The sermon, based on Mark chapter 10, delves into Jesus' teachings on marriage and divorce. The speaker begins by setting the scene in Judea beyond the Jordan, noting its significance as the place where both Moses and Elijah were last stationed, highlighting the transition from their ministries to Jesus. The Pharisees test Jesus with questions about the lawfulness of divorce, referencing Deuteronomy 24. Jesus clarifies that Moses permitted divorce due to the hardness of human hearts but emphasizes that from the beginning, God's design was for a lifelong union between a man and a woman. The sermon stresses that marriage is a covenant established by God and that divorce is always a result of sin. The Pharisees' questioning aims to trap Jesus, but He reinforces the sanctity of marriage, likening it to the relationship between Christ and the church. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to uphold their marriage covenants and seek reconciliation, while also acknowledging the grace and forgiveness available through Christ for those affected by divorce.

Please turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark. Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10. And if you have the Pew Bible, the Bible under the chair in front of you, you can find that on page 1007. Page 1007.

And if you do not own a copy of God's Word, please take that home with you and read, know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Mark chapter 10 will be beginning in verse one this morning. And I'd ask the congregation to now stand as we hear from God. Mark chapter 10 beginning in verse 1. Getting up, He, Jesus, went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan.

Crowds gathered around him again, and according to his custom, he once more began to teach them. Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing him, and began to question him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And he answered and said to them, What did Moses command you? They said, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. But Jesus said to them, because of your hardness of heart He wrote you this commandment, but from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh but therefore God has joined together let no man separate in the house the disciples began questioning him about this again and he said to them whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery. May God bless the reading of this word. You may have a seat. Our passage this morning begins with Jesus leaving Galilee and entering into the region of Judea.

It's beyond the Jordan. And though it might not seem much of an introduction, that is where our sermon will start, the location of where this narrative takes place. That location of being into the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, it might seem irrelevant to you, but it's not. I need you to ask yourself the question, what big event just happened one chapter prior? What event happened at the beginning of chapter 9 of Mark's Gospel?

Do you remember Mark chapter 9? Well, if you just turn one page over, you're going to see at the beginning of Mark chapter 9, the transfiguration happened. And what happened at the transfiguration? Moses and Elijah appeared. The law and the prophets, the ones who pointed and proclaimed and promised the Messiah, they're the ones that showed up and their presence testified that Jesus is that Messiah.

Moses and Elijah show up in Mark chapter 9. And now where is that Messiah that they pointed to? Where is that Messiah one chapter later? Well, he leaves Capernaum, goes into the regions of Judea, travels beyond the Jordan, and is now stationed in the same place that Elijah was last stationed before he was taken up. Jesus is now stationed in the same place that Moses was last stationed before he died.

And the one to whom all the law, all the prophets pointed to, is now even closer to Jerusalem to fulfill the promise made long ago at the beginning of your Bible that the Messiah would come and Crush the serpent's head and get his own heel bruised He is closer and closer to Jerusalem where He will die. Our text tells us that the crowds are gathering. And so as was His custom, Jesus once more began to teach them Again in the same general location as Moses when Moses preached his last Right before Moses died and now we find Jesus Preaching in the same location same general location and he preaches from Moses right before Jesus dies. That's the location. Number two, the trap.

Verse two tells us in chapter 10 that as Jesus taught the crowd that some Pharisees had come up to Jesus for what reason? To test Him. Now, lest we have any misunderstanding, this was not a quest for honest understanding. This was a question to test Jesus. This wasn't a principled desire to understand Moses in the Old Testament that was coming out of these Pharisees.

No, these men were out for blood. How so? Well, what do they ask of Jesus? What's the question that they ask of Jesus? Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?

And you've heard me say this before and you'll continue to hear me say this until Mark is over. Reading Mark in one sitting or in just a couple of sittings helps a lot in connecting dots together. I want to encourage you every week to give yourself to reading through the Gospel of Mark. It won't take you very long. Divide it into two sections, chapters 1 through 8 and 9 through 16 in two different days.

Take half an hour each day, you'll read through the Gospel of Mark. If you connect the dots, you begin to see why it's so clear that these Pharisees are out for blood. Just four chapters earlier in chapter 6 verse 14, What had happened to John the Baptist? John the Baptist had gone to Herod, and he had preached against King Herod and his sexual immorality. Do you remember this?

Herod had divorced his own wife and then had taken his brother's wife for his own. And John the Baptist had gone to Herod and had said to Herod and to Herodias' unlawful wife, you are doing that which is sinful. You are doing that which is unlawful. That which is sin according to God. That is what John the Baptist preached to Herod.

You are committing adultery. But what was John the Baptist doing? He was preaching about marriage and divorce. He was preaching that they needed to repent of their sin. And ultimately, what happened as a result?

What happened to John the Baptist as a result of his clear teaching on divorce, he lost his head. Herod had him killed. Do you think that the Pharisees in chapter 10 knew about that? You bet the Pharisees knew about what happened to John the Baptist. So here comes Jesus back into Herod's domain.

Well, let's get Jesus to start sounding even more like John the Baptist, And if we do that, our mission will be accomplished. And what was their mission? You remember their mission in Mark chapter 3 verse 6? The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Jesus as to how they might destroy Him. In the beginning of Mark's gospel, Mark chapter three, there's the Pharisees' hearts.

They want to destroy Jesus. These Pharisees are out for blood and so they think well let's trap Jesus. Maybe if we can trap Jesus, Herod will kill him just like he killed John the Baptist. So the question is raised. The trap is set.

Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Does God permit such a thing? Is Herod in the right? And Jesus answers with a question of his own in verse 3. And we see the answer.

Well what did Moses command of you? Verse 4, The Pharisees answered, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. I want you to see that the passage that the Pharisees are referring to is Deuteronomy 24. Turn with me there to Deuteronomy 24. I want you to see what the Pharisees are alluding to.

Jesus asked, well what did Moses tell you? And the Pharisees say, well in Deuteronomy 24, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. Deuteronomy 24, if you have a pew Bible, you can find that on page 209. Page 209. Deuteronomy 24.

We're gonna look at verses one through four together real quick, And then we'll go back to Mark 10. Here's what the Pharisees were referring to when Jesus asked them that question. When a man takes a wife, this is Deuteronomy 24 verse 1, when a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife and if the latter husband, the second husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, her first husband, who sent her away, who divorced her, is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled. For that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance." Now, before we go any further, let's just answer a couple of easy questions that we can answer from this passage.

Couple of basic questions. Question number one, did God forbid in each and every circumstance divorce according to this passage. No, God did not forbid indiscriminately divorce, right? He could have here. Some people argue, well, you know, he couldn't, God can do all his holy will.

He could have completely abolished and forbid all divorce right here. But he did not. And we're going to talk more about that later. What did God do though in Deuteronomy 24? What did He do?

Well God took what Israel was doing, and quite rampantly what they were doing, divorcing one another. He took easy divorce and he made easy divorce much harder. He gave it consequences. He discouraged it. God took away easy divorce and made it serious.

Notice he did not forbid divorce, at least in Deuteronomy 24, but he did forbid easy divorce. More on that in just a moment. So these Pharisees, they wanna know about their right to divorce their wives, and they are keying in on that term indecency. If we find something we don't like in our wives, something indecent, well we can divorce our wives and the question is really well what does that word indecent mean? What does indecent mean?

Does that mean that I can divorce my wife if she's a bad cook? If she snores? If she's got wrinkles that she didn't used to have but now she has? Is that what is meant by indecency? You know, if we find something that we don't like about our wives, is it true that we can just write her a certificate of divorce, and we're good to go?

No fault divorce, just preference based divorce. The Pharisees are saying, hey, that's what Moses says is okay, right? Is that what Moses was doing? Was Moses, was God encouraging the practice of easy divorce? Does that word Indecency mean anything that you actually want it to mean We're going to find out that Jesus says no You keep using that word.

I don't think it means what you think it means Do it around me 24. Let's look at that one more time. If a man finds something that he doesn't like in his wife, and indecency and vice versa, this goes both ways. If a woman was to find something that was indecent in her husband, a certificate of divorce could be granted, and after that divorce was put in the person's, the spouse's hand and then that person would be taken out of the household. If that person was to marry another person, What would happen?

That spouse who's now been sent out and is married another can never ever be remarried to that former spouse. That's what Deuteronomy 24 teaches. It's final. There's finality there. There's seriousness there.

I need you to see that this process instituted by Moses was not encouraging divorce. It was not justifying no fault male centric divorce. It was not justifying, well, I want to get in bed with someone else and somehow manage to call it lawful divorce. No. Far from it.

This passage, this reality, this process in Deuteronomy was taking what the people of God, what Israel was doing, divorcing one another and slowing it down. God was setting boundaries to divorce. God was making the consequences of divorce more plain. And so you might think, well divorce is really bad in our day. And yes it is.

It is horrid. It is horridly bad. And yet, we are not the first society or culture to have such a low view of marriage and such a quick fuse for divorce. You need to recognize, scholars agree on this wholeheartedly, God's people in the Old Testament and now into the New Testament in Mark 10 were divorcing for all kinds of ridiculous reasons. All kinds of ungodly, sinful reasons.

And God says that comes with consequences. That's not okay. Your current approach to divorce Israelites, Pharisees, is wrong. Your understanding of what is indecent is way off. So these Pharisees they come to Jesus they're trying to trap Jesus and they point to Deuteronomy 24 and they say well God said through Moses that we could put our wives away so long as we give them a certificate of divorce because we found something indecent in them.

They are arguing that God has substantiated their low view of marriage and their quick fuse for divorce. Is that true? No. God was eliminating the practice of easy divorce in Deuteronomy 24. So here's what's going on in Israel.

I'll use Jack and Jill. The Jacks of Israel were thinking, If I'm wrong about divorcing Jill, right, she upset me over dinner and I want to be done with her for now. So Jack says to Jill, I'm going to divorce you now, but then I'll just remarry you later, Jill, if and when you become available again, or if I can induce you to come away from your new husband. Divorce is no big deal. She can come right back to me.

It's easy. It's quick. Easily remedied. I was upset now, but I'm good now. I'll take my wife back, please.

And Moses is saying, God is saying in Deuteronomy 24, no, you'd better think twice Jack before you divorce Jill, Because if you can't get Jill to remarry you before she marries another, you will have lost that opportunity to do so forever. That's a big deal. The emphasis, get this, the emphasis in Deuteronomy is not on promoting or permitting divorce. That's not the emphasis. It does permit divorce, but that's clearly not the emphasis.

The emphasis clearly is God prohibiting easy divorce. He was not permitting divorce for any reason. So again the Pharisees keying in on that phrase if you find some indecency in his wife and they're saying to Jesus well if I find something I don't like Moses God says I could divorce her. And Jesus explains in Mark chapter 10, let's go back there, that these men and their understanding of Moses is just simply incorrect. And I just, as we turn back to Mark 10, I just want you to get the literary picture that Mark is painting here.

If you were a Jew back then in this day, this would not be lost on you. And so as we approach the scriptures, we always are asking what would it have meant to the original audience at that time. Well, if you were a Jew, you would know that this is the same location that Moses was last before he died. And so Jesus literally in Mark 9 had an interview with Moses on top of the Mount of Transfiguration, and then one chapter later, here is Jesus getting interviewed about Moses. Isn't that neat?

Jesus is explaining Moses. And what does that tell you? If Jesus is explaining Moses, if Jesus is explaining the law, then Jesus must be the lawgiver. He is Yahweh. And here Jesus in Mark 10 explains the meaning of marriage, the meaning of divorce, and the meaning of Deuteronomy 24.

Deuteronomy 24 leaves us with the question, is it right for mankind to have such a low view of marriage and such a quick fuse for divorce? The Pharisees seem to suggest that. I've argued already just from Deuteronomy 24 that's not the case, but Jesus leaves no doubt. And Jesus says to these Pharisees in Mark 10, your whole approach is wrong. Your understanding of Deuteronomy is wrong.

It's anemic. You need to understand that because of the hardness of your heart, because of sin, Deuteronomy 24 was given to you. Because of sin, divorce entered the picture. And it's sin that makes you Pharisees and you pervert? Deuteronomy 24.

So just think of what these men are doing. They're coming up to Jesus, and they're going to a place in scripture where God was acting against easy divorce. And they're turning that passage where God acted against easy divorce and turning it into a reason for easy divorce. They're dead wrong on Deuteronomy 24. They had it twisted.

And they shouldn't have gone to Deuteronomy 24 anyway. Jesus wasn't talking about that portion of Moses when Jesus asked the question, what did Moses tell you? Jesus says to them, I wasn't talking about Deuteronomy 24. I was actually asking about Moses who wrote Genesis chapter 1 and 2. You got the wrong part of Moses.

You got the part of Moses that came after sin. You got the wrong part of Moses. And so in Mark 10 verse 5, Jesus says this. And he gives two quotes from the book of Genesis. Jesus said to them, because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment.

Hardness of heart. It shouldn't be very difficult to understand. Sin. Because of your sin, this commandment was written. So hear this.

Sin is the reason that divorce entered the world. Evil, rebellion, sin is at the root of every single divorce. Every divorce has some kind of sin involved in it. Both parties in a marriage may be in sin, or one party is in sin, but always in every divorce, someone in the marriage covenant is in sin. Their heart is hard and wicked.

That is why divorce comes about. Every divorce is occasioned by someone's sin. And again, I wanna make this clear. Sometimes both parties and sometimes just one party, but sin is always at the heart of divorce. And that's what has occasioned Deuteronomy 24, The people of Israel were in sin in their approach to marriage and divorce.

And so Jesus goes on to say, From the beginning of creation God made them, male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." What's Jesus telling them? Jesus is telling them that Deuteronomy 24 was given to you as a divine concession for sin. But it was not always so.

Because before sin, before the fall, God instituted marriage to be a lifelong and inseparable union. Two individuals, two flesh's becoming one flesh, Jesus says. And in marriage, God is the one, God is the one who joins them together. When Ari and Kenzie were married just one week ago. Man, doesn't seem like it's been that long.

And they've been doing really well, by the way. I just saw a picture of them smooching. That's good. At the end of their wedding, I quoted from this passage what God has joined together, let no man separate. I was not the one ultimately that put them together.

God did that. One man with one woman for life in the covenant of marriage. That was plain from the creation of male and female. Plain as day on the sixth day. One man, one woman for life.

That was God's design. That is God's design. So the evils of polygamy that came after the fall, one man with many wives, the evils of same-sex mirage, the evils of divorce, All of that came after sin entered into the world. That all came after sin came and marred everything. Those things are a result of sin.

Polygamy, polyamory, fornication, so-called homosexual marriage or mirage. It's not really marriage. Divorce, these things were not the design of God for marriage. Lest I be misunderstood, still today those things are not the design of God. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman and it is to be for life.

Crazy that we would have to talk about like that. Crazy that that would have to be consistently said in our day. Anything that obliterates God's good design in marriage, anything that obliterates the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman that God put together, anything that distorts and obliterates the one flesh union is a result of sin. Somebody's sin. Jesus is quoting from Genesis 1, 27, and Genesis 2, 24.

He gives a quotation from chapter 1 and chapter 2. Chapter 3 is the fall. So in both chapters before the fall, Jesus is quoting, here is God's design in marriage. A marriage covenant is a work of Almighty God. That's why Jesus says, what God has joined together, let no man separate.

So he's looking at these Pharisees and he's telling them, you're disobeying God because you're encouraging and participating in and permitting easy divorce. Now again, it is very true that divorce was permitted in Deuteronomy 24. Why? Because of sin. It wasn't, but It wasn't the original design.

God permitted a concession of divorce for sin. Hear this plainly. I'm going to keep saying it. This is the main thrust of the passage. Sin is why divorce happens.

Because of the hardness of your heart, a husband or a wife may indeed have no other recourse than to be divorced. But that is because someone has broken the marriage covenant. Because someone is at enmity with God. Because someone is in sin. There is no such thing then as no fault divorce in God's eyes.

To pull apart that which God himself put together is to literally work against Almighty God that is enmity with God to work against him. To rip apart what God himself preciously put together in a marriage is to be in blatant rebellion against God. That's what divorce is. It's ripping apart of the marriage covenant that God himself put two people together into. So it's an outrageous rebellion against God to work against him in divorce.

And again, someone is always responsible for that rebellion. Might be Two people. Might only be one person in the marriage. But someone is at enmity with God when divorce happens. Someone's responsible for the breaking of that marriage covenant.

There is no such thing in God's eyes as a no fault divorce. And I think that should be very startling for everyone who's been following along in Mark's Gospel. Because what came right before this passage? The end of Chapter 9. What came right before Jesus' talk on divorce?

Jesus talks about the seriousness of sin. And more precisely, the seriousness of making little ones, of making other believers, stumble. Whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, Jesus says, it would be better for a millstone to be hung around their necks like a lead weight and for them to be cast into the sea and crushed by the depths of the ocean. It would be better for that to happen to them than what's coming to them in judgment for making someone else stumble. Brothers and sisters, your marriage is a covenant that God Himself put together between you and your spouse.

He made you one. And to destroy that covenant is to make the other spouse Stumble. Deuteronomy 24 was clear. To divorce your wife was to make her defiled. And Matthew's Gospel says the same.

Jesus says in Matthew's Gospel, in divorcing your spouse, you make the other commit adultery. You defile the other. You make them stumble. And in light of Mark chapter 9, that should make you pause as you consider divorce. That should make That should make these Pharisees considering divorce for every and any reason very much pause.

Brothers and sisters, your marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. Your marriage very much matters to God. To destroy your marriage is to destroy the preeminent picture that God has ordained for the very good news of the gospel itself. He picked one preeminent picture to proclaim the good news to the world, and it's marriage. You are preaching something in your marriage.

Your marriage is to preach a life-long parable to the world of how God loves and gives himself for his bride, the church. And now his bride, the church, loves and submits to her head, Christ, and follows her groom, Christ Jesus, wherever he leads. Paul says in Ephesians 5 that marriage is the God-ordained picture of his relationship with his people, the church. Christ united sinners to himself forever through his shed blood. He took on their sins.

He took your sins, Christian, upon Himself, and in exchange for your sin, He granted to you by faith alone, His righteousness, and He purifies sinners stained in their sin. He takes the stain away, takes it upon himself, and then grants to you his perfect white robes of righteousness. And that is the reason for the colors in marriage. The groom in black, the bride in white being presented to the groom, wholly blameless with great joy. That's the good news that marriage depicts.

And when you destroy that, when you destroy that, you upend that, that's a massive deal. Because you are proclaiming in destroying and obliterating the marriage covenant, you are proclaiming to everybody something that isn't true about Christ and His church. You're preaching a false gospel. And brothers and sisters, You need to know that you have a precious thing in your marriage. You may not approach such a union lightly, brothers and sisters.

Young men, you may not approach such a union lightly. This union between you and your wife is to be for life. Before God, for better or for worse, for life. You young men will represent Christ to your wife, to the world in your marriage for life. You need to get on your knees this week and the week after and the week after and when you get married every single moment, and plead with God to work maturity into you.

Plead with God to work such a seriousness about the covenant of marriage into you. If you're not doing that, start today. Young men, you should grab a hold of men in this congregation who love their wives as Christ loves the church. And like Jacob in the wilderness, you ought to go to those men and grab onto them and say, I will not let you go until you teach me, until you show me how to love my future wife. Listen to me young men, if you do not do that you are a fool.

Start doing that today. I expect very much for each of you young men to find a man in this congregation today and say I'd like to know how to be a godly husband. Do that today. You hear me? Do it.

You will not get to the end of your life and be sad about that decision. Young ladies, the same is true for you. Do not come to this altar to be married flippantly. Come with the blessing of your Father. Come with the blessing and approval of your pastors concerning the man you are to marry.

If your father doesn't like him, tell him to hit the road, Jack. And don't come back no more. Do that. You think your father wants anything but the best for you? If Your Father is treasuring Christ, following Christ, and He looks at you, and He says, Sweetheart, Rodney is not the guy.

Say, Amen! It doesn't matter if He gave you flowers. Work with your pastors. If you do not have a godly father, come to the pastors. This is not something that you should be approaching.

Flip it, mate. This is not something you should be approaching lightly. I'll just figure this out on my own. Don't do that. Come to the altar with the blessings of your Father and the blessings of your elders of this church so that for all your days you may proclaim the glory of Christ in your marriage.

Marriage is a wonderfully beautiful, weighty, glorious thing. But what were the Pharisees doing? They were asking Jesus for easy divorce. They were proclaiming with their marriages the very opposite of weight and glory by their request for easy Divorce. And Jesus says no.

Divorce is never lawful and honoring to God with regard to both parties. Divorce is always occasioned by someone's sin. It came about by sin and it results always because at least one party of the marriage is hard-hearted. At least one part of the marriage covenant is in sin, unrepentant sin. And rather than having a short fuse for divorce, God, listen to me, God would have you make every attempt possible, Every attempt possible to be at peace with one another, including your spouses.

God would have you to make every attempt possible to maintain your marriage to the glory of God. That's the very thrust of what Jesus is saying. Do not approach marriage flippantly. And to fail to make every attempt possible to be reconciled with one another and to maintain the one flesh covenant union, to fail to uphold the marriage covenant as glorious, is to enter into divorce unlawfully. It is to commit adultery.

It's to sin. And in sinning like that, you are leading others into sin. And that's why Jesus clarifies even further to his disciples at the end of our passage in the way that he does. If you look in verse 10, in the house, the disciples began questioning him about this again. And Jesus said to them, whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.

And if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery. That's what Herod had done. And Jesus makes his, it's super clear, complete clarity. What Herod did was sinful. Jesus agrees with John the Baptist.

At least the Pharisees were happy in that regard. Contrary to the view of so many in Israel, and so many in our day, even in the church, marriage must be held in high regard. God's design, God's desire for your life Christian, is for a life-long marriage. And yet, so many in this room itself, all of us on some level, have come into contact with divorce, even in the church. And we read these verses from Jesus that very clearly condemn easy divorce, that put us face to face with the truth that divorce is always going to be the result of someone's hard heartedness, that divorce is always a result of sin, that divorce is a tearing apart of the one flesh union that God put together and it's in rebellion against God and to go that way is to make other people stumble, and if that's you, it would be better for a millstone to be hung around your neck.

We can so easily despair as we think about this passage in relation to our own lives, the lives of those we love, in this congregation, outside this congregation. And yet beloved, those who are divorced, those who come from divorced families, Those who know of the bitter taste of covenant obliteration. Those of you who have experienced the torture of the one flesh union being ripped in two, you need to hear this. Christ Jesus, His flesh was torn for you. Christ's flesh was pierced for you.

He gave up His body for you, that you might be a part of His body. He shed His blood for you. Hear this, please. There is more righteousness, there is more faithfulness in Jesus Christ than there is sin and unfaithfulness in you and your divorce. There is more faithfulness and righteousness than there is sin in the divorce of your parents.

In the adultery that prompted the divorce or came as a result. There is more mercy in Jesus Christ than the evil that divorce and all of its consequences entail. This table proves it. Christ forgives sinners. Christ died for sinners to make them His bride.

He loves you Christian. He loves you downcast one. And though you know and have experienced the horrors of divorce, maybe when you're a child, maybe when you're a young man, maybe when you're a grown man, though you have experienced the horrors of divorce as an adult today, Christ promises to you to forgive you and to cleanse all who come to Him by faith. He has the power in the Gospel to stop this generational sin of divorce in its tracks by the power of His cross. And Christ promises to you, Christian, to never, ever leave you.

To never forsake you. His covenant with you church, His marriage covenant with you is unbreakable. You may have broken covenants in your life, Your parents, your children, all around you, there might be broken covenants, but here is one covenant, one promise, sealed in blood that will never be broken, Christ for you forever. That's why you eat this meal this morning. You remember the unbreakable covenant that God has made you, sealed and guaranteed for you with His body torn for you, His blood shed for you so that you, His body, would be forever united to Him.

You know, that is good news. That will never run out. The honeymoon phase will never end. Shouldn't. That's good news that will never turn sour.

That's living water from a well that never runs dry. And that's what your marriage is meant to portray. One final word in this matter and then we'll conclude together. Perhaps as a result of this text, this is where I get a little controversial. Perhaps as a result of this text you would think that Jesus has completely outlawed divorce entirely.

That though God had permitted divorce in Deuteronomy 24, but had prohibited easy divorce, that Jesus has now changed everything in the Gospels, right? And that divorce in the New Covenant is no longer an option at all for anybody. But I think, and I say this with trepidation, but I think that that would be to possibly violate the principle of Toda Scriptura, all of Scripture. Because Jesus elsewhere in the Gospels provides an exception. And elsewhere in the Apostles, Jesus speaks through Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 to give clarity on how there may come a time to divorce as a result of a spouse's failure to repent and their subsequent excommunication from the church.

There may come a time to divorce. Hear this word, maybe. Maybe. But never, never is divorce to be considered lightly. Never is divorce to be immediately considered.

But Jesus does give an exception and Paul does provide instruction as well and to the scripture all the scripture must be our guide and so next Lord's Day we're going to go to the exception in Matthew chapter 5 and Matthew chapter 19 and We're going to go to the exception in Matthew 5 and Matthew 19, and we're going to go to the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 to examine this doctrine a little further and hopefully answer additional questions that may come. I don't want to leave you here and say, got rid of that sermon. I want to make sure that we wrestle through this as a congregation, as painful as it might be. So we're going to talk more about these things next Lord's Day. But for today, I need you to remember a few things, okay?

I need you to remember what Jesus has said here in Mark. We have heard from Jesus that divorce came about because of sin. Divorce always occurs as the result of hard-heartedness and that the covenant of marriage should be held in the highest esteem, and that all attempts should be made to keep that covenant intact. All attempts, lest the spouses may distumble, lest children are made to stumble, lest Christ is dishonored and His people let astray and judgment come upon you. This is a serious thing.

You need to remember the seriousness of sin. It is always the occasion for a divorce. But hear this, believers. Christians, there is always hope. There need not ever be divorce.

In fact, there cannot be divorce between two believers. God does not permit such a thing. And we're going to speak more on that next Lord's Day. But you need to hear this at the end, and I'm almost through. For you believers, there is hope.

There cannot be divorce between two blood-bought, born-again, spirit-endwelt, gospel-hoping Christians. Why? Because the gospel wins. Jesus wins. Christ is and will be forever triumphant.

He is your living hope. He died to take the record of death that stood against you and him to make you one. And if you've experienced that, you cannot look at your spouse and say, but not for you. No, no, the Christian who is blood-bought, who comes to this table with his sin in his hand, but forgiven, grateful for the cross of Christ and the power there. She looks at his or her spouse and says, Christ died for me.

Oh, how I long to take that vertical reality and extend it to you. He's your living hope. He will hold you fast. Are you struggling this morning in your marriage? Do not despair.

Look to the Savior. Look to the Savior. His grace will be sufficient for you and your spouse. His power will be made perfect in your weaknesses. Do not give up on your marriage, but fight for it with the members of this church and the elders of this church behind you, and when you reach the end together, maintaining that one flesh union that God put together, do you know what will happen?

Christ will be exalted. And the church, far from being made to stumble, will be built up. And you will join with that heavenly chorus, and your marriage will declare with it, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is, and is to come. So hear this word, husbands, hear these words, wives, hear these blessed thoughts, children, as we conclude from Ephesians 5. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery, marriage, is great.

But I am speaking with reference to Christ and His church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself. And the wife must see to it that she respects her husband and all of the bride of Christ, saved by no work of their own. What is the only thing that you can say to that? Amen.

Let's pray together. Our Father, help us as we work through such difficult and tender passages. You know, Lord, my prayer this week. Sensitive to the hearts of our body, knowing that You have spoken clearly here in Mark and elsewhere in Your Scriptures, Lord, apply this Your Word to the lives of our people. May You please create in men and women renewed minds, new hearts, sober mindedness, that they would leave this gathering, not having their emotions drive them, but that their mind that's been renewed and shored up by the truths of the Gospel, may they be a people with sober minds shepherding and driving their emotions.

May the Gospel of Jesus Christ result in affections for Christ, in glory and forgiveness. And may You make this people not leave here full of gloom. Oh, there's no place for that at the table. For in Christ there is forgiveness. In Christ there is hope.

So keep us sober, keep us watchful, and make us new. In Christ's name, Amen.