UPSIDE DOWN KINGDOM Week 14: DEALING WITH DIVORCE, WEEK 2

There was a time in Israel’s history after the exiles had come back from Babylon. Many of the people, while living there in the foregin land, had intermarried with the pagans living in Babylonia and Persia. God had forbidden His people to intermarry, not because He thought mixed race marriages were wrong, but that He knew how easy it was to stray from one’s commitment to HIM when your marriage partner is worshiping a false god.

So, in Ezra 9 we read:  After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel… have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices… They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.”

When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles…

Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. Now honor the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.”

Ever read this before? Hear a sermon on it? Intriguing event in Israel’s history where God’s remedy was actually putting away the foreign wives. In other words - Divorce. Why? Because these marriages weren’t the kind that honored the Lord.

Which begs the question: Does God bless all marriages? Seems like maybe the answer isn’t what you’d expect… And another question: Are there times when God actually PERMITS divorce? Again – for many of us, the answer isn’t what we have come to THINK it is.

When I realized the implications of this, it changed the way I ministered. For a long time, I was willing to do ANY marriage that came across my desk. Thought I was doing a good thing: helping two people to not live in sin anymore. But in light of this event recorded in Ezra, it dawned on me: If these two folks aren’t even believers; if they don’t understand the idea of a covenant representing God’s love for us, then, even if they go through the rigamarole of a ceremony, aren’t they STILL living in sin??

God blesses marriages where two people understand that this is GOD’S covenant in which THEY get to participate, and so submit their wills and lives to the Lord’s purpose through their marriage. 

Remember from last week we saw how marriages were GOD’S design, they were GOD’S covenant. And therefore, since they were spiritually legal arrangements, the only way out of them was to be permitted by a spiritually legal arrangement. But what does that look like, in reality? Is it, like the Catholic Church, a matter of annulment? Where is the Christian leadership team that gives out certificates of divorce? And what are the grounds that God would permit divorce?

Let’s go back to the Sermon on the Mount, Matt. 5, and see what Jesus says in vs 31-32.