Monday, June 25, 2007
"You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14).
"And this is the second thing you do: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying; so he does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with good will from your hands. Yet you say, 'For what reason?' Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. 'For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce. For it covers one’s garments with violence,' says the Lord of hosts. 'Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously' " (Malachi 2:13-16).
IDEA: A Christian marriage should be a covenant, not merely a contract.
PURPOSE: To help listeners appreciate the nature of a covenant.
The seventh commandment declares, “You shall not commit adultery.”
Does that tell you anything about the nature of marriage as God designed it?
I. In the last book of the Old Testament (Malachi), there is a passage that demonstrates how God looks at the marriages of His people. What can we gather from it?
"And this is the second thing you do: you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying; so he does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with good will from your hands. Yet you say, 'For what reason?' Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. 'For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce. For it covers one’s garments with violence,' says the Lord of hosts. 'Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously' " (Malachi 2:13-16).
II. What can we gather from this passage about divorce and marriage?
Apparently men were divorcing their older wives to marry younger women, perhaps pagan women who had greater physical appeal.
God hates unjustifiable divorce. Why?
God regards marriage as a “covenant.”
Divorce breaks a covenant to which God is a witness.
Breaking the covenant by divorce robs God of godly offspring. Why? The text does not say.
Perhaps it implies that broken homes are not conducive to rearing godly children.
Marriage to a pagan woman presents an environment in which it is harder to teach children about the true God.
Isaiah 54:6 refers to another reason God hates divorce: it causes grief and suffering to a forsaken wife: “ ‘For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a youthful wife when you were refused,’ says your God.”