Didn't See That Coming

 

I’m Duane Matz and welcome to Today’s Living Word.

Have you ever been reading Scripture and all of a sudden something appears and you find yourself wondering, “Where did that come from? Or, “What brought that up?” Read Luke chapter 16 sometime and you will see what I mean. The chapter starts out with a parable aimed at those who love money, it moves to a brief reminder that things often highly esteemed by men are an abomination to God, and then immediately follows with this shocking statement in verse 18! "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.” No explanation, just a simple statement of a biblical truth. What appears to be a misplaced random thought cannot be either, for Jesus doesn’t have misplaced thoughts. He wants us to know this!

 

So what do we do with this biblical truth? It’s plain and to the point: To remarry after a divorce is adultery, and to marry a divorcee is adultery. At this point one may be tempted to slam the Bible shut and cease from reading it, or get very angry at this blog and stop listening to or reading it, but that doesn’t change what Jesus said.

Rather than run away from what Jesus has said, let us run toward it because what’s behind this declaration is God’s all time forever high opinion of holy matrimony! Marriage is designed by God to be permanent. It is the “institution that God loves.” (Mal 2:11) Let this stand out verse be a reminder to all of us of this fact before we decide to marry. It will go a long way in a mutual cherishing of the “institution that God loves.”

Okay, so what do you do if you have committed this sin? The same thing we all do when we sin. We confess it, receive God’s forgiveness and like the woman caught in the act of adultery in  JN 8:3-11,  we “go and sin no more.”

 

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s Today’s Living Word.