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*What God Has To Say About Divorce*
*February 15, 1998*
* *
*Introduction:*
Valentine’s Day was yesterday.
That’s the time set aside when we are supposed to celebrate our love for each other, but especially for spouses to celebrate the unique God-given nature of their love for each other.
Whoever invented Valentine’s Day must have known that it takes effort to keep that love relationship alive and on track.
It is not that we don’t want our marital love to be alive and vibrant, but that so much routine and familiarity sets in that we can begin to lose it before we know it is gone.
We need to renew the special recognition of our marriage partner who is one with us in in body and in spirit.
We need to wrap a few more cords of love around those frayed heartstrings and realize that when we love our spouse, we love ourselves.
Joan and I were at the Great Lakes Naval Base on Monday and I bought her a rose at the base exchange store.
It is the fullest, most beautiful, fragrant, deep colored red rose I have ever seen.
It absolutely stood out from all the rest.
I knew this rose was for her.
It has been full of life all week.
And on her card yesterday morning I wrote of her likeness to that rose.
She said she read it 5 or 6 times.
Men, your helpmates need to hear they are worth everything it might cost you.
They need to see Jesus in you.
I think that he surely loves us like that.
It amazes me.
It needs to amaze your spouse too.
But sometimes things go wrong.
There is sin in all of us that sometimes seems to get the upper hand.
How many married couples here have ever been tempted to speak or think of the “D” word?
I’m sure most, if not all.
If you stayed together, what held you together?
Was it the love of God, the power of God, the command of God?
But we are weak, we fail, we just plain mess up.
What God intended to be beautiful gets ugly.
We get in the way of his plan.
We get selfish and cry, “What about me?”
The grass starts to look greener elsewhere.
But there is a fence to cross and it is full of barbed wire.
It is the barbed wire of divorce, and once you are tangled in it, you never heal all the way.
It lashes out at everyone around you and those who are the closest get hurt the most.
God help the children!
What about them?
Abortion before birth is a tragedy.
Abortion as a growing child is a monstrosity.
We have heard many statistics about the divorce epidemic in our country.
Some say there have been gains.
Others say we are losing ground.
I don’t think we need to belabor the statistics.
But there does seem to be little support to keep marriages intact these days.
In fact, divorce has become such a problem that it increasingly plays into the reluctance of couples to even take the step of marriage these days.
We all know it is a bad scene.
And I think we all know that God doesn’t like it.
Some families have become so mixed up it becomes mind boggling to sort out who belongs to who or who begat what.
The cultural press can confuse our theology.
But lest we fall into the trap of so many who end up divorced, even in the church of all places, let us be reminded of what God’s Word says on the subject, even if it may be to help someone else in their time of need.
Certainly there has been confusion all along or God wouldn’t have written anything about it.
Divorce then, as now, is a fact of sin and of life in a sinful world.
If you have been hurt by divorce, been a child of divorce, or are considering it, this may be a painful topic for you.
But even though God’s Word may hurt, it is ultimately intended to heal.
Men and women may fail but Christ will not.
You see, Christ is the perfect lover of our souls who will never leave us nor forsake us.
If we are his by faith, he has made a new covenant with us that he will never break.
* *
*Jer.
31:31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.*
*32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.*
*33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.*
In fact, he promises to reveal more and more of himself to us.
* *
*1Cor.
13:12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.*
*13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.*
And he does this even though he knows all about us because he loves us.
* *
*Eph.
1:3 ¶ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.*
*4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
In love*
*5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--*
*6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.*
*7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace*
*8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.*
But now let us take a look at a somewhat chronological model of what God has to say about marriage and divorce.
*1.
What God had to say through Himself by way of creation.*
Since God created everything in perfection, we need to take a look at the original model of the marriage relationship just to remind ourselves of the potential.
*Gen.
2:18 ¶ The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a helper suitable for him."*
*19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air.
He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.*
*20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found.*
*21 ¶ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.*
*22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.*
*23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman, 'for she was taken out of man."*
*24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.*
*25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.*
God made Adam wait for his helpmate.
He saw all the other animals and named them.
There was none for him.
This educated him.
By the time Eve dawned on him, he knew what it was all about.
He wanted what he saw, and he saw what God gave him.
If you had never seen a woman, do you think you’d know what it was when you saw it?
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