0:07 Good evening. We're again in the book of Malachi. If you have been with us on Friday evenings, you know we have started the book of Malachi many months ago. We are in the second chapter. We're going to be meditating today, verses 13 through 16.
0:31 Malachi two thirteen to 16. Brother Scott read these verses this evening in the King James version. I'm going to read them right now in the ESV before we begin our study. And this second thing you do, you cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accept it with favor from your hand. But you say, why does he not?
1:02 Because the lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Let's pray. Our god and savior, we thank you for your word. We thank you. We have an opportunity to come together to study your word.
1:26 Lord, we know your word is deep. Your word also has some difficult parts, and we do need the Holy Spirit to help us understand it, Lord. Lord, with our human intelligence, we are unable to understand it, but we need your holy spirit to assist us, to understand it, to believe it, and to abide and live by it. Lord, we want to give you the glory and the honor tonight. In Jesus' name we pray.
2:00 Amen. He begins by saying, and this is the second thing you do. What is the first thing? Verse 11. The first thing they did, they married foreign pagan women.
2:17 These are the priests and the ordinary men of Israel. They married foreign women, and now they are adding another gross sin, being cruel to their Jewish legitimate wives and putting them away. Now this is very heartbreaking. Can you see what happened? In his youth, a Jewish priest, a Jewish man found a young Jewish girl, and he fell in love with her.
2:56 He went to his parents probably, and he told them about her, and he asked him to go with him to visit her parents and ask for her hand. That's what I assumed they've they've done in in in those days. And and the parents asked this young girl, and she accepted to marry him. And she married him. She left her mom and dad, and she lived with him.
3:25 She bore him children, raised him raised him up, and all the children carried their father's name, by the way, not her maiden name. She cooked for him. She cleaned for him. When her husband came home, he found that table is ready, that dinner is ready. He ate.
3:52 After he ate, he went and he sat on the couch. So she washed the dishes. She prepared the children to bed. She has done it all. And then later at night, she found time to go herself to bed.
4:15 But that's not all. She saddled the donkey and went and worked in the field. She took the produce to the market, and she sold it to help her husband provide for the family. She worked without any condition. She worked not expecting any reward.
4:38 She's done it all because she loved her children and she loved her husband. She's done it all because of love. She's done it because she felt that this is her duty as a wife and as a mother. Years passed. The signs of hard work began to look on her face and in her body.
5:14 What does her husband do? What does a good and godly husband would do? What does a faithful husband do? Instead of loving her more, cherishing her more, serving and helping her more, the mother of his children, the companion of life, he committed, as we have seen, high treason, Abomination to Iva. He saw a foreign, young, beautiful woman and lusted after her and took her as a wife, abandon abandoning the he vowed to live with forever as long as both shall live.
6:04 This what happened. This what happened. The priests and the ordinary men did that, and they continued to do that. God saw that, and he was very displeased. Their sin reached to heaven.
6:27 Now you have to understand, god is gracious. God is compassionate. God is patient. God wants to save. God wants to bless.
6:41 God wants to redeem. He is slow to anger and quick to forgive. But where there is no repentance, no turning back from sin, no remorse, no change of mind, but continued rebellions against God and boasting in sin, it comes a time when God's patience expires. But even then, even then, he often postpones his positive punishment, which to say pouring his wrath, inflicting pain, disease, captivity, and death. And he begin instead with the negative punishment, which is to say taking away his blessings, withdrawing his hand of protection, and he stops answering prayer.
7:47 And when he shuts his ears from hearing the cries of his apostate nation, you realize he is angry at them. They are in great sin. Now I'm not talking here about delayed answers to prayers, which is often the experience of God's faithful servants, but God's judgment of his apostate nation, stiff naked people by shutting his ears and refusing to hear them no longer because of the rebellion and apostasy. Now they went to God's house and they cried. They covered the Lord's altar with tears and with weeping and groaning, but God would not answer.
8:44 God no longer accept their offerings and their worship. We find something similar in Jeremiah chapter seven. It tells us there in verses eight to 10 these words. Jeremiah seven eight to 10. Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.
9:09 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known? And then, first 10, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered or deliver us, lord. Only to go undoing all these abominations has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes. Their tears, their weeping, their groanings meant nothing. Meant nothing.
9:49 Sure. The people cried and wept, but they never wanted to repent. They desire God's blessings and favor without true turning back from sin. They wanted to continue in the path of disobedience and sin and wait upon God for a blessing, and the answer is no. The answer is no.
10:12 Tears are we and weeping are good when they are real, when they are a genuine expression of a true repentance. Oh, how much God honors those tears. The apostle Paul in second Corinthians seven and verse 10 tells us these words. He tell us, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. These people had only worldly grief, a temporary sorrow and regret.
10:58 Only until god's anger passes away, then they will return back to their disobedience and sin. And you see, by the way, it is happening often in many modern evangelistic meetings. You get the music going, and not just any music, music chosen carefully to raise the emotions. You get a good speaker, powerful in speech, maybe strong voice and charismatic, knows very well when to raise his voice, when to lower his voice, when to speed up, when to slow down like I'm doing now. His body language, his appearance, he is drawing everyone's attention.
12:01 A lot of drama goes on. You've seen maybe something like that. Right? Don't forget the music. It's still going.
12:10 Has not stopped yet. The pianist knows exactly what and how to play to bring about the best results. They made them the light, creating a special atmosphere. You see, all these things is a man made strategy. Then at the right moment, the preacher makes the altar call.
12:36 Oh, you must do it right now, and watch the response. People come forward, some with tears in their eyes, weeping. They want to make a confession of faith right there at that moment. Oh, it appears all is so wonderful, so glorious. People are turning to God.
13:00 The excitement is so high. Revival has come, or better, we should say, we have brought revival in our own method as we have planned it. Week later or maybe earlier, you see those who come forward with tears are back where they were before. No more conviction. Excited, but not saved.
13:31 Isn't this the message we heard about a few weeks ago? About the rocky ground? Excited, very excited, maybe weeping, but no real conviction, a temporary sorrow, quick to receive the message and quick to put it behind. You see, this is worldly sorrow, temporary grief, a short moment feeling of guilt, superficial regret. It's not the real thing.
14:03 It's not a godly grief. God's grief godly grief leads to repentance. Godly grief leads to real change of mind that lasts forever. Remember, Samuel the magician in Acts chapter eight? He believed, and he confessed his sins.
14:21 He confessed his faith in Jesus. Otherwise, the apostles would not have baptized him. Even the apostles could not tell at that moment if this man's faith was genuine or not. They assumed it was. I mean, remember John and and and and Peter were there, and they could not tell.
14:45 Only time proved the real thing. Time proved this man was a fake. And a story was told by the great British preacher, Martin Lloyd John Jones in one of his books, and, he told the story about an incident took place in one of his services when he was preaching in South Wales. He would preach in the morning on Sunday and also in the evening, on Sunday, and he would after the service, he would stand at the door to greet the people. At, at one night, he was preaching, and he noticed one gentleman who was a businessman, but he said he was also he knew him as a a heavy drinker who drink, but he likes to hear Martin Lloyd Jones preaching.
15:41 He loves the preaching. He didn't care much probably about the message, but he loved the preacher. So he would come and and and he sit there and he's listening to preaching Sunday after Sunday. And one night, Martin Lloyd Jones is preaching, and that man was sitting in the gallery, and Martin Lloyd Jones noted this man was weeping during the message. And then something was happening.
16:07 Martin Lloyd Jones did not believe in Arthur Cole, by the way. So at the end of the message, of course, he did as the usual thing. He stood by the door, and he started greeting the people in a few moments. That man was just coming, exiting the door, and he was thinking. Martin Lloyd Jones was thinking, what should I do?
16:26 Shall I ask him to stay behind so I can talk to him about salvation? And he was struggling in his mind what he should do, but then he decided he's not gonna do anything. He's going to let it go. He felt the spirit leading him not to do anything, just let it go. So he shook his hands and the man left.
16:46 Next day, as Martin Lloyd Jones, doctor Jones, was going to the prayer meeting and he was crossing a bridge to the church, he noticed that man approaching him. And he say, hi, doctor Jones. He say, hi. How are you doing? He say, I'm fine.
17:05 And he said, you know, if you asked me to stay behind last night, I would have stayed. Doctor Jones told him, I'm inviting you to go with me to church right now. He said, no. No. No.
17:20 No. No. I'm not ready now. Last night, I was. I'm not ready now.
17:27 Martin Lloyd Jones told him these things. He say, if what happened to you last night does not last for twenty four hours, I'm not interested in it. If you are not as ready to come with me now as you were last night, you have not got the right thing. Whatever affected you last night was only temporary and passing. You still do not see your real need of Christ.
17:55 You might not you might disagree with the method of doctor Martin Lloyd Jones, but that's true. That that's the truth. True repentance lasts. It lasts more than twenty four hours. It lasts forever.
18:15 Godly grief means confessing of sin, turning away from it, and when possible, trying to amend what you have broken. It's not always possible, but whenever it is possible, it must be done. Remember Zacchaeus in in Luke 19? Oh, when everyone was grumbling that Jesus has gone to be a guest at his house, this great sinner, Zacchaeus, stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, behalf of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore a fourfold. And Jesus said to him, today, salvation has come to this house.
18:55 True repentance in Zacchaeus' case was not just to be truly sorrowful for what you have done, but to pay back every penny you have taken illegally. It's not enough to say sorry to God, but sometime you must go to your brother and seek forgiveness. That is true repentance. Look at verse 14. But you say, why does he not?
19:25 Why does not accept our offering? Was why does not does not he listen to our prayers? Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth. God is the divine witness. You see, marriage should never be taken lightly, should never be rushed.
19:50 But when a man and a woman decide to get married after taking everything in consideration, it is a good thing. Marriage is God's institution. It is God's plan for the majority of men and women, but not for everyone. And when a wedding day comes and the bride and groom stand facing each other in the presence of family and friends, all the guests, who are celebrating that wedding, they also function as witnesses to the vows the bride and groom are making, that there is one still unseen witness, a divine witness who is the Lord. He is the divine witness to the vows, and this divine witness is often forgotten and thought of even though he is the primary witness and the judge at the wedding ceremony.
20:55 The Lord has heard your vows. He's telling them. He heard your vow. He heard your promises to each other in sickness and in health, richer and poorer as long as both shall you shall live. God heard these words.
21:11 God heard the I do. I do. He heard it. It was recorded in heaven as an everlasting covenant between you and your wife signed by God as divine witness to what you both have promised. Now after your wedding ceremony, all witnesses will be gone, but the divine witness remains.
21:38 God has been keeping watch over every pledge you made. He is monitoring everything if it's being kept or not. And what does God see in the case of those priests? And in many marriages today, what does he see? Broken marriage vows, broken promises.
22:05 He sees what your spouse cannot see. He knows of every violation you made long before your spouse find out if they ever find out. And the Lord tell him to whom you have been faithless, He says, this is his observation. This is his judgment, the judgment of the all knowing God, you have been faithless. And then he continues to say, though she is your companion.
22:43 She's your companion, not your slave. She's your partner, not your maidservant. And the Hebrew word companion is here is for a woman, the feminine, which speaks of friendship, association, membership, pairing together. Your spouse should be your best friend. Best friends argue.
23:11 Best friends disagree. Best friends fight at times that they should be quick to forgive, forget, and move forward. And he continued to say, and your wife by covenant. Not just companion, but your wife by covenant. Now reading this verse should leave no doubt in any mind how God looks at marriage.
23:40 He looks at it as a not as a contract that can be broken, but as a covenant for life. In Ezekiel chapter 16 verse eight, God describes his relationship to Israel as a husband with his wife, and he says this. He says, when I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age of love. And I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine.
24:32 The same word covenant here, which is in Hebrew, is used in scripture to refer to god's covenant with his people, but here also to go to the covenant between man and woman in marriage to breathe the same exact word. If God does not break his covenant, then the marriage covenant cannot be broken either by man. Covenants are always binding. Now Jesus acknowledged and affirmed the difference between marriage and living together. Without marriage, even among unbelievers, because some might ask, oh, you know, we are living together.
25:20 We have been we've been we are faithful to each other. We've been living for ten years. That's okay. Is it okay? How does Christ look at it?
25:28 Even among unbelievers, we see it clearly in the story of the Samaritan woman. In John four, we see Christ encounter with, we know, a Samaritan woman who was unbeliever. He wasn't she wasn't very moral, was she? She wasn't moral either. She had terrible past.
25:51 Now in his conversation with her, he has asked her to go and call her husband, to which she answered, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true. This is clearly differentiated between a husband and a boyfriend or a partner you you cohabitate with. Living together without a covenant of marriage is not marriage according to Jesus.
26:33 It is adultery. Regardless of the length of time they have been together, regardless of any commitment we have, unless it's not if it's not marriage, it is adultery. God honors marriage even among unbelievers, and he does not consider it adultery. Otherwise, the children born in such relationship will be illegitimate children, but now they are not, quoting the words of the apostle Paul in first Corinthians seven. John the Baptist, you remember him, rebuked Herod and told him that it's unlawful to him to take his brother's wife, Herodias.
27:23 Why did he say that? I mean, they are unbelievers. Why does it matter? It does matter. Marriage is God's institution, and God honors it even when it's between unbelieving partners.
27:40 And he condemns illegitimate divorce and remarriage even among unbelieving partners. John the Baptist knew that, and he paid a very costly price for standing for this truth, his own head, his own head to speak this truth. It's unlawful to you to have your brother's wife. It is adultery. He paid a very heavy price, and he was ready to do it.
28:11 This is how important is marriage to God, and this is how important was this truth to John the Baptist. Then verse 15. Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.
28:35 So guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithful faithless to the wife of your youth. Now this verse is considered one of the most difficult verses in all of scripture, and it doesn't matter if you know Hebrew like me or not. It's not clear in English. It's not very clear in the Hebrew either. But I believe we have Genesis two in view here.
29:06 God created woman out of a man, and he presented the woman to Adam. When Adam saw her in verse 23 of Genesis two, he said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And this was followed by very important verse. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and remember, again, it's a man who shall leave, not the the woman shall leave, but it says the father the man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
29:55 Didn't he make them one, he's asking? He refers to God who made the two, Adam and Eve, one flesh in marriage. Now Jesus commenting on this verse in Matthew nineteen six and answering the question, about divorce, and he adds this important verse saying, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate or put asunder in the old English. Jesus is quite clear.
30:40 God has made this union. God has joined the two. God has glued the two together. That is what the the Hebrew word means. Davak literally mean even today, it means to glue together.
31:00 Man cannot separate what God has glued together. This what Jesus said, to attempt doing this, you're going to damage both spouses. Like any two part, two object you glue together, try to separate them, you're going to damage both of them. Now the next, we have these words with a portion of the spirit in their union. The Hebrew here is it says, which literally means and remainder of spirit to him.
31:34 Now you may notice if you have the ESV, the s in the spirit is capitalized. In the King James, it's not capitalized. It's small, so you can tell differences in in, a translation and what spirit refers to. So maybe the simplest way to understand this verse is how the pulpit commentary puts it, and I'm going to just quote quote it from the pulpit commentary. It says, no one acts as you have done who has in him any of that divine life which God at first breathed into Adam.
32:15 In other words, no man of conscience and virtue has ever thus divorced his wife. I will keep it at that. And what was one god? What was the one god seeking? Godly offspring.
32:35 Wow. What was god seeking? What is God now seeking from Christian parents? What is he seeking? Godly offspring.
32:50 Do we care about having godly children as god does? No one would divorce his lawful Hebrew wife and marry an idolatrous pagan woman who wished to have godly children. Believing and faithful children. You can't do that. This is what he's saying.
33:14 You can't divorce your Jewish wife and marry a pagan wife and expect godly children. How many examples we have in scripture to prove this point. Look at Solomon, how much he loved foreign women, right, and had many children from them. Let us just look at his the heir of the kingdom, Rehoboam. Who was his mother?
33:48 You remember who was his mother? Among the many wives he had. Listen to divine words in first Kings 14. If you want to open, if you can. First Kings 14 beginning in verse 21.
34:03 I'm just going to read beginning in the last part of verse 21. It says of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. His mother name was Naamah the Ammonite. She was an Ammonite. And look what verse 22 says.
34:27 And Judah did what what was Ebed in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins, and they committed more than all their fathers had done. For they also built for themselves high places and pillars, an on every high hill and under every good tree. Look at verse verse 24, and there were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abomination of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. Look at verse 31.
35:01 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and he was buried with his fathers in the city of David. Now he repeats again saying his mother's name was Naamah, the Ammonite. Why do you think the Holy Spirit emphasizes the name of his mother's wife, Naama the Ammonite, Naama the Ammonite, again and again? It's not to tell us of the influence she had on him. Did Solomon expect godly children by marrying pagan women?
35:39 That would be a long shot. Tragically, Salomon in his last days, he, I believe, lost almost all discernment in spiritual things. This wise man made many, many foolish decisions, and I believe we are not much better than him or many of us. Christians can be at times, I may say, foolish. Then he says this warning, this exhort exhortation, so guard yourself in your spirit, the following verse, and let none of you be faithless faithless to the wife of your youth.
36:21 The same words repeated again in the next verse. You see, the root problem for divorcing their wives and marrying others was spiritual problem. They did not guard themselves. It did not happen overnight. It does not happen overnight.
36:44 It does not happen overnight. The root problem is a spiritual problem. Malachi here dealing only with the men, men's problem, men's fault in broken marriages, men's lack of spiritual leadership, men not imitating Christ's sacrificial love to his church. At least 50% of marriages, I would believe, would be saved if men were true spiritual leaders and faithful husbands and fathers. Let's look at verse 16.
37:30 For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless. I want to read what the how the, New King James put the first part of the verse. He says, for the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce. The NLT, for I hate divorce, says the lord, the god of Israel.
38:07 The contemporary Christian version says the lord god, all powerful of Israel, hates anyone who is cruel enough to divorce his wife, so take care never to be unfaithful. Now I'm not sure why the ESV chose here to ignore the clear Hebrew word in the beginning of the verse, which literally means to hate. It says, For God hates divorce. I think the message is clear. Not much can be added.
38:53 God does God hate divorce or he does not? Now I want to go here into an argument. Some, argue that the word divorce, translated here divorce, it does not really mean divorce, but it means what the King James translated, to put away. And the word translated divorce here in the Hebrew is. And, it it's it's mentioned in the bible over 800 times, and the word means really to send.
39:28 That's the word. To means to send, and it's translated usually based on the context. So it's translated also to let go, to cast off, to throw out, to put away, to send. And, again, the context really determine the meaning and how the word is translated in English. So the argument goes this way.
39:53 See, god does not, again, that's not my argument. Some argue this way. God does not really hate divorce. What he hates is putting away or kicking out your wife without divorcing her or giving her a certificate of divorce as required by the law. Get out of my house.
40:13 I'm not divorcing you. Go live in the street. Now in Deuteronomy twenty four one, which is very important verse, that's probably the primary verse about divorce in the Old Testament. Let's read it. It says, when a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her now we don't have time really to go into the details of this verse.
40:43 And he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts her in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house. And if she goes and becomes another's man's wife and the verse continues. So the purpose of the certificate of divorce is to give the wife, according to this verse, is the freedom to remarry and get man's protection. Another's man's protection, because women at that time, they needed a man's protection. Now by putting that's the argument.
41:15 By putting your wife away without an official divorce, you are leaving her on the street without any protection. You are endangering her life. Now this how some want to interpret this verse, but I think this is a very weak interpretation and does not hold any ground. Because when you take into consideration the word shalach we just read in Malachi, it is and translated to divorce, it is the same word used also in Deuteronomy twenty four one, the one we just quoted, the primary verse about divorce in the Old Testament. Let me read it.
41:54 Again, just the last part. And he says, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out, shalach, the same word as mentioned in Malachi, and sends her out of his house. Moses then, in this verse, he equates a certificate of divorce with sending her out. So why the translators translate the word send in Malachi divorce? Because it means divorce.
42:27 Because it mean to send out, to put away, to divorce. Now we must ask this important question. Why does god hate divorce, and why does he consider it treachery, treason, even though he has permitted it in some circumstances. I will mention only very, very briefly, four reasons, and, again, we we will go quickly through them. Number one, divorce damages both spouses.
43:09 Two, divorce damages the children involved. Thirdly, divorce breaks God established order in creation, but also divorce, which is very important, damages the pictures of God's covenant relationship with his people. Would God divorce his bride? Would Jesus divorce his church? Now hate.
43:40 Hate is very strong language, isn't it? God hates divorce. Let me bring it to your attention Proverbs six verse 16 to 19. You don't have to open it. These are six things the lord hates, seven that are detestable to him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devices wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
44:20 And here he's adding to this list another thing, divorce. So first, god says divorce because divorce damages both spouses. Now god does not desire nor seek to inflict pain on us, on his creation, but our pain and suffering can be caused or attributed often, not always, but often, to our behaviors, our decisions, our missteps, intentionally or unintentionally. Now God has declared from the beginning, and we read again, the man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. The word cleave is very strong word, as we've said.
45:20 It means to glue together, not to screw together, which you are able to unscrew, but to glue together. It is permanent. To try to unglue, you will damage both spouses. Now those who went through divorce, and there are many, testify of the pain and suffering. It is to fight of the damage, the physical, the spiritual, the emotional, the financial damage they went through.
46:04 You see, I think lawyers we talk about lawyers. Right? I don't think they care about our emotional, our physical, and our financial well-being. I don't think they care about a quick ending to divorce. I think they love probably complicated and messy divorces because it's how they make a better financial gain.
46:30 They don't care about your for your physical, spiritual, emotional well-being. They care about how much to make more from this messy divorce. It damages both parties. But also, secondly, divorce damages the children involved. God has established a family consist of a male father, a female mother, and children when God is pleased to give them as a gift.
47:05 Both father and mother to raise the children together. God created woman to be a helper fit, suitable, comparable for men. They are to complement each other. They are to share their duties of sharing the children together. The children are to witness the sacrificial love of their dad toward their mother and mom to display the submission before her children to her husband.
47:34 This what god has intended is how you begin to raise godly offspring through a healthy spousal relationship. We saw in verse 15, and what was the one god seeking? Godly offspring. The context is clearly two faithful parents, children reared in a healthy home where both father and mother are faithful have far greater likelihood like likelihood themselves of establishing successful marriages themselves and raising believing children. Now a family might lose a father or a mother by death.
48:23 A young woman might have to raise a child without a father, without a husband. We have several wonderful single mothers in our church, and you may know some. We trust God in these situations that his grace will be more than sufficient to provide and to lead. Yes. In these situations, god gives more grace for the mother to do double the work and reap double the results.
48:59 I've seen it. All of us have seen young, faithful women raising children alone without a husband around. I've seen the grace of God on them and the work of God in the lives. God is faithful, but we're talking here exclusively about what divorce can do to children, not the death of a father, but what divorce can do, the harm that can be inflicted. There's a lot of data that proves that divorce causes deep and often lasting struggles for children.
49:39 Women who had experienced parental divorce in in childhood were fifty fifty nine percent more likely to divorce than women who had not experienced parental divorce. Listen to this statistic here. The lie the likelihood of divorce in marriages where both spouses come from divorced homes were one hundred eighty nine percent higher than in marriages where neither spouse had experienced a parental divorce. That's astounding number. Now these divorces in turn harm the next generation of children, increasing the likelihood that they will also opt to divorce.
50:25 So if anyone hearing me thinking about divorce, please, think of the damage you are going to cause to cause not just to your children, but to generations to come. Think of the damage you might really cause to generations to come. Do not do it. Do not do it. Now I believe even though all divorces breaks God's heart, God much more grieved when his children choose to take this path.
51:07 Thirdly, divorce breaks God's order in creation. Now in, in the words of the Lord Jesus in Mark 10, when the Pharisees ask him, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Do you remember his response? Let us look at it, and we will end here. I will not finish with the fourth point.
51:38 I'll end at this third point. Let's just look at Mark 10. In few months, pastor Daniel, I'm sure we are in the book of Mark. He will touch on this scripture, so I will leave it to him to, explain it and more thoroughly. So I will just briefly, touch on it.
52:00 In verse two, and the Pharisees came up in an order to test him, ask, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He answered them, what did Moses command you? They said Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away. Oh, and the word is, again, And he has said to them, because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, god made them male and female.
52:40 Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What, therefore, God has joined together, let not man separate. What do we learn from the words of our lord? Many things, but let us just mention four brief points. Number one, divorce, according to Jesus, was permitted because of the hardness of man's heart, not because it's God's will.
53:09 It's because of the hardness of man's heart. Number two, it was Moses who commanded it or permitted it, not God's commandment. K? It was Moses' permission, not God's commandment. Number three, God has made man and woman when in marriage.
53:31 And number four, man has no authority, according to Jesus, or right to dissolve what God has joined. Now I concluded from these verses that divorce means the heart of one spouse or both is hard, and sin has prevailed. Number two, divorce means that man is usurping God's authority. And thirdly, divorce destroy destroys what God has built. This is what Jesus says.
54:06 It's not my own interpretation. That's just exactly what Jesus says in these verses. What do we do about it? What do we do about it? I'm going to go into just the last the last verse here.
54:29 It says at the end, guard yourself in your spirit. I will leave point four to the next time, but I will go and end it with this verse, guard yourself in your spirit. How do we do that? How do we do that? How to guard ourselves?
54:53 And, again, this is not just for husbands, but also for wives. Not just for men, but also for women, all of us, married and single. Guard yourself in your spirit and do not be faithless. Am I guarding myself? Am I doing if I'm married, am I doing everything possible to cherish that relationship with my wife or my husband?
55:24 Am I trusting the Lord? Am I, if I am a husband, showing to my children Christ's sacrificial love through me toward my wife? And if you are a wife, are you showing to your children the submission to your husband that Christ has commanded and asked for? Are you living together in love, in respect, honoring each other. Problems will come.
56:04 Arguments will happen, even fights, hopefully, not fist fights, But we be quick. Be quick to forgive, quick to forget, and move forward. I want to end it with these words from Proverbs four twenty three to 26. Proverbs four twenty three to 26. Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life.
56:46 Put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, not backward, not downward, forward, and I would say also upward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Let's pray. Our god, we thank you for your word.
57:30 Lord, we take it we take it seriously. We thank you for the deep truths we have in your word, and sometime we maybe feel uncomfortable with some with some of these truths. But regardless, they are divine truths. Help us, god, accept them. Help us, god, cherish every single truth.
57:56 And by by your holy spirit, try to abide by your word. Lord, we see that you hate divorce. Help us also as your pride to hate it. Help us as your pride defend marriages. Lord, we look at around us and see Satan has succeeded, and over in the institutions we have is supporting Satan's agenda, and there is so much money made through divorces.
58:40 Lord, we pray. We pray, God, for your people to wake up, for your people to be vigilant, for your people to be able to forgive husbands and wife, to forgive, to work together, to fix broken marriages, to trust in you, to seek counseling, godly counsel. Lord, help us humble ourselves. Help us humble ourselves. Help us see each other as servants, not as lords in our homes and just be glorified.
59:25 We pray, God, that you protect this church from dissension. Protect this church from divorce. Heal heal, Lord God, our marriages. Build our houses. Save our children.
59:41 Lord, we give you the glory and the honor in Jesus name. Amen.
