Why Moses Allowed Divorce

Transcript

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[0:00] Now we go to our sermon and I invite you to turn in your bulletin or at home. And also it's on the screen. We're going to be looking at Mark chapter 10. And today I only have time to look at verses 1 through 12. So we'll only be reading verses 1 through 12 of Mark chapter 10.

[0:18] Now, before we begin, a few words of introduction. Remember last week we talked about how there's a conflict is building. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. And on the way he has ever more increasing encounters and conflicts with evil. Evil that's trying to stop him. Evil that's trying to derail him. But he is pressing onward all the time, getting closer to the cross. And so he's getting into these increasingly intense spiritual battles. And so he did last week by battling the forces of demonic possession. And evil.

[0:58] And the evil of lies. Lies themselves are this evil that actually kind of hold on. They have a real sticky power. And to speak to lies, the truth, is one way of destroying them. So as the story moves forward, he continues to see conflict. And it culminates in his own betrayal. And the possession of Judas Iscariot by Satan himself. And so you see the stakes are really high. As he gets closer to the cross, all sorts of craziness. And all sorts of crazy things start happening. Including his friends turning on him. And finally, his brutal torture and death by the Roman Empire. And so there's all sorts of things that he's moving to. So imagine with me that what we read here is one of several steps or tests that Jesus must pass on his way to the final battle at the cross. So our reading is Mark 10, 1 through 12. And it is ostensibly... Eric, could I ask you to press that silent button? We need to have somebody there at 11 every morning. Just to... Just to click it right away. We are getting that fixed.

[2:03] I lost my train of thought. I know I want to read Mark 10, 1 through 12. Oh ostensibly this is a teaching about divorce. And we will talk about divorce. But this is actually in the context of spiritual conflict. So we're going to look at it from that angle as well. So let's go to our reading, Mark 10. Starting with verse 1. It reads like this. He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And Christ was there. And crowds again gathered around him. And as was his custom, he again taught them.

[2:32] Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He answered them, What did Moses command you? They said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.

[2:52] But Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate.

[3:19] Then in the house the disciples asked him again about the matter. He said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, even difficult words. And we ask your blessing on it. In Jesus' name, Amen.

[3:46] So as I said, this passage is about divorce. But the context is that Jesus is in a conflict with religious leaders. And we will get to the question of divorce later. But we need to do some background. A little bit of background on this story and why this is such a serious conflict. Alright? The Pharisees, it doesn't seem so at first, but the Pharisees, it doesn't seem to be serious, but because, the Pharisees seem to be asking a simple and even maybe innocent question, right? What do you think about divorce, Jesus? Is that allowed? It's kind of one of those, you know, one of those questions. And so what could follow would be one of those classic exchanges. Where scholars go back and forth in what is known as a dialectic, right? Two sides trying to back up their opinions with prior knowledge and arguments and scriptures. But over here it says this, and over here it says this. And so does it seem like the Pharisees are just trying to set up one of these, you know, fun, fun, sort of back and forth, let's get to the bottom of one of these really interesting sort of trivial matters, right? But in fact, and this is the interesting part to me, the very top of the Bible, the very topic divorce did have an ongoing dialectic between two schools of Judaism.

[4:58] So maybe they wanted to see which side Jesus would fall on, because there were schools of Judaism, sort of camps of Judaism. There was one from the teacher Shammai, they followed a teacher named Shammai. And the teaching on divorce, which they quote, is from Deuteronomy chapter 24. And it says that a man could divorce his wife, and of course never the other way around. There was no provision in the law for a woman to divorce his wife. No one to divorce her husband. That was unheard of, right? But it said that, in Shammai's interpretation of it, it says the word, the word is that if there is some uncleanness in her, or something that is objectionable, or something that is objectionable in her. Shammai had a very restrictive view of what that meant. And he said that a man could only divorce his wife if it was proven that she had committed adultery. That was the outlaw. That was the absolute, for Shammai's camp, that was the absolute only reason that divorce was allowed. Okay, so that was the most conservative and restrictive views. But there was the followers of another teacher named Hillel. And Hillel, you may know at the university, there's always the Hillel Center. So this is like the Jewish student center.

[6:10] So that name has gone on, right? Hillel was more expansive of a husband's right under the Old Testament. And he thought that a man could divorce his wife if she displeased him. Or if she loses favor in his eyes. And so you can find, if you read Deuteronomy 24, you can find a few clues about that. And so Hillel thought a man could divorce his wife if she burned his dinner.

[6:40] Or if he no longer found her attractive. Hillel. I'm glad some people are laughing. Isn't that funny? Like these two ranges. And some of the Pharisees are like, well which side are you on, Jesus? Hillel or Shammai? Right?

[7:00] And I mean, we just have to stay here that just how unsafe is that for marriage? Especially because the vulnerable person in a marriage back then, and often today, is the woman. For her to be able to be divorced just because her husband no longer finds her attractive anymore. And she's set loose. And has no property. And no recourse. This is incredibly dangerous.

[7:22] And we're talking about the former commitments. And so I'm sure that Jesus would disagree with Hillel. In fact, he agrees much more with Shammai, as we will see. But that's not really the point. Right? So we may think the Pharisees are just asking Jesus, which side of this classic debate do you fall on? You know, which camp are you in, Jesus? Would be so interesting to eat some falafel together and ask how you fall out on this question. No harm, no foul. Just asking.

[7:52] There's actually a lot of harm here. And this is the context. The context within the whole of the narrative of the Gospels will help us. And other sources, historical sources, such as a man named Josephus, the Jewish historian. Divorce was actually a very dangerous topic in that moment. Because John the Baptist had been imprisoned.

[8:16] Because he publicly denounced the divorce and marriage of Herod Antipas, the son of Joseph. The son of Herod the Great. Who married the ex-wife of his brother-in-law, or of his half-brother, whose name was Herodias. So this star-crossed couple, it sounds like they married for love. I'm not sure exactly what was going on there. Herod Antipas married a woman named Herodias.

[8:41] They had a lot of drama. In my mind, it would be like the Real Housewives and Real Househusbands of Palestine County. Like it would be messed up. Like a lot of back and forth. Herod Antipas, or Herodias, had been married to Herod's half-brother.

[8:59] And then Herod Antipas was married to a princess of the Nabataean kingdom to the south. And this was a political alliance. It was a political marriage. Maybe he didn't love her very much, but he was married to her. That kind of cements treaties between kingdoms. And so he was married to somebody else. And both of them divorced their respective spouses so that they could marry each other. Right? This was not without consequence. The Nabataeans didn't like it and they started a war. A lot of people died because of this divorce and remarriage. Do you all get that? I mean this is serious. It's not like a victimless thing here. When he divorced his wife, that started a war. Wars entail all sorts of people dying and almost always the most vulnerable. Right? And you can just imagine there's this awkwardness at Thanksgiving dinner or Hanukkah dinner. Where Herod and Herodias have to sit at a table with her ex-husband and his half-brother. Wow. What a fun time that was. Right? So John criticizes, John the Baptist criticized this arrangement. He said this is messed up. For all sorts of reasons. Not least because of the law. The law doesn't permit you to do this.

[10:14] Hillel maybe says you could. But there was no provision for a woman divorcing her husband, but she did it. And that's because she had power. Right? So he was put in prison and Herodias wished more than prison for him. She wanted him killed right away. But he was popular with the people. So Herod didn't take his life. But then her daughter Salome, this is a famous story. You may know this. Her daughter Salome danced in front of the king and all of his guests at a party. And he was so impressed that he offered her everything up into half his kingdom. As a reward for how beautifully she had danced. And this is one of those themes in the Bible where you don't over promise. Because it always comes back to bite you. And you can find other examples of this. And they're all tragic. So Salome goes to her mother, to Herodias, and says what should I ask for? And Herodias says I want you to ask for John the Baptist's head brought to you on a platter.

[11:16] And the king didn't want to do that. But he did. But he had made this promise in front of his guests. And to lose face would be worse than to murder John. So the king gave in. And so he had John killed. So are we starting to get a little bit of the background of why divorce is actually a dangerous question to be asking Jesus right now?

[11:42] The Pharisees are super smart. They hope that by asking a simple question Jesus will blunder into a trap and get the same treatment he did. And that's what they're doing. And what's smart about this is that they hated Jesus and they hated Herod. And what better way to solve the problem than to have one enemy destroy the other? Smart, right? So I know I shouldn't do this. I've told you before. And I'm going to delete it. But I play this game Risk on my cell phone. And it's true to the old game where you have dice and you try to take over the world and dominate the planet. And I don't know if it tells you a lot about me that I play that game. I don't know. Because that's maybe my dream is to dominate. No, it's not. It's not. But it's just a fun game. Actually, mathematically it's very interesting. But one of my strategies when I play on the phone is to lure all the other opponents on the board. And they're all computer opponents. So I'm not hurting anyone's feelings. Is to lure them into fighting each other.

[12:41] And then they're both weak. And then I roll in. And I take over. And so this is just a smart tactic. You've got two enemies. Find a way for them to fight each other. They're both weakened. Then we prevail. And so the Pharisees are like, oh, look.

[12:56] Herod killed Jesus. How tragic. Oh, I wish people would get along a bit better. And so you get to kind of get like this would just only help them. Right? It would destroy one of their enemies and weaken another one of their enemies. So, you know, they're up to some smart stuff here. Right? And they just go, what a shame. If only they could all just get along.

[13:21] So we have to admit now that there's something evil going on. This isn't just kind of an idle question. Jesus, though, knows it too. Jesus never falls for any traps. It's kind of the fun thing about Jesus. Like he always knows what's happening. And you'd think they would learn to stop trying to trap Jesus. But they don't.

[13:40] And so if Jesus, I mean, if Jesus was really smart, he would have not answered. Right? He would have just said, well, I don't have time for this. Whatever. Now, Jesus is smart. And he does have to answer. And so he does answer the question, as we see in the text. And maybe we'll have Caleb bring that back up. Slide one.

[14:01] There it is. Right? And I'm going to pull it up here. So what does Jesus do? We have to look at the structure of how Jesus answers. And this is kind of important. They ask him a question. But then he asks them a question. And he finds out what the basis is for their understanding of it. And then he answers, but he also explains what the basis is for his understanding of it. And thus he really presents an argument that can't be attacked too deeply.

[14:36] Because always everybody is going back to Scripture. And this is good. And so this is even what we do in the covenant church. We would say, where is it written? What does it say in the Scriptures? How are we going to decide this issue? So Jesus says, you tell me. What do the Scriptures say? And they give an answer that's safe for them. Because they don't want to get Herod mad. Right? So they're not going to side necessarily with Shammai. Because Shammai's view would contradict what Herod has done. Herod and Herodias have done. They say, what's safe for them? They say, well, Moses says that a man may divorce his wife. And seemingly for any reason. They don't really go into the reason. She just has to write her a notice and say, you're divorced and she's out of the house. And so they gave an answer. And they might have even compromised some of their own sort of beliefs by answering this way. But it's the politically safe way to answer. It saves their own necks. So already Jesus is beginning to expose their hypocrisy. And this is the thing about evil is that it's often hypocritical. And Jesus is always exposing things with the truth. So they give the safe answer. Moses says we can divorce his wife. Thus Herod could probably divorce his wife and marry somebody else.

[15:54] Then Jesus' reply is this really powerful example for us to interpret the law in the Old Testament. Because the law by itself is great. But it needs the background of other parts of Scripture. So this is really getting kind of meta here. Like we're talking about interpreting this in the time. But Jesus is interpreting his times from previous times. So Jesus says yes, the law given to Moses allowed for that. But it was because of a defect in humanity. You are allowed to divorce because you are deficient people. You're sinners. You're broken people. You have hardness of heart. And he locates that hardness of heart in the people he's talking to. He says your hardness of heart. He's very like very, this is anti-cultural in a way. To be that direct with somebody in that culture was kind of like a wake up. They're like our hardness of heart. We haven't had any divorces. But he's kind of locating the sin in the people that he's talking to right now. Your hardness of heart. And then he says we need to put that law into the context of something deeper and something older. And it would be like if you read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Who here has read that? I just want to check. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Yes.

[17:03] And do you remember that Aslan talks about the deeper magic from before the dawn of time? And that's what allows him to die for the sake of Edmund. On this rock table. This older magic for the Narnians, it had been forgotten. But for Jesus it hadn't been forgotten.

[17:22] He says, this is what Jesus says. Here's the deeper magic from the beginning of time. He goes back to Genesis. This is way before Deuteronomy when you think about it. He says, but from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh.

[17:48] So Jesus isn't quoting scripture anymore. But then he says this. This is what Jesus says. Therefore what God has joined together let no one separate. So now Jesus is giving his opinion. It's because of your hardness of heart that Moses allowed you to get divorced.

[18:06] But I say to you from the beginning, from the very beginning of creation, God ordained marriage to be about something. And not to be easily broken. It should not be pulled apart. So he's quoting from Genesis 1.27. God made them male and female. He's quoting from Genesis 2.24. The two shall become one. And this deeper magic is the kind of protection that marriage needs to give the more vulnerable partner, in this case women, and still today to a larger extent, to give vulnerable partner protection. Right?

[18:41] So much about Genesis. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is about life and the flourishing of life. God creates life in Genesis 1 and 2. He talks about the flourishing and the growth of life. Human creation is in there. And human marriage is described in there as a source of life and the flourishing of life. And that's right before sin comes into the world in chapter 3. Like that's literally right before the end of chapter 2. Where he talks about them becoming one. So Jesus is saying, yes, the law allows divorce, but God's design for marriage is that it endures and it protects and it serves and it loves and it sacrifices for the other. And there can't be any room for the kind of drama that we see in Herod's family, for example. There's no room. That doesn't look like the marriage that God designed. That looks like something altogether different.

[19:37] So the question is, maybe, did Jesus fall into the trap? And in a way, I think he did. Did he get himself into some trouble here? Maybe. Maybe. He doesn't shy away from the topic. He says this is how it should be. Anyone who could put two and two together could go, oh, but that's not what we're seeing up here in the royal palace. And the word could get out. So he is endangering himself. But Jesus at this point is, he's not trying to endanger himself, but he's not trying to avoid endangering himself. He's going to the cross. He has to die somehow. This probably contributes to it. So in a way, you could say the Pharisees maybe helped their case a little bit here, but their hypocrisy was also exposed for everyone to see.

[20:24] His goal is always to be obedient. His goal is always to go to the cross, to confront evil. Now, I promised that we should talk about divorce in our context, because this passage raises questions, questions for us and our marriages. And those of you who are married, those of you who are divorced, or are now remarried, or divorced and not remarried, you may read these things and go, oh, this feels serious. We should address this topic. And we should. And it's still an issue for Christians. And full disclosure, and I think many of you know this, but not all of you know this, is that I'm a divorced person. I'm remarried, but I'm also a divorced person. I got married when I was 20 years old, which was a mistake. Don't do that. You're just not old enough to know what you want in life. And that marriage was made much harder because three weeks after I got married, my father died of liver cancer. And so I had to both process being, I'm not, it's not an excuse, it's just more of an explanation. I had to process being a husband at the age of 20 with an incredible loss in my family. And I just couldn't find, I couldn't find my way through those emotions, and neither could my wife at that time. And we did part ways after about two years of marriage.

[21:44] And that, I'll be honest, that was one of the most difficult things I ever had to go through. And it's true, if you've been through divorce, you know it is like a death. In fact, psychologists, family counselors will tell you that the loss of a relationship like that is not unlike the loss of a loved one. And so you mourn the loss of hopes, dreams, ideas, plans that you had for your life, and there's just a lot of time that it takes to recover from it. And so, and that was the case. But praise God, many years later, I don't know, about 13, 12, 13 years later, I met Krista. And I was at that point finally ready to be serious with somebody. And God, God put everything together. And so divorce and remarriage is a part of my story. So I want you to be well aware of that as I'm talking. I'm talking about this. And some of what you're gonna hear is my opinion about divorce. You need to make your own work if you want to ask yourselves these really difficult questions. Some of this work you have to do your own, on your own, in reading it. But let's look at what Jesus is doing here. So let's go to the next slide there, Caleb. Because after this encounter, the disciples take him alone, right?

[23:04] Caleb, can you get the next one up there, I think? There we go. It's just at the very, just at the very top here, just this part. We're not doing the part with the children. Later, the disciples take Jesus aside, right? And they say to him, well, what is the story here with marriage?

[23:24] And Jesus says, whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband, interesting that Jesus allows the possibility for a woman to divorce her husband. Isn't that interesting? I think that's interesting. If she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. Now, is he talking about Herod and Herodias? Maybe. He's talking about everybody probably as well. Okay. But Jesus is always, remember, Jesus is always hardening or intensifying the Mosaic law. And that's to protect the vulnerable, but also to drive us to despair of our own righteousness, right? So, he says, you have heard it said, this is the sermon on that. You have heard it said that you shall not this, but I say to you, even something that you see as a lower thing is just as bad as this thing, right? And so in his mind, he said, lust is like adultery, right? Being angry at your brother is like murder. Why is he doing this? Well, he's saying, you have to stop thinking that you can keep the law all the time. That's the number one impediment to our relationship. Your relationship with God, the only thing getting in the way of, not the only thing, the biggest thing getting in the way of it is that you don't need God.

[24:38] That you can keep all the law, all yourself, and you've just made it. And he wants to, and the apostle Paul talks about this a lot. No, you haven't made it. You need grace. You need forgiveness. You need to fall at your knees at the foot of the cross and go, God help me. I can't do anything else. I've come to the end of myself.

[25:00] And so he wants, even in the, the self-righteousness of somebody who has said, oh, I've kept all the laws about marriage. He says, you haven't. You've lusted over other people. You have committed adultery in your marriage.

[25:15] So now we should also say that this passage in Mark, it has a parallel in Matthew, right? And if you read that one, it's a little bit longer. And Matthew is often a little bit longer. Mark is more to the point, man of action, Jesus. Matthew is a little more expansive. And so in Matthew's version of this account, Jesus says, a man who divorces his wife commits adultery, except in the cases of infidelity. So Jesus creates an exception in Matthew. And so there's a little bit of room there, right? But the other thing that we should look at here in, in Mark even is that Jesus says, and you should look at the words here. It says, if a man divorces his wife and, and that word and is important. It doesn't seem that important, but it's an important connective word. And marries another. The context of that word and the way it's designed in the Greek there. And in, in the passages that I've read or the commentaries I have read, isn't just a, this and this, like those two facts occur in the same sentence, but more of a causal relationship. One causes the other, or one is the cause of the other. So you would maybe read it this way. If he divorces his wife in order to, and then, and then goes and marries another woman so that he's almost like,

[26:43] you know, figured out who she is. So there's that old joke, you know, about Sven and, and Greta, his wife and, and, you know, Greta says, Sven, do you think you'd ever, if I ever died, would you ever get remarried? He said, Oh, Oh, maybe I guess I would. She said, well, that kind of hurts my feelings, but I understand you'd want to. And she says, do you think, do you think she'd ever let your new wife wear my clothes? You know, and Sven says, Oh no, Greta, she's not your size at all.

[27:16] So that's a good one, right? But just this idea that maybe Jesus is saying, this is up to you to interpret it yourself. Maybe Jesus is saying you divorce your wife and then you marry her. And then you marry another as these are just unrelated events, or they're just sort of chronological events that happen in further in time. Then you're committing adultery. Or is Jesus saying you divorce your wife so that you may now marry this person you prefer.

[27:43] That's a problem. And that's always, I think that's always a problem, right? That's really a problem. That's getting towards Hillel. I don't find her attractive anymore. I'm going to find somebody else. No. So Jesus could be saying, don't, you know, don't do this. And so this was actually absolutely what had happened with Herod and Herodias. They divorced their spouses so that in order to marry each other. And so Jesus could hear be talking about the royal family saying they've made a mistake. And for all sorts of reasons, right?

[28:21] But we should remember again that marriage is not a sin. It is for life. And this for the flourishing of life, right? There are marriages where life and its flourishing are at risk. And it's because of the hardness of our hearts that that divorce is sometimes necessary, even for today's Christians. Okay. Human sin makes divorce necessary at times in cases of abuse, in cases of infidelity and, and so other reasons. So now I want to get into a section. And I really want you to understand and make a clear line here that this is the counsel that I give to people. You may find another pastor who gives different counsel and who interprets this a lot more like Shammai. And I'm not saying I'm interpreting it like Shammai. I hope I'm interpreting it like Jesus, where he goes back to Genesis and says, what makes for life and the flourishing of life? What is God's design for life together? So what you're going to hear now is my private counsel to people. And some of it comes out of the fact that I've experienced divorce myself, and I know how painful it is. And I know how people can kind of feel stuck and broken. And sometimes that feels like the only way out. So here's my private counsel to people. And it goes like this.

[29:40] If there is abuse in a marriage, whether it's verbal, emotional or physical, and the abuser won't stop, then separation and divorce are definitely on the table. If somebody will not stop abusing another person, we need that for the sake of God. If we take of the life and the flourishing of life and the health and the safety of that person, there needs to be a separation and eventually a divorce. Because we protect life and we err on the side of the vulnerable. Jesus always does too. But absent that, we value the promises we make in marriage. So my private counsel to people who are having trouble in their marriage is to work at it. Because you made a promise to each other. And it is possible for life to be renewed. It is possible for marriages to be renewed. It is possible for just these wonderful feelings to come back into broken relationships. But it takes work. And it takes work on both sides. One person doing all the work and the other person not doing any of the work. It never works. Both sides have to make a good faith effort to rekindle the marriage, rework on their communication, all sorts of things. It can happen. I've seen it happen. Okay? Even after infidelity. Even after infidelity.

[30:56] Forgiveness can happen. I'm not saying that you have to stay together. But I'm saying, because even Jesus and Matthew kind of gives an out there. If there's infidelity, even with Jesus' blessing there, you have the right to leave the relationship. But even after infidelity, marriages can be healed. It does happen. But it's a lot of work. But it's good work. Now if one member is not willing to do the work and the other one is willing to do that work, then I think there's freedom to divorce. Because otherwise you're stuck in this. This is my private counsel. You're stuck in this relationship with somebody who won't do the work. Who won't progress. Who won't come forward in any possible way. Okay? Now if both have worked at it with their very best effort and in the end there's just no progress, then with prayer and discernment I would say, you know, there's all this other life out there. You've tried your best. You've done your best. You're just not compatible. You're just not, you know, something's not going to work. Then I would say, let's pray about this a lot. Let's seek discernment. But if at the end of that all you think that there's more life out there with somebody else or in being alone, then I will give my blessing to that.

[32:13] This is my own personal practice giving marriage counseling. Because we're broken people. Relationships are hard. Our hearts are hard. There's something wrong. There's some things that we can't overcome. There's couples that have tried to make it work for five years and at the end they're just exhausted. And they're not moving forward in any way and it's consuming all of their lives. And so then I give a blessing, a reluctant blessing to separate. Okay?

[32:42] Now and in all these cases, if someone wants to divorce somebody just so that they can marry someone else or be with somebody else, then I say, I don't bless that. I don't think that's right. I think you need to work on the relationship. I think you need to keep the promises you made on your wedding day.

[32:59] So I would finally say, and I'm almost done here, is our personal relationships are places where a lot of sin can creep in. They're just so close to us. And they're places where all of our shadows can really come out. If you're married, you know what I'm talking about. Right?

[33:16] Our marriages can be a place where the evil one can get a foothold. It's so true. They're actually sacred spaces, but they're a lot like the garden. Like the serpent can sneak in and mislead us with lies. Jesus is on a journey to the cross where he's doing increasingly more intense battle with evil. And I would say for those of us who are not married, if it's possible, support people who are married. Okay? Because they're at risk. They're in a tough spot. And for those of us who are married, I would ask that you guard that marriage against the power of evil. Right? Surround it with prayer. Hold fast to the promises you made to each other. Take those promises seriously.

[33:59] Remind your spouse, if you really mean it, that you are in it for life. Thick or thin. Sickness or health. Right? Richer or for poorer. Right? Remind your spouse of that often. And then also hold fast to the promises of God. God can breathe new life into even relationships that have gone stale. And if that's you, it's not over yet. All right? If there's problems in your marriage, and come on, what marriage doesn't have problems? Give me a break.

[34:30] These people talk about the perfect couples. Ha! Ha! I say. Go behind their walls. You shouldn't spy on people, but if you could spy on them, you'd hear something. You'd see something. There are no perfect marriages. There's no perfect couples. We value life and the flourishing of life. And if there's problems in your marriage, you can talk to your pastors. And we're not necessarily marriage counselors. We're not totally trained at that. But we can help you get started. All right? We care about your marriages. We care about them thriving and flourishing. God cares about marriage. Jesus is going to the cross. This is not about divorce per se, but it's about conflict as he approaches the cross. But this is also an opportunity to talk about divorce and marriage and things like that. So let's go now. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word, even for difficult passages. And Lord, if we find ourselves convicted this morning, we pray that you move us to action. Whether there's marriages that need help or relationships that are strained, that new life can bloom, we pray that those of us who have difficulties in our marriage can do the work that's required to keep them healthy. And Lord, we pray a blessing on those who have difficult marriages

[35:42] that are headed for divorce. And we pray for good discernment about how to move forward in those, in those situations. And finally, Lord, we thank you that Jesus is our champion, that he fights evil against, that is arrayed against us all the time. And he fights for us as our champion. And we thank you that he fights all the way to the cross and on the cross for us and for new life. Lord, thank you for this time. Amen.