Mission 66 (English podcast)
Matthew 19 Faithful to the End
Ever since the Garden of Eden, the crafty serpent named Satan has been tempting Adam and Eve to disbelieve the revealed Word of God. If you can't get them to be openly hostile toward it and reject it totally, he'll try to get them to rationalise their disobedience to it or try to convince them that God didn't really mean what he said. Well, Satan, today, does exactly what he did then. This is Mission 66. Your deep dive into the 66 books of the Bible brought to you by Bible teacher and pastor Dr. Luis Ciao in collaboration with Trans World Radio. Let me remind you to download your free study guide of the Gospels. You'll be able to go deeper into God's Word and follow along with each day's program. It's a great companion resource of the audio teaching of John Matthews and Esther Sussulu. To get your free study guide of the Gospels, visit mission66.org. That's mission66.org. Get ready for an impactful session as John Matthews along with his co-host Esther Sussulu guide us through today's study. This is our journey through the pages of the Bible that book that leads to wisdom in this world and salvation in the next. Well, this is the series of studies in the Gospels and today we'll be looking at Matthew chapter 19, which deals with a very touchy subject of marriage and divorce. Now it's been said that marriages like two people on a long trip down the river in a canoe, and if they start fighting and they're not working together as one, the canoe will capsize and they both drown. But their chances are better if Christ is with them in the boat to calm them down. Well, I'm Esther and today our speaker, John Matthews, he'll address the theme faithful to the end. Hello, Esther, and a big warm welcome to everybody listening, wherever you are today. As always, great to be with you for another edition of Mission 66. And here we are. As Esther said, we're in chapter 19 of Matthew and the Pharisees once again trying to catch Jesus out, trying to catch him in his words and make him seem like he was speaking against the law of Moses in order for them to accuse him. But Jesus said the Lord, the King of Kings, always knew how to answer his temptors. And so let's go to verse one and see what it says. Now when Jesus had finished the sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, and large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. You see, Jesus is demonstrating his authority by healing the sick and those who were infirm, which he did everywhere he went. And he goes on this chapter saying Pharisees came up to him and they tested him by asking, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?" Jesus answered them, saying, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate." You know, I'm guessing, John, that this discussion would have gathered a large audience because you know, the issue of divorce was a common thing back then, just as it is today. You know, Jesus wasn't afraid to address big issues and he's not afraid to address this issue and what he's doing really is critiquing or criticizing these people because in their society women had practically no rights. Men could do exactly as they pleased in ancient Jewish traditions. It was said that if a woman talked too much or if she let the food burn, then the man would have the right to send her away and among the predominant groups that followed the teachings of the school of Hillel, it was extremely easy to get divorced. The Pharisees also held a liberal view on this issue. They didn't really care what the answer was. What they wanted to do, what they were really trying to do here was discredit Jesus in front of people. If he answered to them, "Yes, it is lawful," well, the Pharisees could have brought a formal charge against him accusing him of preaching against the law of Moses and they could then have had him stoned. But if he said, "No, it's not lawful," well, they knew it would make him unpopular with the people, many of whom had had multiple wives or were divorced or in sympathy with people who had been divorced in their past, so they wanted him to go on the record and say something about it so they could accuse him either way. Well, Jesus' answer upholds the word of God regarding the divine purpose of marriage from the time of Adam and Eve right through to the present day and also incidentally uphold the definition of marriage as one male and one female faithful to each other in an ongoing relationship faithful to the end. Now, the Pharisees were not yet satisfied with his answer and they wanted him to say at what point God might allow any man to get rid of his wife with whom he no longer gets along very well, so they throw a little curveball in here, verse 7, by saying, "Well, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?" And Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so, and I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery, and this was the flashpoint of controversy then, as it has been ever since. There are people who are divorced some of them multiple times and it's impossible to answer for them, but it's not our purpose on this program to fix the problems of society that have been developing and ongoing through generations. It's our purpose here only to teach what the Bible says and do it in a humble and a gracious, love-filled way. You know, if you want to know what the Lord Jesus himself says about divorce, well, you can read it here for yourself, but it's not our place to force anyone to rearrange their life or make them comply. That is completely up to them, and often people generally have their minds made up about courses of action long before they seek advice as well. Yeah. John, is there a particular place in the Bible where it says that Moses commanded this certificate of divorce? Ah, well, this brings up another important point, Esther, because what the Pharisees referred to was a passage in Deuteronomy chapter 24, and as they did so, they kind of changed what the original text had actually meant. What Deuteronomy says was that if a woman is given a certificate of divorce from two men, she was not allowed to go back to the first one. Moses did not at any moment say that God had commanded anyone to give his wife a certificate of divorce, and Jesus says that Moses only permitted this to happen because of the hardness of the human heart. It was not intended to be this way from the beginning, says Jesus. So instead of looking at the book of Deuteronomy, we should see what comes before Deuteronomy, which is the creation account itself there in Genesis, the creation of man and the intent of marriage as found in the account of Adam and Eve. Very interesting, but there was that one exception, right, in the case which Jesus mentioned when he said, "except for sexual immorality." That was the only legitimate reason for divorce evidently, right? Yeah, that's right, and by that he means when there is proof of sexual immorality, not just suspicion. So this gets back to the hardness of the human heart, where there is unfaithfulness on one or both parties in the marriage. And I must say here that even if this were the case, even if one or both parties were guilty of unfaithfulness, it would be better if the couple were able to work those differences, even though that would be so hard through honest confession, repentance, and forgiveness rather than leaping at divorce immediately in a divorce. It's extremely complicated, creates havoc, especially when children are involved. On the other hand, when there is no sign of repentance or a change of behaviour, then separation or divorce may be the only course of action. But again, we're not here advising anyone for or against divorce. We have what Jesus says about these things, that each person is going to have to decide themselves what they ought to do. And I'd only offer this tiny fragment, that everything goes better when Jesus is involved. Everything goes better when you obey what God says. Everything goes better when we surrender our own world and when people pray. This is Mission 66, and my dear friend, we have a hot-button topic on our hands, and facilitating this discussion is our teacher, John Matthews, and he's talking about what Jesus taught in Matthew 19 about marriage and divorce. Yeah, that's right, Esther, we're not advising anyone either way. Even churches have different approaches and standards on this, and there is the question, the other question, I suppose, of whether someone who's been divorced is free in the eyes of God to remarry. We can tell you what Jesus says about this. He says, "It's not permitted for a divorced person to remarry, while the ex-bouse is still alive, and we also have Paul saying in Corinthians that a woman who is divorced must remain unmarried." That's one Corinthians 7, so that is what the Bible is saying, or the Bible's position on it, but God does not divorce his bride, the church, and we should be grateful for that. From a Christian standpoint, though, if you have been divorced, there is mercy, of course, and we know you can't go back and undo what is done, and God forgives when forgiveness is sought, but for those who are considering marriage, it's important to know what you're getting into. The intention of marriage, according to Jesus, was that the man and the woman would live together, faithful to each other to the end, a good marriage can make immeasurable contributions to the kingdom of God, but even a difficult marriage, and there are plenty of those we understand that, can reflect kingdom qualities when there is unconditional love and forbearance demonstrated. There's no difficulty in marriage that cannot be overcome if both parties are humble, willing to talk it out and when necessary confess, repent, and forgive, but if we're honest, we know that couples around the world have found out that marriages know bed of roses. In verse 10, the disciples said to him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better to not marry," but Jesus says to them, "Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given, for there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, let the one who is able to receive this receive it." Jesus, partly here talking about a single person, marriage is not for everyone, and someone who is single can, if they are willing and able, make an enormous contribution to the kingdom of heaven because he or she is free to come and go without having to consider the needs of a wife or a family. The most people do end up getting married, but the divorce statistics are staggering, and entering into marriage is something that all never to be done without careful consideration, and Jesus goes on to say in verse 13, "Then children were brought to him that he may lay his hands on them and pray, that disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.' And he laid his hands on them and went away. This god who originated marriage and whose word contains instruction for marriage is also a god who loves and values children. The Prophet Malachi in the Old Testament was one actually who also spoke against divorce. He knew that a good godly family where a husband and wife would demonstrate faithfulness to each other and would be able to teach their children the principles of God is a great asset to the kingdom of God, and strong families make strong churches, and strong churches make strong nations. So, you know, John, I think that it would be prudent for us to just take some time and define what Jesus meant by sexual immorality in this case. Well, Esther, yeah, you're right. The Ten Commandments, one of the commandments says, "You shall not commit adultery," and this one word takes in the whole range of sexual sins that people might commit outside of marriage. It's used to mean one or the other partner having an illicit relationship with someone who's not their marriage partner. Today, there are many kinds, as we know, of different sexual sins and deviations that almost can defy description. The word used in actually in the original Greek manuscripts is the word "pornia," which means impurity and immorality. It's the root of our English word pornography. The full occasion here is not the best translation for this word, because it means only when there is sexual intercourse between two people who are not married, but immorality itself includes a lot more than just that. Leviticus 18 has descriptive details about forbidden sexual activity. In the first chapter of Romans describes the kinds of sins that people were guilty of in Rome, and the Father's Society fell away from God. The worse the sin seemed to get. The idea here is that when someone breaks the vows of fidelity within a marriage, then a divorce is allowed. Why so? Well, because if you've taken a vow of faithfulness in a relationship with someone and then you break it, you're knighting yourself as one flesh with someone else. The vow is broken in the eyes of God. I think it's important to say, as well, Esther, though, that this study is not meant to condemn anybody and we have all sinned and we've all fallen so short of God's glory and actually the central premise of the message of God is forgiveness, acceptance and love. So if you're listening to this and you're feeling it's a hard listen, well, we understand that and so does God. What a good point to mention there, John, and I really quickly want to go back to another point that you mentioned, something I noted about celibacy, right, which is also mentioned. And is this really an option of lifestyle? Yes, it is, Esther, but again, according to Jewish tradition, celibacy was not considered to be an adequate option. Marriage and family were highly valued and emphasized, valuable to them. So when Jesus says, you know, when there's nowhere out, when you want to divorce for no reason, then that actually itself is considered a sin and you're not allowed to remarry. Then how do we solve the problem? Well, the solution is simple. Really, it's not remarrying and people clearly will not want to hear that very often. And therefore, he said, you know that there are eunuchs, that's people who have no sexual relationships and some people have been made eunuchs, as was common in ancient times, others have settled it with themselves to refrain from marriage so they can better serve the kingdom of heaven. So Jesus, and actually also the apostle Paul, spoke well of this attitude of giving up the enjoyment of sexuality for a greater cause. And it must be made very clear that not everyone has that gift, it's a gift to celibacy. And this is something that should not in any way be demanded of everyone or anyone. So no one should force anyone else to live a life of celibacy. It's a choice that each person has to make for themselves. All right, so now moving on to what Jesus says here in verse 13 and 14, it seems that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children, but what about us adults? Yeah, well, you could think that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children because of a misinterpretation of this passage. Jesus says for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. This is a better translation according to the Greek, and if it were true that the kingdom of heaven belonged to the children, then all children all over the world would automatically be saved and have eternal life. But children need to ask forgiveness for sin and believe the message of the gospel to in order to get to heaven. So it's not true that the kingdom of God necessarily belongs just to the children. But instead, it belongs to those who are like children. Not all children will be saved automatically, but those who are like children in the sense that they depend on God. There's is the kingdom of God for all eternity. So we need to have childlike faith. Well done, I see that we still have an important encounter to explore between Jesus and the rich young ruler in chapter 19, which I think we'll deal with next time in detail. But can you just give us a quick review of or preview of what it's about? Yeah, let's do that. When you have this rich chap here, Esther, this rich guy comes up to Jesus and asks what good thing he should do to inherit eternal life. Now we already had a whole house, houseload of expensive trinkets, maybe an art collection, loads of money, plenty of money, and he came hoping to add eternal life to his vast collection of valuables. And Jesus' answer takes him completely off guard because he says to this guy, sell everything you have, come follow along with the rest of the disciples and the rich man walked away sad because he was not willing nor ready to part with all that wealth. And this is not how most of us might have handled the situation. Most of us may have done everything we could to, I don't know, to get him to see a different way, to bring him to church, make Christianity attractive to him, but Jesus actually talks him out of it. You see, the king of kings, he's not interested, he wasn't interested in numbers. He's interested in quality and the condition of the heart of the enquirer. He may have looked good and meant well, but it seems that he had a problem with greed and covetousness. And I can tell you next time we'll have a pretty good look at what Jesus says to this man. It's a really important part of the Bible actually and about the responsibility of people who've been entrusted with the world's goods. And I hope you'll all be listening because it'll be great to be with you once again. Absolutely. Now, for those who are married and maybe you might be thinking about tying the knot, I'd love for you to just listen to John's final conclusions on today's study. Yeah, we've studied, haven't we, the first part of chapter 19 of Matthew today and we'll finish in 19 next time and then move on as well to Matthew 20 and the theme was faithful to the end and how God's ideal for marriage is between one husband and one wife until they are separated by death. Ever since the garden of Eden, the crafty serpent named Satan has been tempting Adam and Eve to disbelieve the revealed word of God. If he can't get them to be openly hostile toward it and reject it totally, he will try to get them to rationalize their disobedience to it or try to convince them that God didn't really mean what he said and Satan is still doing just that today. And the result is a mixed up world where people are confused sometimes, genuinely confused, where people live carelessly perhaps and people get divorced for, well, not any reason at all, but for reasons that weren't intended for this outcome, where there are so many broken hearts and broken homes and children completely confused and so we owe it to ourselves to ask and look at what God has to say about life and trying and see if God's way isn't a better way. That wraps up today's episode of Mission 66 with John Matthews and Esther Susulu. Follow their daily teaching by downloading your free study guide on the gospels at mission66.org. Go deeper into God's word and discover how each day's teaching can apply to your life. James 1 verse 22 tells us to be doers of the word, not just hearers. Find your free study guide at mission66.org and have it for our next program. That's also where you can leave a comment or make a donation to continue Mission 66 here and around the world. That's mission66.org. Mission 66 is a ministry of Transworld Radio in partnership with Dr. Luis Ciao. I'm Rob Dempsey. (upbeat music)