Good morning. As Weston mentioned, my name's
Kurt. I am one of the pastors here.
In fact, I'm the only pastor here at the it's time.
Couple of my friends are in Washington, DC right now.
If you don't know these random guys on the screen on the left,
that's Tony. He's the lead pastor of Vita
Springs. He's got about two more weeks
left in his internship in Washington, DC.
And then Gordon and Josh are a couple of the other on staff
pastors here. They are at an event called the
Weekender up in Washington, DC. That's all Capitol Hill behind
them. They're up there kind of a
intensive weekend at the church. And so they get to spend some
extra time with Tony. So I get to teach us today.
So this year when people find out that I'm from Indiana, they
say, oh, you must be really, really excited because Indiana
University won the national championship in football.
And I say no, not at all. I am from Bloomington IN, which
is where Indiana University is. And I grew up a fan of Purdue
University, bitter Rivals. And I went to school at Purdue.
And and so it is in my blood to be a Purdue fan, which means
it's in my blood to root against Indiana University.
And so for me to do that would be very faithless of me.
It would be disloyal. I just, I cannot bear to do it.
And I would say any Purdue fan who cheered for IU is not a true
Purdue fan. They're they're faithless,
right? And you would understand that,
right? You're for many of you, you're
Gator fans, right, in all kinds of weather.
And so it doesn't matter who the opponent would be.
If, if the University of Georgia was playing in the national tag
game, would you root for them? No, of course not.
That would be faithless. That would be disloyal.
We have this innate sense in US of, of loyalty and commitment
and betrayal stings and, and sports is kind of a ridiculous
example, right? Sports, they don't really mean
anything, right? There's much greater things in
life to be concerned about, to be loyal and to be faithful
towards like let's say in marriage, right?
That's where, where one place it really counts.
And when there's faithlessness in marriage, it is painful, it
stings, it's betrayal. And I would add in a greater, in
a greater sense, even faithless living towards our faithful God
is, is maybe the most offensive form of betrayal and disloyalty
and faithlessness that there is. I share that because that's what
we're going to be talking about today in the book of Malachi.
We're going to see some people who betrayed their God, who was
loyal, who is faithful, and the people were faithless.
We're in the book of Malachi. We're preaching through this,
this short prophetic book in the Old Testament.
Go ahead and turn there. If you have a Bible, if you
don't grab a Bible from under seat in front of you, I want you
to follow along with me. If you're not sure, it should be
on page 8, O1. If you have one of those black
Bibles we're going to see today, Malachi issues a rebuke to
people who are betraying God. They were being faithless to God
through divorce and illicit marriages, and they were calling
it good. They were acting like everything
was OK. And so Malachi is going to
rebuke them and he's going to call them back to faithful
living. He's going to call them back to
faithfully live towards God and towards one another and
especially within marriage. So here's here's our main main
aim, our main point for today, as God has been faithful to you,
as God has been faithful to us, we are to be faithful to him and
who you marry and in that marriage.
Now, before I get into this, I know for many of you, you have
either you, you have some relationship with somebody who
is divorced or a broken marriage of some sorts.
Maybe that's you, you have been divorced.
Maybe you're remarried, maybe you're going through a divorce.
Maybe your parents were divorced.
Right there. You seen faithlessness in
marriage. And it's, it's painful and it's
sensitive. And so I wanted you to be
attentive to that and just call that out today and say, hear me
out as we work through this. And God has something for all of
us in that today, as I mentioned, we've been preaching
through Malachi. This is the fourth week.
We've got four more to go after this.
We're going to be 8 weeks total. Malachi was a prophet.
He was about 450 years before, roughly before Jesus came on the
scene. And in his book, he issues these
disputes with God's people. And so there's six of them
total. We're in the third dispute
today, again dealing a lot with faithlessness in marriage.
So let me take a moment and pause for a time of silence just
to gather ourselves and our hearts before God, to take a
moment and pause to pray or just to listen before we get into the
teaching. So you do that with me.
Or take 20 seconds or so and just slow down for a moment and
wait and listen and pray. And then I'll read the text and
we'll get to it. Malachi chapter 2, verses 10 to
16. Have we not all one Father?
Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one
another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed
in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the
sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the
daughter of a foreign God. May the Lord cut off from the
tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who
brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.
And the second thing you do, you cover the Lord's altar with
tears, with weeping and groaning, because he no longer
regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
But you say, why does he not? Because the Lord was witness
between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been
faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by
covenant. Did he not make them one with a
portion of the Spirit and their union?
And what was the one God seeking godly offspring.
So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be
faithless to the wife of your youth.
For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says
the Lord, The God of Israel covers his garment with
violence, says the Lord of hosts.
So guard yourselves and your spirit, and do not be faithless.
Let me pray. Lord, we thank you for these
words that you have preserved and provided for us.
They are your words spoken through the prophet Malachi many
years ago, and yet they are still true and for us today.
Help me, Lord, to preach faithfully to you in this text,
to honor you with my words and what I say.
Lord, help us to honor you rightly, to see you as you are
the faithful God, and help us, Lord, call us into faithful
living. Amen.
So there's there's a couple of charges or indictments that
Malachi issues to the people today, both related to marriage.
And so let's start with the first one.
God indicts their faithlessness to each other and to himself.
So look back at verse 10. Malachi starts off and he says,
have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?
So he's saying he's reminding them, hey, aren't we one
remember 1 father Abraham created by God as one people,
right? We are his children, He is our
father. There's some echoes of the Shema
in here. And this was a phrase that the
Jews all memorized and repeated often.
It goes like this. The Lord our God, the Lord is 1.
The Lord our God the Lord is 1. And so in Malachi's questioning
of them, he's saying, don't we have remember, Remember the
Shema, Remember the Lord our God, the Lord is 1.
Don't we all have one father? Hasn't one God created us?
So if that's the case, and then he gets into his argument, the
rest of verse 10, he says why then, right.
If this is our God, there's one God that we serve, why then are
we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our
fathers? Judah has been faithless.
Abomination has been committed. Judah has profaned the sanctuary
of the Lord. He says, all right, why are you
being faithless? If this is our God, the one God
who has created us all, why are you being faithless or disloyal
or unreliable? Why are you betraying one
another? And so he brings this charge up
interestingly against each other.
And we're going to see they're being faithless within
marriages. But it's a communal thing.
And maybe some people weren't being faithless in the way he's
describing, but they were allowing it.
They were OK. They're kind of collectively
letting this be OK. And he says you're being
faithless to one another. He says you're profaning the
covenant in the sanctuary, right?
We think of the word profanity, right?
It's profane is to treat something with irreverence or
disrespect or even to violate, he says because of your
faithlessness to one another, because we're going to see their
faithlessness, faithlessness within marriage.
It's like profanity against God's covenant, right?
This union that he made with you.
And I'll get into that in a moment.
Some of the covenant and his sanctuary, they're they're
bringing and making and desecrating God's holy temple
because they're bringing in these offerings, but they are
living faithlessly. He says they've committed
abomination. It's one of those words where
you know it's bad, but you can't really define it.
What is it abomination, right? It's it's something that's evil,
it's disgusting, it's horrific, it's a disgrace.
The word abomination is used in in Leviticus talking about child
sacrifice, right? That's an abomination and this
is what they are doing. They are doing it to each other.
They're profaning God's temple in the sanctuary and how and it
and it kind of builds up and then and it says explicitly how
at the universe 11, he says you have married the daughter of a
foreign God. We've married the daughter of
foreign God. Let me unpack this a little bit.
Essentially he's saying you are marrying women who worship other
gods. He's not saying foreign women.
OK, so non Jewish women. That's not what he's talking
about. Actually.
God welcomed outsiders. He was one of the only gods,
maybe the only God at that time who would actually welcome
people into his family if they devoted themselves to him.
In fact, there's two women that stand out, Rahab and Ruth, both
in the lineage of Jesus. Matthew includes them in Jesus's
lineage, and these were foreign women.
Many of the Old Testament passages actually denounced
mixed marriages, but not because of ethnicity, but because of
idolatry. That's the issue that's at play,
Idolatry, not ethnicity. And so what's happening in
Malachi's day is people were marrying non Israelite women,
non covenant women. You might say they've got a
different father, they're of a different religion.
They do not worship the one true God.
They are devoted to another God. They are the daughter of a
foreign God. They have yoked themselves to
some other spiritual being. That's who they're in bed with.
And Malachi is rebuking them for this marriage to someone who's
already, in one sense, married to another person.
They're married to another God because you can't be one with
God and another God, right? You can't be faithful and
faithless at the same time. If you're faithful and then
you're faithless, it wipes out your faithfulness.
He's saying you can't do that anymore.
And why is this so profane, right?
Why does he call this profanity and abomination?
Because we aren't comparing people to people.
We're comparing our faithfulness to God and in light of God's
covenant faithfulness to these people, this is an abomination.
This is profanity. That they would be marrying
people from a different religion who worship different gods and
bringing them into the temple and offering sacrifices and
saying it's all good, right? It's profanity.
I want to take a trip back to Deuteronomy Chapter 7.
You can flip there if you want. Keep your finger there if not.
I'm going to put some of these verses on the screen.
But I want to look at this covenant because I think in all
of what I'm teaching today, if we don't understand how
incredibly faithful God is to us, then we won't quite
understand how atrocious and awful it is when we are
faithless towards other people in marriage.
God is faithful. Now here's what happened.
Deuteronomy 7, God rescued his, these people from Egypt.
He is about to send them into the promised land where they're
going to conquer the people, take over the land.
And here's what he says. He says when the Lord your God
brings you into the land. And here's the first verses that
are going to be on the screen. Deuteronomy 7, starting verse 2,
here's what God says. You shall make no covenant with
them, the enemies, the outsiders, and show no mercy to
them. You shall not intermarry with
them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their
daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons
from following me to serve other gods.
Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and He
would destroy you quickly. He knows how they're going to be
tempted to go in that land and then betray Him and His covenant
faithfulness. And so He warns them up front.
Don't do it. You are making a covenant with
some other gods when you do that and you intermarry with them and
they will turn you away from following me.
He gives them this great warning and then in the next verses He
reminds them why this is so important as He reminds them why
and how they have this union with God, this covenant with
him. In the 1st place, Deuteronomy 7
verse 6 says for you are a people holy to the Lord your
God. The Lord your God has chosen you
to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the
peoples who are on the face of the earth.
God says I chose you, I chose you, I want you to be my
treasured possession. I want you to be my bride.
I want to be in a covenant relationship with you.
You are a people wholly to the Word, to the Lord.
That means you're set apart, you're distinct, you're
different. You're 1 of God's people.
He chose you. Don't betray him.
Now why did he choose them? Well, look what the next verses
say, verses 7 and 8. It was not because you are more
in number than any of the other people that the Lord set His
love on you and shows you, for you were actually the fewest of
all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves
you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your Father's, that
the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed
you from the House of slavery. But he reminds them, I, I
rescued you from slavery. I have redeemed you and I love
you because I love you. Why does God love us?
He loves us because he loves us. And he says here, I'm keeping
the oath that I swore to Abraham, right to your father's
right. There's a covenant there.
And he says I'm going to be keeping that.
I am the faithful God. I chose you.
I made this covenant with you. Don't intermarry.
Don't be faithless to me. And then verse 9, last one, God
says no, therefore that the Lord your God is God, the what
faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those
who love him and keep his commandments to 1000
generations. God is the faithful God.
He keeps covenant. And if we would go on and we
could go on and Deuteronomy 7, we would see He is abundant and
He is generous and He will bless you.
And He lists all of these ways. He's going to bless you for
keeping this covenant that He established in the 1st place,
right? He's doing all of the work.
He even says in verse 13, you shall be blessed above all
peoples. And in all these ways, God is
the faithful covenant keeper, His faithfulness and when we are
faithful to him leads to blessing, it leads to life and
betrayal, leads to destruction, and it leads us away from God.
And that's what Malachi, you might say praise in verse 12,
almost this curse on the people that are doing this.
Look at verse 12. He says, may the Lord cut off
from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does
this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts, Right.
You bring an offering like nothing is wrong.
Oh, we got these other. We got this other wife and
she's, you know, yeah, she's got, she's bringing in her idols
and her little statues and figurines and her, you know, but
it's fine. She could be in the temple with
me. Here's my offering to you.
God, he's like, no, I'm cutting you off.
I'm cutting off your descendants, right?
Your children, your blessing, your heritage.
Sorry, they're gone. What God is saying through
Malachi is who you marry matters.
It matters who you marry. So be faithful to God in who you
marry. Who you marry impacts your life.
It impacts your kids, it impacts your church and your community.
And ultimately, who you marry impacts your union with God
probably more than any other relationship in this world that
you can have. Let me apply this to especially
and first and foremost, those of you that are single.
And if you're married, don't worry of lots of things for you.
And in the second part, this part included, But for those of
you are single, the first question is, are you in a
covenant with God? Are you a disciple of Jesus?
Is He your Father and are you his Son or his daughter?
That's the first place that you have to start.
God is a faithful God. Even though we have been
faithless towards Him, we do not deserve Him to choose us and to
set His love upon us. But He did that, and He showed
that most prominently through the love of Jesus.
And so that's where you must begin.
Are you in a relationship with Jesus?
Do you know Him? Have you trusted Him with your
life? Have you repented from your sins
and your ways and your worship of whatever foreign God you
were, whether that was some actual other false religion or
maybe just your moralism or your do goodism, or let me just be
better than the other people, or the gods of money or the gods of
sex or success, whatever it is that you worship?
Have you turned from those gods and set your love on the one
true God and trusted in Jesus? If you have not, you have to
start there. But if you have, then God cares
who you date because who you date is who you will marry.
And so be faithful to God and who you date.
Dating is very much a modern concept and it's pretty messed
up in most of the ways that it's played out in this world.
And some of you have been through that and experienced
that. And so if you're a disciple of
Jesus and you don't date as the world dates, you date to Mary,
and any potential spouse must be in God's family.
They also must be like you. And that it doesn't matter what
ethnicity they're from or what country or what language, but
you must worship the same God. That's a must.
This is not an optional thing. It's not a OK.
It's a good idea too. It is a good idea and it is
biblical command and directive, and I would say it's pretty
explicit. It's pretty clear throughout the
whole Bible and there's specific places where it gives that
command. First Corinthians 7.
If you want to read more about marriage and singleness, go read
First Corinthians Chapter 7. And there Paul is addressing
wives whose husbands have passed away and so they are now widows.
And then what does he say to them?
He says it's OK if your husband dies.
You are free to marry whom you wish only in the Lord, right?
Mary, who you want, as as long as they're in the Lord, as long
as they are a disciple, your potential spouse must be in
God's family for some of the reasons we just read in
Deuteronomy Chapter 7. Now here's a, a question that I,
I want you to think about. Why are disciples of Jesus often
so willing to try out relationships with unbelievers?
Why? And if you're single and you
feel any of that pull or that temptation, ask yourself why, if
you're a disciple, and this is, this is really clear biblically,
and it's very wise practically why?
I thought of a few reasons. For some of you, it's fear.
You're afraid, man. I don't want to be single
forever and seems like there's a lack of options around here.
At least I don't like my options.
Or maybe I'm starting to feel lonely and fear is creeping up.
Maybe it's pressure. You feel the pressure societally
and all of your friends are getting married and your parents
are Hey, when are you going to, you know, hey, can I set you up
with somebody? Hey, if you could download any
of those new dating apps, right? Or you feel the pressure of
getting older and still being single.
Pride. Pride would be a really a reason
that I could foresee some disciples of Jesus getting into
relationships with non disciples of Jesus.
You say, well, I won't betray God.
I'm not going to, I'm not going to fall.
I will actually marry them if they're not a disciple of Jesus.
I'd say, oh, so you know better than God.
Oh, you're going to be the one that actually makes that through
and and sees that happen. You're going to be the strong
one, even though so many people have failed at that throughout
history. Said what?
Kurt, he's going to church with me.
OK, great. Evangelistic dating is utterly
foolish. It gets your heart into into a
relationship with somebody that it's hard to unwind it.
And the closer you get to them, the harder that is to separate.
And isn't that interesting? You're the carrot, right?
That's not a good idea, right? You, you're trying to lead them
to God by saying, hey, see, I'm here, I'm I'm on God's side.
Great, they're going to church with you.
But Anne, are you yoking yourself to them in a way that's
actually going to lead you astray?
Just like the warnings that we read here in Paul's second
letter to the Corinthians. He says this in chapter 6, verse
14. He says do not be unequally
yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has
righteousness with lawlessness or what fellowship has light
with darkness? He's saying don't yoke yourself
right. Don't be joined.
You can't have light and dark. You can't have righteousness
with lawlessness. For some, you answered that
question. Why was a disciple of Jesus so
willing to try out a relationship with an unbeliever?
Because of just weak devotion to God?
It's not that big of a deal, is it?
It'll probably be OK. You don't really trust God.
Maybe you don't look to him to satisfy you or you just dismiss
his commands. Some might object.
Kurt, I'm already committed in this relationship.
Well, if you're not married, then I think you should break up
with them. I think you should do that
today. Yeah.
It's going to hurt. It's going to be painful.
Then so will be if you enter into a marriage.
And there might be some of you in this room.
And I know some people that I could point you to who got
married to someone who's not a Christian.
And is one of the most painful things because the person that
you love the most in this world and yet spiritually you could
not be farther apart from them. It's one of the most painful
things. And I have talked to men and
women who are in those positions where their spouse does not
believe the hurt. It'll challenge your, your kids
will be hindered by that. And often what really happens
when you compromise in this area, it actually leads you away
from the faith. If you are already married to an
unbeliever, the Bible has lots of instructions for you as well.
I don't have time to get into those today.
The simple guidance is this. Don't leave them be faithful to
Jesus. Be a light to them and show them
Jesus. Be faithful to God and who you
date. Do they really love Jesus?
Are they faithful to God now? Because that's the best
indicator of their faithfulness in the future.
If they're not faithful to God now, can you trust them to be
faithful to you even in the future?
Hasn't God been faithful to you? Hasn't He been faithful to you?
Trust Him and your singleness and your potential future
marriage. Most will get married, not all
will you might say I, I he's not he's not providing for me right
now. I'm not married.
But if you are married to Jesus, as challenging as that might be,
if you want to be married, but you're married, you've got him.
That's what you need. Trust him with your singleness.
Be faithful to God and who you marry.
A quick word to parents parents, train your kids now in this.
Do not leave it to what their peers are saying and doing.
But I've got a couple kids in elementary school.
It's kind of funny. They're like, Oh yeah, so and so
is a boyfriend. What does that even mean?
You're 10 years old. They will learn from that.
How many of you watch TV shows and you see what dating is like
portrayed in media? Teach your children to be
faithful to God. Say only marry somebody is in
the Lord. Doesn't matter how beautiful or
amazing or wonderful they are. If they don't have Jesus, say
no. Be faithful to him.
If you are the friend of a single person, maybe you're
some, you're married and you have some single friends, or
you're single and you have single friends.
Look who this is spoken to. It's plural, right?
We, Malachi says. And our and one another, right?
This is individual, but it's a corporate rebuke.
If you were here last week, Gordon talked about how we are
all priests. We're all priests who are in
charge of guarding and protecting truth and holiness.
There is pervasive covenant betrayals happening in Malachi's
day, and they are approving of it.
And he says that's hurting all of you.
And so you might have some say, well, actually that's none of
your business. Or you might say, oh, that's
none of my business. Well, no, If you're a priest and
that's your friend, if you're a Christian and that's your
friend, it is your business, that's not applicable anymore.
Speak to them. Speak in their life.
Give them wisdom and guidance and warnings if needed.
Ask them tough questions and speak the truth in love.
This is our job collectively to be faithful to God as God has
been faithful to you. Be faithful to Him and who you
marry. Now he gives a second charge.
He's indicting faithlessness now specifically towards the
covenant wife. And so let me get into the
second part of the verses here. He starts off in verse 13 and he
says, here's this second thing that you're doing.
He says you weep, you cover the Lord's altar with tears, with
weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering
or accepts it with favor from your hand.
So there's this pious grief. Oh God, we brought our offering,
but you don't accept it. You're not regarding it.
God, what's going on? Why not?
God? Here's what's happening.
They're trying to honor God in one area of their life.
Oh, here we're bringing our offering to you.
God, this is what you wanted, right?
But in the other sense, they are being faithless towards their
covenant wife. So God says no, no, no, no, no,
you can't have that. You can't be cheating on me and
then try to bring me flowers. It doesn't work like that.
He says I'm rejecting your offering because you are
faithless towards your covenant wife.
And then in verses 14 and 15, he reminds them about the covenant
of marriage. And so let me talk about
marriage and it's covenant a little bit because this is what
Malachi brings up. He says in verse 14, the Lord
was witness between you and the wife of your youth.
God was witness. You could say he presided over
their marriages. God instituted marriage.
God created it. It's not a man made idea for us
to redefine and change the laws on.
He made it between a man and a woman as he is the witness
before it and it's not just you fill out the papers and the
state of Florida approves your marriage.
You get married before God and he is witness and he's reminding
them I was a witness in your marriage.
Genesis chapter 2, the first marriage, Adam and Eve.
It says therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and
hold fast his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
God was a witness, but he goes on in verse 14, he says you've
been faithless to her, though she is your companion and your
wife by covenant, right? There's a there's a covenant of
marriage and they are companions for life.
The Pharisees were testing Jesus one day and they asked him about
divorce. And here's Jesus's answer,
Matthew chapter 19, verses 4 to 6.
Jesus says, 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 mother, and hold fast his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh, Verse 6.
So they are no longer 2, but one flesh.
What God? What?
Therefore God has joined together.
Let not man separate. This is the intention of
marriage. It's a lifelong covenant, a
bonding. The two become one.
That's why in verse 15 he talks about this union, that the Holy
Spirit is a part of your marriage.
He says in verse 15, did he not make them one with a portion of
the Spirit in their union? So how does this mystery work?
The two flesh become one. God brings two people together
and they get married. And he says a portion of my
spirit is in that marriage, uniting you together.
That's the covenant of marriage. It is to be for you for life.
It's spiritual, it's emotional, it's a connection and there's a
great purpose in it. There's lots of great purposes
in it, but one of them, godly offspring, that's what he says,
verse 15. God is seeking godly offspring.
If you get married, have kids, it's a good thing, Challenging
thing, but a wonderful blessing to have.
Now ultimately marriage doesn't just point to marriage.
It's not an ending of itself. God created it so that one day
he would point to the way that Jesus loves us and he would say
that that's the ultimate marriage In in the New
Testament, Jesus is described as the groom and we are his bride.
Right there is this union, this marriage, this covenant, this
oneness, this 2 become one flesh with Jesus.
Paul, Paul says this, he quotes the Genesis 2.
The two flesh shall become one. And then Paul says, this mystery
is profound. And I am saying that it refers
to Christ in the church. If you're a disciple of Jesus,
you're one with Jesus. You are a member of his body,
united to him in one flesh, covenantily married to Jesus by
the Spirit, never to be separated.
And marriage points to that great reality.
And how were the people in Malachi's day treating that?
They were treating it with violence, he says in verse 16.
For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says
the Lord, the God of Israel covers his garment with
violence. Divorce is separating the
covenant of marriage. It's it's tearing it apart, it's
betrayal, it's being faithless. The the phrase translated here
is a difficult one. Lots of disagreement on how you
actually translate. This covers his garment with
violence. We could just think if there's
some relational and spiritual violence that happens if you try
to take two things that are glued together and you RIP them
apart. There's a kind of violence that
you have to do to, to split apart something that is supposed
to be 1. It makes me think of spilling
something on your shirt and you get a stain.
This, the stain is the covering of violence by, by divorcing
your wives and staining violence on your shirt.
And that day there was some, some kind of tradition where you
would, you know, if you wanted to marry a woman, you would, you
would kind of symbolically cover her with your garment.
And so maybe Malachi's playing on that.
It's like you're bringing violence to what should be a
sacred and beautiful thing. Some translations even render
this God hates divorce. It's an affront to God's design
and faithfulness. It's a misrepresentation of the
covenant love that he intended it to be.
Now don't hear me wrong. He doesn't hate divorcees.
He hates the relational violence of divorce.
Divorce then seems like it was pretty common and easy.
Divorce today is pretty common and easy.
And sometimes we become numb to the violence, to how painful it
can be, to how unnatural it is because God's joined them
together and how destructive that it can be when divorce
happens. Divorce was never God's
intention. Like those verses I just read
from Jesus show that divorce was never God's intention.
He desires all marriages to last for life.
But there are sometimes where there is extreme unfaithfulness
and divorce is permissible. I would say generally not
preferable when in the same verses and Jesus is being tested
by the Pharisees and he talks about divorce, he says whoever
divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries
another commits adultery. So there is adultery is probably
the ACT most extreme act of unfaithfulness that there can be
in a marriage. And Jesus says, OK, if you do
that, you are already breaking the covenant.
You can you can divorce. Paul adds in First Corinthians
7, he talks about abandonment. If your spouse just leaves you,
you're not enslaved to them any longer.
We can talk about abuse as a form of abandonment.
It can certainly could be a reason you separate.
If you're in physical danger or harm, separate.
Get help, Try to bring other people in so that there can be
repentance and the marriage can hopefully be repaired and
restored. Abuse can be an act of
abandonment to the marriage covenant.
Those are some extreme situations of unfaithfulness, a
lot different than what we tend to see in our culture, isn't it?
And maybe some of you have experienced in your life or in
your own relationships. And, and, and when Malachi, he
doesn't explicitly say, he just keeps regarding, he just keeps
saying faithlessness and divorce.
And so he doesn't even say if there's adultery.
It could be that they're just divorcing because it was more
expedient to be married to someone who already lived there
and had more money or had more prestige or status.
And so they're just ditching the wives of their covenant so that
they could get better if they could move on up in society.
Could be, could be things like we hear all the time we just
fell out of love. As if you could just fall out of
the two becoming one flesh. It's just a misunderstanding of
the covenant that we have. We have irreconcilable
differences, right? I think that's probably a common
check box for people that get divorced.
We're just too incompatible. He's different than he was at
first. She's changing.
She doesn't meet my needs anymore like she used to.
Marriage is just hard. Listen, I've been married for 15
years. Marriage is hard.
I understand why people get to divorce.
It can be challenging at times. There can be great conflict and
tension. But none of those qualify for
being faithless to the wife of your youth.
You might say I don't like this teaching.
It's kind of hard. But you know, it's funny.
That's how the disciples responded to Jesus.
Jesus says unless whoever divorces his light, his wife,
except for sexual morality, marries another, commits
adultery, You know what the disciples response in the next
verse? If such is the case of a man
with his wife, it is better not to marry.
They took it seriously. And in their day and age,
divorce was pretty easy and pretty rampant as well.
Count the cost of marriage before entering marriage.
And if you are already married, OK, you're locked in.
You made a covenant with somebody and you might have not
understood that when you did it, but you did it, and now you're
in it. And God will give you grace and
mercy and patience to endure and to be in that marriage, even if
it is difficult and challenging. Seek to be faithful in marriage.
If I had more time, I would be able to get into maybe a lot of
the particulars because each situation is different, right?
Each marriage is different and the difficulties and challenges
that you might face in your marriage.
And so I can't today, but I would encourage you if there's
something in your marriage that's difficult, there's a
hardship, maybe there's been adultery or unfaithfulness,
please talk to me, talk to somebody else today.
There are lots of couples in this church who have experienced
unfaithfulness and adultery in their marriage and they are
still married because God had such grace and mercy on them and
they forgave and they worked through it and it was hard.
All right? We've had couples that have been
on the brink of divorce and they're still together and many
of them decades and decades of marriage.
So you're, there's people here that can, that can help you and
encourage you and talk to you. You just have to be willing to
let them in. Malachi gives us some real
practical and straightforward application, if you will.
And so I want to finish by talking about that.
And he says it twice. He says it at the end of verse
15. He says, so guard yourselves and
your spirit, right? Stop being faithless.
Stop divorcing your wives of your youth.
He says, so guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you
be faithless to the wife of your youth.
And then verse 16, he says it again, so guard yourselves in
your spirit and do not be faithless.
Faithfulness and marriage matters.
So if you are married, guard your spirit and be faithful to
your spouse. So think about that.
Guard your spirit, right? You might say, guard your heart,
protect the internal side of you because it's not just a physical
thing. Well, I'm, you know, I'm not
sleeping around with another woman.
You know, there's an internal aspect of this that that leads
it. You don't just wake up one day
and commit adultery. It usually begins in your heart.
And so he says guard your spirit.
And so if you are married, what are those dangers to you, those
temptations in your spirit within your marriage?
One is the common phrase we use all the time.
The grass is always greener on the other side, right?
Until you get to the other side and you realize, Nope, I got the
same kind of dead grass and Dang holes from those Dang armadillos
dug up in my yard. The grass is not greener on the
other side. But that's the temptation in our
heart, isn't it? And so you look into, oh man,
that marriage is so great all that and that person is so their
spouse is really taking care of themselves.
This right? And we the grass is greener.
And then we, you know, we flirt with the person that at work and
it starts to grow in US and we begin to covet other people's
relationships and be jealous of their spouse or be jealous of
the single person, the flesh and the desires and the lusts of our
hearts come up. Guard your spirit, guard your
heart. Proverbs tells just tells us
this was the husband's it says rejoice and the wife of your
youth. We have that language here, the
wife of your youth bodies get old people age and yet guard
your spirit to the wife of your youth, the covenant that you
have with her. And So what are those dangers to
your spirit? And here's one that's kind of an
internal slash, external sexual sin.
It can be internal, the lusts of the heart, right?
The viewing of pornography. And it can be external self
pleasure and even into adultery. And so here, here's some real
practical advice. Stop sinning sexually.
Stop looking at pornography. Stop cheating on your spouse
with your eyes and in your heart.
It is destructive. It is destroying your
relationship and it will it will possibly end your marriage.
And sexual sin is rampant in our culture.
You can't hardly watch a single TV show or commercial and it's
not in your face. But if you are a disciple of
Jesus, be faithful to him and, and, and so stop today.
And as one who's wrestled with that and dealt with that sin in
my life, I know it's a lot harder than just someone
shouting at you. Stop so you got to be in.
Has God been faithful to you? Be faithful to Him and stop
hiding. Stop pretending like you can get
through that on your own. This is an issue most men have
dealt with or are continuing to deal with, but I know for some
women this is a challenge too. If that's where you are, know
that there is mercy and grace from God for you, but you need
to repent. Confess your sin and repent
today. Believe it, flee from it.
There is hope and there is freedom in Jesus.
Guard your spirit. The Bible gives different kinds
of advice specifically to wives and husbands.
Let me briefly share some of those.
So how do you be faithful to your spouse?
Wives of Ephesians 5 and First Peter 3 talk about being careful
to Don't be tempted to adorn yourself with external beauty,
right? Be faithful to your spouse.
Not by putting on a show on the outside trying to seek control
in your marriage, but rather the internal is what matters most.
Be respectful, have pure conduct, grow and godly
character. Be gentle.
In Ephesians 5, he talks about respecting and honoring your
husband and submitting to him. It can be a great challenge, he
said. What if he's not honorable or is
not respectful? OK, you be faithful and you do
your part and pray like crazy for your husband because he
needs it. Husbands, we are to live with
our wives in an understanding way, Peter says.
And there can be a temptation to either be domineering or
passive, right? I am strong.
I'm a man, I'm in control, and I'm physically stronger than
you. I'm the provider.
I'm the And we can go too far in One Direction or we can go too
far in the other direction. We just have passive, weak men
who don't lead their families, but we are to be providers and
protectors. And as Peter says, you live with
your life in an understanding way.
You listen to her, you think about her, you consider her.
You tend to her heart and her emotions and her affections.
You honor her. In Ephesians 5, he says,
husbands love your wives, love them as Christ loved the church.
I've heard the expression, you know, I just love them to death.
Yes husbands, love your wives to death, yours, not hers.
Just like Jesus died for his bride, the church us, you are to
die to yourself for your wife. That is your command from God.
How can you present your wife to Jesus, holy, pure and spotless?
Two quick things just to conclude, and maybe you can take
these home as some something practical as you think about
just the big picture, guard your spirit and be faithful to your
spouse and marriage. Be thankful.
I want to challenge you to regularly be thankful to God for
your spouse, and there's a lot of things that you might not be
thankful for. Thank Him for the good things
that's guarding your spirit, that's cultivating that in your
heart. Thank him for the wonderful
things about your spouse. And as an added bonus, you
should tell them what you're thankful for, but regularly
cultivate thankfulness that that will help guard your spirit
against some of those other things that infiltrate that.
Secondly, the next time you go on a date with your wife, which
hopefully will be soon, or your spouse, you should be review and
discuss your wedding vows. Find those, look them up.
If you don't have them printed somewhere, write them down,
bring them with you, read them to each other and talk about
them. Hey, how am I doing in this?
Which one of these am I doing? Well?
What are these vows? Have I actually not doing so
well? Just as a way to think, these
are the covenants I made. This is the commitment I made.
How can I be faithful to my wife?
Faithfulness and marriage matters, and it matters because
God is faithful. He's been faithful to you, and
He has made marriage to be a sign of faithfulness that points
to Him. Be faithful to God because He
has been completely faithful to us.
As God made this covenant with Israel so many years ago, He
makes a new covenant with you by his Son Jesus.
You are now one with Him. And as Israel was unfaithful and
we're reading about it today, so have we been faithful.
We have committed adultery against our Lord.
We have been faithless to Him. Even though he's been nothing
but faithful to us. We've betrayed Him.
We were disloyal, We were faithless, but God remained
faithful. And through belief in Jesus,
you're not one with Him. He is our ever faithful and ever
true husband. And so we look to the
faithfulness of Jesus. Look to His faithfulness towards
us and let that cause you to seek faithful living.
If you're single, then be faithful to Jesus and who you
seek to marry. If you are married, then be
faithful to the spouse that Jesus gave you, guarding and
protecting your marriage. As God has been faithful to us,
let us seek to be faithful to Him.