Love In Action

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? You doing Alright today? Oh, I trust so. I’ve just been praying for you. Many of you I’ll never see till we get to glory, I know that, but somehow my heart reaches out toward you in love and concern, and I’ve just been asking God to put something in my heart and in my voice that might meet a need that you would have in your own life today. I trust that maybe so. You know, you and I, we depend not upon our own smartness, but upon blessed indwelling Holy Spirit of God, and He knows what people need and although these broadcasts are of necessity prepared sometime before you hear them, because they’re placed on tape and then distributed, but the the Holy Spirit of God knows, doesn’t He? God says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you a desired end”. God’s plans are already laid for you and for me, hallelujah for that. So, I want you to know that as I come to you day by day I’m trusting God to say something that will be of help to you.

Now, we come back to Mark today, the gospel of Mark. We’ve had little detour in the book of Philippians. I don’t know why I did this except that I felt like it, and we took a little detour in Philippians and sort of hit the high spots with a thought or two from each of the four chapters. I love that book, I guess that’s one of the reasons I go back to it so often. Now we come to Mark 10 and we find that the Pharisees are seeking to trip our Lord Jesus up in some way, and so they came and said, “Is it lawful for man put away his wife”? They were tempting Him and He said, “Well, what did Moses command you”?

Our Lord Jesus always referred to the Scriptures. He was a man of the Scriptures. Under His own temptation he replied to Satan’s blandishments and temptations, He said, “It is written, it is written, it is written”, and so He said to these people, “What did Moses command?”, and they said, “Moses suffered”, or permitted in other words, “to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away”. Now, that’s a reference to Deuteronomy 24:1, where, let me turn to read it for you. Moses in the, in the Pentateuch gave a direction concerning of the breakup of a marriage, said, “When a man hath taken a wife and married her and it come to pass that she finds no favor in his eyes because he hath found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house, and when she is departed she may be another man’s wife”. That’s, that’s the reference that they were citing in their answer, Moses permitted to write a bill of divorcement, put her away.

Now, the Lord Jesus said, “For the hardness”, because of that means, the word for means because of, “the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept, But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female”. Over Matthew the same story is told by Matthew and Matthew says, but from the beginning it was not so. God didn’t intend it this way. “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. So I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another committeth adultery and whoso marrieth her that is put away doth commit adultery”. This is a hard subject to talk about because so many people have been hurt by life and by people and any, it’s, it’s like when I was a boy we had to pull weeds that were called nettles. Do any of you farm people know what is a nettle? It’s a weed that has spines on it, stickers, and no matter where you pick it up or how you touch it, those little prickly stickers are going to embed themselves in your flesh, and it’s a hard weed to pull. Well it’s this subject is like pulling nettles. Wherever you touch it, it’s, it’s prickly, it hurts and yet here it is in the, in the Scripture and I need to talk with you about it.

What are we going to say about all this? And I want to tell you those of you who have been or are considering divorce, those of you who been divorced and remarried, and those of you who are living in a rocky, difficult marital situation just, just take whatever I say today and if it spills over into another days broadcast, take it from a heart that loves you. All I’m going to say is what the Bible says, and I’m perfectly aware of the fact that life for many of you is just full of heartbreak and I’m not going to walk roughshod over your feelings or anybody else’s. I love you and I love God and I want to be faithful just in showing you what His Word says. Alright?

Now, the first thing that you notice when you read the Bible is that God hates divorce. Malachi 2:16 says, “God says, ‘I hate divorce’”. He didn’t intend it that way. God never intended for the, the home to break up. The home was the basic building block of society and sin has come in. See, what you and I have to realize is we live in a world where sin has made a difference in human relationships, including the home, and so nothing is ideal as it was in the garden of Eden. Nothing, nothing works exactly the way God intended it because sin is committed this old world and makes a difference in people’s relationships and, and their character and often times, except for the grace of God, their destiny, but God’s says, “I hate divorce”. Why? Well, for one because He never meant it to be that way. Number two, because it doesn’t really solve anything and number three because it helps to break up the solid building blocks of society that, that are provided by a godly loving home situation. So God’s against it. He didn’t intend it to be that way. Jesus said, “Because of a hard, sinful hearts Moses gave that ordinance, but God never intended it that way”.

We have to realize that there is a difference then isn’t there, between what God intended before sin came into the world on one hand, and what the reality of it is in a sinful old world. Now, another thing to notice is that the closer we get to the end of the age, the more there will be a breakup of those factors that helped to keep civilization together. The home is just one illustration. Churches become apostate, fat and corrupt and they become closer and closer, to resemble more closely I should say, the description of the Laodicean church in Revelation chapter 3. “Thou art rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not the power poor and miserable and wretched, blind and naked”. Fat, corrupt churches. Politicians everywhere, corrupt and now and again the, the enormous amount of personal compromise surfaces and we find a person here and there being exposed and tried for corruption in office. And then how Satan has been fighting against Christian leaders, one after another. Those who have been highly visible in Christian work seem to be the target of Satan’s abuse and are vilified and humiliated, and so we and the home, the amount of divorce, the percentage of divorce compared to marriage is now one divorce out of every two marriages, they tell me. Homes are breaking up so fast. This is all in evidence that we are coming to the end of the age. “Iniquity”, our Jesus said, “shall abound”.

Now, that being so, what should be the Christian’s attitude toward it all? Number one, I think we have to realize that there are some situations in which separating from a person is the only answer. If you’re married to someone who was who is psychotic, someone who was a pathological liar, someone who has an emotional hang up that makes him or her abusive and violent, someone who refuses to stop playing around and refuses to be faithful. These are things that make you very strongly consider leaving that individual. I know that to be so. I had a letter one time from a lady who said, “You tell me to be forgiving and loving. Here’s what my husband did to me”, and then she detailed a whole list of horrible physical abuses that left her scarred and half blinded and she said, “You expect me to stay with him”? Well no, not really, not really. I expect that you and I have to forgive people, that’s something else again, isn’t it, and the indwelling Holy Spirit of God who reveals Christ to you does the forgiving if you’ll let Him, but that’s a different matter. We’re talking now about divorce, marriage and divorce.

There are some I think in this old sinful world, I think we have to admit to each other that there are some situations where the only answer is to leave the individual and go your way. Now, the Lord Jesus said that, that you may not marry again after you’re divorced. He said that, I didn’t. “Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, commits adultery against her and if woman put away her husband and marries another, she committed adultery”. That’s Mark chapter 10, verses 11 and 12. And then I face the fact that I know personally, scores and hundreds of people who, having been divorced for good and sufficient reasons have married again, and now are happy and blessed of God and serving the Lord, and all I can say is that Jesus said remarriage after divorce is wrong, but He also said that all manner of sins can be forgiven and, and I think that God can forgive this sin as well as any other sin, when you come right down to it. So I’m not going to stand in judgment against anybody today who’s had the heartbreak of seeing a marriage breakup and who then has found someone who is a loving and kind and godly, with whom to share his or her life. I’m not going to stand in judgment against you. I simply have to say Jesus said this, I can’t unsay it. I can only say the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son, cleanses us from all sin and so we go on. We live for God.

You say, “What am I going to do”? Go on the best you can, serve God where you are as you are. You cannot undo the past, you can’t unscramble an egg, but you can give yourself to Jesus, the way you are. I pray that you may do so. The sweetest experience in all the world is to give yourself to Jesus Christ, the way you are, “Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that Thou bidst thee come to Thee. Oh Lamb of God, I come”. Give yourself to Christ just as you are. He’ll take you and bless you.

Dear Father today, oh may we be tender toward those who’ve had the heartbreak of the breaking up of a home. May we be loving and kind to those who are hurting. May we also watch our own steps as we walk before Thee. Keep us holy, keep us true. May we be Christ-like in our character, in Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!