The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:01 Thanks Sarah for the reading of the word. Just a little bit of advertising. Every month we do a sermon on family
00:07 life. This is what family life does in case you're not aware. And u you just want to gently encourage if you have any
00:14 issues um uh in life as what's written there. We want to just encourage you to
00:22 talk to us. Don't don't suffer alone. That's the purpose of the church. Uh Netflix had a series recently last year
00:30 uh you me her I love you too. Let me
00:35 welcome you to the world of polyamory as opposed to being polygamous in the
00:42 polyory. Now let me just explain why we sometime bring up these things. Uh the church has to respond to the times. We
00:49 have to respond to the LGBT issue. This is basically the world responding to the
00:56 failure of marriage. And because failure of marriage is so high, divorce rates are so high. Now there's a new
01:02 proposition. You know, you can have more than one partner by consent. As opposed
01:07 to polygamous, polygamous is when a man can have multiple wives. Now a woman can
01:12 have multiple husbands. And you can have multiple partners all consenting. You
01:18 can have uh one firm partner. They call it a nesting partner. And then you can have a few you can have they even have
01:24 their own languages also. So this is the world of polymory. And why does this come about this this
01:31 this complete break from the traditional centuries held view of marriage? Because
01:38 marriage may be a wonderful institution who wants to live in an institution.
01:43 Marriage is breaking down. 50% of marriages don't last and uh so the world
01:48 comes up with many things. So today we're going to take this very difficult topic. This is this is quite a
01:54 controversial topic and I want to I want to uh pre-qualify myself first. Number one, I'm not referring to anyone in the
02:00 church. Please don't don't don't this completely not reference to anybody because I have over the years spoken to
02:07 fair few people who are been in these shoes. So please they're not. Number two, I'm not an expert but we've done
02:13 quite a lot of reading in this. And third is this uh in in chapter seven you have Paul a single man telling giving
02:21 advice to married people how to have sex. What does it mean? It means that even though you're not married, you're
02:26 single or you're a widow or you know you're in whatever position you are in a position to help those who struggle in
02:33 this area. So I hope this message will be a blessing to all of us. Uh I may say
02:39 things that may be a bit offensive uh is from my own understanding of scripture. This is a controversial topic. Let's
02:46 have grace to discuss this. Let's come before God in prayer. Lord, we uh ask for
02:52 ask for humility in this very difficult topic which is divisive. Ask that we we hear you and not hear our
02:59 own convictions because sometimes we all get very emotional in this. And the issue of divorce in remarage on one hand
03:06 we want to show compassion to those who suffer. Divorce is messy. involves children, finances, dignity, sometimes
03:14 worse than death. But there's also your word and your word is sometimes has standards which we find it difficult to
03:22 live to. So teach us to uphold this to grace towards those who suffer in
03:27 divorce and also the sanctity of your word. And may we say do this and may I
03:33 preach what is pleasing to you in Jesus' name. Amen. We're going to just break this into two
03:39 parts. Uh people have told me in the first service that this quite a lot. I should be doing this in a series and and
03:44 and maybe I'll do it. But today I'm going to just gloss over everything. You can't really talk about marriage and
03:50 divorce in 45 minutes. Not possible, right? So let's let's try to just go through some basic principles and I
03:55 won't be able to execute the whole chapter 7 but key verses. Let me just begin with uh some some context. Chapter
04:03 7 begins with a letter the Corinthian church wrote. Now for the matters you wrote it is good for man not to have
04:10 sexual relations with a woman we don't know what is the letter there are two views one that there's a group going
04:17 around Korean asking people to abstain from sex I know the anti-ex group that's
04:23 one I'm not so sure that's makes sense quite likely is about sexual morality
04:29 because chapter five and six deals with this so when we look at chapter seven
04:34 and the beginning when he says is good for men not to have sexual relations with woman. That's contextual. He's not
04:40 asking people to be celibate. Quite likely, I think, and some scholars agree
04:46 with this. This is what you call euphemism, a phrase. It means don't treat a woman like a sex object. That's
04:52 what it means. Now, that finds support in verse four, which I've highlighted.
04:58 And it's quite interesting how he looks at sex. You know, the wife doesn't have authority over own body, but yields it
05:03 to husband. And at this point what the man says, "Oh yes, of course." Then he flips it. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own
05:09 body, but yields it to his wife. Simply in conjunation, the function of a man is
05:15 to please the wife and the function of wife to please the husband. That completely flips it from the Corin
05:23 Corinthian context of sexual immorality where women are used as sex objects. So
05:28 let's use that as the basis because verse four is what you call a covenant
05:34 relationship. So point one marriage is a covenant not a transaction.
05:40 See all of us enter life this way. We come into life we want to find someone get married have kids die together.
05:49 But here's the tragic reality. Firstly about 30% of people I think don't get married. They want to but they
05:55 don't. and they get bitter. Out of the 70%, statistics tell you at least 45%
06:02 end up in divorce. That takes it down to even less. The balance are not those
06:08 unhappy marriages. You know, stats will show you again at least half if not more those are just in the marriage because
06:14 of their kids or they bore with a husband or dependency. So the actual percentage of people who are happily
06:20 married is very very small. So if you're not in that, don't be discouraged. You're in the majority.
06:28 You're the majority. Now, why is that so? Let me let me explain a little bit the difference
06:33 between marriage in the Jewish time and now. In the Jewish time, do you know there was no such thing as a marriage
06:39 ceremony in the sense that you come up and someone gave you away, you got married, they take you on a horse or a
06:46 donkey or a pony, they take you to the husband's place, they dump you there, you're married already. Full stop. Have
06:52 you noticed in the Bible there's no marriage cere ceremony? No officiating thing. There was only a dinner in those
06:59 days. Everyone got married. I wish I could do that. I wish elders had the power to marry of young people. We'll
07:04 make the world a safer place. You young man, you young woman get married. And then it was so. But unfortunately, young
07:12 people don't agree with this. So what can I say? But what I'm trying to say is this. Marriage nowadays has been
07:18 overblown because let me explain a few things. Okay? And I'm I'm getting this from this book by Timothy Keller. This
07:24 is a great book. I suggest you read it. It's called the meaning of marriage. Basically, he's saying
07:31 that we come into marriage with two issues. One with and this is very I
07:36 think it's very meaningful. Number one, unrealistic expectations. Unrealistic. Very much filled by
07:44 pressure. If you're not married, you're not complete because you see other friends getting married. So, unrealistic. I want to get married
07:50 because everyone's getting married. Number two, baggage. So, two things, uh, unrealistic expectations and baggage.
07:57 The baggage mainly comes from your family because you see mom and dad, maybe the marriage wasn't fantastic and
08:04 so you tell yourself when I get married, I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen to me. So, what happens
08:09 essentially is that you're going into marriage with a void. And so, you put a lot of pressure on the
08:16 spouse. The spouse is expected to fill this void. one unrealistic expectations
08:23 and b the baggage from your family. And that's why majority of marriages break down because after a while you're trying
08:31 to ensure your spouse behaves in that way to make you happy and he or she
08:38 doesn't. And we call this a transaction. You see the Bible calls it a covenant.
08:46 A classic example is Hosea. We will go to that later when we deal with uh uh adultery uh and divorce. Ephesians is
08:54 the clearest case because the church is the bride and revelation tells. So the
08:59 way the way God looks at marriage is that your marriage is between a man and
09:05 woman is a reflection between God's marriage to his people. That's key. You
09:11 know, that's absolutely key. John Piper puts it this way. Uh marriage is your
09:16 covenant that reflects God's larger covenant. You see the three re world views on marriage. Most Christians are
09:23 worldview too. I get married for one another. I want to get married but I'm going to get married in a Christian way.
09:30 But the the what the Bible tells us is you get married for God's sake. That's very radical. In fact, later on in the
09:36 book uh in in in a later chapter, it says whatever you do, whether you eat or you drink, do it for the glory of God.
09:42 So when you marry, you do it for God's sake. This is the difficulty. Piper puts
09:47 it this way. The highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ
09:54 and his church on display. This is why marriage exists. If you're married, this is why you're married. If you hope to
09:60 be, that should be your dream. But most of us get married to fill a need, not to glorify God. Not because we want to show
10:07 how the church is to the world. We want to get married because let's be honest, guys, because we're lonely. That's it.
10:15 I'm lonely. I want to find a guy. I'm lonely. I'm gonna find a girl. It's a transaction. You see, transactions have
10:22 a problem. I want to buy a condo. You show me the condo. I look at the illustration. I
10:28 look at the sample unit. The marble is so beautiful. I look at the sofa. The sofa is so
10:34 beautiful. I look at the curtain. The curtain is so beautiful.
10:39 Then I see the real thing. You sell me this kind of marble.
10:46 You sell me this kind of curtain. I show you what I do. So he became very famous.
10:51 Uncle Sledgehammer sounds like a superhero name, man. Why? Because it's
10:57 transaction. Before marriage, you're so beautiful. Like artist impression. So lovely, so
11:05 charming, so wow. I love you. You love me. Let's jump together after marriage.
11:11 Hey, why you so sitting around the house? Don't do anything.
11:16 Hey, hello. I told you to to put the toilet seat down. How many time I tell you also cannot do? Dear, you forgot to
11:25 fetch the kids to school again. What's your problem? This is before marriage. This is after
11:32 marriage transaction. That's what Paul is saying. And I love
11:38 this statement. God created women beautiful so men can love them and stupid so they can love men.
11:45 It's a sexist remark. Now what they're saying is this. Women weaponize
11:52 what they know makes a man flutter. So if you're gorgeous, you're beautiful,
11:58 you all. Hi honey. Or the guy. Correct. You keep the bees around the
12:04 honey. So that's what they do. So women weaponize their feminism to get a guy.
12:10 Guy weaponize what? Because you know women look for stability. Hey man, look at my car. Big car. Look at my abs. All
12:16 right. I'm a big guy. You know, look at me. I got to go. Huh? Come on, baby. Come on me. I'm I'm I'm the man. You're
12:24 not a man. So we weaponize all these things to catch. That's transaction
12:30 language. You catch it. Say see. Wow. Good catch, man. You hear the language?
12:35 Good catch. That's transaction. It is not covenant. Now, the best example is on Game of Thrones. I'm a Game of
12:43 Thrones guy. Okay. Two things coming out of Game of Thrones. One, if you saw
12:49 episode two, there's a discussion between Lady Sensa and uh Denery
12:55 Tagarin. All right. And those who don't know is two women. Women talk. They're very intelligent. Men talk quite stupid, man. So, two intelligent women talk. And
13:02 she asks the blonde, which is the dragon queen, "He loves you?" And she says, "Yes." You know, and she she says, "Lady
13:09 Sansa says something really profound. Men do stupid things when they're in
13:15 love." That's true. They are easily manipulated. That's true, too. So, what
13:22 happens in a transactional relationship? You go into emotional blackmail and manipulation to get what you want
13:29 because you enter marriage with unrealistic expectations, baggage from your family. I want to be happy. You're
13:35 not going to make me happy. I'm going to manipulate everything so you fulfill my needs. And when you do it, you don't
13:40 realize you do it because your mind's not renewed.
13:45 Of course, uh, one of the best lines coming from Game of Thrones was this. A good friend of of of Jon Snow tells him
13:53 when he realized of his real identity, he says, "You gave up your crown for her. Will she give up the crown for
14:01 you?" Those of you who don't know the background, the story, they're all fighting for the throne. But this is what Christ says, and this
14:08 is what Paul says when he says, "Husbands, your bodies belong to your wife. Wives, your bodies belong to your
14:15 husband." Paul is saying, "Husbands, give up your crown for her. You're not
14:21 king of your life. Wives, give up your crown for him. You're not king of your
14:28 lives." Why? Because Jesus gave up his crown for us and died on the cross so
14:35 that we will be called new creations. That is the essence of covenant
14:41 relationship. A covenant marriage is between three people, not two. A covenant marriage seeks God's will, not
14:47 your own. A covenantal marriage serves one another, not negotiate. Covenantal
14:53 marriage keeps no record of wrong. It keeps no record of all the things and
14:59 all all of us know when we fight, we pull out all our database. They call it in the age of data analytics. We've been
15:04 doing data analytics in marriage for a very long time. Don't need big data. Thank you very much. We can remember all the small things we did 20 years ago. We
15:12 put it as ammo in in a fight. We shoot it to our wives.
15:17 The other side also fighting back to you. Wow. When we fight, I can remember all sorts of things. Wow. Other things cannot remember. All these bad things
15:24 are embedded in our hard drive. That's our problem. But covenant goes on
15:31 forgiveness, worship, and a personal relationship. Now, this is such a huge topic. If you guys want I've been
15:38 getting feedback from people. We should do this as a second sermon, right? Today, I just going to gloss over a few
15:44 things. But let me just explain one thing coming out of this. If my body doesn't belong to me, it belongs to my
15:50 wife. Let's be very honest. That means when you're in a conjunal relationship or emotional relationship, you must do
15:55 what makes her happy. Oh yes, my body belongs to you, baby. Take it. Take it. Huh?
16:02 Make me take it, man. That's what you want to do. Do something that makes me happy. That's what Paul is saying. Let's
16:08 get very down and and direct about it. So here's the thing. The problem is most
16:13 of us don't know what makes our spouse happy. So let me ask you all your
16:18 husbands, do you know what makes your wife happy intimately? Bet you you
16:23 don't. Most wives also don't. You you you say I'm wrong. H you say no no no no my marriage is not like that. Okay. Let
16:29 let me do if I did a survey, right? I did a survey at first. I ask all the men
16:35 in the church and I say, "Men, do you listen to your wives?" All the men will
16:40 say, "Of course." If you ask the women in a separate survey, "Women, do your husbands listen to you? Do you think the
16:47 numbers will match up?" Of course, all the women on 90% say, "No, they don't listen." You don't you don't believe ask
16:53 my wife. You always say, "I don't listen to her." But here's the flip side. You
16:58 ask women, "Do you neag your husbands?" Of course not. I only remind him only.
17:05 You go and ask a husband, do you? Whoa, the sentence hasn't finished. Yes. That's our problem. So Gary Chapman puts
17:13 it very easily. Again, this one we could do I could we could do a series on this. You guys interested, we do a series. We
17:19 you got to know the love language of your spouse, right? That's the first takehome. Here's the second thing. You
17:25 see, if marriage is about service, right? Then it involves the body of Christ. Now where do we get this is the
17:32 flow of the chapter. Chapter five is about an indecent act in the family and
17:38 the church has a right to be involved. You can't say well it's between me and my my stepmom. None of your business.
17:43 You can't say that. And so the church stands and the power the church is displayed when they excommunicate this
17:50 person because they afraid of influence on the church. The the the point is if
17:55 you flip it on the other way around is the same thing. If somebody is suffering in church in a marriage the church
18:02 behind you. So you got to look at it from the other side. The other thing is also this if you are people who learn to
18:09 serve one another marriage you're always forgiving the other partner you're always serving it should translate to
18:17 the way you serve one another in church. One couple that really does this right is actually Richard and Leing. You can
18:24 tell they got a good marriage. You know why? Because they're always serving people around. So you see them very cuddly, cuddly, cuddly and then around
18:30 there they just serve. So this is where you see examples. You see accountability
18:35 has shared biblical values and it goes to the body of Christ. This this is the most common image of marriage is not
18:42 complete because if two people serve each other and they know they're worshiping God, it should actually
18:48 translate to other people. You see there's a difference between a good marriage which is between two
18:55 non-Christians and a good marriage between two people who are Christians because two people who can get who have
19:02 a good marriage is actually just isolated. Here's example sometimes in in church we
19:08 meet we meet people know and the guy is a real pain. No not no mention any but real pain you know but the wife is
19:14 fantastic good marriage. Why? because the wife tan the guy that's all. But in a good
19:23 biblical marriage, the role of the wife actually is to tell the husband, "What you're doing is wrong." Because he is
19:29 irritating everyone in church. You go around and tell people all of that. The wife puts up with him. That's not a
19:36 covenant marriage. A covenant marriage actually flows down to everybody. People
19:42 see the fact that because in your marriage, you're forgiving. You're always giving to each other. So when you
19:48 go out, when you meet people in church, in your life group, in in the garden cafe, it also translates out. And it
19:55 goes the other way. When you have a problem, people come and support you. We will deal with that a little bit later.
20:01 Here's the last one. I told you I had to really run through this. Do not idolize marriage.
20:06 I'm going to tell you something which going to make all of you very jealous. I have seen Avengers Endgame
20:14 and I feel a deep urge to do a spoiler here now. I don't know why, but
20:19 something in me just want to tell you and spoil it. That's a sinful side of me. But come on. All right, look at
20:26 that. What's wrong with this Chinese people cry?
20:31 Actually, I can tell you why she cries, but I wouldn't. Okay, little subtle stuff. There's a reason why you cry if
20:36 you watch the movie. She cried so intensely. She was hyperventilating. Come on, man. It's just a movie. It's
20:43 just a movie. Why are you sobbing and crying? Do you know what Paul is saying?
20:50 It's only marriage. That's exactly what he's saying. Don't
20:56 You're a slave. You're single. You're divorced.
21:01 So, you are in Christ. Don't over idolize it. We live in an age
21:09 where the whole idea of marriage is the the end all. If I get married, I've
21:14 arrived. Mom, I'm married. Ah, really? Please. Olden days, get married, we put
21:21 you on a donkey, send you to the husband's place. Bye-bye. That's it. Now, this is like, you know, this media
21:29 coming out, this movies coming out is the idol and it's gotten to ridiculous
21:35 proportions. completely ridiculous.
21:40 I mean, come on. My gut feel people who do this really
21:46 will have marriage problems. Seriously, they will have marriage problem because
21:51 you're idolizing it. You're not looking past the wedding. It's fantasy.
21:58 You see, have you noticed how love turns to hate? Have you noticed that?
22:05 You see, I I I spent time with some people and and you always hear this word
22:10 always again and again. He wasn't like this when I married him.
22:16 There's almost like a mantra, you know, he wasn't like this when I married him.
22:21 As Scott Pack, I I read psychology books. He's he's very good. All right. Um he wrote two very good books. Uh this
22:28 book did nearly didn't get published because it was considered too biblical because he used the Bible very heavily
22:33 in this. He said two things which team Keller picks up in the book. Number one,
22:39 you think you're in love? Oh, yes. I mean, I I I I love him. I I just do. I I'll die for him. I love her, man. I
22:45 just can't stop thinking of her. I I love her. Social media. Social media. Social media. Declare. Declare.
22:51 Instagram. Instagram. Madly in love. You're not according to
22:58 them. You're not in love. Now, this this is very interesting. You're not in love with the person. You're in love with the
23:05 idea of the person. Kellis says this exactly in the first chapter
23:12 because it's transactional. Because when you want to get married, everyone's on the best behavior. Her hair is best.
23:18 He's got good clothes. He's not going to dig his teeth. He's going to be very good manners. His bill belly hasn't come
23:25 out yet. Hasn't lost hair. She hasn't started to nag you every day. He hasn't
23:31 started to do all those things that you know he's he's hiding from you now because he wants to get married to you.
23:36 So Keller puts it this way. Marriage is actually between two strangers. And I'll
23:41 tell you after so many years of being happily married to my wife, it really is that because as you get older, people
23:47 change. That's why love turns to hate. That's the first reason.
23:53 So this whole idea of I found the perfect guy. He's so great. He's so beautiful. He's so what? He's so
23:58 initiative. I'm he's so initiative. Years later, he's so capable, you know. He's so stoic. He doesn't open his mouth
24:06 so much. Not like other people blab, you know, like you know, years later, this guy very to got no opinion on anything.
24:14 You notice that's the way it goes. Now, that's the first reason. The second one is more critical and much more important
24:20 when we look at the issue why marriages break down is called dependency. Because if if in a covenant marriage the
24:27 dependency is God once you take God out of picture the dependency is on the other party. Here's one case I'm trying
24:34 to divert the details because I spend time with people again. Right? So classic case the guy is not doing well.
24:40 So the girl gives him a lifeline. Okay I she's going that mean she's very
24:47 connected. Gives her a few contacts. So he builds his career. He's building his career build based on the context of the
24:53 wife. After a while, his ego gets threatened because the wife is the one
24:58 feeding him. The there's a love because he's very dependent on the wife feeding him the connection, but he's he hates it
25:06 because he can't step out on his own. So, there's a tension going on, you know, because he's trying to prove
25:12 himself and then she doesn't like it because why doesn't he what why does he need me? Be a man. Be a man. You see,
25:17 you see, you take God out of picture, this lovehate thing, the dependency thing comes out. Why do you think abuse
25:23 women stay on in relationships? Now I I tell you where this toxic relationship goes. It's quite important
25:31 and and why is connected to the church? Because the church wants to take God's
25:37 commandment and turn you to a new creation under the cross. That's to break free every oppression. That's
25:43 Isaiah. That's Luke. So when when a when when when the church comes to a husband and wife to say, you
25:49 know, you shouldn't be doing this. You are head of the household. you you should be initiative and we tell the guy
25:54 you should lay down your life for your wife you should do this. Now what happens when things in a toxic
26:00 relationship someone changes the other partner doesn't like it because they're too used to the toxicity. So let's just
26:07 say a guy has been abusing the wife all these years verbally and mentally and we tell the wife being in submission
26:13 doesn't mean to stand up for this because husbands should not do this. Do you know what the husband's going to do?
26:20 The husband's going to emotionally blackmail the wife to choose between the church and him. I've seen this again and
26:26 again again. That's what you do. And the way they do it is to bring out guilt.
26:33 That's why people are stuck in toxic relationships. They can't break out of it is dependency.
26:39 So let me just give the baseline and we'll go into a bit more detail and again we could do a series. Paul
26:44 basically tells us this. You know, each man should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned
26:52 to them. He then talks about circumcision, uncircumcision, virgin, slaves. But the issue is you live as a
26:58 believer. As a believer. So if your husband's toxic, you live as a believer.
27:05 And he goes on later on the present crisis. He tells you how people should be single. But let me just go down to
27:12 this. I'm saying this for your own good. Verse 35, not to restrict you. You may live in the right way in undivided
27:18 devotion to the Lord in a covenant relation relationship. Sometimes this creates even more tension with you and
27:25 your spouse. But in the end, you honor God. Let let me let me give a simple
27:30 example. I mean I'm now in a very good place with my wife. Really am. It was not so in the early years. We used to
27:36 fight anything. And the more I look at it, I was trying to change her and she was trying to
27:42 change me. The moment you let it go, I say, "Look, I'm just going to honor God and I'm not going to let this affect me
27:47 on a daily basis." You find marriage goes much, much better. I learn to tell myself, "This world in
27:54 its present crisis, time is short. I'm going to use my days to honor you, Lord." And you find suddenly you, it's
28:01 easier at home. Honor God and he will honor you. Okay, that was very brief. No
28:07 way to do justice on marriage. So maybe we'll do the details another day. Now let's step into the landmine. Ah, this
28:13 one very sus. So please don't shoot me. H divorce is difficult. Now let me tell
28:19 you what's so important because it's so difficult. We have prepared a position paper. Okay, this is a draft position
28:25 paper. We're getting it uh tidied up. After all, what happens? This will actually will go into the as an official
28:32 position of FBC on divorce, marriage, divorce and remarage. Uh you want to
28:39 have a look at it. I brought a few copies. We need to do this because I think
28:44 there's a lot of confusion in the church on no what is divorce, can I get
28:49 remarried and all of that. So let me just again stress we are not here to judge people. If you're in church and
28:54 you're divorced, you got married under strange circumstances. Welcome to ABC, right? This is a place of grace. But as
28:60 a church, we need to have some clarity. Let me just explain a few basic principles. The issue isn't marriage and
29:06 divorce. The issue is this. This is the area of controversy.
29:11 So I I want to tell you what I think scripture says and and if it's offensive, please have some grace. It comes from a clear conscience. The issue
29:19 of remarage ties to this issue. Are you biblically divorced or
29:24 unbiblically divorced and the idea of what constitute biblically divorced is also controversial
29:31 and in the end is issue of conscience because everyone has their own convictions in this. So this thing is
29:37 convoluted. Now I did a lot of study. I'm going to tell you historically where the church stood and then we go to
29:43 scripture. Number one, this is how the church stood for the first 500 years from 200 BC to 1500 and various
29:49 councils. This is basically the position of the Catholic Church. If you're Catholic and you're here, welcome to ABC
29:55 to the Catholics. No such thing as divorce. And all the early church fathers held that position. So some
30:02 argument, some people say no remarage. That's it until the spouse dies.
30:08 But there's a problem with this view. Let me just tell you because the early Catholic Church took marriage as a
30:13 sacrament. Sacrament is like communion, like baptism cannot be broken. So the early
30:20 church was very very stuck on this. But to be fair to the Catholic church, they didn't see divorce and remarage as a
30:28 very major sin. And that's something we also should look at. So if you meet somebody who screwed up his life when he
30:35 was young, got married under bad circumstances, treated the wife badly, got divorced, remaraged, give the guy a
30:41 break. Right? We all sinners. So this whole issue of divorce, remarage isn't the sin of all sins. I really want us to
30:49 uh understand this. The center of this is grace. And the woman caught in adultery, all the righteous people
30:54 around her because they only looked at a sin. Then Jesus stepped in because Jesus didn't look at a sin. So let let's look
31:01 at that. Now what's interesting is when the Protestant movement started because the moment the Protestant movement
31:07 started, this is where the can of worms open and the top one you can't see is Martin Luther. You look at Martin
31:12 Luther, John Kelvin, William Tinder, all of them allowed divorce under many circumstances. Kelvin even allowed it
31:19 under importancy. So if you're plumbing not working, you can get divorce. You can read between the lines. But that's
31:26 that's how far it was. So but once you come to the 20th century two major scholars John Marray allowed divorce and
31:32 remarage under many grounds William he and genthard in a very very influential
31:37 book which let all the conservatives took on no remarages full stop and you
31:44 will have churches nowadays outside the Catholic church that absolutely will not condone remarage they will not allow it
31:51 so where does FBC stand this is where we're going to spend the next 15 minutes looking at is. So let me give you a few
31:58 different views. Number one, in a in a liberal church, you can remarry under any circumstances.
32:04 Not FBC. Point two, remarage is permitted even the individual was unbiblically divorced, but on condition
32:11 remorse and repentance was shown. Not FBC's position. Position three, remarage is only
32:18 permitted if there's evidence that individually individual was biblically divorced. Now this is where we split
32:25 ranks to ABC also not allowed. I've cleared this with Peter. We're going to
32:32 go to what we feel are very high standards of scripture. This one remarage is not permitted under
32:37 any circumstances even if the individual was biblically divorced except when the spouse has passed away. This is a traditional Catholic position. We think
32:45 it's too hard too no grace in this. This is not our position.
32:53 Remarriage is permitted if the individual was biblically divorced and the other spouse had either passed away
32:58 or had remarried essentially terminating any possibility of reconciliation. We have discussed this.
33:05 We think this is also not scriptural, too hard. So you can have the first tree
33:12 too soft, the D and E too hard. This is FBC's position. Remarriage is permitted
33:19 if the individual was biblically divorced and after the church leadership is satisfied that all attempts at
33:25 reconciliation has been exhausted. This is on a very important case by case
33:31 basis and does not require the other spouse to have passed away or remarried. For a similar statement I brought along
33:38 a statement on divorce remarage by Bethlehem Baptist Church. This is John Piper's church. Very much a lot of us
33:44 what we're doing is adopted from this statement. You can read this. I think this is to me the most biblical document
33:50 out there. I've read a lot, taken a lot of statements. I found this the most biblical and very humbly written.
33:56 Grounds for consideration for divorce and remarry. They call this the three A's. Adultery, abandonment, abuse. And
34:02 abuse in this case physical because the wife or the children the life may be in danger. So three, adultery, abandonment,
34:09 abuse. Now must be very clear this doesn't cover mental abuse. We'll talk about that in a while. So I'm going to
34:16 go through all three. All right. Adultery. This is the classic text. Classic. Matthew 193-11.
34:23 The key verse is verse 8. Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard."
34:29 Now that's important pre-qualification. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who
34:35 divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another woman commits adultery. So the common
34:41 rendering of this verse is that if your partner husband or wife commits sexual
34:46 immorality, you can divorce and remarry. Very common. And out of that two schools have
34:53 formed. One have restricted it to adultery. Another one that you find your husband is gay or he's really kinky man.
34:58 He got all sort of kinky habits. You can also divorce him and get remarried. So I
35:04 want to suggest to you this is not FBI's position. I'm going to explain how we break down the verse. Now, number one,
35:10 this is the only verse that gives what is known as the exception clause. That already gives you grounds to worry
35:16 because Mark doesn't have this when he talks about marriage and divorce. Luke doesn't have it when he talks of marriage and divorce. Romans 7 doesn't
35:23 have it when he talks of marriage and divorce. And more critically, Hosea chapter 2, which is about Hosea and GMA,
35:29 and GM is an unfaithful wife. God tells Homer to stay on even though GM leaves
35:36 Hosea and she eventually returns to him. So there's no precedent, you know. So
35:42 people who say that to base allowing divorce on adultery is very dangerous
35:49 because it's one verse in the whole Bible, they are not entirely wrong. But more more importantly is the context.
35:56 The context of this is verse three. They ask is it lawful for man to divorce his
36:02 wife for any and every reason. Now that's the key. The key is they wanted to divorce their wives for any and every
36:08 reason. During those time the Jews were in three camps. The first camp is called the Shamai camp. You can find this in a
36:15 lot of writings which allowed divorce only for adultery. But most Jews were in what's called the Hilai camp. The hilal
36:22 camp basically said that if the wife displeased you, you can divorce. And it
36:27 was so bad that if the wife cooked the bad dinner, you could divorce the wife. So the wife didn't do the laundry right,
36:34 divorce the wife. The last and the most degrading is called the Akida school. The Akida school was simply this. You
36:41 saw a more younger wife, divorce your wife. You can go for the younger woman.
36:46 Now what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees is basically this. You guys
36:51 are treating your wives as a sex objects, b
36:56 unpaid servants, c completely without respect. That's
37:02 what he's saying. This is a verse to protect women. Because in those days, if you didn't give a woman a certificate of
37:08 divorce, she cannot remarry. If she cannot remarry, it's not like now where women can work. You can't get a job. You
37:14 will end up being a prostitute. That's the context of it. The context is to protect women. That's why Jesus says
37:21 Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
37:27 It's a concession so that women could actually get a letter divorce, go out there, get remarried again so that no
37:34 one can say they actually married to someone else and fend for themselves. So Jesus is one of the first few who
37:39 protected women in a very male chauvinistic society. That's point two. But the key thing that I think breaks
37:47 this interpretation that adultery is allowed for divorce is the word sexual immorality. In verse 9, the Greek word
37:53 here is called ponya where you get the word porn. Now what it means is this actually the
37:60 actual translation you shouldn't look at it as now what we look at it is actually fornication. Now why would you use that
38:06 when people are married you're married you're fornicating every day. It means actually Jesus is talking about
38:13 betroal. Betroal is like a period where you are engaged and you find during a period of
38:20 engagement your wife or your husband has slept with someone else you can divorce that person. Do we have evidence for
38:27 this? Yes. Most clearest evidence is Joseph and Mary because Joseph thought
38:33 Mary was sleeping around. And what did Joseph do? Joseph being a noble man was
38:39 quietly going to divorce Mary. Why? So that Mary could start a new life against
38:44 consistent with Jesus. He was trying to protect her. That fits to here. So what
38:50 are we saying? I I I propose like many scholars this is not the verse that
38:56 allows divorce on adultery. In fact, I tell you there's none. They're consistent.
39:02 You cannot allow divorce just for adultery. You cannot.
39:08 This is story of Sami Ching, Hong Kong super kento superstar. If you follow
39:14 Matthew 19, she can divorce a husband already. Correct. No need to have marriage counseling. All
39:22 of that strictly on that legalistic interpretation can divorce.
39:27 What does marrying? What does Sami Ching do? The husband apologizes. We don't know whether sincere or not because he
39:33 was caught. people caught they can say all sorts of things but what's interesting is this those of you who are
39:38 not in don't follow Hong Kong things I do it because my wife does not me yeah
39:44 serious she's actually a very devout Christian and this is where covenant comes in
39:51 because she released a statement in Chinese you can ask pastor ling to translate it for you
39:56 but basically someone attached this in her posting love never fails never gives
40:01 up never loses faith is always faultful endures through every circumstances even
40:07 when my husband screwed up and had an affair and where does it come from
40:12 interestingly few chapters of chapter 7 that's covenant
40:18 now what am I saying I'm saying that are we saying that if someone is unfaithful
40:23 you let it go no because again covenant God forgives Israel when Israel sins but
40:30 Israel repents if Israel repeated ly does not repent, God cuts them off.
40:37 It's the same thing here. So you must give a chance for the party to repent. But after attempts at repenting, he
40:43 still wants to stay the other woman. I think the church should consider divorce. That is the point. But it is
40:49 not taken from Matthew 19. Let's be very very clear on it. Matthew 19 does not give you a license to divorce.
40:57 A lot of scholars, Piper, all of them all agree with this. Now what is more
41:02 important is for us as a church how we stand with people who have this problem because by the time you come to the
41:08 church the the woman already has got a guy wrapped around the fingers because you know men are stupid and they
41:15 easily manipulated that's the mantra really all all women do this you know you know uh sometimes u someone says I
41:22 trust my husband I I would tell the person I don't even trust myself you know why I have been faithful to my wife
41:28 all these years I never had an affair because I don't trust myself. I don't trust myself. That's why I'm
41:34 faithful because the flesh I have no confidence in the flesh is what Paul says. So the way we do is
41:40 accountability. The proper accountability is no one want to tell you because they take your blood to the whole world. So what we're doing in
41:46 family life ministry, we're going to eplatform. We go to e- platform and e-platform
41:51 allows you to enter our website with a with an anonymous name and says brother
41:57 honor I'm sleeping with a girl I don't know who you are so I can reply you and
42:03 says okay let me pray for you and then we start from there is easier to kill
42:08 the sin that way so this is in the works we we probably will roll this out next year but the whole idea is how can you
42:15 and I come alongside people who struggle here's another one if if Do you know someone in the church is willfully doing
42:22 it to the to a wife or husband? Your job is to support the wife because she's going through hell. Here's the next one
42:29 which we go back to Corinthians text. Okay, bear with me next five minutes we go through all this heavy stuff. Abandonment. The the contentious verse
42:36 verse 10. To the married I give this command. A wife must not separate from a husband. If she does, she must remain a
42:41 married or else be reconciled to husband and a husband must not divorce his wife. So some people take this verse as
42:48 blanket. That's it. Now there's a problem with the interpretation because verse one we just read. He says it's
42:54 good for men not to have sexual relations with woman. It's contextual. If verse one is contextual, it flows at
42:60 verse 10 is contextual. The context found in verse 12. Verse 12 to 16 is
43:05 about people married to non-Christians which FBC has a lot. And the key verse you want to go is verse 16. But if the
43:12 unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother, the sister is not bound in such
43:19 circumstances. The key word is the word bound.
43:24 And the interpretation a lot of it simply means if you're not bound means you're released. If you're released,
43:30 this language of slave and masters, you're released to remarry. Why? If a
43:36 non-Christian leaves you, you think he's going to be celibate. He's probably left you for another woman. So if he's left
43:42 you for another woman, it's very unfair. You tell the woman, "Oh, no, no, no. The Bible says no grounds. We'll pray for
43:48 you. You're going to be single the rest of your life." To me, that's highly responsible. Highly, highly responsible.
43:53 So, FBC's position, I spoken Peter. Our position is that this text here allows
43:58 remarage. It's a position held by also John Piper and other scholars. Just again, now what is more important?
44:07 What's important is that divorce is messy. A husband leaves you, you got kids,
44:13 suddenly you can't fend for yourself. And that woman comes to church, has got three kids, husband just left, and then
44:21 goes to Garden Cafe and hears all the other rich people talking about how they're going to send their children to England, to Australia. Guess how she
44:27 feels. That's why involves all of us. It's always the little little things we do that show us, you know, because
44:34 we are sometimes not empathetic. We talk about mates, our kids or where we going to send them and the other
44:40 person is very quietly struggling silently because when people suffer, they suffer in silence. They won't tell
44:46 anyone, you know. And so this is where the church has to go beyond this. We have to go to network
44:54 in legal and also financial. And I want to tell you one thing. There's one sister in our church because I I I I do
45:00 fabulous cases who's been helping legally people who have been divorced. So often my heart goes out to her and
45:07 she doesn't want you to know who she is. But every time we have a case where a a man has been unfaithful to the wife and
45:13 left her in a legally bad position, who we going to call? I call this sister. And she tells them legally this what you
45:20 do. That's how the body of Christ works. And all of us can play this part. Here's
45:26 the last one. Okay. And uh we're going to just go this physical abuse. Now I'm giving you exerts from our official
45:32 statement. All right. And this is it. There are no explicit verses in the Bible allowing for remarage for this
45:37 reason. But major churches and bodies like Bethlehem Baptist Church in USA. That's Piper's church. St. Matias
45:43 Anglican Church in Sydney. That's Philip Jensen's church. More college. The national conference policy of marriage
45:48 and divorce by the Australian Assemblies of God. All consent to this. So we are in good company. They call this
45:53 situational ethics where the church leadership has to assess after attempts at providing counseling to the party
45:59 carrying out the physical abuse. that for the safety of an abused party or children or any other family members,
46:04 divorce is necessary. The the AOG pointed me to this verse which I thought
46:09 interesting. Luke 4:18:19, the spirit of the Lord is on me. He's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has
46:16 sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set your priest free. Here's
46:22 the thing. Sometimes oppression is in marriage. You're a prisoner in your marriage
46:27 because the guy beats you. And for the church to not do anything to
46:33 me, we scandalize the cross. We scandalize the cross. And here's the
46:39 tragedy. We don't talk about this. You actually think in FBC, a size of
46:45 this size, we don't have men who hit their wives. You saw one video going viral, this
46:51 Singapore lawyer, they whack his stuff. I saw it, man. And sometime the guy struggles with it
46:57 because he just turns into a demon when he goes I we had people who don't know why and the job the the job of the
47:03 church is to come alongside and says brother let us counsel let us walk with you and God willing this will be our
47:10 next sermon topic next month for family life. Let me quickly finish this. This
47:15 is our official position. Remarage after divorce is allowed under the following. One spouse has passed away rendering the
47:21 marriage covenant as over. Two, remarage by the agrieving spouse, the person who initiated the divorce as this
47:28 effectively has severed the marriage. If so, if the guy or girl leaves you and remarried, marriage is over. You can't
47:34 wait for the other party to come back. The party whose behavior did not justify the divorce is now free to remarry. On
47:40 grounds of biblical divorce, only three, adultery, abandonment, abuse. This, however, does not automatically mean the
47:47 condonement of remarage. Remarry will be considered on a case-by case basis after all attempts at reconcilation have
47:53 failed in line with teachings of Jesus. Special attention is to be given to protect women who are unable to fend for
48:01 themselves financially by allowing to marry. I want to stress this because this is very overlooked because the principle of Matthew 19 is to protect
48:08 women and that is so true even up to today. I just going to bly go through this one. You don't you can read it but
48:15 when you go through marriage breakdown the church has a process. This is the process we go through. You can read it.
48:20 I don't need to go through it. What if you're not a church member? You're not a church member. We also have policy on
48:26 this. All of this is going to come out in the paper. Right. Let me just let me just wrap up something that is more
48:32 important. The issue isn't about marriage and divorce so much, but how we as brothers
48:38 and sisters help those who go through it. So, let me just give example. Let's just say you go out at garden cafe and
48:44 the conversation goes from what we call automatic talking cocktail conversation. That mean you talk about the weather,
48:50 how your kids and somehow the other party tells you, you know, my husband is sleeping around with someone else. What
48:56 do you do? So I'm going to tell you what not to do. Then we close what not to do.
49:02 Number one, you don't tell the person everybody also
49:10 all men also sleep around you know he want to occasionally go out there and
49:16 drink milk drink milk don't bring the cow back that's what they say in certain thing they call this universal
49:21 universalization more metal after he come back to you never do that
49:28 on the opposite ex extreme is this someone tells you you My husband's sleeping around. Oh,
49:33 really? Let me pray for you. Amen. I I've got to run off now. They
49:41 call this spiritualization. Here's another one.
49:46 My husband's sleeping around. Is it ah
49:52 you know Arnold also I didn't say anything else. You are the
49:58 one who just judged me. Yeah, we call this counter disclosure,
50:06 you know. Uh my husband's sleeping around. Really? Do
50:11 you really, you know, have you been a good wife to him? No. Have you taken
50:18 care of him? You know, men, you don't take care of them. They go everywhere, you know. So maybe you're not doing your
50:25 job. You know, we do that. We call this
50:30 counterfeedback. It's not good. It's counter, you know, helping her no matter
50:35 what. It doesn't excuse her him from fooling around. The problem sometimes that we can put guilt on people without
50:41 realizing it. So that's a problem. So after that then you know we start to
50:48 moralize. We tell people you know this is what scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians 7. You know what this is
50:54 what so and so we moralize people. People people are hurting. They're in
50:59 hell. A painful hell. You moralize. And then after we tell, you know, this is what you should do. I think you should A, B,
51:06 C, D, E. Actually, you should not do anything. What you should all do. I'm going to end
51:12 with this. If someone tells you a problem, here's a simple technique which all counselors teach. You take that
51:18 person's problem because this is what Jesus did with the Samaritan woman. You internalize it and you give it back.
51:24 That means if someone says I I I have my my my husband beat me. I have this problem. You take it and you say so he
51:31 beats you. You're having an affair. Is this what you meant? You basically took her story
51:39 and you made it your story. You know what it does? It shows to people you
51:45 actually do something a lot of us don't do. It's called listening.
51:50 Most of us don't listen. What do you do after this? Very important. Hear this. Come to GMA
52:00 4 hours. That's all. You come to Gaba. Have to advertise. Okay. I want to end here. I just want to just say something.
52:08 Whether you're married, you're single, you're divorced, you're widowed, life is
52:14 hard. Life is hard, right? But under the cross, life is glorious
52:21 because that's what Jesus did. The journey to the cross is hard.
52:27 But the victory of the cross is glorious. And I I want to just say God came to set the captives free. Whatever
52:33 pain you're going through, if you're going through a marital issue, if you're struggling with bitterness because you're single, you're struggling with
52:39 loneliness, this is God's affirmation for you. You are a new creation. You're
52:45 a new creation. Don't idolize marriage. And your marriage, remember, we're in a
52:51 covenant. And you're in a very bad position, going through a terrible marriage, remember the church is here,
52:59 and we're here. And it's our job to show empathy. Shall we pray? Lord, we we
53:05 close in this very difficult topic and I know it's rushing so much into one sermon and ask if is your will we do
53:11 this in a series. But Lord, we ask you give us attentive ears as we sing this song and we ask for
53:17 those who are going through a difficult time, you will heal us as we go through this as we just let worship just as we
53:25 sing to you and to one another that you heal us into this time of of worship. And we say it in Jesus name. Amen. going
53:32 to sing this song.
