[MUSIC PLAYING] Start building the home of
your future today, Smart Home. Would you turn in
your Bibles, please, to the book of 1
Corinthians, Chapter 7? We're in a series, as you
know, called the Smart Home. And we've covered
a lot of ground. We've talked about being
single, talked about dating, talked about newlyweds,
the physical relationship in marriage,
conflict resolution, a number of topics, including
divorce last time, and today, remarriage. Now, I will say that some of
the topics, including this one, are topics that many a
preacher shy away from. But we feel that given
the kind of culture we live in and the
kind of questions that were prevalent
in New Testament times as well as in modern times
that we owe it to God's people to give clear answers
on these subjects. So we're in 1
Corinthians, Chapter 7. As we begin, I want to tell
you a story about a man named Charles Steinmetz. You may have not heard
of Charles Steinmetz. He was crippled. He was a dwarf. But what he lacked physically,
he made up for intellectually. He was regarded as a genius. Such a genius that
Henry Ford hired him in the building of those large
generators and turbines that ran Ford Motor
Company when it first opened in Dearborn, Michigan. Charles Steinmetz
developed those. The company was underway. Production was good. Profits were good. Things were rolling along at
Ford Motor Company for months till one day, operations
came to a screeching halt. Ford Motor Company went dark. Nothing was working. So they brought in different
experts, engineers, electricians to
fix what was wrong. They couldn't find the problem. They couldn't fix the problem. Finally, they called
in the brains behind it all, Charles Steinmetz,
who immediately got to work on the problem. And he tinkered with this. And he tinkered with that. And he pushed a few buttons
and messed with a few wires. Then he threw the
switch and, voila, it all worked again, like
it was designed to work. And Henry Ford was thrilled
until he got Steinmetz's bill for $10,000. Now, that's a big
bill on any day, but back in the day,
that's enormous, right? So Henry Ford bristled
and wrote Steinmetz back and said, all
right, why $10,000? So Steinmetz rewrote the
bill with these words. For tinkering around
on the motors, $10. For knowing where
to tinker, $9,990. Isn't it amazing how the
Holy Spirit knows just where to tinker in our lives? And we have also
discovered that our lives can run pretty smoothly. Our marriage can run smoothly. But then, for some, it can
all come to a screeching halt. There's a problem. But how thankful we
are that we have a God, not only who invented marriage-- He came up with the
brainstorm of the idea of how relationships work
and built families-- but He knows how to fix
things when they malfunction. He knows just where to tinker. We are talking about a
very delicate subject, last week was, on divorce. And this week on
remarriage is also perhaps. But I remember when I
was a kid and my dad moved us to an acre and a
half property in California. And one of the first
things he decided to do is build a fence, 6 foot
high around the property. And he used us to
do it, his boys. So we helped build this fence. And I hated it, not because
I had to just help him do it, but that fence to me
represented a prison. It's like he's
trying to keep us in. Well, I looked at that fence
differently as I grew up. As I grew up and
my dad passed away, my mom was left
alone in that house. Now, we boys didn't
look at that fence as a prison walls to keep us
in, but as a protection to keep bad people out from my mom. Think of God's word that way. Think of God's principles,
not as prohibitions to make your life miserable
and to make you stuck, but rather protection to keep
what God invented and designed for your benefit
to stay beneficial. With that in mind, we
look at 1 Corinthians. And 1 Corinthians is a book that
Paul wrote for two reasons-- to address problems,
number one, problems in the church and, number
two, to answer questions that they had. Now, why were there
problems in that Church? Easy answer because the Church
was in a place called Corinth? If you know anything about the
New Testament city of Corinth, you know that they
had a reputation of being vile, wicked,
debauched, corrupt. There was even a word that was
coined in the Greek language. And the word was
korinthiazesthai. It's a hard long
word, but it was a word that in Greek
meant to live like or to play the Corinthian,
to live like a Corinthian. It was one of those words, you
know, like we have words today that really aren't words, but
enough young people say them. And over time, it becomes
a word in the dictionary. That word korinthiazesthai
was such a word. Whenever you would call
somebody that, you called them a Corinthian,
you refer to somebody as being vile and
corrupt in a low life. In fact, did you know that in
the Greek plays, when anybody portrayed a Corinthian,
they usually portrayed them as a drunk. So they had that reputation. Well, men and women were getting
saved in the city of Corinth. To live a Christian
life in such a city was a hard balancing act. And so they had questions. They had questions
about being single. They had questions about being
married, about divorcing, and about remarriage. And Paul answers them. Look at 1 Corinthians,
Chapter 7, Verse 1. "Now concerning the things
of which you wrote to me." So they had pelted
him with questions, and he writes back to answer
some of those questions that they had. Now just another insight,
an early historian by the name of Tertullian
said that pagan husbands were getting angry with their
newly converted Christian wives. So there's tension
he writes about. And these Christian
wives want to embrace other Christian people,
bring them into the home, go visit the establishments
of the poor and help them out. And it just created tension. Now, as we begin looking at
this topic in this chapter, I want to bring something out on
the table and then dismiss it. Some people, believe
it or not, over time in the past, even to
this day, actually believe that a
Christian who has been divorced under no circumstances
should ever be remarried. I just want to say
that's flat wrong. And there are reasons that
they can be remarried, which we want to look at. But let me just bring
you down to verse 27 where Paul says summing
up some of his thoughts. Are you bound to a wife? That is, are you married
in the bonds of matrimony? Do not seek to be loose. Don't try to get out of it. If you are loosed, are
you loosed from a wife? Don't seek a wife. But-- now watch
this-- even if you do marry, who's he writing to? People who are loose from
their wives or husbands. They're divorced. If you do marry,
you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries,
she has not sinned. So he basically says
it's OK to do so. In fact, by the time
he writes 1 Timothy, he commands young women,
young widows to remarry. So obviously, it's
not wrong because Paul tells them to do it. I want to give you a guideline-- or a principle and
then for guidelines. Here's the principle. All those properly
divorced can get remarried. Again, all those properly
divorced can get remarried. That's the New
Testament principle. A proper divorce, or you might
say under biblical grounds, a divorce would also with
it bring a permission for a biblical remarriage. So all those properly
divorced may remarry. Now, I'm going to give
you four guidelines. When a divorce occurs for the
following reasons remarriage is legitimate. Let's begin reading,
first of all, before I give you those four. We're going to begin in verse 8. "But I say to the unmarried
and to the widows, it is good for them if
they remain even as I am. But if they cannot exercise
self-control, let the marry, for it is better to marry
than to burn with passion. Now to the married I command,
yet not I, but the Lord, a wife is not to depart
from her husband. But even if she does depart,
let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not
to divorce his wife." "But to the rest,
I, not the Lord, say if any brother has a
wife who does not believe and she is willing to live with
him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a
husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with
her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband
is sanctified by the wife. And the unbelieving wife is
sanctified by the husband. Otherwise your children
would be unclean, but now they are holy." "But if the unbeliever
departs, let him depart. A brother or sister is not
under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. For how do you know,
oh, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know,
husband, whether you will save your wife?" Now, I'm going to bring you back
to where we started in verse 8. And notice what he says. He speaks to two groups
first of all here. Now, he speaks to a lot
of groups in this chapter. I'm giving you
two in this verse. "But I say to the unmarried"-- and then he says,
and to the what? Widows. So I'm going to start
with the second, widows. And I'm starting with them
because they're the easiest. So when a spouse dies,
called here a widow, when a spouse dies,
it is absolutely fine to get remarried. A widow is pretty
self-explanatory. She was once married, but now
separated from her husband by death. Now, you know, when
couples get married, they say vows to each other. And what do they say at
the end of their vows? Do you remember? Till death do us part. But once death has occurred
and they are parted, then they are free
to get remarried. Look down a verse 39. He elaborates. "A wife is bound by law as
long as her husband lives. But if her husband dies, she is
at liberty"-- absolutely free-- "to be married to
whom she wishes." But there's a caveat. What does it say? Only in the Lord. So if you're a Christian
and your spouse dies, you can get married
again, but make sure that you marry a believer,
one who follows-- or only do it in the Lord. In the Old Testament there was
a couple that's pretty famous, Abraham and his wife. What was her name? Sarah. So they were both pretty old,
right, when they had Isaac. And Sarah dies in her old age. Abraham is even
older, but he survives the death of his wife Sarah. Now, you might think, well,
once you're over 100 years old, you're done, right? It's like this isn't
going to happen again. But not old Abe. He's ready to go again. So in Genesis 25, we read,
"And Abraham again took a wife and married a girl by
the name of Keturah." Now get this, we don't
know how old Keturah is. He's over 100. I'll tell you how in a minute. But though we
don't know her age, she's young enough to produce
six more children for Abraham. Now, anybody reading that
would say, what on earth would a young woman be attracted
to a man who's 137 years old? My answer is I have no clue. Although I do know that
Abraham is pretty wealthy, and that could have
something to do with it. But in the book of 1
Chronicles, Chapter 1, it identifies Keturah
as Abraham's concubine. So she went from concubine
status to full wife status. The bottom line is he loved her. And she loved him. And that can happen at any age. The need to love and be loved
does not diminish with age. And so he got remarried. And it was fine to do so. Now, we would always
caution somebody who gets remarried after
the death of a spouse don't do it too quickly. Don't let it be a
rebound marriage. All sorts of problems come up
when you do it too quickly. You don't know what
you're getting into. But everyone wants to
be loved by someone and wants to give love. And especially those
who are believers, they long to have another
believer that they can share that grace of life with. I got a letter some time
ago from a Christian woman who said, "Tomorrow I will
be married for six years, but it's not a happy
occasion because I'm going through a divorce. I met my husband
in a Bible study. We would study the scriptures
together, pray together, go to Christian
activities, but then we got married and things changed. If this divorce goes
through, I probably will not marry again for
the kids sake and also to follow the Lord's way." "But I'll be honest,
deep down in my heart, I wish I could find a good
man who loved the Lord and lived as the Lord commands. I really yearn
for companionship, even if it's just friendship." And then she concludes, "I've
been married three times and had to support them all." Certainly Sarah's death
made it legit for Abraham to get remarried. And he does. He marries Keturah. Paul brings this up to
widows, he calls them. So when a spouse
dies, number one. Number two, when a divorce
occurs prior to salvation. Now, I mentioned that Paul is
writing to different groups who have asked different questions. But look at a word
in Verse 8, he says, "But I say to the unmarried
and to the widow"-- so to different groups. Now look at that word unmarried. Unmarried is also
pretty self-explanatory. Anybody who's not
married is unmarried. It could mean somebody who's
single, never been married. But get this, the word is
agomas in the Greek language. And agomas literally
means without a marriage-- without a marriage. It is a word that is
mentioned only four times in the entire
New Testament and all four times
are in this chapter. So this chapter provides
the contextual meaning for that word agomas. Yes, it could mean somebody
who's never been married. But notice something
in verse 10. And I think it's
specific to that. He says, "To the married, I
command, yet not I, the Lord, a wife is not to depart
or divorce her husband. But if she does depart"-- xorizo, cut it
off by a divorce-- "let her remain" what? Unmarried. There's the word agomas,
remain unmarried. And it's used that way a
few times in this chapter. So it seems to refer to those
who were previously married who are now divorced. He's not speaking of widows. That was one group
he talked about. I don't necessarily
think that he's speaking about somebody
very young who has never been married, though
they would be included, but for this reason. He uses the word virgin
a lot in this chapter. He use it like six times. And he specifically
uses the word to refer to somebody who
is young and unmarried. But when he says
unmarried, it seems that the context is
married and divorced before they came to Christ,
and they're wondering, gee, could I ever remarry? And Paul answers them, yes, when
marriage and divorce happens prior to salvation,
you can remarry. Why? Because until we know God,
we don't know God's will or God's plan for our lives. And whatever is in your past,
when you come to Christ, you are new. Is that right? 2 Corinthians, 5:17. "Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold all things
have become new." He uses the word new twice. Kainos is the word. It means fresh. It's the word Jesus used to
describe the new covenant under His shed blood. So even if your past
is all messed up, you've botched things up, you
made mistakes, big mistakes, know that God can
redeem that and make the mess into a masterpiece. I'm going to tell you a
little story about that. Years ago in Scotland at a
seaside in a group of fishermen were hanging out. They were having lunch and tea. And the waitress came
over with a pot of tea. Well, one of the Scotsman
was gesticulating, moving his arms a
little too much. He was speaking in his brogue. And he's telling his story,
and he moves his arms, and it hits the tray. And the teapot flies and
hits a whitewashed wall and stains it
brown from the tea. The owner says, man,
it's a lost cause. We're going to have to
repaint the whole wall. Well, a stranger who saw and
heard this whole exchange said perhaps not. Let me give it a try. And he pulls out his paint
box, his art box with pencils and paints and brushes. And the owner thought,
well, I've got nothing to lose, have at it. So this guy starts
working on the wall. And after a period of time
emerges this beautiful painting of this big brown stag
with an enormous rack of antlers and
mountains and streams and landscape around it. And he managed to blend that
into the body of that animal so well, at the end he signed
his name on it, paid the bill, and he walked out. Well, that was none other
than Sir Edwin Lanseer, one of the most famous
animal landscape artists from Great Britain. He did indeed that. He turned the mess, he turned
a mistake into a masterpiece. That's what God does. All things can work together
for good to those who love God. He takes your past, all
the disjointed blotches, and He makes them an
expression of His love. You come to Christ, you're
like a brand new baby, man. You're fresh. You have no past, only a future. So when a spouse dies,
when a divorce occurs prior to a salvation. Number three, when the
unbeliever in a mixed marriage deserts the marriage. So you get a Christian
married to a non-Christian. The non-Christian
says I'm out of here. The Christian is free. Verse 10, "Now to the
married I command, yet not I, but the
Lord, a wife is not to depart from her husband. If she does depart, let
her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not
to divorce his wife. But to the rest,
I, not the Lord, say if any brother has a
wife who does not believe, if she is willing to live with
him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a
husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with
her let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband
is sanctified by the wife. And the unbelieving wife is
sanctified by the husband. Otherwise your children
would be unclean, but now they are holy." OK, not all the Corinthians
fit in category number one or category number two. They weren't widows. They weren't married and
divorced prior to salvation. They're married at
this point, but they are married to an unbeliever. Why? Because they got saved. Their spouse did not. So now they wake
up one day and they realize I'm unequally yoked. What should I do? Should I dump him and find
a nice looking believer? Should I remain single? What am I to do? Now, the initial response
for this question and perhaps inclination to leave the
marriage relationship was based on something that Paul
will say in his Second Letter to the Corinthians,
"Be not unequally yoked together with an unbeliever." So they thought, so am I now? And what should I do about it? Now, I want to
clear something up. I'm going to clear up
verse 10 and verse 12. Notice he says, "To the
married I command, yet not I, but the Lord." And then in verse 12, "But
to the rest, I, not the Lord, say." I don't want you to
misunderstand that. Some have. Some think Paul says,
well, now what I say here, that's inspired. But what I'm saying now
is my uninspired opinion. I'm just making this stuff up. That is not what he's saying. When he says, I'm going to tell
you something, but it's not me, it's the Lord, what he means
is the Lord has already spoken on this. Jesus has already dealt
with this issue before. But then in verse 12 he is
saying Jesus didn't directly teach on this particular case. So here is further
revelation on this issue. It seems then that
there were unsaved spouses who were upset
that their partners have come to Christ. Can some of you relate to that? When I first came
to Christ, I thought my parents are
going to be thrilled because now I'm not doing
drugs and I'm not doing this. I'm saved. They were not excited
that I was saved. They wanted me mildly religious,
but not an on fire Christian. He's reading his
Bible all the time. He's going to church
all the-- he's nuts. Well, this is happening
in a marriage context. And so some wanted
out of the marriage. Some unbelievers wanted
out of the marriage. Paul says, let them go. Don't you leave. Let them leave. In Romans 12, we
get a principle. Paul says if it is possible,
as much as depends on you, live at peace with all men. Don't be a troublemaker. Don't stir things up. Don't drive people away. Don't be divisive. As much as you can in any
relationship you have, be a peacemaker. Live at peace with all men. But I'm glad he put it this
way-- if it is possible, as much as depends on you,
live at peace with all men. Sometimes it's not possible. You do all that you
can, but they go, uh, uh, want nothing
to do with you and your religious weirdness. I'm out of here. And that's to be expected. Right? Didn't Jesus say that just
the Gospel itself would divide people? Matthew 10, Jesus
said, "Don't imagine that I came to bring
peace on the Earth. No, I came to bring a sword. I have come to set a
man against his father and a daughter
against her mother and a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be right
in your own household." That's the natural effect of the
gospel penetrating any group. Some believe. Some don't. And the ones who don't
aren't excited about the ones that have. And there's a natural division,
an animosity that occurs. Now, a word of caution here. Knowing what I just
said is true might make some who are
married to an unbeliever sort of strategize this way. Well, I won't leave, but I
can make life in the home so miserable they'll
want to leave. Then I can technically
say I am free to remarry because he dumped me. Be very careful that you
live at peace with all men and you don't push them out. Now, what does verse 14 mean,
when he says the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the
wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband? It does not mean they
are automatically saved because they're married
to you, a believing spouse. It means that you,
as the believer, are the influence for salvation. You are a saving
influence in that home. Verse 14, in the New Living
Translation is rendered thus, "For the Christian wife brings
holiness to her marriage. And the Christian husband
brings holiness to his marriage. Otherwise, your children would
not have a godly influence. But now they are
set apart from him." Just one saved person in a home
can start a chain reaction. The Gospel has now
penetrated that household. And others come to Christ. I found that to be true
on a lot of occasions. I love it when I'm standing in
the baptismal pool in warmer weather, [LAUGHTER] and
a family will come in and they'll all want to
be baptized together. So I say, so tell me your story. You're a whole family. You want to get
baptized together. Did you all come to
Christ at one time? Here's usually the story. Oh, no, she received
Jesus Christ. I thought she was a wing nut. I wanted nothing to do with
her or her God or her religion or her weirdness. But the Lord softened my heart. I gave my heart to Christ. Our marriage got better. My children saw that they,
gave their lives to Christ. And now we're a family wanting
to be baptized and declare that together. That's a frequent
testimony that I see, and I have over the years. Now, let me give
you this principle from the Old Testament. It's the same principle, but
it's seen a little different. You will recall that God and
Abraham had a very interesting conversation about Sodom. Remember when God
says, you know, Abraham I'm going to
go check out Sodom, and I think I'm just
going to destroy it? And Abraham goes,
[GASPS] destroy it? Well, what if there there's 50
righteous people in that town? God says, I'll spare the town
if there's 50 righteous people. Produce the 50. Well, he couldn't. There weren't 50
righteous people in Sodom. Abraham knew it, so he
in classic fashion goes, would you do it for 40? God says, sure, I'll
work the deal, 40. You give me 40 righteous
people, good to go. Abraham, you know, started
going lower and lower, said, hey, since I'm on a
roll, would you do it for 30? God said, sure, 30. How about 20? Yeah, OK. And then finally he
gets down to 10 people. If we can find 10
righteous people in Sodom, will you spare the city for 10? God said, yes, I will spare
the city from destruction for 10 righteous people. Now, you think about that. If 10 righteous people
could have been produced, thousands of wicked
people's lives would be spared
by the sanctifying influence of just 10 people. That's the same principle here. So the best thing
for an unbeliever is to have a believing
spouse as an influence. It's a hard gig for
the believer to put up with the weirdness
of an unbelieving spouse and all the pressure
that comes with that. And unbeliever saying my wife's
weird, she's a Christian. I got to tell you something. It's not easy living
with you, buddy. But she would say it's worth
it if the pressure, the pain, the months of being put off
and marginalized and hurt and slandered, if the Gospel
penetrates your heart. Former First Lady Barbara Bush
said at the end of your life, you will never regret not
having passed one more test or not winning one more verdict
or not closing one more deal, but you will regret the
time that you did not spend with a husband, a
friend, a child, or a parent. If you have children,
they must come first. Our successes in this
society depend not on what happens in the
White House, but what happens inside your house. Think of the potential
of a sanctified home, sanctified by one
Christian in that home. That's the idea that
Paul is writing about. I can just speak from sort
of personal experience. My father-in-law who comes
to church here every Sunday morning at 8 o'clock,
sits in the front row, Rod, was an atheist,
didn't believe in God, was very smart,
very intellectual. He was a doctor and a lawyer. So very advanced in education. Wanted had nothing
to do with God. Short story, he has
a radical conversion, gives his life to Christ. His family thinks his much
learning has made him mad. But his salvation brought
his wife to Christ, brought his daughter
Lenya, my wife, to Christ. That's the sanctifying
influence of just one believer in one home. So when a spouse
dies, when a divorce happens prior to salvation,
when an unbeliever deserts the marriage,
and fourth, one we covered last
time and we'll just be brief on today, when sexual
immorality has prevailed in our relationship,
the injured party is free to divorce and
remarry, if there's unrepentant sexual activity,
that is sexual immorality. So look at verse 10, and
you'll kind of get this. "Now to the married, I command,
yet not I, but the Lord, a wife is not to depart
from her husband. But even if she does depart,
let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not
to divorce his wife." So there again, he goes, this
is what I command, yet not I, but the Lord. In other words, I'm just
repeating what the Lord already said, how He already
dealt with it. Don't divorce your spouse. Well, when did he say that? We looked at it last
week, Matthew 19. They came to Jesus
and they said, look, can we dump our wives? Well, they said divorce. Can we divorce our wives
for just any reason? What was Jesus' answer? No. And He went all the way back
to the beginning of Genesis and showed them God's
intention for marriage. He said the only
reason you can is if there is sexual immorality
in your relationship with your wife that
you're married to. Unrepentant sexual
immorality, that's the exception clause that
makes divorce and then remarriage permissible. Now, I told you that that
came with that question because there was a rabbi named
Rabbi Hillel who widened out getting a divorce from
your wife for any reason. So that there was
rampant, no fault divorce in the first century. All right? We said that. And that's why it's so
applicable to our generation because in the United
States of America, every single state in the
Union, except South Dakota, has no fault divorce laws. And that means you don't
have to have anybody's fault to get a divorce. You just say, look, I
don't like her anymore. I don't like him anymore. We have irreconcilable
differences. Let's just part. So, today, like in that
day, you have people saying, I'm going to divorce my
husband or wife for any reason. And you may be surprised some
of the reasons people come up with. Maybe not. I am surprised. One man in Hazard,
Kentucky, divorced his wife, because she, he said, beat
him whenever he removed onions from his hamburger without
asking for permission. Now I don't quite
understand that. She's a little legalistic
with her hamburgers. But that happened. A deaf man in Bennettsville,
South Carolina, filed to divorce his wife
because his wife was always nagging him in sign language. Easy fix. Go to the next room. A woman in Canon City,
Colorado, divorced her husband because he forced her to
duck under the dashboard whenever they drove past
his girlfriend's house. Now that's pretty low. A woman in Hardwick,
Georgia, divorced her husband on the grounds that he
stayed home too much and was much too affectionate. Now, come on, women
want affection and would love their husbands
to stay home a little more. She divorced her
husband because of. I don't quite understand it. So Paul writes, and he
goes, look, I'm saying this, are you married? Stay married. Work it out. Work out the problems. And in so doing, provide
the world an example, showing them that God's
standard for relationships work. Let that be your testimony. Show the world that
God's plan works. The only exception that
Jesus spoke about-- and that's what he said, look,
Jesus said stay together-- the only exception was
for sexual immorality. Now, let's say, a
couple says, so what? I don't care. It says sexual morality. I'm going to divorce
my husband or my wife. Well, Paul writes that. He says, even--
verse 12-- if she does depart, let
her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not
to divorce his wife. OK, so things didn't work out. It wasn't sexual immorality. But you dumped
him or dumped her. Now what? Two options. He said, stay unmarried
or at some point when the smoke clears, reconcile
with your husband or your wife. So those are the options. And let me say of
those two options, God's heart, God's
highest is reconciliation. It's reconciliation. Even when sin prevails, I
believe God's highest heart is reconciliation over remarriage. So you say, well, it's
easy for you to say. Ask that to Hosea. Hosea was a prophet in the
Old Testament who married a prostitute named Gomer. You're right, you
laugh at Gomer. I mean, you marry
a girl named Gomer, you know you're going to have
problems in the marriage. This is my wife Gomer. No, they did have problems,
not because her name was Gomer. They had problems because she
left the marriage and went and turned tricks out in
the street as a whore, as a prostitute again
and again and again. And God said to him, Hosea,
go find her and support her. Go feed her. Go clothe her. And she will come
back when she is done. And when she comes
back, you receive her and reconcile with her. I would not like
Hosea's job or calling? Why did God do that? Because God said
that is an example of what I'm doing to my
nation who has gone out on me and committed spiritual
adultery time and time again. Last week on our
subject of divorce, we quoted to you that text
in Jeremiah or the Lord said, I am divorcing my wife Israel. I'm putting her away. Here's a bill of divorcement. Now, in Hosea, God
says, I'll take her back and I'll reconcile
the relationship. Now, as we close, what if you
are here and you're thinking, first of all, gosh, it's
a week before Christmas and this is such a bummer
message for me to hear? Couldn't you bring
a little goodwill the men and peace on Earth? A little Christmas Cheer? Help a guy or a girl out. What if you're here
and you realize perhaps for the first time
that you're involved in a sinful
relationship or you've had an unbiblical
divorce and you're kind of feeling very bad about that? Well, I want you to know
what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with
the Gospel here. What does Gospel mean? Good news. The good news that God sent
His son from heaven to Earth to pay for our sins on a
cross and wipe that slate clean through the
shed blood of Christ. Listen to the words
of David in Psalm 108. Why David? I'm quoting him
because David violated his marriage vows, right? I mean he was not any kind
of paragon of marital virtue. But he wrote these
words and they're to your heart this morning. "The Lord is merciful
and gracious. He is slow to get angry. He is full of unfailing love. He has not punished us
for all of our sins. Nor does He deal with
us as we deserve. For His unfailing love
toward those who fear Him is as great as the height
of the heaven above the Earth. He has removed our rebellious
acts far away from us as the East is from the West." That's the Gospel. That's the good news. [APPLAUSE] So what do I do? I've figured out I've
done some bad things. 1 John, Chapter 1, Verse 9. If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us some of our sins-- All of our sins. See I misquoted. Thank you for catching
that deliberate mistake. No, it says, if we confess
your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
us most of our sins-- All of our sins. You see, I misquoted
it again for effect. He is faithful. He is just to forgive us-- how many? All. All our sins and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. Amen. So everything in the
past is the past. And maybe precisely this
is where the Holy Spirit is tinkering with
you in your life, to get you to accept His
grace and His forgiveness and move forward, and to
forgive others who have hurt you and move forward. I spoke to a woman
some time back. And she said, just thinking
of my ex-husband, I just-- and she got all red. And she said, you know,
I can't think of them. I can't pray for him. I can't love him. She said, he's an enemy. I said, well, Jesus did
say love your enemies. So you can't really
get out of it. You have to show love, some
form of love to your ex-husband. Love your enemies. Do good to those who spitefully
use you and persecute you. Do that. I can't. Oh, God would never
give you a command without giving you
the available power to carry that command forth. Step out and decide,
as married couples, we're going to work this out. Decide that we're just
going to honor God. Decide that from this
day forward we're going to follow His commands. You can do it. He'll enable you to do it. Father, as we conclude, we
just thank You for the Gospel. We thank You for what it means. All of us have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. Even Paul said that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of
whom He was the chief. So how thankful we are
that You are faithful and You are just to
forgive all of our sins, cleanses from all of
our own righteousness. Do that work of
grace in our hearts, as we have failed some
of us relationally. We have made poor choices. We have made hard choices. We have made impulsive choices. Lord, some of us
have long marriages. Others do not. But by grace, we are all
Your forgiven children, and You are our Heavenly Father. And so I pray that You
would enable us all to love each other, as well
as be forgiven and loved by You in Jesus' name. Amen. We hope you enjoyed this message
from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Church. How will you put the truths
that you learned into action in your life. Let us know. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/gift. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church.
