Pentecost 20 “God’s Marriage Commitment to You”
Oct. 13, 2024 recalling Pent.19 / Gospel: Mark 10:2-16
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Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,
Last Sunday, LwmL Sunday, I think we had a nice emphasis of the gospel-work our sisters-in-Christ do, and a good reminder of the example of Mary for us – as one who was ‘ready to serve’ in whatever the Lord assigned her. OUR assignments have much less impact on the history of the world; but what the Lord gives us impacts our spouse, our children, grandchildren & neighbor for heaven’s good. So, using the LwmL theme meant missing the assigned readings for the day, where the OT reading & Gospel reading taught about ‘marriage’. We want to revisit that teaching because, in our day, we really need it. So, in Gen.2 & Mark 10, why does Jesus so resolutely defend marriage?
In our world, & in far too many churches, the Bible’s teaching on marriage, /on adultery & divorce, /on children, /on fathers & mothers, /husbands & wives, that teaching has been neglected, or changed altogether. To sin against marriage is a far-reaching shame & wickedness. Now, our church body has never abandoned the Bible’s teaching on marriage; however, as individuals we must not take it for granted, but we must publicly confess it clearly, & support it. Satan, & those who follow him, are at war against God’s teaching on marriage; & that puts us in the battle. We need to guard the great blessing of marriage because the truth & blessing of marriage is bigger than it appears.
Gen.2 tells us about God’s creation of marriage in the beginning with Adam & Eve, and we heard Jesus defend that holy design in Mark 10. Marriage is one of God’s original blessings of creation. Because the marriage of one man & one woman for life is God’s design, people of every time & culture have rebelled against it. But at least in the past that definition was accepted as the ‘gold-standard’; and even those that ‘did their own thing’ still acknowledged that basic standard. Now, it seems that a person can’t even speak of that original design without being accused of bigotry & hate, and threatened with a lawsuit, or with the loss of a job, or loss of a relationship.
It’s not just the younger people now who choose to insult & abuse God’s gift of marriage by sexual activity & ‘living together’ with no commitment to God’s blessing of vows;
older people have also accepted this ‘alternate’ wrong lifestyle. A high divorce rate is used as an excuse to not even try with marriage.
Tearing down true marriage also tears down the various blessings for the respect & roles of maleness & femaleness (another original blessing). Marriage licenses don’t bother with the words male & female, or bride & groom; /School forms often don’t indicate ‘father’ & ‘mother’; /why even bother asking about gender when a dozen choices are on the list?
/a person’s biology is no longer the test for which bathroom or locker room they get to use; /keeping sexually explicit books out of elementary schools is falsely called ‘book banning’; /sexual activity is regarded as a ‘recreational’ instead of marital & spiritual; /children are not viewed as the highest marriage blessing, just a biological choice. In MN, child-bearing & raising is not the highest priority of our state-leaders; defending abortion is =& that’s child-killing.
It used to be that the majority of Americans were opposed to these evils; but now its hard to tell. There are some very vocal groups & leaders that threaten to punish anyone who tries to stand against those wrong things. Are churches & Christians too scared to speak about those Bible teachings that have a better message for human life & morality? Do we doubt God’s Word of Truth for our day? = many do. Are we afraid we’ll be mocked if we speak up? = sometimes. But the answer cannot be to hide God’s view of right & wrong.
God said thru Solomon: ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’(Eccl.) Things in our public culture are worse now than in years past; but nothing can get better if God’s people are scared & silent. The answer is to remind & encourage each other with God’s view & truths. God has spoken his truths for all people, of every nation & language about life in his creation. He has especially spoken about these foundational parts of life: about being either male or female, about the sanctity & blessing of marriage, and the great blessing & responsibility of children & family.
You & I will not apologize for believing & trusting the Bible’s teaching about those things. It’s not always easy to explain why God’s way is the best way; and so others may call us ‘judgmental’ or ignorant. But their problem is not with US, it’s with what God says in His Holy Word. To shut out the world & live holy lives is good, but we are also called to be salt & light; and that’s what will help our children, grandchildren or neighbor to know the truth.
Besides that, with politics driving our culture & laws, with some things we’re being told that we can no longer live in a Biblical & Christian way, as it is declared to be ‘bigoted’ & offensive to others.
So, what will we do? Give in, fall-in-line with the fallen world, and hide God & His holy ways? No, we won’t! We will practice saying “I don’t agree with that”; we’ll be encouraging each other to uphold male & female, / husbands & wives, / marriage & children, / morality & family. We will not allow our confused children or grandchildren to bring the world’s immorality into our household without hearing God’s truth. Even if we are criticized or abandoned by others because of The Faith, we know we can come here, and to this family, for assurance & peace.
The world will oppose us, since we are God’s people; but it cannot change us because we are God’s people. And Jesus Himself has called you & I to take up our cross daily and follow him. We know the culture around us is wrong on these things; and we know that many of our friends & family have gotten caught up in the popular flood of wrong thinking. Our culture & those around us need us to be a solid anchor for them; some eventually will realize it, others won’t. But our Lord calls us to be faithful to him.
Faithfulness, like courage, is contagious; but it has to start with us, & it has to be seen. Our Lord calls on us to stand firm on His Word for Life so that others will know who to go to when they thirst for God’s truths & right things. We will not apologize for believing that God’s ways are right & good; and when people get mad at us, we will be gentle & firm, because we know that their real disagreement is with God.
This disagreement with God & God’s holy Word for Life is as old as creation itself. Satan put his twist on things to Adam & Eve: ‘Did God really say (that)?’ Adam & Eve should’ve said ‘Yes’ & walked away. But Satan was planting the seeds of uncertainty & doubt before he went on to flatly contradict God’s clear Word. Satan’s tactic worked then,
and has not changed. First, we are tempted to doubt God’s Word, then seduced into disbelief, and finally into disobedience. Gender, marriage, family, & children are special objects of Satan’s hate because their origin & foundation is in our Creator’s will & plan to bring us his blessings.
The Holy Scriptures reveal God’s plan for the human family; for all nations of peoples, regardless of ethnicity or culture. Marriage & family are not a human invention. We don’t get to define them as we choose; we all have one Creator. This is what Jesus was talking about in Genesis ch.2 = in the ‘beginning.’ Others may deny that beginning, but they can’t say it’s not in the Bible!
Marriage wasn’t Adam’s idea. Marriage was God’s idea & his gift. For one thing, He created the woman to be the helper for the man, so he would not be alone. He brought the first wife to the first husband & gave her to him, and Adam received Eve as a gift. And so it is written for all people & all time: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen 2:24).
That is the Lord’s will & plan for the ongoing existence of the human race. A male & female, a man & a woman, given to each other is the nucleus of a new family, to be protected & provided for. When two become one, the Lord’s plan & delight is to give even more gifts: the gift of children. So, children are never, ever to be thought of as a burden; children are a blessing. As it is written for all time, Ps.127: “Children are a heritage from the Lord …Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” Male & female, husband & wife & children are God’s plan, & the gifts of life itself.
And just as it didn’t take Satan long to attack humans, it didn’t take him long to war against those foundational gifts of life. Turning away from our Creator, sinful man started polygamy,/ adultery / prostitution, / homosexuality & its related perversions, / sacrificing of children, / & family feuds. Scripture records it all so that we will know & fear the destruction caused by the wickedness of man & the assault of Satan upon these good gifts of God. Destruction, sadness, brokenness & confusion is what happens when men & women believe satan’s lies.
All of that had been going on for 4,000 years when the Pharisees came to Jesus in Mark 10, seeking to trap him by pointing out the mess people had made of marriage. So they ask: ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ Jesus answered, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.’
And here Jesus acknowledged that this concession was made in the law because man’s heart is so hard against God’s perfect ways. “But”, he says, “from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female . . . 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”.
Jesus teaches here that divorce is not the will of God; that it undoes what God himself has done in uniting together the man & the woman. And when the disciples asked if Jesus really meant what he said to the Pharisees, Jesus ‘doubles down’; without compromise. “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” This is how highly our Creator thinks about his gift of marriage; that divorce & adultery is contrary to the original will of God expressed in creation & in the 6th Commandment.
God, & God’s Son, doesn’t think about marriage the same way we tend to. We are so used to the sinful disobedience of man, that the idea of divorce doesn’t faze us. But divorce was never God’s plan, just as a fake marriage of ‘cohabitation’ was never God’s plan. Having sex for fun, & killing children in the womb, was never God’s plan. That’s Satan’s temptations away from God’s ways, and man’s sinful ideas & disobedience.
So, there is a viewpoint that will ask a question like this:
Doesn’t our Lord ‘get it’, that that old definition of marriage just doesn’t work anymore? Oh, the Lord ‘gets it.’ And that’s the good news for us today. So, why doesn’t Jesus back-down & excuse divorce, or make concessions for every other man-made, sinful change to his perfect marriage design? Because our God doesn’t give up on relationships. Says 2 Tim.2: ‘If we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself.’ The Lord could never break his saving relationship with us. Even tho we are, by nature, spiritual adulterers.
The gospel of our salvation – IS a ‘marriage’, and this is why we cannot abandon marriage. Our Lord Jesus comes into the flesh to win a Bride for himself, a Bride to whom he will be faithful forever. Since our problem is a hard heart, God comes to us in the flesh with a tender heart. As when God put Adam to sleep & took his side & made the woman, so likewise our Lord Jesus sleeps in death on his cross, and his side is pierced. Then from his tender heart flows a fountain of saving blood & water.
The Church has always seen in the water & blood that flow from the pierced side of our Lord a picture of both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. By these special gifts, the Holy Spirit creates the Bride of Christ, the Church, cleanses her, and brings her to the Bridegroom in an eternal marriage.
Why does Jesus defend marriage, and expect you & me to do the same? Because that heavenly Bridegroom is faithful to you. Jesus doesn’t ‘understand’ divorce, & it makes no sense to him, because in his heart is a divine love that simply is unwilling to let you go, unwilling to separate & lose you, no matter what.
You see, we have this institution of marriage, not because humans thought it was a good biological arrangement, & not because man thought societies needed a solid family foundation. We have this institution of marriage, and we need this exact heavenly design of marriage, because IT is a picture of our salvation in Christ, as Paul refers to in Eph.5. God Himself established marriage & family =for all time, & for every nation & culture of peoples= to be an image of his own unfailing commitment to you, & for the whole world to believe.
And by defending & upholding biblical marriage, you are sharing the parallel message of salvation in Christ Jesus the Lord. Therefore, there is only one thing in this sad world that can bring hope to reverse the mess we’ve made of trying to do marriage & family on our own terms; there’s one fix: the loving commitment of our bridegroom, Jesus = which is the Christian Gospel. The forgiveness of the cross shows us the unfailing love of God, with his patience, mercy & blessings that will have no end.
The world we live in will rebel & fight against our Creator & all his good gifts. What we can do, as God’s people, is to trust his perfect Word, /to follow all those teachings, / to stand firm in the face of opposition, / and to call others to see their Lord Jesus – who saves us, and who guides us in all things right.
We believe what’s in the Bible; and we won’t apologize for it. We will support each other in being male or female, / husbands, wives, & children. And whether we’re married or unmarried, we will support Biblical marriage.
And even tho the world will oppose us, we will keep returning here, to be comforted, encouraged, & strengthened by the forgiveness & guidance of Jesus, our committed bridegroom.
Amen