Jesus on Marriage and Divorce - Pastor Jeff Schreve

today on from his heart were in pastor Jeff's Reeves new series called built to last and we're learning how to build a successful marriage and family join us today for a tell it like it is lesson it's called Jesus on marriage and divorce [Music] [Music] when I was a kid growing up I was the fifth of six kids my parents used to like to do a little cheap outing and we would do it on Sunday afternoons we would go for a Sunday Drive how many people ever did the Sunday Drive okay that tended to be it kind of what people did back in the day it's not so much what they do today but we did and we would all pile into the station wagon that we had and me being one of the youngest I got in the backseat sandwiched between you know a couple of brothers and a sister you know just kind of in there and where we lived in California there were mountains and so we would no doubt drive and we would end up driving through the mountains and winding roads and man I remember three things about those experiences those days on the Sunday drive through the mountains number one I remember getting sick because when you're in the back crammed in there and your wine your dad's winding around it was easy to get sick number two I remembered that it was pretty I didn't know a lot about what's pretty and what's not but my parents thought it was pretty and so I was like yeah it must be pretty and there's some of the scenes that you get in those mountain roads just beautiful and number three I do remember this it was dangerous when you're driving on a mountain road typically those roads weren't really wide and you had to be careful what was coming along the other side and you had to be extra careful if you were going around a curve it's a serious serious deal if you go off the cliff now I wanted to draw something for you today and I'm not a very good drawer so you're gonna have to bear with me but something that I think makes such sense and will help us as we are in this series on marriage and family called built to last how to build a successful marriage in family today we're going to talk about a touchy subject a sensitive subject for a lot of people and it's the subject of and divorce because Jesus was asked a question directly about marriage and divorce and he gave it a direct answer about marriage and divorce and we want to understand his answer and I think a little diagram will help us so let's let's pretend this is a road and it's it's a road that is on a mountain road and so this is our little mountain road and I need to make that longer because the mountain is gonna come in here like this okay it's really terrible but that's that that's what we'll get okay this is a mountain road and here is the cliff and at the bottom of this cliff there's the ground and a guardrail is something that's put up that protects people on a curve protects people from going over the side and in case you forget what that is that's a guardrail okay there's a guardrail a good thing or bad thing it's a good thing right guardrail is a good thing what does the guardrail do guardrail keeps you from falling off the cliff now in the Bible we have truths and we have love Jesus was full of grace and truth full of love and truth the scripture says we're to speak the truth in love now it is no doubt when people fall it is the loving thing to do to come with God's grace and God's mercy and God's compassion you know what is at the bottom of this fall at the bottom of this fall we have another bad picture but we have an ambulance an ambulance of God's grace and that is love in action right now if you look at these things the scripture says speaking the truth love you look at this and you say well where is love in this scenario if somebody falls off the cliff and he falls to the ground and you come there and you come on the ambulance here's the ambulance okay the ambulance is there and you come and you help that guy and you show him God's love and God's grace and God's mercy and you help him back to health that is love that is pouring out the oil now it says on your outline it is loving to pour out the oil to people who fall off the cliff we would all agree but you know what else is loving it's loving to put up a guardrail so they don't fall off the cliff and and if you want to think about it if we were to break up speaking the truth in love the guardrail is the truth it's the truth and it's it's the truth in love let's say it's love that way love's a little smaller perhaps and this is love in truth and the truth is a little smaller maybe the balance on the bottom is more on love and less on truth and maybe on the guardrail it's more on truth and less and love but both of them are a loving thing to do people that put up the guardrail on a mountain road they're not doing it with evil intent they're doing it to protect you so why do I say all that I have found that in many churches sometimes they jettison the guardrail and all they do is focus in on the ambulance and we're the ambulance church and we're just going to be here for help to help people that fall but we don't talk to anybody about the guardrail and and even for me when I started from his heart ministry somebody asked me said what is the focus of from his heart ministries put it into a sentence and I said this because it's in my heart and still is today no matter how badly you may have messed up in life God still loves you and he still has a wonderful plan for you and I believe that with all my heart and so the focus is here but now from his heart is 10 years old we're 10 years down the road things have changed and people don't really like anything about the guardrail anymore and they don't like to talk about the guardrail and the Lord said that in the last days men will not endure sound doctrine they will turn away from the truth they want to have their ears tickled and they will accumulate for themselves teachers according to their own desires and will turn away from the truth and turn aside to miss and so they say hey we don't like this guardrail stuff quit talking to us about the guardrail and so people just keep falling and falling and falling and falling and all we want church to be is the ambulance listen the Church of Jesus Christ is both and Jesus was asked a question very pointed question is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause and the answer that he gave was all guardrail it was truth is there love is there grace is there mercy with the Lord concerning divorce of course yes but the answer he gave was guardrail and so we're going to focus on that today and so I don't want anyone here who has been divorced to say oh I feel so guilty I feel so ashamed I feel like where is the love where's the grace but let's bring the the ambulance back listen there is ambulance in the Lord Jesus there is grace but today we want to really focus in on the garden rail this message today is especially for people who aren't married so you would really take to heart what marriage is all about this message today is especially for people who are married so that you'd really think about your marriage this message today is for people who have fallen off the cliff so that you would be ministered to so that you would understand that God heals you to put you back up here so that you would live inside the guardrail hey it's no fun to hit the guardrail but it's a lot more fun to hit the guardrail and get up than it is to go off the cliff and maybe never get up so if you have your Bible please turn to Matthew chapter 19 we're going to look at what Jesus has to say about marriage and divorce Matthew 19 I'll begin reading in verse 1 it says this and it came about that when Jesus had finished these words he departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan that's to the east that's in a land called Perea and great multitudes followed him and He healed them there and some Pharisees came to him testing him and saying is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all and he answered and said have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh consequently they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore God has joined together let no man separate they said to him why then did Moses command to give her a certificate and divorce her he said to them because of the hardness of your heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it has not been this way and I say to you whoever divorces his wife except for immorality and marries another woman commits adultery the disciples said to him if the relationship of the man with his wife is like this it is better not to marry but he said to them not all men can accept this statement but only those to whom it has been given for there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven he who is able to accept this let him accept it god I pray that you would speak through me and speak to hearts and father that this message would be a message of truth and love and that no one would leave this place feeling condemned or feeling ashamed God that your grace would just go out but we would understand Lord your standards concerning marriage and divorce in Jesus name Amen want you to notice with me three discoveries on the question of Jesus answering marriage and divorce discovery number one Jesus spoke boldly on man's perversion of marriage now they asked him a straightforward question and it says that they were testing him they that word means to trap him you know the Pharisees are all the time they hate Jesus and so they're following him around and they're trying to get him to say something that would cause him to lose his popularity and so they asked him this question about marriage is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause they're hoping that Jesus says something they're trying to back him into a corner it's the same question when they said is it lawful that we pay taxes to Caesar or not and they said we're gonna get him if he says it's it's lawful to pay taxes the people will freak because they say oh we hate Rome and we hate paying these taxes if he says don't pay taxes then Rome's gonna have an opportunity to come down on him and we can say hey this guy is trying to lead the people against Rome telling them not to pay taxes and so they thought they had Jesus in a bind there and you remember Jesus held up a coin said who's who's the image whose likeness is on this coin they said Caesars and he said render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and render to God the things that are gods and they're like oh he got us again you know and so they they try and test Jesus about marriage so that he would speak against Moses so that the people would disassociate themselves from Jesus he would say something that would tick off the people or lastly that Jesus might say something about marriage that would tick off Herod because you remember John the Baptist was the one that said something about Herod and his marriage and he said it's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife you stole your brother Philips wife you married your sister-in-law and what makes it even grosser is his sister-in-law was also his niece and when he went off on Herod John the Baptist when he went off on Herod they put him in prison and then the wife Herodias the the sister-in-law Denise she got her daughter to dance for Herod and he was so taken by her dancing I'll give you whatever you ask for she said ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter and so her daughter Salome II did that and Herod acquiesced and they killed John how did all that happen he spoke out against Herod and his illicit marriage so they're trying to test Jesus is it lawful now here's the thing that was going on in that day many believed you could divorce for the slightest cause that was kind of a prevailing view in Israel a man could divorce his wife for the slightest cause and they got that from Moses from Deuteronomy chapter 24 it's a perversion as we're going to see of Deuteronomy 24 but that's where they got it from and Deuteronomy 24:1 says this when a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her and he writes her a certificate abort divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house hey you know if a man finds something he doesn't like about his wife some indecency in her and there was a big question mark as to what did that mean some indecency in her well there were two main schools of thought to rabbinical schools there was rabbi Hillel rabbi Hillel was a 1st century BC rabbi and he was very well respected and very well thought out and what he said Deuteronomy 24 was talking about was anything at all for any reason for any cause hey if if a woman burns the toast she can be toast that's that's what basically what he said for any cause well if you find any disfavor in a wife if you if I find this favor with you if you bring any kind of indecency on me and that word means to shame it means to disgrace literally it means nakedness and so that's where Rabbi Shammai the other school he said no no no it says it's a narrow interpretation of that it means that the only read the only way you can divorce is if your wife does something sexually immoral if she is adulterous in the relationship then you can divorce her so he had a very narrow view of divorce in Israel and Hillel had this wide view so you can imagine what the people said hey I can go with Hillel or I can go with Shamai I think I'll go with Hillel and and I feel good about myself because I'm following the rabbi he says I can divorce my wife for any cause if she burns the toast she can be toast now there was one rabbi his name was rabbi Akiba and he said this if a man saw a woman more beautiful than his own wife he might divorce her because it says she did not find favor in his eyes see that's how flippant they were with divorce Josephus who is well-known to many of us he was a Jewish historian in the first century he divorced his wife and the mother of his three children because quote he wasn't pleased with her manners and just divorced and everybody just accepted that divorce in the first century was a lot like a Kleenex I mean you marry and you use the Kleenex and then you throw it away I get somebody else I found somebody else who is more appealing to me so Jesus is speaking to this kind of scenario to people who had a low view of marriage much like people today and he spoke out and when they asked him that question he didn't shy away from the crushed question he answered the question so Jesus spoke boldly on man's perversion of marriage what have you done to the institution of marriage you've turned it in to a Kleenex second discovery not only did he speak boldly on man's perversion of marriage but Jesus spoke frankly on God's design of marriage now they're trying to trap him and Jesus know he can read their thoughts he knows everything he knows the in from the beginning you're never gonna be able to sneak up on God you're never gonna be able to pull one over on the Lord you're never gonna be able to back him into a corner of the beat him in a debate it's impossible he's God you know I mean you're operating on you know an IQ even if it's a hundred and fifty his IQ is like a hundred and fifty trillion he's going to beat you every time and so here they are and he knows what they're thinking they're thinking we're gonna go with Moses and Moses if he says something against Moses then we got him we got him because they they knew where Jesus was gonna go with this so Jesus bypasses Deuteronomy 24 he goes back to Genesis chapters 1 and 2 and that's where he starts he says okay you're good you guys ain't no doubt thinking this in his mind you guys are ridiculous you're trying to get me to say something against Moses well let me tell you something you have said something against God you're the ones that are who having trouble with what God says verse 4 and he answered and said have you not read now anytime Jesus says to the Pharisees have you not read major slam because they had prided themselves and in memorizing much of the Old Testament have you not read in Genesis chapter 1 in Genesis chapter 2 of course we've read that so he says that to them all you guys so learning have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh consequently they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore God has joined together let no man separate have you never read that now what is he saying he's going back to the beginning and he's going back to the blueprints he's going back to the design table he's saying let me tell you how marriage was designed marriage was designed by God for men and women he made the male and female marriage is between a man woman very basic stuff but not so basic in our world today big controversy about marriage today and the Lord says we'll go back to the drawing board go back to the table go back to where I set it all up let's look at let's learn roll the blueprints here what is marriage marriages between a man and woman God made them male and female when I was at the NRB National Religious broadcasters convention this week they had one session and it was a panel with a moderator and four or five different speakers and they were talking about the subject of homosexuality and marriage and the the issues related to that and they had two people that were advocating for homosexual marriage and they had a couple of others who were advocating for the biblical view of marriage and this was the question that was asked they said you know in Genesis chapter 2 verse 18 God says these words it is not good for the man to be alone I will make a helper suitable to him and here was the question they threw it out everybody believed that the Bible was the inspired Word of God on the panel they said could Genesis 2:18 where God says I'm gonna make a helper suitable could that be a could that have been fulfilled had God made another man so you have Adam and another man would that have been a helper suitable to him would that have allowed the earth to be full guys because he told the man and the woman be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth could he have done that with another man well the guys that were advocating for same-sex relationships they didn't want to answer that question because the obvious answer is no well no you have to have two males aren't going to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth two females aren't going to do that you have to have a male and you have to have a female so for Genesis 2:18 to come about for God to say be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth he had to make a male and a female and they had to come together so what is marriage God designed it God set it up it's in the heart and mind of God is between a man and a woman secondly marriage is that which makes the to become one flesh for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife in Genesis 2 in the Old Testament it says and cleave to his wife and as it's recorded here in Matthew 19 in the Greek it the word for cleave there is two glue it's the glue and this is this is what happens in a marriage a man gets together with a woman and they come together in the Holy bonds of matrimony and they are cleaved together they are joined together and the two become one marriage is joined by God and not to be separated by man what therefore God has glued together has joined together has brought together let no man separate hey it is God's design it is the divine design you didn't create marriage I didn't create marriage Hillel didn't create marriage Shem I the Hebrew rabbi he didn't create merge God created marriage Moses didn't create marriage God created marriage and marriage is joined by God and not to be separated by man now I had a guy tell me who's going through a divorce and I was asking him about it I was very disheartened about it and he said well he said you gotta remember something Jeff he said I made a covenant before God but not to God I said what he said you know when I got married I made a covenant with my wife but it was before God it was not a covenant to God and I thought to myself you know I've heard that once before I think Bill Clinton said it it has to do with what the word is is but give me a break before God and to God hey what God has joined together when you get married God's involved and what God has joined together let no man put asunder let no man separate that don't mess with God's institution that's what the Lord is saying this is guardrail stuff he's not talking down here he's talking up here I want to keep you on the road because if you get off this road you know what happens you tumble down and you fall to the bottom and you get hurt and you talk to any person who has gone through divorce and there's pain there hey did they find mercy grace love comfort yeah and pain because there's pain when you try and separate and pull apart what God has put together so Jesus spoke frankly on God's design of marriage and discovery number three Jesus spoke shockingly on God's view of marriage now after he told them that he goes back to Genesis they immediately jump in with Moses Wow look what they say in verse seven they said to him well why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of and divorce her alright Jesus Jesus if you said that this is a way supposed to be but Moses commanded us to give our certificate and divorce her Moses didn't command you to do that but divorce has never commanded in the Bible divorce is permitted in the Bible and Jesus said this in verse seven or verse eight and he said to them because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives but from the beginning it has not been this way and I say to you whoever divorces his wife except for immorality except for the Greek word is pornea which means sexual immorality it covers adultery primarily it's it literally means unlawful lust to act a harlot and I say to you whoever divorces his wife except for immorality and marries another woman commits adultery whoa that's a lot different than rabbi Hillel the disciples verse ten said to him if the relationship of the man with his wife is like this it is better not to marry their heart their mouth dropped when he said that oh that's the only way you can get divorced if there is pornea if there is adultery if she is stepping out on you that's only way whoa well gosh I gotta eat her burnt toast I mean that Lord I liked it a lot better when you know she didn't find any favor in my eyes and I could just say hit the road you know yeah you pushed out three pups but you don't look as good as this other one that I just found as rabbi Akina said well but now all of a sudden Jesus he sets up the guardrail and it's a hard guardrail and this is the way it is this is the way marriage is and it was shocking to them well what's what's the deal here marriage is a permanent covenant it's a permanent thing it sits until death do you part see this is God's design one man one woman for life that's the way he's set it up that's the way it was for Adam and Eve one man one woman for life they live together for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years and they had so many kids and grandkids and great-grandkids and wow it's amazing but that's the way it was one man one woman for life it's a permanent covenant the scripture says in first Corinthians 739 a wife is bound as long as her husband lives but if her husband is dead she is free to be married to whom she wishes only in the Lord only in the Lord now we all have heard hopefully not a Malachi chapter 2 that when the subject of divorce comes up the Lord says this I hate divorce listen he doesn't hate divorced people he hates divorce why does he hate divorce because divorced two people come together they're cleaved together and all of a sudden what does divorce do divorce rips them apart debby and I speak with Family Life Ministries and we talk to couples on a regular basis about marriage and about divorce and and we have a an audience the last one we did I think we had about 700 people there and many of them have been married and divorced two three maybe four times and where we say listen we're not here to heap the guilt and condemnation over you we just want this to be your last marriage we want you to fulfill your wedding vow don't keep falling off the cliff because there's pain there and a family life we show a little video it was an unscripted video it just happened they just happened to catch this little boy seven years old his name's Jamie and he was talking about the fact that he was growing up in a divorced home and he says this he said sometimes I live with my mommy and sometimes I live with my daddy and he said my daddy lives five hours away and and when they take me to my daddy I wish my mommy could come too but she doesn't come and he said I asked my daddy he said why can't you and mommy live together why can't we be together and he said well you're just too young to understand and he said it's really hard and it makes me sad and it breaks my heart he said no kids ever like divorce and then he said this he said when I get married I'm gonna never get divorced then I'll always love my family seven years old listen I know because I went through that as a kid and my mom and dad were separated for two and a half years that was ten years old and I didn't understand it I tried to bring him back together why can't we come back together why does dad live in Houston and we live in California I didn't like it at all it was painful the Lord hates divorce because it rips people apart and it rips lives apart he loves the divorced he hates divorce and listen when you think about it it is I've heard people say this before they said well you know Jeff you don't understand all we ever do is fight so we're gonna get divorced and we're doing it for the children baloney you're not doing it for the children you want to do something for your children work out your problems that's something you can do for your children listen I was talking to Larry Sims this morning Larry has a brother named Bruce Bruce is roughly I think 10 years younger than Larry or so and Bruce some years ago he was involved in an in an accident and major accident on his motorcycle and they took him to the hospital and they were about ready to cut off his leg because it was gonna be cut above the knee because it was such a bad accident and it was so terrible and so he's going into surgery and it would have been much easier for the doctor to cut off his leg and let's just not fool with this anymore let's just cut off the leg Bruce what do you want to do do whatever you need to do to save my leg I don't want you to cut off my leg do whatever you need to do to save my leg and so they did what they needed to do but you know what he went through months of treatment and months of pain and months of therapy but he stands here today and he's still got his leg hey Bruce did it hurt to go through all that yeah it hurt was it hard to go through all that yeah it was hard would it have been easier to cut off your leg maybe but not in the long run and I want my leg we would be like hey doc whatever you need to do I want to keep my leg that's our attitude let's have that same attitude in marriage whatever we need to do let's work it out my mom and dad worked out their problems they lived together as husband and wife loving husband and wife for decades and when my dad passed away my mom is still so in love with my dad and they had a beautiful relationship and she could have thrown that all away but she didn't because she said this is worth it this is a permanent relationship and marriage is a picture not only is it a permanent covenant as a picture of Christ in his church that's why it's so critical to stay together because it's a picture of Christ in the church Ephesians chapter 5 talks about being filled the Holy Spirit and then it talks about husband and wife relationship and then it says for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and two shall become one flesh then he says this in Ephesians 532 this mystery is great but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church he goes from marriage and then all of a sudden he goes above it and he says see marriage is a picture of Jesus and his bride and guys husbands in this room you're like Jesus and your wife's like the church let me tell you something I don't care what the church ever does Jesus Christ is not divorcing the church though we are faithless he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself he said I will never leave you nor will I ever forsake you we walk away from him but he doesn't leave us he is there loving us all the way and loving us back into a relationship with him why is it so important for the guardrail because marriage pictures the relationship between Jesus and his bride and Jesus Christ is not divorcing his bride it's critical and it's a picture and listen marriage is way more important than just your happiness it's a testimony to the world that the way I love my wife is the way Jesus loves me my commitment to my wife is the way Jesus is committed to me so it's a permanent covenant it's a picture of Christ in his church and it is only broken in very specific situations hey can I get divorced can a man divorces wife or any cause let me tell you the cause the three of them first one continued adultery not just one-time adultery continued adultery unrepentant adultery a spouse that says yeah I'm married to you but I got a date now I'm going out with so-and-so and I do that over and over and over and over and over again continue to adultery do breaks up their marriage and you're free to divorce in that situation but you know what anybody that is honest will tell you they're on the receiving end of continued adultery man they're down here at the bottom and they're broken and they're needing the ambulance to come because they're hurting they're hurting badly and they're hurting for a long time and the kids are hurting and it's a horrible horrible thing but you're free in that situation to say I can't do this anymore but it's canoe as to be continued it has to be from a heart that says I don't want to repent I don't want to get right it's not a one-time thing you know Joseph in the scriptures described as a righteous man and when if he found out Mary was pregnant before they got married they were just engaged well he was gonna divorce her but he was gonna do it secretly because he didn't want to shame her and you say well gosh you know Joseph you didn't give her a lot of chances well he's not technically fully married to her yet they haven't consummated their relationship he's saying if this happens during the engagement forget this I don't want to be married to her and then it was revealed to Joseph hey she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit you go and marry her but he was a righteous man it was okay for him to divorce her in that line of thinking if she had been adults her second specific situation is abandonment if you are abandoned in your relationship hey it takes two to tango and if the other partner just is gone is out I'm out of here see you later bye then divorce is okay the scripture talks about this in first Corinthians 7 if your husband or wife isn't a follower of the Lord and decides to divorce you then you should agree to it you are no longer bound to that person after all God chose you and wants you to live at peace I was talking about a believer with an unbeliever he's talking about somebody you to unbelievers get married and then all of a sudden one of them becomes a Christian and the other one says hey I don't like this Jesus stuff and I don't want to be with you anymore and I'm out and the scripture says if they abandon you if they leave let them leave it's okay that marriage can be dissolved that marriage can be broken and you can be free to marry whomever you choose only in the Lord you can be free to marry another Christian so there's continued adultery there's abandonment and there's one other issue and it's not spoken of specifically in Scripture it's kind of alluded to scripture and that's abuse abuse God hasn't called anyone to be a punching bag no wife to be a punching bag and you say where is that in scripture 1st Corinthians chapter 7 verses 10 and 11 but to the married I give instruction not i but the lord that the wife should not leave her husband but if she does leave let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and that the husband should not send his wife away hey there might be some instances where there's abuse taking place where maybe the husband is physically abusing the wife where he's abusing the children it's a wife's responsibility I believe then to get herself out of that situation to get her kids out of that situation she can divorce but she can't remarry that's what it says if she's going to get reconciled she needs to get reconciled to her husband otherwise she needs to remain unmarried listen here's the thing you say man that's so harsh yeah that's the guardrail to keep you on the road here's the thing and especially to you who have never been married but you want to get married one day choose wisely you need to go back and listen to the sermon I did a couple of weeks ago called the dating game and find out people who enter into marriage flippantly they do because they have a kleenex view of marriage well if this doesn't work out I'm gonna bail out no you're not not if you're gonna please God hey you're gonna stay on the road you're gonna make a commitment before God and he's going to join you together and that's gonna be for life that's marriage whoa if the relationship with a man and his wife is like that it's better not to marry that's exactly what the disciples said because they saw how hard the guardrail is I said man these women trying to live with one of those when Debbie and I got married the next day we woke up from our honeymoon we both had the same feeling what'd I just do I mean it was just like oh no I'm gonna be waking up to this person for the rest of my life and I was freaking out and she was freaking out and after about six hours to freak out it's like this is gonna be okay but it just the weight of the decision just really hit us Wow cuz this is for life when I married Debbie there was a word I took out of my vocabulary and that was a word divorce I'll never divorce her she'll never divorce me she might kill me but she'll never divorce me that's what God says about marriage and divorce so let me just encourage you you're here and you're you said Jeff I've been married I got divorced and I got remarried and I got divorced and now I'm on my third marriage you know what you're fine you got a lot of the same problems a lot of the same problems you had in marriage number one you have marriage number two you have a marriage number three because it's just hard being married sometimes what's the answer stay married you say do I have to live it says that I commit adultery if I divorce for any other reason other than adultery then I commit adultery so does that mean I'm I go the rest of my life with a scarlet a on my chest scarlet D for divorce scarlet a for adulterer and that's the way I live the rest of my life hey you know what there is grace in the Lord Jesus Christ he drives an ambulance and he comes to your rescue and he restores and he cleanses and he gives beauty for Ashes and He pours out the oil of his love and His grace and His mercy and he puts you back up on the road and you don't have to live in guilt and in shame but you need to live back on the road hey what is the point of all this to the unmarried it's saying hey take seriously the person that you're going to marry because it's for a lifetime and to you who are married and maybe your marriage is getting stale and you're thinking I'm thinking of bailing out on this don't do it don't do it you stay on the road don't dump your whole family down to the bottom of the cliffs it's gonna cause you pain a good friend of mine who had children with one wife and then things didn't work out and they got divorced and he married another woman who had been divorced and they put their families together and they both became Christians and they were walking with the Lord and loving the Lord and I remember one day he told me he said Jeff he said divorce is just awful it's just awful he was dealing with some things his wife ex-wife was suing him and he was going through all this junk and he said it's just awful he said is so much better to marry one woman and stay with her for life and I say amen to that hey listen there is grace for the Fallen and there's a guardrail to keep us from falling and the Lord says this let marriage be held in honor among all it's what God set up it's God's stuff and what God has joined together let no man ever separate my friend if you want a good home and a satisfying life filled with love and joy and peace listen it all starts with Jesus he is the way and the truth and the life now here's the question do you know him I mean really know him not just in your head but in your heart now if you're not sure you can make sure today just pray this simple prayer with me and pray it from your heart Lord Jesus I need you I know that I'm a sinner and I'm lost and I can't save myself but Jesus I believe that you are God in the flesh I believe you died on the cross for my sins and you rose from the dead and right now Jesus I ask you to forgive me of all my sins I ask you to be my lord and my savior come into my life and change me and I promise to follow you all the days of my life my friend if you'll pray that kind of prayer and mean it the Lord will come in and your life will never be the same I'd love to hear from you to know that you're watching to know that God is using this broadcast to make a difference in your life to know that you just prayed that prayer to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior please take the time to call that toll-free number write me email me let me know what's going on and how we can pray for you you are important to God and you're important to us and we're here for you from his heart is the viewer supported broadcast ministry of dr. Jeff Shrieve who believes that no matter how badly you may have messed up in life God still loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life you can find out more about that plan when you go - from his heart dot o-r-g [Music]

Channel: From His Heart Ministries

Views: 8,311

Rating: 4.721519 out of 5

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Id: kAoLzb8IfhY

Length: 45min 51sec (2751 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 19 2017