The Permanence of Marriage

 

Good day! I’m Duane Matz and this is Today’s Living Word.

 

In Ezra chapter 10, we have a large contingent of men, women, and children weeping  in the church with remorse over the sin of being unequally yoked.

 

Enter Shechaniah. He confesses the sin to Ezra and then offers a solution.

Ezr 10:2 And Shechaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, spoke up and said to Ezra, "We have trespassed against our God, and have taken pagan wives from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope in Israel in spite of this.

 3 "Now therefore, let us make a covenant with our God to put away all these wives and those who have been born to them, according to the advice of my master and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law.

 

My spirit is greatly troubled by his proposal. First of all if a covenant with God is to be made, it is God who initiates it, not man.

 

Secondly, it seems that they have forgotten God hates divorce! Mal 2:16!

 

Not only that, but God doesn’t want His church to  make widows and orphans, He wants us to take care of them!

 

Ah, but Shechaniah and the others have an ace in the hole. We’ll call it the divorce papers. Divorce became acceptable during the days of Moses. If the husband found his wife to be “unclean or indecent, all he had to do was write a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away.

 

 

The subject is brought up in the NT when the Pharisees came to Jesus with one of those questions that they used to try and trip Him up. His stance on the permanence of marriage would not sit well with the people.

 

Mt 19:3 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?"

 

 Open your eyes and see what has happened here. Grounds for divorce moved from uncleanness and indecency to the modern day equivalent of no fault divorce.

 

Jesus replies with a question of His own! Have you not read your Bible?

And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,

 5 "and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?

 6 "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."

 7 They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?"

 8 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.

 9 "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."

 10 His disciples said to Him, "If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry."

 

The disciples got it! Marriage is meant to be permanent! No easy outs, God let them divorce in the days of Moses because of their hard  heartedness! Just what every follower of Jesus wants to be known for…hard hearted ness, a heart  that resists truth;

 

Jesus mentions one exemption, that of sexual immorality. Joseph was going to play that card with Mary, until God straightened him out!

 

By the way, the exemption clause is only found in the Gospel of Matthew. You won’t find it in Mark or Luke. I wonder why? Matthews Gospel reflects a deep understanding of Jewish customs, traditions, and scriptures.

 

And the Jewish custom concerning marriage was if the groom found out he had not married a virgin, he could call off the wedding.

 

The people in Ezra’s day did good by confessing their sin of marrying unbelievers, but they thought they could pay for their sins by sending their wives and children away. You can’t pay for your sins by committing another one.

 

Remember the woman caught in the act of adultery?

What were Jesus; last words to her? “Go and sin no more.”

 

Jesus had assured her that He did not condemn her, and then warned her to not do it again.

 

I’m thinking that would’ve worked a lot better in the days of Ezra, rather than divorcing them as an answer to the sin.

 

It’s true really for all sins. 1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

We get a do over thanks to the grace and mercy of God.

 (NKJV)

 

 

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