Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. Let's find your seats and open your hymn books to page 164.
Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for joining us this evening. Page 164, praise him,
praise him. 164, praise him, praise him. This church, we thank you first who went out to thank
you for all the salvations. This is your prayer, Lord, that you would just touch with your word
tonight and help us to become better Christians through the nation. Receive and please pass
Shelly up, Holy Spirit. In Jesus name I pray, Amen. And we'll be page 373. So send I you,
page 373, I you. Coming to Steadfast Baptist Church, if you didn't get a bulletin already
and you'd like one, just lift up your hand nice and high. We have our new Bible member passage,
Psalm 53. Insides are service and soul winning times. On the rights are expecting ladies list.
Coming events. Faithward Baptist Church has a missions conference in November 5th through the
9th. Choir practice for our kids is November 9th. That's going to be ages 4-10. I'm going to be
preaching for Pastor Dylan Oz at Anchor Baptist Church November 23rd for their one year anniversary.
We have a flag football turkey bowl event November 29th. Brother Marcel is going to
be leading that. Ladies Christmas party December 5th. The Christmas caroling December 8th.
Kids choirs are going to be performing December 21st. Cookie Bake Off December 21st. Christmas
candlelight service December 24th. And then a men's preaching and pizza December 31st. On the back
is our prayer list. Also baby shower for the Villarills and Campesies. It's going to be on
November 8th from 12 to 2. It is nursing's only. On the inside we had a missionary update for
Evangelist Urbanic and the work that they were doing out there. They're really close to almost
6,000 salvations for the year and their church has been growing and doing well. So just keep them in
prayer. They have a couple prayer requests on the back. If you've been also in prayer with them,
they recently given birth, be in prayer for them with that. Brother James also if you pray for
Brother Kenton Knowles who's planning on going out there to help them with their church and to do a
bunch of soul winning in the Philippines with our church. So lots of great things to be in prayer
for and looking forward to. That's pretty much all I have. We're gonna go ahead and sing our Psalm of
the Week Psalm 117. Psalm 117 in your special binders. Psalm 117. This time the offering plates
will be passed around. You can turn in your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter five. Ecclesiastes chapter
five. Ecclesiastes chapter five. Bible says keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God. Be
more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools for they consider not that they do evil.
Be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God. For God is
in heaven and thou upon earth. Therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh through the
multitude of business and a fool's voice is known by a multitude of words. When thou vowest to vow
unto God, defer not to pay it. For he hath no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed.
Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy
mouth to cause thy flesh to sin. Neither say thou before the angel that it was an error. Wherefore
should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands? For in the multitude of dreams
and many words there are also diverse vanities. But fear thou God. If thou seest the oppression
of the poor and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter.
For he that is higher than the highest regardeth, and there be higher than they. Moreover the prophet
of the earth is for all. The king himself is served by the field. He that loveth silver shall not be
satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase. This is also vanity. When goods
increase, they are increased that eat them. And what good is there to the owners thereof,
saving the beholding of them with their eyes? The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether
he eat little or much. But the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. There is a
sore evil which I have seen under the sun. Namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.
But those riches perish by evil travail. And he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.
As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take
nothing of his labor, which he may carry away in his hand. And this also is a sore evil,
that in all points as he came so shall he go. And what profit hath he that hath labored for the wind?
All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.
Behold that which I have seen. It is good and comely for one to eat and to drink and to enjoy
the good of all his labor that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him.
For it is his portion. Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him
power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God.
For he shall not much remember the days of his life, because God answereth him in the joy of
his heart. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this day. Thank you for the Word of
God. I thank you for the great work that Steadfast is doing. Please bless our church, continue to
bless us, and bless Evangelist Urbanik and the work he's doing in the Philippines. Please bless
this message now. Help Pastor Shelley as he preaches your Word to us. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. I want to look back at verse four. The Bible says, "When thou vowest to vow unto God,
defer not to pay it, for you have no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed.
Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay."
Here is a principle in the Bible about honoring your vows. And I would argue the most important
vow that we typically are going to make in our lives is the marriage vow. And that we should,
when we make a vow to God, we should keep it in instructions that I give a couple when they get
married. We take certain vows. One of them is, "Till death do us part." And I believe if you make
that vow to God, that you are bound by that vow and you should keep that vow. And that people
should have this idea of having a till death marriage. And so that's the title of my sermon
this evening is a till death marriage. And I really want to talk about this topic. And I really have
just three simple points. Why should you have a till death marriage? Well, point one is really
simple. If you made a vow to God to have a till death marriage, you need to keep that vow. And
the Bible does not have exceptions where God's asking you to break your vows or break your
promises to him. If you make a vow unto God, he expects you to keep that vow and to keep that
promise. And of course, this is not a bad vow. Anyways, it's a great vow to say, Hey, I'm going
to love someone no matter what. Isn't that great that Jesus Christ makes that kind of vow and
promise to us that he gives unto us eternal life and you'll never leave us nor forsake us
and that we're going to go to heaven and he seals that Holy Spirit of promise and he's going to
redeem us. We've been basically just promised eternal life, given eternal life and that picture
of how Jesus loves us no matter how much we transgress is supposed to be a picture of how
when you get married to someone, you're going to love them no matter how much they transgress,
that you are making a commitment to them in the same way that Christ makes a commitment to us.
And if Christ can keep his vow to every single Christian, I mean think about it, every single
person that has ever believed on the Lord Jesus Christ is guaranteed heaven no matter what they do.
Then why could I not say then I'll stay married to you no matter what? I mean if Jesus is saying I'm
going to take you to heaven, you have been forgiven, and I'm going to get you there no matter what,
why couldn't we have the same attitude as the Lord Jesus Christ? If we're supposed to follow
his example, then I believe we should keep that vow, keep that promise, and as a beautiful picture
of the gospel, that once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're saved, and when you die,
you're going to go to heaven. In the same way, we should have a marriage commitment to our spouse
that says look, I will love you for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and
health, forsaking all others, keep the only unto you, so long as we both shall live, right? I mean
hey, to love and cherish till death do us part. Make that vow, make that promise, and it be serious.
And look, it's a real thing, like it's not an easy thing. That's why you should take marriage
seriously. That's why you should pick one that you really want to love. But think about how special
it is for someone to say that to you. I mean, for someone to look at you and say look, I like you
enough to stick with you for the rest of my life, even if you become poor, even if you're worse,
even if you're sick, even if you're not doing right, I'm just still going to choose to love
you no matter what. I mean, isn't that feel good? It feels good for someone to just say, hey look,
even if you just get worse as a person, even if you get poorer as a person, even if you break my
heart, even if you do mean stuff to me, even if you don't deserve it, I'm just going to love you
and I'm just going to be a faithful spouse unto you. And really that's all you can do. We only have
control over ourselves, you know. And look, what is Hosea doing? Hosea has a picture of a husband
loving his wife even when she doesn't deserve it, even when she's transgressed against him in the
arguably the worst way imaginable and he's still supposed to love her. And it was supposed to be a
picture about God loved Israel and was going to keep his promise unto them and be good unto them
and faithful unto them even when they were not faithful back, even when they didn't deserve it,
even when they were transgressing in multiple ways. And look, this is what marriage should look
like. But today, the marriage advice in the world is rampantly bad. Almost everyone believes in all
kinds of just divorce exceptions and putting away your wife exceptions and just, well,
God wouldn't want you to be in this relationship type of conversations. And it's not just like
non-Baptists or something. I'm saying virtually everyone. Whether you're talking about a Southern
Baptist, whether you're talking about an independent fundamental Baptist, hey, even some ex new IFB
Baptist. I mean, there's many people where you're kind of like, I don't feel like you're that strong
on the never divorce train. But let me tell you something. I've always been in this train and I
always will be on this train that I do not believe in divorce. I believe until death do us part.
I believe in until death marriage. And I believe the Bible teaches this. And point number one is
that you're supposed to keep your vow. Go to Matthew 19, go to Matthew 19. And we're going
to just you know do a little Bible study tonight. Talk about this issue and and just kind of lay
down this doctrine. This doctrine needs to be preached a lot because there's almost no one else
saying this. Whether it's the internet, books, counselors, other churches, family members, friends,
whomever. They all are going to tell you when marriage is down just drop them. Drop that zero
and get you a hero. You know just all kinds of different advice about why you should leave your
spouse. Marry up. You know get rid of the old ball and chain. Cut it off. You know and you know as
much as people want to make fun of the she can leave doctrine there's plenty of people doing the
he can leave too. And look neither of those should be on the table for a Christian. Christians should
just take it off the table. And look if you say I'm stuck with you for life and I'm not changing
then you know you're going to make the best of your situation. If you believe in divorce
then often what you do is you become a terrible spouse because you're both trying to like encourage
each other to basically just get divorced. And if you go to counseling most of the counseling today
it's not marriage advice it's divorce advice. They're just waiting for you to say the magic
words that fit into their divorce box and then they can say well it's fine you can get a divorce
now. Whereas you should if you get marriage counseling please only get marriage counseling
advice from somebody that believes divorce is not an option because at least then they'll give you
tips on how to make things better and look some people have just like a really screwed up situation
some people just have like a terrible situation and i'm not going to say that they don't but
those are the people that need it the most someone to say look just try to make the best of it still
and growing up being a teenager i just seen so many family members and friends and all kinds
of stuff going through horrific situations bad outcomes whatever and i've seen a lot of them
work through those issues and now they're actually having a good marriage whereas in the past it was
a it was a train wreck didn't look good serious problems but hey they were able to get over it
and they were able to repair the relationship i've seen sometimes people have horrific situations
and it doesn't get fixed so there's no guarantee but you know just because you have a bad situation
does not mean that you couldn't have it fixed repaired and be very happy and content in your
relationship in the future sometimes it takes years sometimes it might take a decade you know
time can heal all wounds.
And if you both put the effort and energy back
in your relationship, I believe God can bless your marriage
no matter what the situation was.
But at the end of the day, you know,
you should just have a till death marriage
because you made that vow, even if it is a bad relationship.
And what's wrong with it?
Like, are you gonna really be in heaven and think like,
you know, I shouldn't have loved that Christian
as hard as I did.
I wish I had been a little bit meaner.
I wish I hadn't gone on as many dates.
I wish I hadn't been as sweet.
I wish I hadn't cooked him as nice,
as many nice meals as he deserved.
Look, you're not gonna regret loving your spouse.
You're not gonna regret doing good under your spouse,
even if they didn't reciprocate,
even if they didn't do good.
And you know, in my mind, based on the biblical principles,
if you did all this great stuff to your spouse
and they didn't reciprocate,
maybe God's is gonna give you
extra rewards in heaven for that.
You know, he's not gonna reward you for nagging your spouse.
He's not gonna reward you for trashing your spouse
or leaving them or doing evil under them.
There's no reward in that.
But I believe there is reward in doing good under your spouse
even when they don't deserve it.
And you know what, the only person stopping you
from being the greatest spouse on this planet is you.
It's not, your wife or your husband is not stopping you
from being the greatest spouse on earth.
You are stopping you from being
the greatest spouse on earth.
And you know what, your spouse,
if you've made these vows and these promises to them,
you should just be the best spouse you can possibly be
regardless of how they act, regardless of what they do.
And look, think about it.
If both people actually had that mindset,
you would have a great marriage.
Why do people not have a good marriage?
Because people are being selfish.
And look, even if my spouse is being selfish,
you know what, I don't have to be selfish.
I can still be a good spouse.
Well look, a till death marriage, number one,
you need to keep that vow.
Number two, the Bible teaches
that you've been joined together by God, okay?
Look what it says in verse number three,
the Pharisees also came on him, tempting him,
and saying to him, is it lawful
for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
You know, it's so funny, people think that Pharisees
are like these really strict religious people,
whereas the Bible teaches that they're very permissive
and liberal, they wanna break God's commandments,
they don't keep God's commandments,
they wanna believe in a no fault divorce California.
Hey, we should be able to put our spouse away
for every cause, and they're like trying
to get Jesus to justify this.
What does Jesus say?
And he answered and said to them, have you not read
that he which made them at the beginning
made them male and female, and said for this cause
shall a man leave father and mother
and shall cleave to his wife,
and they twain shall be one flesh?
Wherefore there are no more twain but one flesh?
What therefore God hath joined together,
let not man put asunder.
Notice that God does something special in marriage.
There's something special that happens.
God joins you all together.
Now, you know, some people make a weird idea
that this is being intimate.
No, that's fornication if you're not married.
Being joined together is that vow
that you are making to your spouse
and being joined together in a lawful wedding ceremony,
and God is in that process, God is in that act,
and he is joining you together,
and you are no longer two people,
you are now one flesh in God's eyes, in God's sight.
The only way that gets separated in God's sight
is if you die.
That's how God views it.
And he's saying, what God has joined together,
why would man then come and try to separate
what God has joined together?
So number one, you need to have a till-death marriage
because you've made that vow.
Number two, because God has joined you to your spouse
when you had that marriage, when you had that ceremony.
And look, it doesn't have to be in a church.
Look, I think if you went down to the justice of the peace
and you signed the document, God still joins you together.
But it's that promise, it's you coming together,
it's you making that commitment.
God has now put you together, you are now one,
you do not separate what God has joined together.
Now, that answer was sufficient.
I mean, what Jesus said was sufficient to the question.
Hey, can a man put his wife away for every cause?
And what does Jesus answer?
No, 'cause what God has joined together,
what therefore God has joined together,
let not man put us under.
That's an answer.
So then what is their response?
What is their response to his answer to this question?
Verse seven.
They say in them, why did Moses then command to give
a writing of divorcement and to put her away?
The Pharisees understood that Jesus answered the question.
Their question is implying
that Jesus totally satisfied their question
by saying, no, you don't get divorced.
So now they're thinking, okay,
then why does divorce even exist?
If you're never supposed to divorce,
if divorce is off the table,
then why is that even in the law?
But by their question,
they understood that he said divorce is off the table,
that it was a till death marriage.
They understand that.
They're asking this to trap them or to trick them.
Or frankly, they just don't understand the Bible,
probably all three.
Why does this exist if you should never divorce?
Why does this divorce thing happen?
Verse eight, he say, he say to them,
Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts,
suffered you to put away your wives,
but from the beginning, it was not so.
So what are we unpacking in this?
Well, number one, Jesus is saying,
this is not a timeless doctrine.
The divorce proceeding was not a timeless doctrine.
It was specific to the law because he says,
in the beginning, there was no such thing as divorce.
This thing didn't even exist.
God had joined them together.
There was no such thing as divorce.
It was later that this even became a quote option.
And why?
Because of the hardness of your hearts.
Is that a good thing or a negative thing?
It's a negative thing.
He's saying, this is not the best course of action.
This is not the right thing to do.
This is just something that's tolerated, okay?
Tolerating this as a particular option
because of the hardness of your hearts.
Let's keep reading verse nine.
"And I say unto you, whoso shall put away his wife,
"except to be for fornication, and shall marry another,
"committeth adultery, and whoso marryeth her,
"which is put away, doth commit adultery."
So here, Jesus is bringing up also
just kind of a little bit of a tidbit of information,
like explaining, hey, even if you do enact
this particular, what you think, divorce proceeding,
if you don't do it the way Moses prescribed it,
you're actually causing adultery.
We have to understand there's a couple things.
There's the way the law should work,
and then there's what humans do.
The way the law should work is divorce is only granted
in a fornication example.
But in the world, people are obviously divorcing each other
for things that are not fitting that particular paradigm.
And so Jesus is bringing this up and saying,
look, if you are divorcing your spouse
for something other than what the Bible's describing
in the fornication clause, then you're committing adultery.
It is an adultery offense, okay?
And we're gonna talk about this fornication thing
here in a second.
But in the King James Bible, it says fornication.
Other translations do not use this word here.
They'll use, you know, immorality or some vague term.
Some may even suggest adultery or something.
And this is kind of the prevailing view
that it's just any kind of adultery or something,
or any kind of immorality of an intimate nature.
That's not what the Bible teaches,
and that's not what the Bible says.
It says fornication specifically.
And fornication is not adultery,
but many people believe that fornication is adultery.
And even independent fundamental Baptists believe this as well.
I want you to go to Matthew 15 for a second.
Go to Matthew 15.
I have with me a few different books,
and I just kind of wanted to talk about them
for a second, okay?
Because what I'm gonna talk about
is controversy amongst independent fundamental Baptists.
Jack Hiles has a pretty cool book here.
I really like this book.
It's called "The Hiles Church Manual."
And so basically it's just like all kinds of instructions
about like how to run a church,
all the practicalities and blah, blah, blah.
It's not stuff I need to preach
'cause you're not running a church, okay?
So you don't really need to know it.
It even has like, it's funny,
it has like salaries in here and stuff,
which wow, inflation.
It's like people are getting paid like $500, you know,
a month.
This is like, dang, like that's rough, you know?
Like I don't even understand how to translate
that kind of stuff.
But I mean, I've used this book
and there's section in here about like
how to have a marriage ceremony.
Honestly, you read this book, you'll be like,
I know a pastor who's really learned
how to do his marriage ceremony.
'Cause it's pretty much like exactly
what the Hiles manual teaches
on like how to do a marriage ceremony, okay?
He has all kinds of different things in here.
He has advice on like counseling, okay?
And I've read through it many times
and I like a lot of the advice in his counseling section.
And he gives a lot of advice for husbands,
a lot of advice for wives, different things.
But specifically, he has a couple of things in here.
Number one, he has this four great causes of divorce.
So he basically is like saying,
these are some of the things he's noticed
as a pastor over the years.
Why are people constantly getting divorced?
Not because it's not what's right,
just why are people doing it?
Like what is their justification?
Says number one, financial problems.
Number two, an improper relationship within laws.
Says living too close to them,
specifically in the parenthesis, okay?
Number three, a lack of emphasis on spiritual life.
So that's not having family devotions, not praying,
and not going to church.
Says number four, a failure in love life.
And that's just basically expressions
of love towards one another.
So he said financial problems in laws,
no spiritual life or lack thereof,
and a failure in the love life category.
Says those are the four main reasons.
And honestly, it sounds like it's probably pretty true.
It's probably still even true today
that usually when people split,
they probably have problems in these areas.
He also then gives just all these different advices
for women and for men.
I'm not gonna read all of it, but it's pretty spicy.
Admittedly though, there's a couple in here
that I just personally don't agree with.
And that's what I was gonna read.
He has number 31 advice for women.
It says if your husband is guilty of fornication,
you then have scriptural grounds for divorce.
This does not mean that you're commanded to divorce,
but it does mean that you're permitted to divorce
if the home is saved and forgiveness is offered.
Do not bring up the past.
Now, he uses the correct word here.
He uses the word fornication.
What we have to understand is that a lot of old IVB churches,
they believe the word fornication means adultery,
and they've taught that fornication means adultery.
I don't believe that at all.
I preached a whole sermon on adultery versus fornication.
You can go listen to that sermon.
But even Pastor Hiles and many old IVB churches,
they believe that any kind of adultery or whatever
is grounds for divorce
and will sometimes even encourage people to get divorced.
And so I just want you to realize that that's happening.
He also has the exact same advice for husbands.
Says if your wife is guilty of fornication
then you have scriptural grounds for divorce.
This does not mean you're commanded to divorce,
but it does mean that you're permitted to divorce
if the homosage and forgiveness is offered
do not bring up the past.
So this is from his book.
Here's another book.
It's called "The Home" by John R. Rice.
Has anybody read this?
Few people have maybe read this or something.
And in this particular book,
he gives all kinds of different advice.
I haven't read the entire book.
So I can't necessarily speak intelligently
on the entire book.
I've heard that has a lot of good advice in here.
I've read the first few chapters and it was okay.
But in the very end of the book,
there's a chapter it's called the adultery,
the ruin of marriage and morals.
Now, hey, I agree adultery is a super evil wicked sin.
It can cause a lot of problems,
but I'm just gonna read a small excerpt from this book
of what John R Rice says.
The Scarlet sin is the only scriptural ground
for a divorce.
Everywhere in the New Testament, divorce is discouraged.
Jesus named only one sin that permitted
the breaking of marriage by divorce.
In Matthew 19, he said, and I say unto you,
whoso shall put away his wife,
accept it be for fornication,
and shall marry another committed adultery,
and whoso marryeth her which is put away
doth commit adultery.
The word quote fornication here comes from the same root
in the Greek as the words for harlot and whoremonger.
The only difference between fornication and adultery
is that fornication, that is harlotry or whoremongering,
seems a more deliberate or repeated indulgence in the sin.
It is the same scarlet sin and a divorce is not allowed,
quote, except it be for fornication, said Jesus.
So he's saying that the only difference
between fornication and adultery is fornication
is more repeated than adultery.
I just don't understand how he came to that conclusion.
I don't believe that at all.
This is what he else he said.
He said drunkenness is not a sufficient reason for divorce.
If a husband comes home drunk, beats his wife,
wastes the money so there is no food and insufficient clothes
and makes a hell of a home,
still that wife does not have a right,
according to the Bible, to a divorce.
Now, I just want every ex-New Yorker to condemn
and publicly announce John R. Rice.
I'm gonna read that again, okay?
Drunkenness is not a sufficient reason for divorce.
If a husband comes home drunk, beats his wife,
wastes the money so there is no food and insufficient clothes
and makes a hell of the home,
yes, the word hell is in this,
still that wife does not have a right,
according to the Bible, to a divorce.
That is according to John R. Rice.
He is not new I.B., all right?
Now again, is that horrific?
Yeah, that is horrific.
That is awful, okay?
But I agree with him, it's not a right to divorce.
Says, "Or if either mate shall desert the other
"without rhyme or reason,
"yet God does not permit a divorce."
If he or she leaves, not a reason for divorce,
not allowing a divorce at all.
If a man's wife commits murder,
she is still, he does not have a right to divorce her.
If a husband is sentenced to the penitentiary,
state laws may allow a divorce, but God's law does not.
Even insanity is not mentioned in the Bible
as a proper ground for divorce.
Any divorce that is granted for any reason
except to be for fornication
is an unscriptural divorce in God's sight.
And if either party marries after any divorce
except for fornication, that party commits adultery.
So horrible is the sin in God's sight
that is the only one for which he allows
a marriage to be broken.
So again, I agree with like 97% of what he said
in this book.
I just still don't even believe
in the adultery exception either, okay?
The fornication is obviously mentioned in the Bible,
so we can deal with that.
I had you turn to Matthew chapter 15.
If adultery and fornication though are the same word,
why is it mentioned in lists together?
'Cause look what it says in Matthew chapter 15 verse 19.
For out of the heart preceded evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness blasphemies.
I would submit to you, it doesn't really make logical sense
to include two words that mean the exact same thing
or virtually the same thing
when this list is wildly different items, isn't it?
But fornication, as defined by the dictionary,
by the dictionary, is unwed parties lying together.
If you look at Merriam-Webster's dictionary,
it is one party is a married as adultery,
fornication is neither is married.
That's just the dictionary definition.
I wanna go to Deuteron, let's go to Leviticus chapter 20.
Let's go to Leviticus chapter 20.
I would also submit to you this.
I do not believe that Jesus Christ
would even bring up the adultery as an exception,
because adultery, according to the Bible,
in the scenario that he used,
the death penalty was prescribed.
He said, hey, if your wife is guilty of fornication,
you can put her away.
If that means adultery, you wouldn't put her away.
You would really put her away, okay?
That's what the Bible actually teaches.
Leviticus chapter 20 verse 10,
and the man that committed adultery
with another man's wife, even he,
meaning specifically he,
that committed adultery with his neighbor's wife,
the adulterer and the adulteress,
shall surely be put to death.
So the Bible prescribes the death penalty for adultery.
That means it doesn't make sense
that that would be the exception for divorce,
considering the fact that this is already prescribed
with the death penalty for that scenario.
So I have two main reasons why I don't believe
that you could ever argue that the fornication is adultery.
Number one, the law prescribed the death penalty
for adultery, and number two,
when you look at lists of these words,
it doesn't make sense that they're saying
the exact same thing.
Plus there's other examples,
and we're gonna go to that in a minute,
but look at Deuteronomy chapter 22 now.
Go to Deuteronomy chapter 22.
The Bible brings this up again in another statute.
Deuteronomy chapter 22, look at verse 22.
If a man be found lying with a woman,
married to a husband,
then they shall both of them die,
both the man that lay with the woman and the woman,
so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
Now again, Deuteronomy 13,
this is the second time that Moses is telling the law.
It's just saying, hey, this is what I was told.
Is he not giving us exactly what Leviticus 20 10
already told us?
He's saying the exact same thing.
Double down, this is what the law prescribes,
the death penalty for adultery.
It even goes beyond this though.
Keep reading.
It says in the next verse,
if a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband,
and a man find her in the city and lie with her,
then you shall bring them both
out under the gate of the city,
and ye shall stone them with stones that they die.
The damsel because she cried not being in the city,
and the man because he hath humbled his neighbor's wife,
so thou shalt put away evil from among you.
The Bible says not only was adultery
defined as in the confines of marriage,
also in the confines of a betrothal.
So even if you were just betrothed unto a spouse
and you committed this form of act, this adultery,
it was also punished with the death penalty, okay?
Now in chapter 24, it brings up the one provision
that Jesus brought up, this fornication example.
Look at verse one.
When a man hath taken a wife and married her
and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes
because he hath found some uncleanness in her,
then let him write her a bill of divorcement
and give it in her hand and send her out of his house.
And when she is departed out of his house,
she may go and be another man's wife.
Now think about this scenario.
Is this causing her to be put to death
or the man that lay with her or the men that lay with her?
No.
So what would that be?
This would have been some kind of act
that happened outside of the marriage before the betrothal
because if it was even during the betrothal,
she would have been put to death.
So this is something that happened.
And look, you don't know, they don't have a lab
that you can go down to and test and check things
and see things and see what syphilis really looks like, okay?
So she's basically saying,
if a guy inspects the goods on the wedding night,
which was the first time he got an opportunity to do so,
and he doesn't like it, he could what?
He could put her away.
This is what we typically think
in our modern vernacular is an annulment.
It's more like an annulment.
And the Bible even says that if she's a virgin
and he lies with a virgin, he can never put her away.
Go back to chapter 22 for a moment.
Go back to chapter 22 and the Bible says
in verse 13, "If any man take a wife
and go in under and hate her."
So he hates his wife.
He does not like her.
"And gives occasions of speech against her,
bring up an evil name upon her and say,
I took this woman and when I came under,
I found her not a maid."
So he's trying to, in a sense, put his wife away
for some uncleanness that he has found in her, okay?
Now, if she had said that she was a virgin,
that was the pretense under which they were getting married,
is that she is a virgin for sure.
And it's true that she was not a virgin.
She lied about it, or the father and her lied about it.
Then she would be put to death.
But if the guy just hates her and doesn't like her,
and is not accurate in this, what does the Bible say?
The Bible says, "And they shall immerse him
"in a hundred shekels of silver,
"and give them unto the father."
So they give the father money for the guy lying about it.
"For the father of the angel,
"because he hath brought up an evil name
"upon a virgin of Israel,
"and she shall be his wife."
And notice this, "He may not put her away all his days."
The Bible just says, hey, if she passes this one exception,
'cause she's passed with flying colors, she was a virgin.
Is it possible to have found any uncleanness in her
from her past?
No, it's off the table.
The fornication thing
has been completely wiped off the table.
So then what does the Bible say?
"He may not put her away all of his days."
Whereas, hey, you have a woman,
maybe you don't have the promise that she's a virgin.
Maybe you know she has a past,
but you're still on the wedding night,
don't like the goods or whatever.
Technically, according to the law, you could put her away.
And if you put her away,
what does the Bible say in verse two of chapter 24?
"And when she is departed out of the house,"
out of his house, "she may go and be another man's wife."
It was lawful for her to marry another man,
and it was not considered adultery.
Because of the annulment,
God had not officially joined them together.
Therefore, because they were not officially joined together,
she could be with another man, and it's not adultery.
But for every other situation,
it's adultery because God has joined them together.
Point one of a tildeth marriage is because you made the vow,
you have to keep that vow.
Number two, once God's joined you together,
you do not put asunder.
And the only exception was here in this fornication clause.
And once you pass that, while God's joined you together,
you cannot break that, you cannot have any exception
because anybody that lies with someone after that point,
it's a form of adultery.
And the Bible's crystal clear on this subject, okay?
Now, some people bring this up.
Go to Revelation chapter two.
I'm just gonna go to this one passage
because people bring this up to me.
And they'll say, well, what do you do with Revelation two?
Well, you interpret the Bible, that's what you do.
There's no contradiction in the Bible.
And sound doctrine can explain every verse, okay?
Now, this is what some people get confused on
is Revelation two, and I'm gonna explain it to you.
Revelation chapter two, verse 20.
Now I was standing up a few things against thee
because thou suffereth that woman Jezebel,
which called herself a prophetess,
to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication
and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
And I gave her space to repent of her fornication
and she repented not.
Behold, I will cast her into a bed
and them that commit adultery with her
into a great tribulation,
except they repent of their deeds.
And I will kill our children with death
and all the churches shall know
that I am he which searches the reigns and hearts
and I will give unto every one of you
according to your works.
Notice by committing fornication and adultery
and not being repentant about it,
God may just kill you.
You know committing adultery and fornication
is an evil wicked sin.
You should not engage in it.
If you do, you should stop immediately.
You should ask God for forgiveness.
And if you don't, what does the Bible say?
God may even just kill you as an example.
Now also it shows that God's very merciful
because with these people he gave them space to repent of it.
If they had repented of it, if they had gotten it right,
hey we can just forgive, move on, not mention it to them.
But this is why people bring this up to me
is because as you notice in verse 21,
it said that she was supposed to repent of her fornication
and then in verse 22, it says them
that commit adultery with her.
Some people bring this up and say doesn't that mean
that fornication and adultery are the same thing?
And the answer is no because it's just not
what those words mean.
I'm not gonna take this particular portion of scripture
and then just completely redefine these words
everywhere else in the Bible, okay?
So how could this possibly be true?
Well I'm gonna give you two ways that this could be true,
okay?
Here's way number one.
If this woman, Jezebel, is unmarried,
she could be lying with men that are unmarried
and that would be what?
Fornication.
And she could also be engaging with men that are married
and that would be what?
So she could be actively engaged in fornication
and adultery at the same time, couldn't she?
That's one way.
I'll give you a second way you can interpret this verse.
Second way is she is only committing fornication.
But because she's committing fornication
and she's basically encouraging people
to commit fornication,
it doesn't mean that all of them
are committing fornication with her.
It could just be other people also participating
in that sin because of her example.
And there's other people that are there
committing adultery because of what she's doing.
She's committing fornication
and she's committing this sin
and encouraging people to do this stuff,
seducing people to commit this kind of sin.
By that example, men are committing adultery,
not with her literally,
but with her in the fact that they're both participating
in this kind of a sin.
So it's just saying, hey, she's committing fornication,
other people are committing fornication
and other people are even committing adultery
and they're all kind of doing it at the same time
because of the teaching in the church,
but it doesn't mean that they're necessarily
committing adultery with her literally,
they're committing the adultery
and basically they're both committing these type of sins
at the same time, not with each other literally.
Those are two completely different ways
where you can interpret these verses
and it does not mean that fornication is adultery
because it just doesn't fit,
it's not what the Bible teaches in other places.
I just wanted to cover that
because some people bring this up to me,
sincere people just trying to understand
what this verse means.
So that's two different ways you could understand that.
Go if you would, back to Matthew 19 though.
I wanna finish a couple thoughts on Matthew 19.
And I'm gonna say something that,
probably would piss a lot of people off,
but I don't really care,
is the Bible does not grant women the ability
to divorce their husband, period.
The Bible does not give an option
for the wife to divorce her husband.
Oh, well that's just you being a chauvinist.
That's you being a misogynist.
You think that some laws only apply to men
and some only apply to women.
Yes, I do.
You know why?
'Cause that's what the Bible teaches.
There is no such thing as a woman
divorcing her husband biblically.
Now again, there's things that the Bible teaches
and then there's things that people do.
Obviously, throughout history,
mankind has allowed women to divorce their husbands.
I would bet even at first century price timeline,
there was probably women divorcing their husbands
because of Roman rule or because of Greek legislation
or whatever, you can look it up.
There's been times where women have divorced
their husbands throughout history,
not because the Bible prescribed it,
because of man being corrupt and having unbiblical loss.
But biblically speaking,
the Bible does not provide any provision
for a wife to ever divorce her husband
for any reason ever, period.
Yet we see in today's world,
just women are the instigators of more divorces
than anybody in the relationship.
It's unbiblical, it's unchristian,
it's not godly, it's not right, and you know what?
I don't believe that there is any kind of exception.
And think about it this way,
if the only exception was for fornication,
you can't really prove that with a guy anyways.
You could prove it with the female,
with the tokens of virginity,
but you really can't know with a guy.
And there's just, there was no option on the table
for wives to divorce their husbands,
it was off the table, it's not legitimate.
It's not a thing that can ever be done, okay?
The law just does not permit it.
Now look at Matthew 19, let's read verses 10 and 11.
We're kind of just finishing this section of scripture
with the conclusion here.
His disciples saying to him,
"If the case of the man be so with his wife,
"it is not good to marry."
They understood what was taught.
What was taught?
No matter how bad my wife gets, I can't put her away,
and the answer was right, you can't.
She could just be a bad wife,
she could just do all kinds of dumb stuff,
make lots of mistakes, and you can't put her away.
Biblically speaking, that's just how it is.
And isn't it interesting that when you teach
that you can't divorce, who were the most upset people?
The men were the ones that were the most upset,
it wasn't the women.
But in a day in America,
it's like women are the ones losing their mind.
But it's only because we live in a society
where they can basically be propped up by the government.
Because throughout history, you know,
women having to literally pay for all their bills
and build their little log cabin
and fight off all the bears and stuff,
they weren't like, man, I just wish I could get rid of men,
you know, who needs men or whatever.
They want a man, okay?
It's only in modern society
where they think they don't need a man
or something like that, okay?
Feminism at its worst.
But men are obviously needed in society.
They're a good thing.
And women were not permitted
to divorce their husbands for any reason.
Men are saying, man, I don't wanna get married
if I can just marry her and she could just be a bad wife.
But you know what?
Marriage is a good thing.
Marriage is honorable and all.
Who's to find that the wife findeth a good thing
and obtain a favor of the Lord?
And we shouldn't encourage young men not to get married.
We should encourage them to be married, okay?
Obviously be wise about who you marry.
Obviously, you know, take that in consideration.
But you know what?
I guarantee you the married men in this room
love being married.
It's a great thing.
I can't imagine being single.
You know, my wife's my best friend and I love her.
And she's super hot.
So that's all, you know, that's all I, I mean, it's great.
But verse 12, or sorry, verse 11, he says,
"But he said unto them,
"All men cannot receive this saying,
"save they to whom it is given."
You know, most people can't handle this.
And you know, I wanted to read one other thing.
I'm gonna have to look it up in this real quick.
But this is Matthew Henry's commentary.
And I normally don't really reference it.
I don't really care whatsoever.
It's not that important to me.
But I just wanted to just kind of read
what he says about this particular passage.
Because again, people, they love to just act like
the new IMB invents everything or something like that.
But it's like, sorry, we just didn't, okay?
I didn't invent that of a husband, you know,
is a crappy husband and beats up his wife
and whatever you stay married to her.
John R. Rice said it.
And it's not like he's the first one to say it either, okay?
Matthew Henry's commentary.
One thing that's cool about it, at least,
is that it's only the King James Bible.
As you go back that far, it's the King James Bible.
There's no NIV, there's no ESV, right?
So this is a commentary from hundreds of years ago
by Matthew Henry.
This is what he says about Matthew chapter 19,
what we were reading
and about the fornication exception, okay?
Says, "Dr. Whitby."
So even he likes to reference other people.
So Matthew Henry's referencing a guy named Dr. Whitby
understands this not of adultery,
talking about the fornication verse,
but because our savior uses the word pornea, fornication.
The word in Greek for fornication is pornea.
So he uses the actual Greek word here.
Of uncleanness committed before marriage,
but discovered afterward,
because if it were committed after,
it was a capital crime and there needed no divorce.
So basically what I just explained to you,
he's saying, look,
it doesn't make sense that this fornication is adultery
because adultery is punished with the death penalty.
Therefore there's no need for a divorce.
You don't need to divorce someone that's dead.
Says he disallows it in all other cases.
Whosoever puts away his wife except for fornication
and marries another commits adultery.
This is a direct answer to their query
that it is not lawful.
So he's saying when Jesus says
that you're not supposed to put us under,
he just answered, you shouldn't do it.
He says in this, as in other things,
gospel times are times of reformation.
Hebrews 10, the law of Christ tends to reinstate man
and his primitive integrity.
The law of love, conjugal love is no new commandment,
but was from the beginning.
If we consider what mischiefs to families and states,
what confusions and disorders would follow
upon arbitrary divorces, we shall see how much
this law of Christ is for our own benefit
and what a friend Christianity is to our secular interests.
Let me explain what he just said.
He said, I can't imagine what a society would look like
with arbitrary divorce.
And if we had it, we would all realize
how what Christ said is way better
than this no fault divorce nonsense.
And look, this is hundreds of years before,
this is really a common thought.
I mean, throughout Europe, they were not granting divorce
like they are today, especially in this time, okay?
But it's a modern thing where we have this no fault divorce
and just allow this easy divorce and this permissive divorce
and this arbitrary divorce.
He says, we would realize how much of a benefit it is
to not allow this.
He said, the law of Moses allowing divorce
for the hardness of men's hearts
and the law of Christ forbidding it intimate
that Christians being under a dispensation
of love and liberty, tenderness of heart
may justly be expected among them
that they will not be hard hearted like Jews
for God has called us to peace.
Says this, there will be no occasion for divorces.
This is what Matthew Henry said hundreds of years ago.
He said, there is no reason for divorce
in the New Testament.
And again, what does he say?
We're not hard hearted like Jews.
We're saved, we're Christians.
Christ has made this commitment unto us.
That's how we should act in our marriages.
And look, I don't really like a lot of things
Matthew Henry says, but this I agree with 100%.
So, you know, again, sometimes in the Fundamental Baptist,
I don't necessarily have to agree with them.
I can agree with these type of people, which is weird.
You know what?
You know why I agree with some people over others?
Because what does the Bible say?
You say, where do you put your opinion?
Not in the Fundamental Baptist, not what I think,
whatever the Bible says.
And if it lines up, let's just stack the books up.
You know what I mean?
Like our loyalty is what the Bible teaches,
what the Bible says.
And of course, whatever is right will be made manifest.
It'll be obvious.
No fault divorces is just cause train wrecks.
And these churches that are permissive on this
and say for immorality and adultery,
they also are causing rampant problems in society,
rampant problems in their churches.
It's not causing people to be happy
any more than making them be stuck
in their terrible situation.
Now look, I've known tons of people
that have unfortunately had to deal with adultery
in their relationship and they're still happily married.
It's not like a hypothetical.
It's a real thing that I know of.
And you know what?
If it doesn't matter which spouse came to me,
I would say, hey, stick with it.
Time can heal this wound.
God can heal this wound.
It's obviously a huge issue.
It needs to be stopped immediately.
If anybody was committing adultery,
unrepentant in our church,
they would be for sure kicked out.
It's not even a question.
I mean, being covetous is on the list
of 1 Corinthians five issues.
But if they're repentant, they want to fix it,
let's fix it.
Let's try to help this couple
restore this particular situation.
And let's say, hey, look, you made a till death vow,
you need to have a till death marriage.
You need courage other people.
Unfortunately, you go to a lot of other churches
in the world, non-anoms, all these other,
they're just, they're swapping wives all the time.
Swapping husbands, it's just, it's just,
I don't want to be in a church like that.
I don't want to be in a church
where I'm in a Sunday school class
and they're like, oh yeah,
I used to be married to her last year
and I used to be married to him last year
or whatever.
And I'm not joking, that's real.
That was really happening.
I was just like, this is kind of goofy.
This is like literally Jerry Springer, you know?
Go to Romans chapter seven,
go to Romans chapter number seven.
I just have a few quick points
and I want to walk through first Corinthians seven.
We're not gonna read every verse,
but I just want to quickly go through it as well,
since we have this on our minds.
And I think this is an important subject.
Maybe a lot of people already agree with me, I hope so,
but I just want you to understand this doctrine even better.
And I want to make it simple.
Why should you have a till death marriage?
Number one, because you made the vow.
Number two, because God has joined you together.
And the fornication clause, you've already passed that.
It was a moment, and you shouldn't even enact it anyways.
Jesus said it was for the hardness of your hearts anyways.
Even if you did find yourself in that situation,
you should just keep to your commitment anyways.
What's the third reason?
The third reason is because if you don't,
if you don't have a till death marriage,
you're gonna cause yourself and your spouse
to commit adultery.
That's what Jesus said.
You put her away, you're causing them to commit adultery.
The reality of asking a 20, 30 year old woman or man
to just be single for the rest of their life
and never ever engage in that act ever
is just so unrealistic.
Is it an excuse?
No.
Am I justifying it?
No.
I'm just saying it's just probably gonna happen.
So you're basically enabling adultery.
You're causing people to commit adultery.
And I don't wanna participate in that.
Romans chapter seven, look at verse one.
Know you not, brethren, for I speak to them
that know the law.
Hath there the law at the mending over a man
as long as he liveth?
For the woman which hath an husband
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth.
Is there any exception here?
You are bound to your husband as long as he's alive, period.
But if the husband be dead,
she is loosed from the law of her husband.
What's the only thing that looses a wife from her husband?
Death, that is the only thing.
Says, so then if, while her husband liveth,
she be married to another man,
she should be called an adulteress.
But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law,
so that she has no adulteress,
those should be married to another man.
What does the Bible say?
The Bible says you can't have multiple spouses.
And the Bible's saying,
even if you had a lawful other spouse,
it's a form of adultery.
Now look, I believe the right way to interpret this
is that the act of getting remarried,
that initial act was the adulterous act.
From then on,
it's not like you're in a perpetual state of adultery.
Look, if you get remarried,
if you get divorced and remarried,
okay, you already sinned, move on, right?
But let's not minimize it and say that didn't happen.
Let's not say it wasn't a sin.
Let's not say it wasn't adultery, it was.
And so at the end of the day,
if you have a husband that's alive and you get remarried,
it's a form of adultery.
We should avoid this.
Go to Mark chapter 10, go to Mark chapter 10.
There was this strange idea
that you could have multiple wives and it wasn't adultery.
It's definitely adultery.
I just don't understand how anybody could think that.
Your wife really won't agree with this doctrine, okay?
And now again, was that a death penalty crime?
No, but it's still a form of adultery.
Mark 10, verse 11, "And he sayeth unto them,
"whose servant shall put away his wife
"and marry another, committed adultery against her.
"And if a woman shall put away her husband
"and be married to another, she committed adultery."
So again, the Bible's clear both ways.
If you divorce your spouse,
you're basically causing them to commit adultery,
and anybody that's married to someone that was divorced,
it's adultery.
People will constantly ask me for marriage counseling
or to get married, and I have to say,
"Hey, have y'all been married before?"
And a lot of times I'm forced to say,
"Yeah, I have been married before."
And I say, "I'm sorry, I won't do it."
Well, what about abuse?
And I should just be like, "Here's John R. Rice's book."
But again, I don't even really recommend
everything in this book, so maybe I should write my own.
But I'm just saying, "Hey, I agree with that one section."
Go to 1 Corinthians 7, we're gonna end with that chapter.
But look, why should you have a till death marriage?
Number one, because you should keep your vow.
Number two, because God joined together.
And number three, you just shouldn't commit adultery.
I mean, isn't that pretty simple?
Hey, you know why I'm gonna stick with you?
Because I made that vow.
Number two, God joined us together.
And number three, I don't want to commit adultery.
And I don't even want to cause you to commit adultery.
I don't want to cause you to feel like you have to commit adultery or be put in an awkward situation where you end up doing such a thing because I myself wasn't going to stick with you and be married to you.
Now again, this is easy for people that have a great marriage, obviously, right?
I mean, if you have a great marriage and you love each other, you know, this isn't even a hard thing to say.
But this is a hard saying for people that don't have a very good marriage or do have to deal with serious issues or do have to deal with complicated things.
But you know what? That's what this doctrine is made for. It's made for them. It's not made for us.
The law is not made for a righteous man. The law is made for the ungodly and for sinners.
And so sometimes you have to teach these uncomfortable truths to the people that are going through the gnarliest situations.
Because the people that aren't going through gnarliest situations don't need it.
I don't need to know this. Me and my wife, we have a great marriage. I'm not that worried about it.
Does that mean that we haven't had low spots and fights and whatever? Yeah, obviously we've fought, okay?
I'm not one of those people that says we've never fought or whatever.
I don't believe it anyways, but even if it did happen, it's like, hey, yeah, we have fights.
But at the end of the day, you know, we have a great marriage and we love each other.
And one of the things I love about my wife is I knew, hey, we were making commitment till death do us part and we both meant it.
And if you get married, if you're considering marrying someone, you should have a strong confidence that that's how they feel about marriage.
That they're saying, look, we are serious. We really believe this. We really mean it.
And we're really going to make that kind of a commitment.
I would not want to be in a relationship with someone who did not believe that or did not have that view.
My mom told me that I should never marry a woman that is coming from a broken home.
Now, I'm not saying that that's right. I'm just saying what she told me.
I personally think that you should at least have some caution, though.
If you're marrying someone that's coming from a broken home, you should at least address that with them and say,
"Look, I know you have the situation, and you might have people in your family that would encourage you to get divorced because of their situation."
I want you to tell me right now that you're not going to lean on them if we have fights,
and that you're not going to have that viewpoint, because it's just a higher likelihood that they're going to go down that pathway.
And you should take that into consideration. If you're interested in a young man or a young woman that has parents that have been divorced,
you should be careful, because I've known it, and not with the church at all, just family members and whatever,
people, a mom having been divorced, and her daughter having problems, and are coming to her private saying,
"Hey, whenever you want, you can come with me. I'll take care of you. I'll do whatever. You can walk away from your crappy husband whenever you want."
And at least this young lady was like, "I'm mad at you for even saying that to me. You should never say that to me. That is wrong. I don't believe in this."
And so, you know, hey, you should tell your parents, like, "I'm not interested in that. And if you're going to even mention this to me, I don't want to have a relationship with you because I just don't want that to be a door or an option. I'm going to burn that bridge behind me."
But look at 1 Corinthians 6 verse 16. I want to get you some context here. Verse 16 says, "What know you not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body?"
So the context is harlotry. Verse 18, "Flee fornication." What is fornication? It's not adultery again. This is talking about, obviously, harlotry, prostitution, all those kind of things that are happening before marriage.
So then he's going to give a solution on how to avoid fornication. And that's what chapter 7 is leading into. Verse 1, "Now concerning the things where he wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman, nevertheless to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband."
In order to avoid fornication, what do you do? You get married. That is the solution to avoiding fornication.
By not getting married, by being single until you're 30, 40, 50, boy, you're really tempting fate on that one.
It's more likely to get married young and not commit fornication. The longer you wait, it's just going to be a lot more of a risk. It's not as likely.
Okay. Now, how do you avoid this? You get married. Verses one through five basically just explain avoiding fornication by marriage.
Verse six, he says, "But I speak this by permission and not a commandment, for I would that all men were even as I myself, but every man had this proper gift of God, one after this man or another after that."
The whole epistle in this chapter is essentially the apostle Paul giving his personal opinion that if you could possibly go your whole life without being married, it would be technically better and you could serve God more.
And that's kind of like the overarching theme of this entire chapter is that if you don't have to get married, you don't have to.
That's kind of like the essence of this.
The problem is that 99% of people need to get married, okay?
And the rest of the Bible emphasizes getting married.
I mean, from Genesis to Revelation, it's emphasizing getting married, being married, being fruitful, multiplying.
Why? Because that's 99% of us.
Here, he's basically just addressing the few people that are either in an awkward situation, or they themselves don't have that strong of a desire to get married, and he's saying it's totally fine not to.
Just serve God, okay?
And he's like, "I wish you could be like me," and Paul said, "Paul, based on scripture, seems to be someone that never got married, and just served God."
One of the greatest Christians ever.
You don't even have to be married to be one of the greatest Christians ever.
So, you know, there's nothing wrong with being single.
It's not like being single makes you a lesser of a person.
You can be single, and you can still be great.
Now, you might be less mature, you might be awkward,
but you can still serve God, all right?
I'd throw that in there for you, all right?
I didn't want you to get too puffed up being single.
Verse 8, "I say therefore to the married and to the widows."
Notice he keeps addressing different groups.
You kind of have to understand that in chapter 7,
he's just addressing all these different groups and situations.
To the unmarried, to the person that can just stay unmarried.
Here, he's talking about a different group of people,
the unmarried and widows.
He said, "It is good for them if they abide even as I,
but if they cannot contain, let them marry,
for it is better to marry than to burn."
He's saying, look, if you have a desire to get married,
you need to get married.
Don't just sit here and burn and then cause all kinds of sin
and problems for yourself and your life.
Just go ahead and get married to the widow and to the unmarried.
If you can be like Paul, though, be like Paul.
You don't have to get married,
but if you need to get married, you should get married.
Verse number 10.
"And unto the married I command, yet not I,
but the Lord, let not the wife depart from her husband.
But if she depart, let her remain unmarried,
or be reconciled to her husband,
and let not the husband put away his wife."
Now, I want to give a tip here
before I get into this verse.
You kind of wonder, like,
I don't know if I have this gift that Paul's talking about.
I don't know if I should get married or not.
Let me say this.
If you commit fornication, you're not in that group.
If you ever at any point commit fornication,
you're in the group that needs to get married.
And, you know, you shouldn't just keep delaying it.
Just marry her already, okay?
Put a ring on it and get married.
You're not in that other group.
The other group, it's pretty obvious
why they're in that other group, okay?
Who's gonna say that?
Verse 10 and 11, different group we're talking to.
Unto the married. Is this a married group?
Yes, only those that are married.
He says that according to not only
his opinion, but God's opinion,
but the Lord is commanding this,
let not the wife depart from her husband.
Now the word "depart" here, obviously in our modern vernacular
we use this as in a broad way,
but what is the context of the passage
of the chapter, of the verse?
It's about divorce.
You have to look at the word "depart" as if
you're literally saying "divorce."
Let them not divorce from their
spouse, right? Let the wife
divorce her husband,
is what it's really trying to say.
And it says in verse 11, but if she does divorce, basically,
let her, notice this, remain unmarried.
Now why would you say departing is not
talking about just running away or separating?
Because if you run away, you're still married.
If you depart, you're still married.
And in order to remain unmarried,
you have to be something. Unmarried.
You can't remain unmarried
when you're married.
You can only remain unmarried
because you're unmarried.
So saying, don't let the wife divorce her husband.
If she does divorce her husband,
then she is not allowed to
do anything other than stay unmarried.
Meaning what? She's not allowed to date
and she's not allowed to get remarried.
And look, we've had people come to our church
that are not in the situation
where they can get married biblically.
They are someone that is divorced.
And as a result, they're not allowed
to date in our church, and they're not allowed
to get remarried in our church.
And if someone that was divorced came to our church
and started trying to date or whatever,
I would say, "Hey, you need to knock it off or leave."
Because they must remain unmarried.
Let them remain unmarried.
That is what the Bible is saying.
We're not going to allow divorced people
to just do whatever they want.
Now look, if someone's divorced and they come to our church
and they're secretly dating somebody and I don't know,
I can't do anything about it because it's secret.
If they go out and they get married, that's their problem.
Afterwards, but I'm not going to celebrate it.
I'm not going to like it.
And they may even be the topic for the sermon.
Because if you go against what I'm saying publicly
and you're trying to make it seem like it's cool
to get divorced and get married in our church,
you better know I'll take you to task.
Now, will I throw you out of church?
No, I don't think I can justly throw you out of church for that.
But at the end of the day, you know what?
I will take people to task on those issues.
And you should be afraid. Very afraid.
Oh, I'm afraid. Good. Don't do it.
I don't like it. That's what the Bible's saying.
We shouldn't allow this. We shouldn't want to encourage this.
We shouldn't make it seem cool. Wink, wink, nod, nod.
I know it's wrong, but I'll just perform the remarried ceremony.
And look, many pastors will remarry people that are divorced.
Many pastors will just look the other way,
will just side with whoever they decide is the victim.
And you know what? I'm not for it. I'm not going to do it.
I won't participate. I won't help. I won't encourage it.
It's just not going to happen.
The only thing you can do is you can only date your spouse
and get back with your spouse. That's what it's saying in the next breath, right?
It's saying, "Or be reconciled to her husband and let not the husband be put away his wife."
If you're divorced and come into a church, you can only date your spouse
and get back with your spouse. That's your only option.
Now again, it doesn't say that you have to force them to get back,
but that's their only option if they want to go down that road again.
That's what the text is saying. It's not bringing up separation
or running away from your husband or your husband's running away from their wives
or abandoning each other. Abandonment's not in view of this passage.
Separation's not in view of this passage.
Anybody trying to use this passage for that is not being honest with the text.
Okay? And look, why would the Bible, like, what does the Bible bring up?
Separation, abandonment, all this stuff? I don't think it really even brings it up
because it's just obviously wrong biblically, okay?
Even the laws of Connecticut, I think I read them before or talked about them before.
The laws of Connecticut would fine you money if you separated from your spouse.
If you were living in the colony of Connecticut and you ran away from your spouse,
they would just start penalizing you monetarily for doing that. It was illegal, okay?
And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, I'm just saying that's how it was, okay?
Obviously I'm not going to harbor that either, personally.
Verse 12, another topic, "But to the rest speak I, not the Lord.
If any brother have a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him,
let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not,
if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.
For the husband," I'm sorry, "For the unbelieving husband is saying divided by the wife,
and the unclean wife is saying divided by the husband. Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy."
Verse 15, "But," so the first thing is saying, look, if you're married to someone that's not saved,
do not seek to divorce them. It's saying, look, if you're married to someone that's not saved,
just stay married to them. "But if the unbelieving depart," so you're happy being married to them,
you're going to stay married to them, you're still doing good, but if they depart,
now again, what's the depart? We're not talking about running away, we're talking about divorcing.
If your spouse just divorces you, what is it saying? What is the response to this?
How do I act as a Christian? It says, "But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.
A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called his peace."
What is this saying? I believe this is what it's saying.
You don't have to necessarily fight aggressively to stay married to someone
that's an unbeliever that doesn't want to be married to you.
It's like, they hand you the paperwork, well, then just let them depart.
Sad, it's not fun, but you don't have to necessarily fight.
You don't unbondage to just try to make it work no matter what
when there's just an unbelieving atheist or reprobate or some weird situation.
But it says in the passage, you notice what it says, "But God has called us a piece."
He's not saying try to encourage them to do this or be mean or try to incentivize them or something.
You should be seeking this thing.
He's like, "No, I still want to be married to you. No, I still want to stay together.
No, I want us to have this relationship."
But at the end of the day, if you're going to do it, you're going to do it.
That's not you divorcing them. That's not you being the aggressor.
That's not you allowing--like, you just--it just happens.
And I don't believe that you have to chase after them afterwards
and try to redeem them from this divorce situation.
You just--you've been divorced. It's over, okay?
Then I don't have to keep chasing them.
I think, "Look, even if my wife divorced me, I'm still coming knocking on her door."
You know what I mean?
I'm going to smile at her, and she's going to be like, "I'm coming back."
We can't stay away from each other.
And hey, I'm going to chase down my wife until she's dead.
All right? You know what I mean.
It's till death, all right?
But obviously, if I was married to an unbeliever, you know,
and she dropped me like a bad habit and divorced me,
then I don't have to chase after her.
Now, again, I'm not going to read the whole passage.
I'm just going to give you a few thoughts here, okay?
Verses 17 to 24 says that we should just stay in our calling wherever we're at.
Wherever you find yourself in life,
just try to stick with what God has put you in that particular position.
Verses 25 to 26, he brings up virgins.
And he says, specifically, verse 25, now concerning virgins,
I have no commandment of the Lord, yet I give my judgment
as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.
I suppose, therefore, that it is good, that this is good,
for the present distress I say that it is good for a man so to be.
I think what he's saying for the present distress he's talking about,
there's a lot of persecution, there's a lot of craziness in the world.
And you know what, being a virgin is really not even a bad thing.
Some people get shamed for being a virgin in society.
You know what, there's nothing wrong with being a virgin.
And sometimes when you're in a really difficult, like, era of history,
sometimes it can be advantageous to just not have to deal with a wife
or deal with a husband or deal with a family
because, hey, there's a lot of persecution, there's a lot of tribulation.
You're just saying, hey, at this point in time, in this point in human history,
being a virgin is not even a big deal.
Like, just stick it out, okay?
Verse 27, "Art thou bound unto wife, seek not to be loosed,
art thou loosed from wife, seek not a wife."
Hey, don't try to change your status quo, okay?
Stick with what you got.
Verses 28 through 35 basically tell you that,
hey, but if you have to get married, get married.
You're going to have trouble in the flesh.
What is he saying?
You're going to fight, okay?
You know who has marriages that don't fight?
No one.
When you stop fighting, it means that it's over, okay?
Because it's going to always be conflict.
And he says, hey, I want you to be able to tend upon the Lord
without distraction.
You're going to be distracted.
You know, marriage is something you should work on.
You should put effort and energy into.
It's never going to be perfect, but you know what?
It's worth it, and I love it, and it's great.
Verses 36 to 38, I hadn't really thought about this,
but in Matthew Henry's commentary
and other people I've talked to,
I think that this is the right interpretation now,
but it's basically in the context of parents
giving their children over in marriage.
And in verse 36, it says,
"But if any man think that he behave at himself
"uncumely toward his virgin,
"if she pass the flower age and needs to require,
"let him do what he will, he sinneth not, let them marry."
I believe what he's just basically saying.
Look, if you feel like your daughter just wants to be married,
there's nothing wrong with allowing her to get married,
if she pass the flower of her age.
Now, there's a lot of opinions on this flower of your age thing or whatever.
I want to make it clear where I stand on this issue.
You know, some people would say, like, there's an Old Testament reference
of her flowers be upon her and that talking about her, you know, maturity process.
But really, I don't really think that that's necessarily the best way to look at it.
If you think about a plant, its flowering part in the process is full maturity.
So I believe what it's trying to say is that once the virgin has become fully mature,
she's passed her full maturity.
And look, for women and men, it's a little different.
Men mature slower than women, or I guess we're retarded or something, I don't know.
But it's, you know, basically women start, basically be their full maturity
somewhere around 16, 17, 18.
For American society, we pretty much all deemed it being about 18.
I still think that's probably a pretty good standard.
You know, at least somewhere around 18 or whatever.
And I personally will not marry anybody that is under the age of 18.
You know, you say, "What if the parents sign off?"
I still won't marry them.
I just have that rule, and I just want to stay away from that particular situation.
I'm not mad at somebody if they do it.
And look, throughout history, people are getting married at 12, 13, 14, whatever.
I'm sure at different ages, I'm not mad at someone that does this.
I'm just saying that's my personal standard, and I just don't want to do it.
But that's my interpretation of this particular verse.
There's nothing wrong with people that have been married young.
I've known tons of people that got married before they were 18.
Totally fine, totally normal.
I've had people get married literally like the week after they turn 18,
which is like, what's the difference between that and 17?
I don't know. It doesn't really matter.
But at the end of the day, you know what?
Obviously, people are going to have different opinions on this.
I'm just telling you how I interpret this particular verse.
I think it's a little weird when people are like,
trying to convince people to get married at 11, 12, 13.
Like, to me, that's a red, red, red flag, okay?
Yet I've heard it.
It's out there, "Oh, she's past the flower age."
Look, that's not fully mature.
And I don't think that we should do that or get anywhere near that.
We should stay far away from that, all right?
Verse 37, "Nevertheless, he that standeth steadfast in his heart,
having no necessity but the power of his own will,
and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well."
So then, "He that giveth her in marriage, doeth well;
but he that giveth her not in marriage, doeth better."
Say, look, if you had a daughter that lived with you for the rest of your life,
it's no problem. If you give her in marriage, no problem.
It's just saying both are on the table.
It says in verse 39, "The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth;
but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will,
only in the Lord; but she is happier if she so abide after my judgment,
and I think also that I have the Spirit of God."
This is a difficult chapter, a lot of interesting language.
I just wanted to go through it and just kind of explain it.
But did you notice how the last part of this chapter,
it gave the exact same opinion that we've read everywhere else.
The wife is bound to her husband, is bound by law to her husband,
so long as he liveth.
Just like we read in Romans chapter number 7,
just like we see as the example of what God has joined together,
"Let not man put asunder.
The man may not put his wife away all the days of her life."
But the wife, biblically speaking, does not have or has no excuse
or no option to divorce her husband for any reason.
That's just the Bible standard.
Now, does the world have that standard?
No, the world will tell you you can do anything you want basically.
You know what, I'm not pastoring a church,
deciding what's right and wrong based on the laws of our government
or based on what society says or what people do.
I only care what God said.
And look, I think that we should have till death marriages in this church
where we keep our vow, we allow God to have joined us together.
We're not going to break that.
Number three, we should not encourage, promote, excuse,
or cause people to commit adultery.
And by encouraging people to separate from each other,
you lead them down a road to get divorced.
And then once they get divorced, you lead them down the road to do what?
Commit adultery.
And so you know what?
I'm very anti-separation.
I'm very anti-divorce.
I'm anti-remarriage.
Why?
Because I'm anti-adultery.
And the people that are actually against adultery
are the people that will not encourage separation anyway.
If you think about it, if you're really against adultery,
you would never encourage someone
or excuse or justify separation
because you're probably going to lead people down a path
of future adultery, okay?
Obviously, if someone in the relationships committing adultery,
we need to address that fast.
We need to cut that off immediately.
But by causing them to get separated or divorced,
you're not stopping adultery,
you're causing future adultery.
And so if we want to limit the adultery,
we need to keep people married,
we need to have till-death marriages,
we need to enact church discipline when necessary.
Of course, if someone's engaged in that kind of a wicked sin,
we're going to confront it, we're going to deal with it.
You know, we shouldn't allow people to do this.
And look, if you commit that kind of unrepentant sin,
God may just kill you anyways.
Like he did with Jezebel and those people he's threatening, at least.
I don't know if he actually ended up doing it or not,
but it seemed like he kind of did,
because he's giving her space to repent,
and it doesn't seem like she's repenting,
so it seems like it might have happened, right?
I don't want you to go down that road or be that kind of person.
And, you know, I want to teach this so you have good doctrine.
If you have a question about it, if you ever want to talk about it,
of course, you know, I do talk with people about these issues.
But again, my standard is that parishes are till death.
That will always be the vows.
I will not remarry people that have been divorced
as long as their spouse is alive.
As long as their spouse is alive, I will not remarry people.
And, you know, my personal standard is you have to be at least 18,
and I'm not going to marry them.
Look, you have to be both saved, both 18,
and you don't have a spouse that's alive.
I'm not trying to tell you to go kill them so you can get married, all right?
I'm just saying I'm not going to perform that marriage ceremony, okay?
And I'm going to counsel people before marriage and after marriage
that you are stuck with them.
If that makes you mad, well, be mad.
But you know what? Even John R. Rice is pretty spicy, all right?
Let's go to the prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for the commitment that you've made to us
that you'll never leave us or forsake us, that you'll always love us,
that you give us eternal life and you'll never take it away from us.
I pray that we can apply that same principle into our marriages.
Thank you for giving us wives, and thank you for giving us marriages.
I pray that we would take our vows seriously.
I pray that what you've joined together, we would take seriously.
I pray that we would take adultery seriously and soberly.
And I pray that you would help bless the couples in this room,
that you would help bless the marriages in this room,
that you would help people to have the right mindset.
And even if they're going through difficulty,
even if they're going through struggle,
even if they have problems,
I pray that you would help encourage them to just work on them,
to not quit, to not give up, to not feel like that's an option,
but rather to just make a commitment in their hearts and their minds right now.
My marriage is till death, and I'm going to love my spouse no matter what.
Just like you love me no matter what, I'm going to love them no matter what.
And I pray that when people get this mindset and attitude,
that you would just help bless them in the future.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
And our last song this evening, page 437, Battle Hymn of the Republic.
437, Battle Hymn of the Republic.