Daily Devotional For Sunday, September 22, 2024

I am so thrilled that today is Sunday, the Lord’s Day. I love what David wrote in Psalm 122:1, I was glad when they said to me, `Let us go to the house of the Lord’” (NLT). I pray that is the same way you feel today as well. Some people, even some who call themselves Christians, divorce themselves from attending a worship service to praise God from whom all blessings flow. How sad.The church is the bride of Christ. Imagine getting married, and after that, you had nothing really to do with your spouse? Would you call that a marriage? I wouldn’t. 

As we make our way through Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount, today we come to His words in Matthew 5:31-32, “It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; (32) but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (NASB). The New Living Translation puts it this way: “You have heard the law that says, ‘A man can divorce his wife by merely giving her a written notice of divorce.’ (32) But I say that a man who divorces his wife, unless she has been unfaithful, causes her to commit adultery. And anyone who marries a divorced woman also commits adultery.”

There are many opinions today about divorce and the basis for it, including even with some people who call themselves Christian. BUT, God has never been confusing or unclear on this issue. When people read God’s Word through their own feelings, looking for loopholes, they paint a confusing picture. The confusion I remind you is not from with God.

British author David Graham, has written in his book, The Death of the Family, this: “The best thing society could do is to abolish the family.” Women’s feminist Kate Millet in her book, Sexual Politics, writes: “The family unit must go because it is the family that has oppressed and enslaved women.” It seems that America has been fast doing this with revoking laws against homosexuality and now making it legal for homosexuals to marry and adopt children. Today, getting a divorce is about as easy as getting a marriage license. When it comes to this issue of divorce, most churches ignore the biblical teaching on it. As a result, there are four commonly held views by Christians and churches today that divide and polarize us.

1. First, divorce and remarriage are not permissible under any circumstance.
2. Second, divorce and remarriage are permissible for any reason.
3. Third, divorce is permitted under certain circumstances but remarriage is not.
4. Fourth, divorce and remarriage is permissible under certain circumstances.

Jesus taught that only one of these above is permissible by God. Only one. Just as with our own culture and society, the Jewish religious leaders in Jesus’ day had developed their own excuses and reasons to legitimize divorce and remarriage—-which they taught were God’s standard. Just as Jesus did in previous topics in the Sermon On The Mount, He corrects our erroneous opinions and justifications – just as He did on murder and adultery. In Jesus’ day the most extreme liberal view was what was commonly held — divorce and remarriage for any circumstance. In order for us to look at Jesus’ words, we must understand His Old Testament context for saying what He did. 

All a Jewish husband had to do was give his wife a “certificate of divorce,” and it was done. He could divorce his wife if she burned his meal or made a comment about him that he deemed inappropriate. How were they able to do this for such silly and stupid reasons? The same way we justify our sin today. A wrong or misinterpretation on God’s word in Deuteronomy 24:1-4:

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that 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 from his house,(2) and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, (3) and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, (4) then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance” (NASB).

When we read this we see that God did provide a basis for divorce for adultery, but He did not command it. Jesus later tells us why God did this in Matthew 19:8. So, let’s look at verse 8 in its context of Matthew 9:3-9:

“Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” (4) And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, (5) and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? (6) So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” (7) They *said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” (8) He *said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. (9) And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery” (NASB).

All the “certificate of divorce” did was divorce the Jewish husband from his Jewish wife and then protected her. It gave her the right to remarry later. Where the misinterpretation occurred is with the word “indecency” in Deuteronomy 24:1. The Hebrew word is [עֶרְוָה, erwat]. The word means “naked, nakedness.” Some Jews interpreted it to mean some kind of repeated indecent exposure. But Hebrew scholar Albert Edersheim gives a different picture to this Hebrew word: 

“The word includes every kind of impropriety and describes a generally poor reputation” (Source: Albert Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, pp.157-158).

There is only one other time this Hebrew word is used in the Hebrew Old Testament. It is in Deuteronomy 23:13-14:

“And you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement.(14) Since the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see anything indecent [עֶרְוָה, erwat] among you or He will turn away from you” (NASB). 

Pastor and author John MacArthur writes this:

“The meaning of the word in Deuteronomy 24 includes every kind of improper, shameful, or indecent behavior unbecoming to a woman and embarrassing to her husband. It cannot refer to adultery, because death was the penalty for that, even if it occurred during the engagement period (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22–24).

What kind of indecency, then, would lead to the certificate of dismissal? It must have been sins of unfaithfulness and promiscuity that stopped just short of actual adultery. At any rate, Deuteronomy 24 is clear that if the woman remarried and was divorced again, or even if her second husband died, she could not be remarried to her first husband, because she had been “defiled.” 

The Lord’s primary purpose in Deuteronomy 24:1–4 was not to give an excuse for divorce but to show the potential evil of it. His intention was not to provide for it but to prevent it. Verses 1–3 are a series of conditional clauses that culminate in the prohibition of a man ever remarrying a woman he has divorced if she marries someone else and is separated from that second husband either by another divorce or by death. Because her first divorce had no sufficient grounds, her second marriage would be adulterous. 

Even if her second husband died, she could not go back to her first, “since she [had] been denied” (v. 4). She was defiled (more literally, “disqualified”) because of the adultery brought about by her second marriage—which is the primary point of the passage. Moses is saying, then, that the divorce for indecency or promiscuity creates an adulterous situation.(Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 310).

In God’s eyes, therefore, the granting of a certificate did not in itself make a divorce legitimate. Far from approving divorce, Deuteronomy 24:1–4 is a strong warning about it. The passage suggests, or perhaps assumes, that a divorce on proper grounds, accompanied by a certificate, was permitted. It does not offer a divine provision for divorce, but rather shows that divorce often leads to adultery. 

Even on the grounds of adultery, divorce was tolerated in the law of Moses only as a gracious alternative to the capital punishment that adultery justly deserved based on Leviticus. 20:10–14:

‘If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (11) If there is a man who lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death, their bloodguiltiness is upon them. (12) If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed incest, their bloodguiltiness is upon them. (13) If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. (14) If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with fire, so that there will be no immorality in your midst” (NASB).

What God had provided as reluctant permission had been turned into a legal right. New Testament scholar Leon Morris says this:

“The bill of divorce was a protection for the woman; a capricious husband could not drive her from his home and afterward claim that she was still his wife. He must give her the document that set out her right to marry someone else . . . A wife was not permitted to divorce her husband, though she could petition the court, and if her plea was accepted the court would direct the husband to divorce her” (Source: Leon Morris, The Gospel According To Matthew, p. 120).

In Jesus’ day there were two primary Jewish schools of thought on divorce and each one was the opposite of the other. One school, followed a conservative Rabbi Named Shimmai, which stated that a husband could only divorce his wife for some sexual infidelity such as adultery. The other school of thought was by a liberal Rabbi named Hillel. 

He said a husband could divorce his wife for any reason. Hillel defined “indecency” as being anything that displeased a husband. So, which view do you think prevailed? – Hillel. It is this view that Jesus takes those listening to him on that hill that day and us back to God’s original intent in marriage and in rare occasions, divorce. 

New Testament scholar William Barclay writes this:

“Theoretically, no nation ever had a higher ideal of marriage than the Jews had. Marriage was a sacred duty which a man was bound to undertake. He might delay or abstain from marriage for only one reason—to devote his whole time to the study of the law. If a man refused to marry and have children, he was said to have broken the positive commandment which instructed men to be fruitful and to multiply, and he was said to have ‘lessened the image of God in the world’ and to have ‘slain his posterity’” (Source: William Barclay, The New Revised Daily Study Bible Series, “Matthew,” p. 174).

We will continue more tomorrow with this topic of divorce. But for now, I leave you with two verses to think about:

• Genesis 2:24,"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (KJV).
• Malachi 2:16, “For I hate divorce,” says the Lord, the God of Israel” (NASB).

Questions To Consider

1. What is your opinion on the subject of divorce and why?
2. Have you personally or have you ever known someone to go through a divorce? If so, how was it justified? Why was there no forgiveness and reconciliation?
3. What do you think of the fact that God allows for divorce in a very limited situation – infidelity, but He does not command it even for this reason?
4. If we are to “leave and cleave” to our spouse, why does it seem so many people who call themselves Christians are “departing and divorcing?”
5. It is clear from Jesus’ words in Matthew 9:8, that it was due to the “hardness of our hearts” that God allowed for divorce. If this is why, what does that tell you about divorce and why?

Scripture To Meditate On: Ecclesiastes 5:4, “When you make a vow to God, do not be late in paying it; for He takes no delight in fools. Pay what you vow!” (NASB).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, help me to honor and keep all my vows. You say in Ecclesiastes 5:4 You hold me accountable to keep my word in any and all situations. That I am better off never making a vow, than to make one and then break it. Jesus, in an age where it seems everything is expendable, including significant relationships, please help me to be loyal, dependable, loving and committed in all my personal and covenantal relationships no matter what. I love You Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside!--Pastor Kelly