but the contract is actually referring to the engagement or betrothal.
Adultery or fornication committed after a contract being detected before the marriage.
Innocent Party Desertion Rules00:06:41
This would be like Joseph and Mary.
They were betrothed, there was a contract, but they had not yet married.
So, in those kinds of cases where fornication or adultery is found out before the marriage, that giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve the contract, to call off the wedding.
In the case of adultery after the marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce, to pursue a divorce, and after the divorce to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.
Classic Westminster divines.
They just, that's how old dead guys talk.
They just, these guys, the Puritans were not concerned about right wing watch.
They just said things.
Yeah, of course, this is true.
They just said it as a matter of fact.
All right.
Although, continuing now, although the corruption of man be such as to unduly put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage, Yet nothing but adultery, and here it is, here's the language, or such willful desertion, so two clauses, adultery or abandonment, as can no way be remedied by the church or civil magistrate.
They can't be brought together for whatever reason.
They're unwilling to reconcile.
Nothing but that, adultery or willful desertion that cannot be remedied, reconciled by the church or the state, is cause sufficient for dissolving the bond of marriage.
And here's the whole idea.
The Westminster view of divorce and remarriage, in a nutshell, is this whatever is sufficient for divorce.
Is also sufficient for remarriage.
It's really only modern Baptists like Vodie Bockham, who I greatly respect, or like John Piper, who I kind of respect.
I can't say greatly, but it's really a modern Baptist phenomenon.
This kind of halfway house of there are cases when you can divorce, but you still can't remarry.
The more traditional position that I have found in my reading.
And a lot of the 1689 guys agreed with the Westminster guys.
So if you just go back a little further in history, the position was actually on divorce and remarriage was a lot simpler.
How simple was it?
This simple.
If you have cause for divorce, the same thing that lets you out of the marriage lets you enter into another marriage.
If you can get out of the marriage, then that marriage bond really is dissolved.
And if it's dissolved, Then you're no longer enslaved.
You're no longer covenantally bound.
The covenant really is over.
And if the covenant really is over, then you really are free to form a new covenant, a new marriage with someone else.
However, all that being said, look back to everything I've said the last two weeks.
But there are only two reasons that are biblically sufficient for ending a marriage, and that is adultery on the one hand, or willful desertion.
Abandonment on the other.
And the last thing that I'm going to say is this.
When there is adultery, or when there is abandonment, and there is, biblically speaking, there is real permissibility for the innocent party to pursue divorce.
When that occurs, keep this in mind as a final disclaimer the Bible still never says that you have to get a divorce.
The Bible just says you can.
So you can, you may, and if you do, it is not a sin.
But the Bible never says that you must, it simply says that you may.
So my counsel is in those scenarios, that if the spouse who committed adultery, the guilty party, or willfully deserted, if there's any way that you could pursue them, Unto repentance, that they would truly repent of their adultery or truly repent of their abandonment.
If there's any way that they might be willing to be reconciled, then don't get a divorce and seek to be reconciled in the way Christ Himself is reconciled time and time again to a sinful church, that rather than sending her away, He takes her back and washes her by His blood.
And let it be a testimony and a picture of the gospel of the eternal marriage between Christ and his bride.
But sadly, because we do live in a fallen world, there are these caveats provided in Scripture.
There are cases where divorce is permissible, because there are some cases where adultery or abandonment happens and the guilty party refuses to repent.
And in those cases, God, in His mercy towards the innocent party, allows that bond to be dissolved so that you're not miserably enslaved for the rest of your life.
But that is a mercy of God.
In the same way, what Jesus said, Moses allowed you this because your hearts were hardened.
So, too, even today in this gospel age, as the New Testament church, God allows these two reasons for biblical divorce because we live in a fallen world with hardened hearts.
And because God is merciful and allows us to walk through this world without making it more difficult than it already is.
Because of that, God gives two reasons where He will allow for divorce.
But even in those two reasons, You may divorce, but nowhere does the Bible say you must divorce.
And if you can reconcile for the glory of God and as a picture of the gospel, I believe that that's better.
Let's pray.
Father, bless your word to your people.
Help us to hide it in our hearts and to live it out in our lives for your glory and for our good.