God Knows Your Heart, Part 2

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. (Luke 16:14-18)

Since these last verses on divorce and adultery tends to get sectioned off as its own little segment by those who broke down the section titles in the Bible, I’ve included the previous verses for context. But just like we saw last week where Jesus seemingly took a turn into another topic, He’s actually still on the topic of the heart here. He’s just using another example to His initial point that they were justifying themselves before men, but that God knows the heart.

Before we jump in here to this, I know divorce can be a touchy topic, especially in our culture where the divorce rate is almost half of all marriages. As we look at what Scripture says on this, it isn’t to point fingers at you or anyone else, this is simply the section of Scripture we happen to be in and we’re looking to grow in the Lord and understand His word.

Everyone Who Divorces

Jesus makes a clear claim that everyone who divorces and marries another is committing adultery. As we look at this, we have to take this in context to the rest of Scripture, because far too often it’s verses like these that get used as weapons and chains of captivity and that is not the heart of God here. God never intends for His word to be weaponized to keep people captive in abusive relationships.

We get more insight into what Jesus said on divorce in Matthew 19 where it says, And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:3-9)

Paul also spoke to divorce details in 1 Corinthians 7, with the instruction that divorce shouldn’t happen, but that if a believer has an unbelieving spouse who will not stay married to them, let it be so and let the unbelieving spouse leave.

What we need to remember here is that in the whole context of all these verses is the same thing – these are issues of the heart.

Remember in Matthew 5 where Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28) As we look at what Jesus has said about adultery and divorce, we need to remember the true issue of the heart here because that’s where the Pharisees were going wrong, was justifying sins of the heart with a perspective of having purity of the body.

Divorce Exemptions

In the days of Moses and beyond, divorce became an option that was deemed acceptable as long as proper protocols were followed, such as a certificate of divorce. Yet God doesn’t want what He joined together to be separated by man.

Now in light of the verses in Matthew 5 that talks about anyone who looks at someone with lust commits adultery, there honestly aren’t many marriages in which a spouse hasn’t committed adultery then because lusting in the heart is such an unseen thing. The ultimate ideal would be repentance and reconciliation, whether committed with only the heart or also with the body. But if sexual sins are committed, these are where the exemptions come into play.

It is gracious of God though, to expressly word exemptions such as sexual immorality or an unbelieving spouse leaving. Otherwise, there would be people who stay in abusive relationships with their spouse habitually cheating or watching pornography or in sexual abuse or the like, and that’s not the purpose of God saying He doesn’t want divorce.

In an ideal world, people would get married, have a perfectly blessed marriage, never battle with sexual sins, and be married till death parts them. But we don’t live in a perfect world and God, in His knowledge and grace and mercy and love, fully understanding the mental, physical, and emotional limits of our humanness when a spouse commits these sins against us, gives a way out in those extreme circumstances.

The Heart of the Matter

The main reason the topic of divorce and adultery came up as an example was because the Pharisees had been justifying sins and exalting among men what is an abomination in the sight of God. They took things like marriage, given in the Garden of Eden at the beginning of time, and they perverted it. They allowed divorce for little to no real reason at all and then justified themselves before men, when all along God saw their hearts were hard.

When it comes down to it, the whole purpose of bringing up divorce was to point out the wrongful exaltation of sin and justification of it. Whether you’re single, married, or divorced, – the underlying lesson remains true and can be applied across the board and is the lesson Jesus is teaching here in these verses; don’t exalt and justify among men what is sinful in the sight of God.