Why does God say He hates divorce?

In Malachi 2:10-16, God confronts His people for breaking faith in their marriages. Dr. Toby Holt explains why marriage matters so deeply to God — and what He means when He says He hates divorce. God charges His people with "treachery" — unfaithful both in marrying those who worshiped false gods and in betraying "the wife of your youth." Marriage is a covenant God designed, picturing Christ's faithful love for His church. That is why breaking it grieves God so deeply. Yet the chapter ends in hope: Christ loves His people with a faithfulness that never fails.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why does God take marriage so seriously? Because marriage is a covenant He designed, and it pictures Christ's faithful love for His church. Breaking it is no small thing to God.

2. What does it mean that God "hates divorce"? He hates the betrayal and broken faith that tear apart what He joined together. He grieves the harm done to families.

3. Is there hope for those affected by broken marriages? Yes. The chapter points to Christ, whose faithful love never fails, and who offers forgiveness and healing to all who turn to Him. "'For the LORD God of Israel says that He hates divorce…' Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously." — Malachi 2:16 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

Is your marriage hurting or broken? Have you gone through or are you considering divorce?

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In today's study from Malachi 2, we'll hear what the Bible has to say on these topics.

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This text this morning is honestly one of the most difficult to preach and the reason why is

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because of how many folks it impacts. So I've done enough pastoral counseling to know this,

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that there are few pains as acute as the trauma that one can experience in a broken relationship.

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There are few pains as acute to the human heart as the pain we can go through, the trauma we can

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suffer through a broken or fractured relationship with a spouse. On the flip side, as that is true,

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there are few joys as wonderful. There's few joys as wonderful as the joy of two spouses who are

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growing together over the years in their relationship with one another and their relationship

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with Christ. See, marriage, if we look at it briefly here in the abstract, good golly, marriage is a

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wonderful thing. Marriage is the institution that God has chosen to typify the love that Jesus has

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for the church. Marriage is something far greater than just a human institution. It has spiritual

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implications. Marriage is something that God esteems. Marriage is something that God created.

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Marriage is something that God loves because it has a covenantal structure.

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The love, the devotedness, the faithfulness between two spouses.

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That typifies the love, the covenant, the faithfulness that God has with his people.

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Marriage is a special union.

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It's something to be encouraged by and it's something that as we study it,

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that we can see, we can see the joy that God has in it.

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Even if sometimes we look at our own lives or the world around us

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and we see the pain of broken marriages

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or fractured or hurting marriages.

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Marriage is a wonderful thing,

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but it has one vulnerability.

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It has one vulnerability.

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See, our problem with marriage

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is that it is never isolated from sin.

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Our problem with marriage,

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as great as it is as an institution,

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it is not isolated from the sin

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of those who partake in it.

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The common denominator behind every divorce,

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the common denominator behind abuse,

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the common denominator behind infidelity,

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The common denominator behind all these things is the sinful disposition of marriage's participants.

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The sinful disposition of the spouses.

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In other words, if one's marriage is on the rocks now times past or in the future,

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the problem is not primarily a compatibility issue between the two spouses.

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It's primarily this, a compatibility issue with the divine institution and those who partake in it.

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There's a wise man who put it this way.

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A wise man said that sin is the cause and the cosigner behind every divorce, behind every infidelity.

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It's the silent partner to every argument, silent partner to every fight.

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It's the instigator of our infidelities and the like.

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Now, speaking of infidelity, that is one of the key concerns of Malachi.

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That is one of the key concerns in today's passage.

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You see, infidelity, illicit relationships that break the covenant between a man and a woman,

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this is a problem that's not new.

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It's not a problem just in the 21st century or the 20th century and the like.

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It's a problem that has occurred throughout the generations,

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and it was especially prevalent in the time of Malachi.

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You see, Malachi's contemporaries, they looked out at the pagan nations.

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They looked out at the daughters of the pagan nations, and they lusted after them,

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And they pursued them.

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And they intermarried with them.

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And this was problematic.

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And the reason it was problematic is because when they did so,

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they were polluting and diluting the faith which they had been entrusted with.

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Because with the foreign wives came the foreign gods, came the foreign practices.

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So in Malachi, God is going to call out his people and is going to say,

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you have lust for the wives of foreign nations,

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And you do not know what that is doing, what that is doing to the people and to your progeny.

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And so God calls him out.

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And three times in today's text, as we'll see, he's going to use the strongest term imaginable to do so.

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He's going to use the term treachery.

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He's going to use the term treachery.

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You see, pursuing a spouse that is not one's own,

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or pursuing those spouses out of court with God's will and decree for your life,

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is a form of treason because it violates a covenant that God has with his people.

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Now, in our day, the covenantal aspect of marriage doesn't carry a lot of weight for folks.

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But it does with God, and that's what we're seeing in today's text.

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If you would, let's look at verses 10 through 12, and then we will work our way through the passage.

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Chapter 2, verse 10 says this,

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Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?

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Why then do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers?

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Judah has dealt treacherously

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and an abomination has been committed in Israel.

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He's not pulling any punches here.

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This is not a velvet hammer he is using.

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He's picking the strongest terms imaginable

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because this is the strongest issue of his day.

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Judah has dealt treacherously

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and an abomination has been committed

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in Israel and in Jerusalem

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for Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution.

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Not merely wrinkled his nose at it,

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not merely forgotten it or pushed it aside,

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but profaned the holy institution which God loves

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in that he has married the daughter of a foreign God.

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May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob

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the man who does this,

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being awake and aware,

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and yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.

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Let me ask you a thinking question here

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as we're near the start of the sermon.

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The thinking question is this.

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Who created marriage?

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Who created marriage?

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It's not a trick question.

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You got it. It's God.

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God created marriage.

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Now, if God created marriage, does it not follow that God sets the rules,

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the parameters by which marriage is to be operated with,

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by which it is to be functioned within?

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Well, of course.

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If God has created marriage,

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if the institution is derived from his word and his will and his decree,

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if he has instituted it to begin with,

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then it makes sense that whatever laws and application and parameters exist for marriage

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stem from his will.

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Now, has he been silent about these things?

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Not so much.

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Not so much.

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He has been clear right from Genesis through the end of the book.

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Genesis through Revelation.

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You see passage after passage that depicts marriage in the most wonderful of ways.

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In Genesis, it's depicted as a man joining with a wife, becoming one flesh together.

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All the way at the end of the book in Revelation, you see what?

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You see the wedding supper of the Lamb, marriage.

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Marriage is esteemed from one end of Scripture to the other.

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With that said, the world around us likes to test the parameters that God has established in times past.

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Thinking, perhaps, that those parameters only applied to people a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

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Thinking that those parameters, that they're not applicable in our current context.

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So the world around us likes to test the parameters.

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Not just the world around us, but the world of Malachi's day as well.

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From time to era to era, cultures try to reinvent marriage.

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They say, okay, God has said such and such, and yet, oh, what I feel in my heart can't be wrong.

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There were men of Malachi's day who felt something in their heart, a heart that was deceitfully wicked.

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Who can know it?

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But they felt something in their heart, and they pursued the wives of foreign gods.

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What happened?

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Well, we already hinted at this before.

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What happened is this, that as they pursued the wives of foreign gods, the wives brought with them the foreign gods and their doctrines.

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The idols and the practices came into play in Israel.

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Poisoned the well, diluted what they were doing.

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A foreign spouse would bring foreign beliefs,

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foreign religions into the household of God's people.

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Now, we call that syncretism.

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Syncretism, the joining, the fusion of two disparate things together.

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In this case, the fusion of two disparate, contradictory belief systems

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together. Can anything healthy come out of that? Well, no. And that's what we see in Malachi and

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elsewhere. When the Israelites married the daughters of foreign nations, the gods of

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wood and stone entered within. And this had the effect of lowering the bar in their faith and

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their practices. Can you think of any examples? Anyone jumped to mind in scripture that did such

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a thing and was judged for it? Well, how about Solomon? How about Solomon? Now, you remember

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Solomon, right? When you think of Solomon, you probably think of two things. You think that he

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was wise, Solomon the wise, and he was also rich, he was wealthy, he was also famous, he was powerful.

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In his day, Solomon had it all. He had the wealth, he had the wisdom, he had the knowledge, he had

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the esteem, the fame, the power, all of this. Solomon had it all to the infinite degree that

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a human man probably can have such a thing. He had it, and yet it wasn't enough. What did he do?

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He looked out, he saw, he saw the daughters of foreign gods.

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He saw the political alliances perhaps he could make by marrying the daughters of foreign gods.

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And so he did so.

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And he didn't do so just once or twice or thrice.

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There was a myriad, a myriad of foreign wives that he had.

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And the net effect was this.

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That those wives turned his heart against the Lord.

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Solomon, for all his wisdom, the pull on his heartstrings or his libido was too strong.

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And for all his wisdom, he did what he ought not.

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And what a terrible epitaph that is to have, to say, as Scripture says, that his heart was turned.

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He adopted practices, beliefs, or at least he allowed practices and beliefs to go on in the world around him

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that were absolutely, fundamentally contradictory

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to what God had said.

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It's amazing how fast people become pragmatists

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instead of theologians.

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In any case, God doesn't abide with this.

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The very first of the Ten Commandments, what does it say?

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Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

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It's not buried eight commandments deep.

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Thou shalt have no other gods before me,

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And the practices of the people of Malachi's day was to adopt habits and relationships

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that would put other gods on a pedestal, if not above the God Jehovah, at least on par with him.

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Verse 11 says that the people ignored what they knew to be true.

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Verse 11 says Judah has dealt treacherously, not just forgetfully,

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not just kind of they sort of stumbled here and there into sin.

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Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and Jerusalem.

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There is no stronger term, no stronger term of judgment

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in all Scripture than that, abomination.

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An abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem,

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for Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution,

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which he loves, in that he has married the daughter

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of a foreign god.

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The people did not like the restrictions God had placed upon marriage.

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God had told them, this is how it operates.

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This is the parameters. This is the lanes you drive in.

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And they said, nope, we're going to do it our way.

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Why? Because I feel led to.

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My heart says such and such.

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So-and-so is so beautiful.

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The alliance or relationship we could have with their family would be so great and beneficial.

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For all sorts of pragmatic reasons, people did what they ought not do.

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And God was watching.

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God was watching.

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And he looks down on this.

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He says, this isn't just mere sin.

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He says, this is sin in its most extreme form.

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this is treason, what you're doing.

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Now, the people didn't see it that way.

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Understand this.

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In their day and in our day,

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sometimes sin becomes so sugar-coated in the world around us,

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we don't see it for what it is.

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We don't see it for what it is.

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In our day, in our day, what do we call it

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when there's fornication between two couples?

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We call it having an affair.

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When Scripture calls something treason, adultery,

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what do we call it?

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and indiscretion. See, our temptation is to always lower the bar and to identify things

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differently than God does. And yet, He uses the strongest possible language to let us know that

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this is not the way that it works. We are supposed to have control over our minds, our hearts, and

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our bodies. And when we don't do so, again, God is watching. Now, a few moments ago, we asked the

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question, who created marriage? And we answered, God. I hope at home you got that. God created

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marriage. Now, if God created marriage, then again, He sets the rules. If it were the opposite,

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if man created marriage, then man would be free to amend it, right? Our own constitution,

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our own government, man sets up rules, and then man amends or changes or what have you.

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Well, if God instituted marriage and God sets the rules, they come from a transcendent source. We

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cannot override God, no matter how or whether we may care to. If marriage was instituted by God,

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it's he who makes the rules that's not just theologically sound that's just common sense

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which is why it's so amazing and frustrating how marriage is being redefined even in buildings

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with crosses up front if god sets the rules and he was explained point blank what they are

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we're silly and we're sinful to do otherwise in any case malachi's day much like ours marriages

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were being entered into without regards for the rules without regard for the rules the one who

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created an institution to begin with, and the Creator was going to have words with them about

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this. Let's see what he says in verses 13 and 14. And this is the second thing you do. So the first

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thing was God calling the people out about their relationships with the spouses from four nations

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and four gods. And then here we have the second thing. There's a second sin being called out.

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You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying, so he does not regard your

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offering anymore, nor receive it from goodwill with your hands. Yet you say, why? For what reason?

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Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt

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treacherously. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. All of these words are fully

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reloaded. All of these words have implications. All right, the first few verses, God identified

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the people's first problem. They were marrying outside of the faith. In verses 13 and 14,

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the second problem emerges in that even when they did marry the right people, even when they did

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marry other Israelites and the like, even when they did so, even when they married within the

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covenant community, a concept that is carried into the New Testament when we read that we're

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not supposed to be yoked to unbelievers. Even when they did marry fellow Israelites, here's the cruel

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irony. They were not being faithful to the ones that they married. Even when they married the

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right people, they broke the covenant with those people. See, God had a problem. God had a problem

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with the way that they broke their covenant. The people broke their covenant with him. That's what

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we saw a few verses ago. He says, I have a problem with the way that you're breaking your covenant

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with me by allowing what you do in your faith and your practices to be polluted by the daughters

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of foreign nations, foreign gods. I have a problem with how you're dealing with the covenant that I

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have with you. You are being treacherous in this arrangement, treacherous in this agreement. So he

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says that's a problem. But then he says the second problem you have is that even when you marry

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rightly, then you break the covenant one with one another. It's not just you break the covenant with

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me, but you have covenants that you make with one another, and you break them. You break them.

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You know, adultery and fidelity, divorce, remarriage, these things cause great pain in

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our world. They cause great pain in Malachi's throughout all the ages. And verse 13 recognizes

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that pain. It recognizes not just the sin, mind you, but the pain it causes. When it says this,

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It says that the wives would come to weep over the altar, so to speak.

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There would be tears and groaning and wailing over this sinful nature.

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Specifically here, the men are largely what's called out.

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And this picture is that the men were being unfaithful in what they were doing.

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And that their spouses were wailing out to God out of their hurt and out of their pain.

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As they were mistreated or abused or disregarded.

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And God says, you're doing all that?

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You're treating the wife you have a covenant with in such a way,

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and then you've got the gall to come in and offer me a sacrifice and think we're good?

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I think that takes care of everything?

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You've got the gall to treat your wife in such and such a way,

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and you've got the gall to come in and make an offering before me?

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He says, I don't want it.

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It's his equivalent of, you keep it.

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He says, I don't respect that gift.

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I will not receive it with goodwill, is what we see in the New King James.

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Why not? Why not?

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Well, again, because God says, I'm a witness to what you've been doing.

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He says, I'm a witness.

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I've seen how unfaithful you've been, even if no one else has.

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I've heard the cries from the spouses, even if no one else hears them.

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And my holy heart is impacted, and I will act.

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I will act.

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And again, he calls this, he calls what they're doing treason.

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This morning, if you're married here, take a look.

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I pointed to it earlier.

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Take a look at your ring.

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I trust you have.

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Well, take a look at it.

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What does that ring symbolize?

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Well, the reason we have rings is because they depict for us the covenant that we entered into on that day long ago.

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Or not that long ago, depending on how long it's been.

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But they depict the covenant.

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We exchange rings as symbolic indicators of our love.

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Yes, our love for one another.

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But our faithfulness.

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It's a sign of the covenant relationship that we have entered into.

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That we will be faithful.

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And there's vows, right?

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It's not just rings, there's vows.

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Through sickness and health, or richer and poorer, better and worse, and the like.

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We make promises.

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Promises we don't honor the promises we've made so often.

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And when we don't, again, God notices.

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See, the implication of verse 14 is that He notices.

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He says this, He says, I have been a witness.

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Like the three-fold cord we see in Proverbs.

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A man, a woman, and God who's intertwined and strengthens it.

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When that cord is broken through some action or fracture by one of the spouses,

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God isn't like surprised and He's not indifferent.

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He's telling them a witness on behalf of the aggrieved and against the guilty.

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Even if a spouse doesn't know the full measure of one's iniquity, God does.

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And He doesn't sit idly by while covenants are trampled.

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Covenants that oftentimes are made right here in churches before witnesses.

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He doesn't take this lightly.

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The Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have dealt treacherously.

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Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

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Not wife by convenience.

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Not wife by happenstance.

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Your wife by a covenant that you willfully entered into.

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Now I want you to notice the word treacherously has the same prefix as the word treason.

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Either of those words, wow, they can sound heavy on our ears.

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Talk about Scripture being a double-edged sword

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that strives to division of soul and spirit.

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When it calls out this sin as treason for some of us,

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it's like, oh, wow, it's heavy.

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And again, that's why our culture adopts benign-sounding alternatives.

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Scripture calls it treachery.

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The world calls it an indiscretion.

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Scripture calls it fornication.

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The world calls it having an affair.

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Scripture says such and such behavior is an abomination.

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The world says we can take great pride in this.

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God has one view.

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He has one view of marriage and its application.

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The world has another.

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And it uses different language and different terms to address it.

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Which terms have you bought into?

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Which language? Which laws? Which parameters? Which precepts?

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Remember, if the institution comes from man, it can be defined by man.

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But if it comes from God, no.

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Not so much.

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If it comes from God, we dare not redefine it.

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And unlike the priests who shrugged and looked the other way in Malachi's day,

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we can't just wink and pretend it doesn't exist either.

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We address it.

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Call it out.

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All right, when a third party, we're going to look at verses 15 and 16 here in a moment.

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When a union between two spouses is violated,

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when a third party violates the intimacy of that union,

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the union, spiritually speaking, it's fractured.

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it's fractured and to prove that it is fractured shattered even god has permitted for such a union

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to be dissolved by something that we call divorce now does god hate divorce you better believe it

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he hates divorce but that should tell you how much he hates infidelity and covenant unfaithfulness

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that he would permit or even allow divorce under these circumstances let's look at verses 15 and

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16 verse 15 did he not make them one having a remnant of the spirit and why one for he seeks

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godly offspring therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously take heed be

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proactive are you letting something into your life that you ought not are you on websites you

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shouldn't be you cast looks at people you shouldn't look at take heed to your spirit and let none deal

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treacherously with the wife of his youth. For the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce,

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for it covers one's garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. Therefore, take heed to your

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spirit that you do not deal treacherously. That idea of taking heed occurs twice. This morning,

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what do you and I need to do to take heed? What possible sin is entered in or is on our radar

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that ought not be.

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What are we doing to take heed?

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Let me explain something

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about the spiritual aspect of marriage.

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If we're not careful, we can say,

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okay, God set it up, he set laws,

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and like a top that he spins,

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and you just want to see how we do within it.

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Well, that's not the case here.

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Marriage has spiritual implications

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that we have to linger on.

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You see, the union between husbands and wives,

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it's a wonderful thing.

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As we said, it's a joyous thing.

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It's a joyous thing for us as individuals, but it's also very important, spiritually speaking, in terms of what it signifies.

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You see, the union of a husband and a wife was always meant to highlight the union, the marriage, between Jesus Christ and the church.

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Between Jesus Christ and the church.

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See, in Ephesians 5, which Doug read earlier, when the Apostle Paul talks about marriage, he says that when a husband and wife are married,

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The two, the two become one.

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They become one flesh.

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And intimacy, when that occurs, that's a sign of that.

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The two becoming one.

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With that said, in Ephesians 5, something interesting happens.

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On the one hand, he starts off, he's talking about marriage.

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He's talking about this wonderful thing where a man and a woman are together.

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And they are one.

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They are one body.

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They are one flesh, so to speak.

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With that said, he goes on to say this.

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He says, this is a great mystery.

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But I speak concerning Christ.

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And the church.

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You hear that?

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One minute you're reading it and you're going, okay, this is marriage 101 here according to the Apostle Paul.

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And you're seeing what he has to say and the importance of marriage.

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And all of a sudden he says, aha!

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He says, but I want you to notice something.

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He says, there's a great mystery here.

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He says, the institution of marriage, for as wonderful and important as it is, you should know this, O reader.

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You should know this, O church.

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You should know this, O congregation.

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That it points to something even greater than itself.

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It points to and it signifies something even greater than itself.

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As a human institution, it points to something spiritual, is what Paul says.

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He says, it's a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

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You know, whenever we talk about the gospel, we're talking about the good news.

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That God has looked down at a broken and hurting world.

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And our world is clearly broken and hurting in the present day.

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He looks down on a broken and hurting world, and he calls out of that sinful, stained, besotted world a bride unto himself.

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A bride that we know of as the church.

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And he works, Christ works diligently to prepare and clean, sanctify that bride, that she might be holy and radiant in his presence.

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You have a bride that is the church, and you have a groom that is Jesus Christ.

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In Revelation, we see that one day that bride is fully cleaned.

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One day that bride is fully prepared.

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There isn't a sin upon her.

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At that point, we see the great wedding supper of the Lamb.

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There's a wonderful spiritual implication to the earthly institution of marriage.

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And because that's true, when we sin against our spouse,

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when we break covenant easily, readily,

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It has far greater implications, spiritually speaking, than we even know.

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This is a holy institution, not a practical, pragmatic one.

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How many people enter into marriage just for pragmatic reasons?

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I don't want to be lonely.

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I'd like to have children.

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That guy's attractive.

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That gal's attractive.

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Sometimes we enter into marriage for very practical reasons,

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but the thing is, those practical reasons can change.

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People don't always stay the same.

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If that's a spoiler alert, I'm sorry, but they don't.

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People don't always stay the same.

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I was not this gray when my wife married me,

425

and she tolerates that and more.

426

We change. We change.

427

Often times for the better, sometimes not so much.

428

But things happen in our lives, and we're called to have a devotedness

429

towards one another in the midst of all this.

430

Whatever the case is, in our own lives,

431

we can turn and become faithless towards one another

432

when our dynamic changes.

433

Perhaps when a third party enters our life.

434

We can pursue things we ought not pursue.

435

We can treat covenants as, you know, no big thing.

436

And honestly, the world encourages us to do that.

437

Is there not one parameter of marriage

438

that hasn't been thrown underfoot by the world around us

439

in recent years and decades?

440

Not a one.

441

The world encourages us to do that.

442

Where has it gotten us?

443

Nowhere we want to be.

444

Nowhere that God wants us to be.

445

God looks at marriage and he says,

446

this is a great institution.

447

It typifies the love that Jesus has for the church.

448

And because of that, you and I are to keep it holy.

449

Enter into it carefully.

450

Treat the covenant with great reverence.

451

Even sometimes when our spouse doesn't make it easy.

452

Treat the covenant with reverence.

453

You know, God's love for the church, Christ's love for the church, is infinitely faithful.

454

But imagine for a moment, imagine that it wasn't.

455

Imagine if Christ could fall out of love for the church.

456

Imagine that God only loved you when you're lovable.

457

Is it not possible that he could fall out of love for you one day or another because you aren't being lovable?

458

Well, yeah, if that's the way he worked, but he doesn't.

459

It would be terrible, it would be scary, it would fill us with dread if God could fall out of love with us

460

when we weren't being lovable enough, when we didn't please Him enough, when we didn't do what we ought to do.

461

How much anxiety would we have if God could fall out of love with His people,

462

or if His love was a fickle and flighty thing, or if it might change based on our infidelity,

463

which is often spiritually the case.

464

The good news this morning is that God is not fickle.

465

Christ is not fickle.

466

And even as the church has been faithless in times past,

467

even as the bride has been stained with sin in times past and present,

468

the groom remembers the covenant.

469

And the groom is faithful to uphold it.

470

See, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel,

471

is one where our Savior gave himself up for his people

472

in spite of who they are, not because of it.

473

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel in which

474

A glorious and radiant groom embraced and sought out a very tainted bride and proceeded then to wipe away all that bride's hurts and fears and sins.

475

To present her as blameless to himself.

476

The gospel of Jesus Christ is about the pursuit of a faithful one, of those who are often faithless.

477

Of a sacrificial one

478

For those who are often selfish

479

Of a covenantal one

480

For those who often break their covenants

481

If that's the sort of love

482

That Jesus has for the church

483

Which it is

484

That should present itself as a model

485

For our love for our spouses

486

For our relationship to our spouses

487

Even when our spouses make it difficult

488

as we often must make it difficult, so to speak.

489

This is a good lesson here in Christ's love for the church

490

and how we are to be sacrificial and faithful

491

no matter what may happen in the world around us.

492

In any case, let me return to verse 16

493

as we look to wrap up this morning.

494

In verse 16, God says,

495

there's a hatred of divorce, right?

496

Divorce is bad.

497

Divorce is negative.

498

God does not like divorce.

499

It covers the garments of the one who pursues it in violence.

500

Divorce is bad.

501

And yet, in verse 16, we see he apparently allows for it under strict, specific circumstances,

502

the most obvious one being the infidelity, the faithlessness of one of the spouses.

503

Do you understand how grievous a sin infidelity is?

504

It's not an indiscretion, and it's not just having an affair.

505

It's treachery.

506

It's treason.

507

So much so that God identifies it as an acceptable basis for pursuing something that he absolutely abhors, and that's divorce.

508

If he'll prevent divorce because of it, how bad a thing must infidelity be?

509

God's not indifferent.

510

God's not indifferent.

511

He didn't want people in Malachi's day to be indifferent.

512

He wanted Malachi to tell them the way it is, so they might act accordingly.

513

Again, before we close, let me offer some related encouragement from this text.

514

This morning we've touched upon some very difficult issues.

515

And as I said before, I'm sensitive to this because I know that many of us have been impacted personally,

516

either through our own choices, choices of parents, children, loved ones, friends, neighbors, brothers, sisters, and the like.

517

Most of us can relate to those who have had a broken relationship, a broken marriage, or the like.

518

so let me let me offer some encouragement some encouragement if that's us this morning in a room

519

of this size some of us know that pain well in fact some of us have been the recipients of scar

520

tissue upon our back from relationships we've had with others that that hasn't gone away even as the

521

years have passed for others of us for others of us we may have been the ones to lay that scar tissue

522

upon someone's

523

back. With that

524

said, although Scripture

525

calls it as it sees it,

526

Scripture calls these things out,

527

there's a reminder that the Gospel

528

is predicated upon

529

possibilities of repentance,

530

forgiveness,

531

sanctification,

532

reconciliation,

533

and a

534

promise that in due time,

535

all of the hurts that these things have caused

536

us will be wiped clean.

537

the hurt you feel from your own choices

538

or from choices someone else has made,

539

the hurt you may have for being the children of parents,

540

whether it's been abuse, whether it's been brokenness,

541

whether it's been infidelity, the pain you may have from experiencing

542

any of this in person or through loved ones,

543

you will not carry that pain forever.

544

You will not carry the stain of your own sins forever.

545

Christ even now is washing us clean of these things.

546

Christ even now is calling us out of the world.

547

And this morning, the warning, reminder, and encouragement we have

548

is to consider our marriages, if we indeed are married,

549

to consider marriage as an institution,

550

to see it for what it typifies, and to respect it as such.

551

To not enter into it wantonly or carelessly,

552

and not to abandon it without scriptural precedent.

553

And as we do so, as we drive within the lanes of Scripture here,

554

as we follow God's rules, if we operate within His parameters,

555

As we do these things with marriage, the church will engender a healing

556

that's greater than we can possibly know.

557

If the world was to follow suit, a great deal of the hurts and the anger

558

and the animosities that we now have would be redressed.

559

The families and marriages, covenants, repelled with the sort of love

560

and honor that God himself accords them with.

561

You and I can't be accountable for everything else that goes out

562

in the world around us.

563

But we are accountable for our decisions.

564

This morning, let the word of God sink into your hearts.

565

Let it cause you to inspect your own relationships, one with one another.

566

To perhaps act differently than you have in times past.

567

To perhaps guard you from sins in the future.

568

And to honor and respect a covenant that points to the most significant covenant of promise you cling to.

569

The promise that God is calling out a people, a bride for himself.

570

And on that great day, we will dwell with him in glory.

571

Let's pray.