Matthew Chapter 19 Verses 1 – 2

• I just love what that verse just said and even more I absolutely love the hidden truth it contains. Matthew writes that Jesus healed them there…not many of them…not some of them…He healed all of them…and that’s immediately where my attention goes when I read this…to the fact that Jesus is indeed the only One who simply heals. That’s just what He does. And the word there in the Greek is magnificent. The word for healing here is “therapeuo.” (Strong’s G2323 – The double dunk, HA!)
• I need therapy…anyone else? HA! Emotional therapy. Physical therapy. Spiritual therapy. I need help, man. All the time. How about you? And this is what the Lord does…He provides that all encompassing, life generating, spirit restoring, hope installing therapy right into your heart of hearts. The circumstance may or may not fix…but He knows how to fix me and make me able to stand…to face the day…to overcome the problem and to find “best…” This is His desire for me and for you…
• But, that’s not all of the hidden truth…Matthew says, “He healed them THERE.” Where? Where they FOLLOWED Him to…do you see that? That’s the word that means both “followed” and “reached for…” I love this! This hidden truth that is so TRUTH! That He is able to soothe, calm, and strengthen me. To show me, to teach me what’s really going on and what exactly I should do. To assure me and fill me with the love, power and sound mindedness that I need to watch the fog lift off of any terrible trouble…but…am I wanting Him to do that where I’m at or am I willing to follow Him to where He is…?
• That is the hidden truth. Follow Jesus…go where He is…seek Him and reach for Him in His Word and His ways and His will and you will…well…you’ll fix…that is the perfect setting for the subjects that Matthew will now present to us in this chapter…

Matthew Chapter 19 Verse 3

• This subject and question are really touching on a cultural mess that they had at this time surrounding marriage and divorce. (And if they had a mess, we have a catastrophe) The mess was because in the law, specifically Deuteronomy 24 verse 1, it is written, “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house…,” and so on…and so the mess was really over the definition of “uncleanness.”

• There were two main schools of thought originating from two prominent rabbis. The first was Rabbi Shammai who held a conservative view that uncleanness meant strictly infidelity…while Rabbi Hillel taught that uncleanness could be virtually anything. From hair being left down in public to burnt toast. Which do you think was more popular? OF COURSE! Why? Because Hillel appealed to the flesh! Anything you want man…declare her unclean and divorce her…

• And so this was the popular view at the time although there were some pretty funny sayings…Barclay says that the Rabbis would teach that a man with a bad wife would never face hell, because he has paid for his sins on earth! HA! But actually the more popular saying was that if you did have a bad wife, you had a religious duty to divorce her…to purge the uncleanness…and so this is a mess, still is today…and they think they have Jesus trapped. Answer one way, risk unpopularity. Answer another way, contradict His non-flesh filled teachings…(70 times 7, eh?)

Matthew Chapter 19 Verses 4 – 6

• This is a major major statement by Jesus! The will of God put on display…the original plan of God laid out in plain clarity…that God made marriage, male and female at the beginning, and set out that the two would become one flesh. This word, “joined,” in its original use in Genesis literally means, “to be overtaken by the other, to become a combination,” and the implication is that the individual no longer exists…and Jesus says, once that happens…there’s no going back…back is gone…this is the will of God…the plan of God in terms of marriage…
• And so, what God has done, man has no right to reverse…in fact, man has no capability to reverse! God’s will…70 times 7! 70 times 7 irreconcilable differences per second…and I know, you right now might be hating me…but hey, these statements aren’t meant to make you feel like I’m saying deal with him or her…I’m not, that message is so unpopular that for $150 bucks anyone can divorce anyone for any reason…I’m saying, know what you’re signing up for in the first place! Amen!?
• One flesh, man! For better or for worse! Rich or poor. Sick, health…for life! One flesh…know what you’re signing up for and mean what you vow…God has done something here mysterious…untied a person from everything and everyone else and tied them to one other person…and they become ONE. Understand that when you enter into marriage! April came to kiss me the other day and leaned her head back…wouldn’t kiss me! And I said, “What!” She said, “Booger!” I said, “Get it! One flesh!” HA! The struggle is real, I know…but you gotta know what you are saying “I do” to…because things can get ugly…or…boogery…HA!!
• Jesus says, God’s will, what God has joined, the spiritual work of taking two people and making them one flesh, let not man separate…man, woman, lawyer, judge, mother in law, father in law, friend, sister, brother, step child, hot co-worker…NO man…

Matthew Chapter 19 Verse 7

• See, that’s not what happened at all! This is a twisting (HUGE twisting) of God’s word in order to serve the flesh…and this is the tat of folks that walk in pride, piety, laziness or any other kind of sin…Moses never commanded! God commanded! (And His command was not divorce!) Moses permitted! God does not permit! He suffers! And so Jesus answers…

Matthew Chapter 19 Verses 8 – 9

• And so Jesus sides with Shammai! Do you think he was in the back dabbing? YESSSS! HA! Maybe not but cool thought…, right!? Anyway, Jesus again, as He has done with every step of His life, shines the light on the dark heart of man…, “Moses did not command, but rather he permitted,” and really his permit had been taken to the extreme!
• You look at Deut 24 and really it was written to dissuade in a way…don’t put her away and think you can ever have her back…I bet in Moses’ day that caused more saved marriages than divorce certs! And Jesus gives what we call “Biblical Grounds” for divorce…of which there are three. First, fornication. Sexual immorality your Bible might say and this is taking that one flesh and defiling the sanctity by joining to another…sex outside of marriage…and folks have twisted this to serve the flesh as well…
• This is fornication, period. You cannot join your flesh to a computer screen, to a magazine, to a rated R movie…and believe you me, I’ve sat with folks that want to divorce over Facebook images talking about because she looked at them or because she sent them, I have grounds for divorce. Not so. Jesus did not have Facebook…He’d break it anyway with every statement, right!? HA!
• And so if you want to take this and culturize it then where do you stop? Rated R movies? Looking at a female’s feet…hey, some folks…that’s their thing…Jesus meant exactly what context and prudent inductive Bible study would conclude…that adultery, fornication is what and only He is talking about here…
• And there are two other instances of Biblical grounds for divorce in the will of God. All others are sin…If the spouse dies (and the other spouse doesn’t have anything to do with their death, HA!) or if one spouse refuses to live with the other due to their faith…that’s it….and so know what you’re getting into please when you say that vow…because you are not signing a contract, you are entering a holy covenant…not with them, with God Himself…and so the disciples respond brilliantly…

Matthew Chapter 19 Verse 10

• HA! You see they knew and understood because Jesus was being very clear…only in the most extreme circumstance is divorce biblically allowable…everything else, 70 times 7…why? Because marriage is a glimpse, a picture of what God has vowed to us through His Son, Jesus Christ….
• Jesus died for the sins of the world…so that each and every man and woman that has ever lived can be healed of sin…perfect in the presence of a Holy God once again…just like it was at the beginning…but three ways man can divorce or refuse God…1) die to Him; 2) choose to worship the flesh, worship man, worship woman….offer worship to someone or something else…adultery…; or 3) simply blaspheme the Holy Spirit…refuse to be with Him…but not His will…His will is that none should perish…the question is, to whom have you vowed…to whom or what have you joined to…is it Him?