Jesus on Divorce | Matthew 5:31-32 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so after being out of the pulpit for for a little while let me kind of reorient us to where we are here in our bible study matthew 5 6 and 7 is the longest recorded and the most familiar sermon that jesus delivered and it is commonly called the sermon on the mount because he delivered it on the um the slope a small slope of a hillside on the northern coast of the sea of galilee and so i'm taking you there this is the scenery this is that hillside there along the northern coast of the sea of galilee where jesus delivers this sermon thus it's been affectionately called the sermon on the mount it is a sermon intended for serious followers of jesus christ not the timid not the reluctant not the half-hearted followers because what jesus has to say in the sermon on the mount will either challenge you to grow in your faith or it will offend you about the faith there's no middle ground with jesus if you're not with him you're against him i didn't say that jesus said it in matthew 12 30 he who is not with me is against me and so when we read stuff like what we're about to read here you may not like it you may not agree with it but you cannot say and therefore i won't obey it but i'm still a devoted follower of jesus you can't have it both ways you know the words of jesus is not like the buffet of golden china you can't just decide well some of the stuff i like and other stuff i'm going to pass on um there are some things about the sermon on the mount that are easier to swallow than other things because some things are more comfortable and some things are uncomfortable there's some there's some relative easy truth and then there's some relative hard truth but it's not like a buffet where you get to pick and choose the sermon on the mount are the words of jesus and so we have to decide if we really want to be devoted followers of jesus we're going to take the easier stuff with the harder stuff and and we're going to do all that it says and we come to quite honestly a hard part here in the sermon on the mount it's the subject of divorce uh jesus had some things to say about it and i say it's a hard part of the sermon because the bar that jesus sets concerning this topic of divorce is higher than the bar that our culture has set the bar that our culture has said about divorce is basically in today's culture a system of no fault divorce based on irreconcilable differences that's basically the bar that our culture has set that divorce is in large part about no-fault divorces based on irreconcilable differences can can i just say something to you marriage is about irreconcilable differences okay if you're married you know this to be true often we marry our opposites and there's a reason because if you were both the same one of you wouldn't be necessary our differences complement each other so your strengths might be your spouse's weakness but your spouse's strengths are probably some of your weaknesses and together um that union forms a a more complementary relationship than just by yourself but marriage by definition has some irreconcilable differences but jesus raises the bar on this whole subject of marriage and divorce so we're only going to look at two verses today but i promise i won't let you out early matthew 5 verses 3 come on welcome back and um and welcome back even on the topic of divorce wow here we go uh matthew 5 verses 31 and 32. just these two verses furthermore it has been said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce but i say to you verse 32 but i say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery and whoever marries a woman who was divorced commits adultery all right let's pause there and pray father we pause to pray lord not only for our time and your word that you would open our hearts and minds to what you would have to say to us and that we would be challenged lord and stretched however we need to today to be obedient devoted followers of your word but in addition lord we look around our world and we think right now in particular about people who have been in the path of this hurricane throughout texas and louisiana we pray for them lord many people have lost everything materially speaking and just the emotional turmoil that that takes no doubt we pray for you to just minister to those people and encourage them and we thank you for churches and ministry organizations that are rushing in to provide comfort and relief and material goods and food and so we just pray for the people in the path of the hurricanes and ask you lord to minister your grace to them today we think about our own country just the turmoil the division the the racial unrest the political division the just all these different things lord that all of us care about we pray for you to bring about great revival in our land once again we pray for the days of whitfield and finney and wesley lord we pray for revival even similar to near to our own time even in the 70s with the jesus movement and just a great revival across our landlord moved by your holy spirit to bring healing to the soul of america and we just continue to pray for our nation and pray for our elected leaders and and ask you lord to start with us may it begin with us in our own hearts and our own church and our own community bless this time in your word we pray and use it to build us up in our faith that you would be glorified in the process lord we ask in jesus name and everybody said amen well obviously jesus didn't avoid hot topics in the course of his ministry and and so neither will we he addresses every aspect of life uh including the topic we come to today divorce now it's easy for some pastors to avoid this topic either because they selectively teach through the bible and avoid it or they don't teach the bible at all and therefore avoid it but because we go cover to cover through the scriptures we're going to come to every comfortable and uncomfortable topic in the bible and so divorce is one of those topics that is somewhat uncomfortable and i'm going to be sensitive to everyone because the fact of the matter is that the subject of divorce impacts people in deep emotional ways either as spouses who have gone through it uh children who are a part of a family where there's been the divorce of a mom or dad friends get impacted too in the whole process when a divorce happens it is not limited in terms of its impact to just the husband and wife there's a whole circle of people who get impacted when a divorce happens that you have um of course the husband the wife you have kids if there are kids in a marriage sometimes we forget the parents of the adult um husband and wife uh who who might divorce because the grandparents sometimes have to step in and help raise the grandkids now that either mom is single or dad is single so it impacts more than just the immediate generation it impacts friendships when when couples hang out together and suddenly one of those couples is divorced and now they're each single now they don't they don't know if they should hang out with their same circle of friends because they kind of feel different well i'm single now and i used to come with my husband or my wife to hang out with other couples and now i don't want to go by myself and it's a little awkward and so new friends have to be established and it's it's uncomfortable assets get divided property gets sold oftentimes people have to move and uproot um there's there's a lot of difficulty there's a lot of mess there there's there's a lot of challenges when divorce happens and while i'm aware of how painful uh divorce can be uh for some people whose marriages have not worked out and and you're hearing this sermon you're like oh this is like pulling a scab off of a wound at the same time i'm also aware of how needful understanding the topic can be for the sake of for example a for those who are going to be married you need to know what god says about marriage and divorce for those who are married you need to understand and be encouraged to stay married where and when possible for those of you have been through a divorce you you need god's healing through that too so you know i'm talking on a subject that impacts a variety of people in a variety of ways on a variety of levels no couple sets out with the goal in mind that they're going to get divorced when a couple stands before a pastor or a justice of the peace at a ceremony however large or small the ceremony and exchanges vows that couple does not think to themselves standing there maybe one day will get divorced it just doesn't it's not it's not even a conscious thought unless of course maybe you have a prenup agreement and you plan and to to get millions if you get divorced then maybe you're thinking that i i don't know personally by the way i get asked this from time to time i personally am opposed to prenups uh for two reasons number one because look when you get married there's supposed to be a oneness in marriage and and so what is his is hers and what is hers is his and i just don't think it's healthy to start to come into a marriage already saying yeah but what's mine before we got married is going to stay mine in case something happens and the second reason i'm uncomfortable with with prenups is because um there's a seed of doubt already placed in your head that this might not work out so i got to protect my assets and i i've gotten this you know we have a few professional athletes who attend our church and you know they get big signing bonuses when they're single and they get married and they've asked me these things and i'm like here's my personal take i this you have to decide based on your own sanctified conscience what you're going to do but you've asked me and i'm offering today my opinion i don't think prenups are wise now terry and i did not have a prenup that's because we had nothing going into our marriage okay in fact when we got married now she had already been working a year as a school teacher here in uh at qatar elementary school actually and i had been working to and so before we got married you know we were saving up for a good year or two after school and you know saving our money and so i we both had a couch i'm going to tell this story she's shaking her head but she'll give me grace after i had we both had accounts at the same bank it's first virginia bank and the first virginia bank's been bought out now so it's not even around and so i said um i'm going to go to the bank after we got back from our honeymoon i'm going to go i'm going to the bank take our marriage license and tell them close my account close your account combine the two and she's like okay that's good and so i'm like how much money do you have in your account because i don't know are you married to one of those they have no idea but see i'm one of those guys like i got to balance the checkbook i got to know what's in the account i got it so it's coming and going i got it i got to have a good idea what's happening here but you know but that's why i see we complement each other we complement i'm like what's the balance and she's like i don't know i'm like we gotta save she's like i gotta spend and so it just it works out and so i'm like okay well then i'm gonna be surprised and so i go to the bank and so i give my account her account i give the marriage license i say i'd like you to close out our accounts combine them into a joint account the lady says to me i'll be happy to help you mr hamrick she takes my marriage license she walks away from the desk for a few minutes i'm sitting there and she comes back and she says that'll be 38 dollars i said 38 dollars what kind of a processing fee do you charge around here to combine two separate accounts like that she says no mr hamrick it's not a processing fee that's the overdraft on your wife's account in order to close it i have to have 38 dollars from you why are you applauding that i go home and terry's like so how much money do we have combined now i said 38 less than i had when i left the house so we had no need of a prenup no one intends to get divorced when they get married it's not even on their radar and yet sadly it happens every day there is one divorce approximately every 36 seconds in america that's nearly 2 400 divorces per day in america and don't think that multiple marriages are more successful because the the statistics prove just the opposite the divorce rate for first marriages is 42 percent the divorce rate for second marriages is 60 the divorce rate for third marriages is 73 it doesn't get better don't believe the lie like well this one didn't work out but this one will be better it statistically it gets worse with multiple marriages now for many years the i heard pastors teach and i actually fought the same and have said probably at times in the past myself erroneously that the divorce rate in the church is about equal to the divorce rate outside the church and that actually isn't true focus on the family commissioned a study that was done by dr william bradford wilcox a leading sociologist at the university of virginia and also the director of the national marriage project and what dr wilcox found is that when you separate nominal christians those who don't really read their bibles regularly they don't really often go to church they claim to be of the faith but they but they're not really committed devoted followers of jesus from those who are devoted followers of jesus attend church regularly pray with their spouse and their kids uh are are accountable in a in a church body to friends related to life and marriage there's a big difference between those two groups what dr wilcox found in his study was that the latter group those who were devoted followers of jesus read their bibles regularly attended church regularly were involved in fellowship and accountability and friendship with other like-minded believers they were 35 less likely to divorce than the general population on the other hand what he also found sadly was that the nominal christians those who didn't attend church much didn't really read their bibles didn't pray with their families they had a higher incident of divorce rates than the general population 20 percent higher so statistically speaking in terms of divorce it's better to be a heathen than a nominal christian that's what the statistics showed but the good news is that if you're really a follower of christ and you are involved in a church body and you're reading your bibles and praying with your family you have a statistically 35 percent greater chance of being successful in your marriage than getting divorced what happened is over the years the 20 higher rate than the general population of the nominal christians versus the 35 percent rate of lower divorces among the devoted christians what they did was they just kind of lumped all that together and it was almost a wash and that's why for years people were saying well christians get divorced about the same rate as the general population but when you unpack well what christians are we talking about when you unpack those who are nominal versus those who are devoted they found oh there's a big difference there and so it isn't to say that if you are a devoted follower of christ and have a church family and are part of you know fellowship and praying with your family that you won't ever get divorced it just simply is saying listen every marriage needs encouragement every marriage needs support every marriage needs accountability and that you are more likely to stay in your marriage if you have those things intact are a devoted follower of christ have a fellowship of a body of believers friends who can encourage you and hold you accountable and help you and pray with you praying with your family it's important so again when jesus says what he does here in the sermon on the mount it's challenging on many levels it's not always easy but it is beneficial always to all who are willing to accept the challenge of living devoted lives for jesus so here we go if you have your bible still there at matthew 5 we're going to look at these two verses 31 and 32 verse 31 jesus says it has been said now notice he's quoting old testament scripture when he says this it has been said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce and he's quoting from the book of deuteronomy chapter 24 verse 1. i'll put the verse up on the screen for you here it is this is what moses said when a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her he writes her a certificate of divorce puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house so this is the verse that jesus is referring to in matthew 5 31 when he says it has been said whoever divorces his wife let him give her a certificate of divorce he's referring here to deuteronomy 24 1. now there was great debate in jesus day as to what exactly moses meant there specifically the line and i'm going to highlight it in red specifically this line that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her and the debate in jesus day was did the uncleanness refer to something serious like sexual sin or adultery or was it a broad statement that could mean just about anything uncleanness is just a generic term for a variety of things and so at this particular time in jesus day there were literally two schools of thought these were rabbinical schools that were both a theological and philosophical schools and one was run by a guy named rabbi hillel and one was run by a guy named rabbi shamai and so the debate in jesus day was basically who is right in interpreting deuteronomy 24 1. is it the school of halal or the school of shamai because the school of halal had a very liberal view of deuteronomy 24 1. they saw uncleanness in a broad context the school of shema was a much more conservative traditional view of the verse which uh taught that the uncleanness is something singular not broad and so and related to sexual sin and so which is it and so jesus says well you've heard that it was said and he quotes deuteronomy 24 1 and he's going to dispel the the discussion about who's right halal or shamai now here just to give you an example i'm going to put on the board here here are some actual reasons that the school of halal said that a guy could divorce his wife and again unfortunately ladies you didn't have much right in the day and so a man could decide if he wanted to divorce his wife not the other way around here's the list okay don't get ahead of me when she did not find grace in his sight meaning if he saw someone else more attractive he could divorce his wife for the new lady or if she goes out in the street with her hair loose tied up in a bun put a cap on it i don't know what the deal is there if she spins around in public this is literally published accounts from the school of hallel if she converses with any man if she burns his dinner divorce or if she is a noisy woman now what did that mean well the school of hallel actually defined it if a woman's voice in her house could be heard by her neighbors she was a noisy woman out with you all right now that was the school of thought so the school of hallels was going around saying you could basically divorce your wife for any and every reason and this is just a small list from all the different reasons that the school of hillel gave one of the first century historians who was also jewish but he was commissioned by the roman government to write jewish history was a guy by the name of flavius josephus and apparently josephus believed the doctrine of the school of halal because he divorced his wife and he would write in one of his literary works the life of flavius josephus in autobiography he said quote about which time i divorced my wife also as not pleased with her behavior though not till she had been the mother of my three children so i don't like her behavior i'm going to divorce her that was the school of hillel the school of chamai was much more conservative and traditional and they believed when you look back i'll put the verse up again when you look back at this verse and the statement about she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her that the uncleanness that he found in her that a husband would possibly find in the wife was marital unfaithfulness and that's why she finds no favor in his eyes because she has committed adultery and that adultery was the only legal grounds for divorce the hebrew words for some uncleanness the hebrew is the bar and it literally means exposure of a thing or nakedness of a matter and so basically it speaks of a shameful act not some trivial thing like burning his dinner and so this was a much more serious matter it's the bar it's a shameful act and so jesus says in the next part of your bible's there john rather matthew 5 32 but i say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality jesus clears it up right there he's saying listen contrary to the liberal view of the day and it's interesting because we have a liberal view of divorce today also jesus says you can't just divorce your spouse for any and every reason he says except one and so in a sense he he kind of affirms the school of shamai but in reality he's saying the school of shamai properly understands the higher authority of god's word that the that the only exception here jesus says to breaking the covenant of marriage is where there has been sexual sin where there has been adultery and let me quickly add and emphasize that jesus did not say that sexual sin mandates a divorce he's not saying that adultery requires then that there must be a divorce he's simply saying it was grounds for it there have been many marriages that have survived adultery and experienced healing by god's grace adultery is not necessarily a death sentence on a marriage provided that the one who betrayed the covenant is remorseful and repentant and that the other spouse is willing to forgive only through repentance and forgiveness can god restore what was broken and he's a big god god can do immeasurably more than we could ever hope or imagine it's not easy it takes work but nothing is impossible with god now in saying all that i don't intend to shame anyone who ended up getting a divorce because of adultery sometimes the pain is too deep to recover and by the way willfully committing adultery intentionally so that you think then you have gotten yourself grounds for divorce it's not the way this is supposed to be understood i had a lady years ago say to me i'm so sick and tired of being married to this guy i think i'm just going to go out and have an affair and then i'll have legitimate biblical grounds for divorce i said no it doesn't work that way it doesn't work that way the grounds for divorce is in the hands of the offended party not in the hands of the offender this is something that has to be worked on together but the possibility for there to be a survival of the marriage depends on the offended party being really willing to forgive and the offender being really willing to be remorseful and repentant now when you look at the whole bible there really are only two grounds for divorce the first one is what we've already been touching on adultery and it's what jesus said here in matthew chapter 5 and jesus also has a little bit more to say in matthew 19. if you want to turn over to matthew 19 or you can just listen i'm going to read the first 10 verses but the subject comes up again later and jesus reiterates what he says in matthew 5 but he also adds something so in matthew 19 verses 1 and 1 to 10 it says now it came to pass when jesus had finished these sayings that he departed from galilee and came to the region of judea beyond the jordan and great multitudes followed him and he healed them there the pharisees also came to him testing him and saying to him is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason again this is the school of hillel and he answered and said to them have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female and said for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so then they are no longer two but one therefore what god has joined together let not man separate and they said to him why then did moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away and he said to them moses because of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it was not so and i say to you whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery and his disciples said to him if such is the case of the man with his wife it is better not to marry and you know what truthfully in some cases that is so if you don't go into marriage with the mindset that this is going to be for life you shouldn't get married and and and what jesus does here in matthew 19 is he reiterates the fact that sexual sin sexual immorality adultery is really the only cause for grounds for divorce but he also brings in the original intention of god's design for marriage and he quotes genesis 2 24 when he talks about for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and the two shall become one flesh there's to be a oneness here this to be a lifetime arrangement a covenant before god and only possibly to be broken because of sexual immorality and so that's what jesus emphasizes in matthew 5 and again in matthew 19. there's one other when you look at the whole counsel of god's word there's one other biblical grounds for divorce and it's abandonment and paul writes about it in first corinthians chapter 7 which i shall also read you can turn there if you'd like or just listen but this is from first corinthians chapter 7 verses 10 to 16 and this is this is what we read now to the married i command yet not i but the lord a wife is not to depart from her husband and ivy says not to separate from her husband but if she does separate so there's there's room there for separation 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 leaves the marriage abandons basically let him depart a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases but god has called us to peace for how do you know o wife whether you will save your husband or how do you know o husband whether you will save your wife what paul is saying here is basically that if there is a marriage where one spouse is a believer and one is not which is not ideal by the way okay i know what sometimes happens and i've heard stories of how it worked out well but please don't flirt to convert all right just let that sink in don't try to get into a marriage thinking i'm going to convert this person i'm a believer i'm going to convert this person don't flirt the good bird you get married because the two of you are on the same page two believers you know two non-believers at least have the same world view but a believer and a non-believer is there's potential conflict there okay but if that happens paul says the believing spouse should not leave because you don't know whether your influence might eventually lead to the salvation of your unbelieving spouse and also for the sake of the kids he mentions your kids are sanctified if you will he says made holy by virtue of your influence as a believer in the home that without you they may not otherwise be exposed to so he says stay in the marriage as a believer now he adds though if the unbelieving spouse wants to leave and you as the believing spouse have done all you can to try to fight for the marriage you can let the unbelieving spouse go in that sense it is abandonment and so these are the only two reasons in the bible for divorce according to scripture now there may be many reasons for separation the bible makes allowance for separation especially where women in particular feel threatened or unsafe get out of the house you may not feel like you have these two grounds for divorce but you should never stay in a place where you are in harm's way please go somewhere where it is safe for you the bible allows for separation but the bible allows for separation as a process for healing towards reconciliation and again it's different from our culture our culture basically says that separation is a stepping stone and often a legal prerequisite to divorce you have to be separated first before you can actually get divorced and what i find unfortunate is also the culture teaches during your time of separation since it's just a stepping stone to divorce you can go ahead and start dating and playing the field again figuring out if you want to have another relationship listen as a believer if you're separated if any point you are separated from your spouse the purpose of separation is eventual reconciliation so during separation it might be a time for praying it might be time for fasting it might be a time for counseling but it is not a time for dating you are still in a covenant bond with your spouse separation is intended for reconciliation okay and it's different from our culture so we have to understand that now the only bad thing if there's a bad thing about broaching a subject like divorce today as i'm doing is that it opens pandora's box of questions where people want to know about their personal situation and what about this and what about that and my situation is unique and you don't know the background on this you know the background on that and it's true i don't know the nuance of everybody's relationship but i've heard it all over the years and difficult painful stuff my spouse is an alcoholic you don't understand my spouse is into pornography my spouse is verbally abusive my spouse is not meeting my emotional needs my spouse is not meeting my sexual needs my spouse is not fill in the blank i've heard it all okay and those may be all reasons for the need for counseling and even perhaps the need for separation but they are not necessarily grounds for divorce and people don't like my answer on it sometimes but as a pastor i cannot offer you more nor will i offer you less than what the scripture teaches the scripture teaches two grounds for divorce and makes room for separation for an unspecified amount of time with the goal in mind that there might be reconciliation you say well does god expect me to be stuck in a loveless marriage sometimes sometimes maybe god is teaching you something about perseverance through suffering maybe he's teaching you something about forgiveness maybe he's teaching you something about unconditional love or maybe there's a similar parallel not just in your marriage but in your own walk with god because maybe god loves you unconditionally but you haven't been as loving towards him in the same way that you feel like your spouse hasn't been very loving towards you and yet he hasn't abandoned you maybe it's because god wants you to learn how to keep your oath like proverbs 15 verse 4 says even when it hurts end quote there could be a whole host of reasons why it is better to stay married and honor god than pursue a divorce without biblical grounds and dishonor god well doesn't god want me to be happy well it might be enshrined in our declaration of independence the pursuit of happiness but it's not the goal of life in the bible in fact what the bible often teaches us by instruction and by way of example is how to experience god's peace in the midst of strife joy in the midst of difficulty contentment in the midst of chaos what god wants more than your happiness or my happiness is for our lives to give glory to him and sometimes that means we persevere when life is not always that happy now i want to end with this because again i can just imagine all the questions and things that are popping into people's heads some of you might be sitting there thinking okay i'm divorced maybe you're even remarried maybe you're single and you're thinking you know i now that i'm hearing all this i didn't really have biblical grounds and and i didn't know or maybe even i did know and i still went ahead and pursued a divorce and you don't understand my circumstance all this kind of stuff listen you're wondering then what does this mean for me like did i commit some unpardonable sin is god angry with me here's the deal you know now okay move forward now and make a decision now to glorify god you cannot go back and undo the past don't try to undo the past you'll make it worse trust me on this i had a man years ago who came to me many years ago had a very top-level top-secret uh position in federal law enforcement married with three beautiful girls the girls ranged some aged between like 9 15 somewhere in there he comes to me and i didn't know that this was his second marriage he said to me gary this is my second marriage i was married before i had no kids by the first marriage i've been married in that in that marriage he was married like 18 years or so in the second marriage and he said but now that i've grown in my faith and i've come to understand my sin i need to go back to my first wife i said what he said i need to go back and make that right i should never have divorced her i need to go back and i need to divorce my wife now and i'd go back and marry my first wife i said listen to me listen to me he had a sidearm he could have shot me i said listen to me listen to me you cannot go back you cannot go back and try to undo what you didn't do right then i have news for you this is now god's will for you your wife now and your kids now this is god's will for you do not leave this marriage i wish i could tell you that he took my advice he left his wife and his three daughters and went back to his first wife and the devastation was palpable i mean imagine the devastation of his wife and his three daughters that he left you can't go back and fix things so what you need to do is okay now today going forward i want my life i want my marriage if you are married to honor god divorce is not the unpardonable sin our sin is great but god's grace is greater still walk in his forgiveness walk in his grace don't try to undo something and decide now i'm going to glorify him going forward marriage is a beautiful thing ordained by god but not without its challenges and heartache lean on jesus pray a lot forgive a lot rebuke satan a lot and die to your own flesh a lot and may god bless our marriages and heal the hearts who have been hurt through divorce amen let's pray together father we come before you needful some hear hurting we pray for our marriages lord in our church we pray lord for you to bless our marriages protect our marriages we pray father against the enemy who would love to destroy our families destroy marriages we pray god for you to help those couples right now who might be hearing this bible study and maybe they're on the verge of divorce they don't have biblical grounds but they've been talking about divorce i pray god in the name of jesus for you to bring healing into that home for there to be reconciliation and forgiveness and humility and confession of sins that you would bind them together and heal that marriage we pray for every good marriage that you would strengthen it even better because we know that even a good marriage can fall into sin or temptation or the enemy can rush in there so lord we need your protection we need your presence we need your power we need your grace and we pray lord for those who've been through divorce and just the hurt the children of divorced parents the the family and friends in particular lord the husband the wife that went through that divorce we pray for your healing grace to be upon them for you to touch them in a way that reminds them that our sin is great but your grace is greater still bind up the brokenhearted lord and help us to walk in a way that glorifies you in jesus name we pray and everybody said amen and amen

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

Views: 41,283

Rating: 4.817544 out of 5

Keywords: Cornerstone Chapel, Calvary Chapel, Gary Hamrick, Biblical sermons, leesburg va, cornerstone chapel leesburg virginia, great sermons by great preachers, the book of matthew, Divorce, what are the biblical grounds for divorce, can i get a divorce according to the bible?, what does the bible say about divorce, is divorce biblical, is divorce a sin?, what does jesus say about divorce, :31-32, matthew 5:31-32, Jesus on divorce

Id: RzYaX56XthQ

Length: 42min 41sec (2561 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020