Long ago I was reminded in a fresh and for me particularly poignant way of the excruciating pain and misery that attends divorce. The situation was that a dear friend of mine who had been married for more than 20 years, a brother who was in fact at one time a student of mine at Gordon Conwell was now a very conscientious and effective minister of the gospel, a pastor in a church. This man suddenly shared with his congregation and with me that his wife had walked out on him. Even if it had not been the case that I was privileged to talk with his wife and discover from her some of the underlying issues. I take it as a matter of faith that every single time a marriage comes to an end there is enough guilt to go around. I don't for a moment think that my pastor friend was somehow circumstances that attend divorce when you are at guilt. But in the aftermath at least as I understand it and as we'll be talking about it both parties share equally in whatever right there is to remarriage. I believe God recognizes by this precept then the fact that all partake equally in the guilt of the breakdown of a marriage. In this particular instance though I have to say the implications were utterly devastating. The church even to this day is still reeling from the pain of watching a beloved couple, a minister much esteemed, have his marriage end in divorce. My friend especially his pain well it was almost indescribable in the months that followed I remember many a phone call where he would introduce himself say hello Gordon and that would be the end of the conversation as he dissolved into tears. More than once I feared that he would do himself harm because of the total anguish loneliness and distress of soul that he was going through. If you've ever walked with anyone through the roller coaster of divorce or if you yourself have experienced this horror you don't need me to portray for you the pain that severe cost in terms of every aspect. Of every aspect of our lives emotional psychological spiritual physical every single aspect is touched but of course none of this should surprise us what else would we expect if we've been paying attention to God's description of marriage beginning in Genesis 2. When Adam declares of his wife Eve behold this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. What else should we expect if we pay attention to Jesus reiteration of Genesis 2 as he says for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one therefore what God has joined together let not man put a sunder as the savior makes plain that one flesh bond is not just a lofty ideal to which hopefully a couple would press but is in fact an accomplished reality. So they are no longer two but one God has already done that work of bringing together the husband and wife what God has joined together let man not put a sunder marriage is a covenant as we have been discussing in previous weeks. And as with every covenant there is an indispensable gesture some symbolic action that depicts the covenant commitment and by which God then ratifies and renews that covenant. I've been persuading you I pray that that gesture that indispensable symbolic act is in fact sexual intimacy that wonderfully depicts the one flesh bond that is to characterize marriage of course marriage is more than just sexual intimacy but it's not less. And that act of making love then is a symbolic picture of the profound communion of life that God demands of every marriage. This is why of course in positive terms the Apostle Paul says in the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He loves his wife loves himself do yourself a favor man you who are married do yourself a favor love your wife. He loves his wife loves himself and on the on negatively the opposite side of the coin it's for the same reason that when a marriage then comes apart that the pain will be exactly like well if God is doing his job it will be exactly like ribs and flesh being torn out of your torso only in this case it will be without the benefit of divine anesthesia. It is precisely to spare us this terrible grievous heartache that our Lord Jesus commends the permanence of marriage and insists that there be no divorce apart from marital unfaithfulness. It's God's intention not just only to spare us grievous pain but also that our marriages would better reflect his own relationship with us and its permanence and fidelity. What may come as a surprise when we turn to the New Testament however is that Jesus was also living in an age in which divorce rates were skyrocketing. It may surprise us when we tend to feel a certain nostalgia for the past that he was conducting his ministry at a time when there was a wholesale collapse of traditional family values. It's true that in the first 520 years of the Roman Republic we do not even have a single record of a divorce now if they took place and it's possible they did for some accident of archaeological discovery we haven't happened to find the record. But in any case they must have been so rare as to leave no trace but starting from the period of the empire from Caesar Augustus who ruled at the time of Jesus' birth and in the decades that followed divorce rates were on the ascendancy. In America the Roman author and moralist born probably the very same year that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was born he decries not as a Christian but as just a sensitive pagan he decries what he has seen all around him he says women nowadays are married to be divorced and divorced to be married. He rejects with disgust to the common practice of his day that women of society were adopting where they would name the year according to which husband they happened to have. Subsequently Marshall another Latin author mentions a woman who had 10 husbands and juvenile talks about a woman who had 8 husbands in 5 years. And admittedly these were extreme cases but they're cited because they seem to be representative of what these sensitive writers were seeing in their culture all around. When Jesus suddenly then raises the bar for divorce you then are not surprised at the horrified response even among his own disciples when they hear what the Savior has to say. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for fornication and marries another woman commits adultery. The disciples said to him if this is the situation between a husband and a wife it's better not to get married. I mean you can almost well you can understand they're logic they're thinking are you kidding you're turning marriage into a life sentence. Who in their right mind would go into such a relationship we all need to have some kind of escape hatch some kind of way out in case the relationship turns you know sour. Come on Jesus what kind of straight jacket is this we might be surprised that the disciples respond in this way of course Jesus answers their response according to its own terms he allows you in fact there is such a thing as a gift of singleness probably none of you have it we know Peter at least later on is married so we know he didn't have it. But yes there is such a thing as being a unique for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and other scriptures and first Corinthians for example a firm the goodness of that gift but don't be frightened away from marriage because of misconceptions about the possibility of life long love. How could they have missed the point these followers of Jesus they must have known the Old Testament. Didn't they know God's high standard for marriage from the scriptures that are in the Old Testament in Jesus day they hold discussion of divorce begins with Deuteronomy chapter 24. That passage is cited indirectly in our in our text when they ask why then did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away they're referring to Deuteronomy chapter 24 they don't mention it because the chapters of the Bible weren't enumerated in biblical times they just refer to the incident the condition of the law but let me read for you the passage Deuteronomy 24 beginning with verse 1. If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her and he writes her a certificate of divorce gives it to her and sends her from his house and if after that she leaves this house she becomes the wife of another man and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce gives it to her and sends her away from his house or if he dies. Then her first husband who divorced her is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled that would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. I hope even in listening just briefly to the law you're already picking up on the fact that this law was not designed to legislate concerning divorce. It mentions divorce more as an aside it's an implication of the text certain things about divorce but that's not its central thrust. The point of the law in Deuteronomy 24 is to prohibit remarriage to a former spouse if there's been an intervening marriage. We might wonder incidentally although it's not really on point but we might wonder why would God take such a strenuous view about remarriage to a former spouse when there's been an intervening marriage. He condemns it in the strongest possible language it's called an abomination in the eyes of the Lord it would cause great pollution to the land. Why would that be so? There are many explanations that have been offered but the one that commends itself to me is to recognize that here as so often in the book of Deuteronomy what Moses is being inspired to give us are laws that will close legal loopholes important correctives to what might have been a seeming authorization of adultery. You see apart from this law a man could divorce a wife and she could sleep with another man under the guise of a legal marriage and then divorce that man maybe the marriage only lasts a night or two as in certain happens in certain segments of Islam. Just a couple of nights marriage then come back to the first marriage as if nothing had happened and so rather than seeming to give legalized authority to adultery this law then prohibits this practice. In any case the law in terms of its implication for divorce not remarriage but for divorce was universally misunderstood in Jesus' day. There was a great debate raging among the contemporary Jewish leaders that is a background for our text. There was one school of thought that was known by the Rabbi Shamay who promulgated the idea that what this text implies is that there must be a very serious cause for the divorce in question. He argues that there must be some quote unseemly conduct on the part of the wife which would surely include adultery but may also include many other lesser immodest acts and here Shamay's comments are just too cryptic to be sure what his position was but it's possible that his view and it seems likely would have included permission for divorce. If your wife for instance went around with hair unbound as the missionary speaks of it that is well we would say she left the house dressed to kill or if instead your wife does as the missionary says she's conducting her spinning in the street or if she talks to a strange man. We might say well she's acting in a flirtatious manner and is obviously on the make. Those would have risen to sufficient gravity to authorize a divorce apparently. The other view which became the by far the most prevalent view in Jesus' day was that of Hillel. His was essentially no fault divorce. He argued that's well the language of displeasing implies that the wife just did something that offended the husband of any kind. Burned the eggs is in fact the illustration he uses. Enough. Be gone. Rabbi Akaba picks up on this and says that the cause for divorce could even be something like you found a woman that's more attractive than your wife. You see now she's displeasing for that reason doesn't measure up or whatever the reason that seems to be the view that is being reflected in their question. They asked these Pharisees to test Jesus is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife or any and every reason. Now it may be that among their insidious intentions the Pharisees want to embroil Jesus on a controversy that will cause him to offend at least half the congregation. Whichever view he takes there'll be others who will be annoyed if he declares himself a Republican the Democrats will all head out. If it's Democrat it's the Republicans who are irritated. If he takes the more lenient view the sticklers will be offended if he takes the view of Shamay the more conservative view the libertarians will be offended. But there's actually a deeper reason for their question a much more hateful and clever one. The text tells us in verse one of Matthew 19 when Jesus had finished saying these things he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. That's the explanation for the question. That's why they're asking it now. He said, well why? So what? Okay, he's in Judea now. Big deal. Well you see he's just now moved into the region where Herod is king. And if you remember the gospel account it wasn't long ago that Jesus predecessor John the Baptist had made the fatal mistake of condemning Herod's marriage to Herod. And because he condemned that marriage as illegal and offensive to God. That's why Herodius then asked that he be decapitated. The Pharisees figured that no matter how Jesus answered the question he'd be signing his own death warrant. And Herod and Herodius would once again do their thing to eliminate another troublemaker. What they weren't counting on is the fact that Jesus did not actually agree with either Hillel or Shamay. In fact he disagrees with everybody. He disagrees first of all with the underlying premise of what they're hoping. You see the problem according to the tabloids of the day the problem of Herod's marriage to this Herodius is the history of it. Herodius had been married to Philip. And Herodius using Roman law realized that well you know this marriage is going nowhere. Her first husband Philip was a loser. And she wanted to make a clever career move. And so with no provocation no biblical justification she divorced him. And according to all the schools in Jesus' day Hillel and Shamay and Comron and anybody else a woman could not divorce him in. But Jesus disagrees. You see Jesus isn't fooled by what had become the fashion under the influence of Greek culture. But you have to remember that the Jews of Jesus' day have a very jaundice view increasingly with respect to women that they inherited from the classical world. The tendency of the Greeks to denigrate women made then the Jews of Jesus' day all too ready to assume that the Old Testament had the very same negative opinion of women. And Jesus' view was that don't insist on inclusive gender language. It's an anachronism. Even when the Old Testament refers to men and husbands and so on it no less is applicable to women. Before you remember I read it a moment ago in Deuteronomy 24 it says if a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her and he writes her a certificate of divorce gives it to her and sends her from his house and so on. But if you read it with a gender literalism implies that only a man can divorce a wife. But Jesus recognizing that it is conventional for the Old Testament to write in terms of androcentric language that is in terms of male centered language recognize that this was no impediment to women at all. So in the parallel to our text over in Mark chapter 10 he pulls the rug out from everyone on the discussion the problem is not who initiated the divorce. It's what's the ground for the divorce. Let me read it for you. He answered anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her there's the general rule and that's a rule with which everyone would have agreed. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man she commits adultery that's the one they would have all fallen back on and what she can't divorce him not permissible ever it's not a legal possibility. In first Corinthians chapter 7 Paul likewise then speaks about a woman divorcing her husband and in fact we have documents from the fifth century BC before the Greek period that show that the Jews in fact understood their own Old Testament as allowing women to divorce their husbands when there is a ground of marital unfaithfulness. The same kind of gender literalism by the way also influence the Jews as you may know with respect to every other law. Deuteronomy 6 Deuteronomy 11 tells families that they're to teach the law to their sons and so rabbi Eliezer said if any man gives his daughter a knowledge of the law it is as though he taught her lethary. You see because the Bible says you teach your sons this literalism failing to appreciate that the Bible for economy of language mentioned sons but obviously apply as daughters as well. Similarly our Lord Jesus could well have taken exception to a narrow application of the 10th commandment it says you shall not covet your neighbor's wife does that mean you can covet your neighbor's husband. Of course not or someone blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel the ungodly does that mean a woman can do it and not worry of course not you see just got to read the Bible the way Jesus did. Recognizing male and female are always included just change the hymns and her to hers as needed the he's the she's the husband to wife the wife the husband and so on. The second point with which Jesus disagrees with his contemporaries has to do with their misunderstanding Deuteronomy 24 as if it approved these divorces or even commanded them. The typical view was that actually it commanded and if you want to see why if you read into the king James version you'll understand why they might have jumped jump to that conclusion. But Jesus argues that no you've got to read it in context. Jesus is not overthrowing the Old Testament understand he's just overthrowing the Pharisees misinterpretation of the Old Testament. He reminds them that if you read Deuteronomy 24 in context the same Moses who wrote that wrote under the inspiration of God Deuteronomy 2. In an order to understand what marriage and what causes of offense within marriage might allow divorce you've got to understand God's purpose for marriage. In other words Jesus is saying this hardness of heart this concessionary nature of the law for the hardness of heart he's saying that this is in a case of regulative law. Regulative law you and I are familiar with this I like many of you have been working on my taxes of late. And it turns out that the US revenue code has a very interesting provision when it comes to declaring your income did you know this. You must declare anything you earned by way of embezzlement or theft. I suspect there are some here are going to have to amend their returns right. This is true the law requires you to report all income from embezzlement and theft. Now does that mean the federal government approves embezzlement and theft that they would have a law about it. Well by no means this is what we call regulative law law that simply doesn't authorize or approve a practice but is there to mitigate some of the harmful consequences of that practice. In Deuteronomy chapter 23 we have a similar law it says that if you had any earnings from a livelihood as a prostitute you're not allowed to tithe them you can't bring them into the temple. Now does that mean that prostitution is okay just so long as you don't tithe? Well of course not it's regulative law and so also in this case. The Jews of Jesus day began to think that the only thing that mattered was the procedural details. Remember in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5 Jesus said it has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. As if that's the only requirement you want God to smile on your divorce all you have to do is give the certificate. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for fornication causes her to become adulterous and anyone who marries the divorce woman commits adultery. Jesus is not fooled this is regulative law yes the certificate is required for a valid divorce yes God generously provides it for the protection of women. With that certificate they now have legal proof of the dissolution of their marriage. That means if they enter into a second marriage their first husband cannot come barreling in smash down the bedroom door and say that they have been accused and that they have not been found in the act of adultery and should be stoned. It was a law that regulated a practice for the protection especially of the woman but it does not approve that practice in every case. Well then when if ever would a divorce be approved when if ever would it be possible to divorce a wife or a husband and not sin by divorcing them. Well it may surprise you that Jesus would allow any exceptions but he does. There is one situation translated in the most transliterated way as fornication one situation that would allow a marriage to be dissolved by divorce one situation and one only. Why does Jesus conclude this? Well because Jesus knows the Old Testament and he knows that even God on occasion in terms of the marriage metaphor God divorced Israel. In Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 8 I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce in center away because of all her adulteries. You can have better ethics than God. If God divorced Israel on the ground of adultery on her infidelities then it surely cannot be sinful to follow his example. If your wife or your husband has committed a similar offense. Now of course it's a marriage metaphor God isn't literally married to Israel and it wasn't literal adulteries. It was idolatory although incidentally the idolatory that Jeremiah speaking of involved sexual immorality in the worship of these gods. I don't think that's incidental. Isaiah chapter 50 verse 1 likewise uses the image of divorce that God divorces Israel. Well the New Testament think of Joseph in Mary. According to Matthew chapter 1 Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace. Therefore he had in mind to divorce her quietly. Joseph had incontrovertible evidence he thought of Mary's infidelity. She was pregnant. Of course we know that it was by the Holy Spirit. It was a virginal conception. The angel had to disabuse Joseph of his misunderstanding. But nevertheless the Bible doesn't condemn him for that plan. And you and I ought not to condemn one another for those divorces that in fact have been precipitated by marital infidelity or bifornication. I guess the question is what's fornication? That's the operative term we need to know what it is. Jesus could have said adultery. He uses the word adultery, the Greek word, in the very same verse. He talks about anyone who divorces his wife except for fornication and marries another woman commits adultery. He has the vocabulary. If he wanted to restrict the offense to just adultery he could have. Instead he uses the word fornication and in my judgment the reason that he does that is in order to have a more comprehensive term for any overt act of sexual immorality. Not just adultery narrowly considered but this would also include and we have examples from the Bible as well as the contemporary Greek documents of this word usage. It would include acts of homosexuality, it would include bestiality and every other kind of illicit sexual activity. It would also include and this is most important in my opinion willful desertion and let me come back to that. Let me say something first by way of preface. There is a discussion as many of you may be aware of in our day about Jesus teaching on divorce. There are many who think that Jesus overthrew the Old Testament or amended it and then that the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 amended Jesus teaching kind of over through it. It is assumed by some people that in the Old Testament somehow rather God had a more lax attitude about divorce and that Jesus tightened it. But that Jesus maybe overstated the case insisting that there is no ground but fornication and then Paul comes along and says well Jesus hadn't anticipated this new situation. We have got to allow divorce in the case of the desertion of one by an unbelieving spouse. That is what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 7. He allows desertion to be a cause for a divorce without sin. In my opinion that is completely misguided. Jesus has insisted that he will not overthrow the Old Testament, he is not improving on it, he is just correcting misinterpretations. And likewise Paul is not about to overthrow what Jesus taught when he taught with such severity and clarity that there is only one ground. The problem is to be resolved by understanding that fornication is a more comprehensive term and includes willful desertion. Now what does that mean? Well it means for example a case where a spouse leaves for Greenland with no forwarding address. We are not talking about kidnapping, we are talking about willful desertion or a spouse who refuses conjugal rights over a long period of time as Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 7. It also includes in my opinion cases where spouses commit felonies and are therefore rightly incarcerated for their wrongdoing and so have committed willful desertion against their spouse. It also in my opinion would include cases of severe abuse such that it would trigger an act of a judge to bow place a restraining order on your husband or your wife. That willful criminal behavior of threat to person or well being of your children or your spouse results in willful desertion and so the Bible would permit divorce on that ground in my opinion based on what Jesus said and based on how this term is used elsewhere. Does that mean that you then ought to divorce a spouse who is abusive or that you must divorce a spouse who is committed a sexual unfaithfulness and of course the answer is the good news is no. The Bible nowhere requires divorce and you should never and if you ever do you are offending against God's principle that you are not to add to his word you should never tell someone that they ought to get rid of that jerk. You should never tell someone or express a disappointment that they forgave their husband or wife. The fact is we have marvelous examples in Scripture of Hosea forgiving his wife Gomer of none less than prostitution or we have an example of a Levite in judges chapter 19 a Levite whose wife commits fornication against him by deserting him you'll notice. By going home and for four months she's away but he goes after her and who's her and wins him her back to himself there's nothing wrong with it indeed it is a marvelous to be prayed for outcome. Nevertheless what is the good news in such a view? Well the good news is that Jesus Christ places such a high premium on fidelity in the permanence of marriage. Let me boil it down for you if you're married right now and you've been thinking about divorce because your spouse and you just having a hard time getting along everything you say is red they say it's green and just differences about the kids everything. Here's what Jesus said don't give it another moments thought don't waste your mental energies plotting or devising divorce it's not allowed. There is no wisdom no insight no plan that can succeed against the Lord Proverbs 21 don't do it well then you say oh no you mean God is condemning me. Demning me to live with that man that miserable excuse for a husband does he hate me that he would wish upon me this sentence of a continued ugly marriage and my answer is of course not. God doesn't want that kind of marriage for you what God wants is a whole new marriage with the very same man. In fact that's the real disappointment about divorce people cheat themselves because they think they need a new wife or a new husband every five or so years. What Christ wants for you is a new life or husband every day a new creature in Christ they're lying right next to you in your bed that you wake up next to as Christ is forming his own likeness in them far from being bad news it's wonderful news. Well you say what if what if we're already divorced and I didn't know this we hadn't had this sermon yet here at Park Street. Well the Bible is not hopelessly idealistic it recognizes our sin names it as such the Apostle Paul and 1 Corinthians 7 says this to the married I give this command not I but the Lord this is based on something Jesus. Jesus explicitly taught rather than just something implicit when he says not the Lord but I it's implicitly taught by Christ this is explicitly. A wife must not separate from her husband but if she does separate she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and a husband must not divorce his wife so there's plan B. If you got divorced and there were not proper grounds then you need to remain single pray for the gift of singleness that you might be content and joyous in this state or be reconciled. Please say well wait a minute I've gone beyond plan B. I need a plan C because I've already entered a second marriage apparently one that I shouldn't have one which Jesus would warn me against calling it adultery against that first marriage. Which I allowed to end merely based on differences and personality or whatever and I say well you know the good news God has a plan C to he has a plan D by the way also E F G Z 1 Z 2 Z 3. His plan for you now I would disagree incidentally with some very dear Christians who would say that if you're now in a marriage you are in perpetual adultery and you need to be excommunicated that is not my view my view is that your honeymoon what's an adultery against that first marriage but now though this marriage should never have taken place now God's will for you is to love this wife as Christ loves the church. Even as David's marriage to Beshiba should never have taken place but then once it did Christ adds his blessing in fact of that union come Solomon whom God named Jedi because he was his favorite kid and of whom ultimately Jesus is born. Your situation is like Israel who should never have entered into a covenant with the Gibbianites in Joshua chapter 9. The Gibbianites were Canaanites they're supposed to kill Canaanites but instead they ate a meal together the bride fed the groom the groom fed the bride and now that a covenant has been sealed God's will for Israel was to honor it and love the Gibbianites the very people they should have nothing to do with a day earlier now have got to be their best friends. And if they ever sin against them it's perfty it's exactly what Saul later does when he tries to start doing in Gibbianites and God is furious in 2nd Samuel 21. God's will under see his love your wife even as Christ love the church second marriages are not second class marriages all of us are retreads this is sinners anonymous. Recreations of Christ in his will is for us now what if I'm in a troubled marriage is this any good news well I say yes imagine what if Jesus had said I don't permit divorce unless there's a disagreement or I don't permit divorce unless you have personality differences you know one of you is a little given to melancholy in the others to upbeat. Would this be good news no what we have here in the word of God is what's good news that Jesus considers marriage with his help to be so durable that only one sin can go against it in terms of its nuclear definition of marital fidelity of the one flesh bond depicted in sexual union by the way this shows Jesus has a view very similar to the one we've been talking about that seems to lay such stress. On sexual intimacy that's the only kind of sin and it's various byproducts that can be so grievous as to excuse and justify divorce. But then I say then it's amazingly good news you don't have to worry about incompatibility by the evidence of scripture you can be so incompatible one of you can be a Christian and your spouse can be a non-Christian. That means your whole life orientation is 180 degrees from where your spouse is and yet you know what the Bible says you can't be more different than that. You know it's not just two careers you know I'm a lawyer he's a doctor and you know somehow rather this no I'm a Christian he hates Christ. Yet Paul and Peter first Peter chapter three emboldens us to hope that you can win your spouse by your example and this is not a justification for divorce. What then you say what if she's fallen out of love with me she doesn't like me anymore well I say then your marching orders are simply this even if she hates you. You need to learn how to overcome evil with good the Bible tells us this is our general rule of thumb. You need to be especially scrupulous because your wife who's looking for an excuse is examining you with a microscope give her no evidence to use against you. Inexplicably love her returning good for evil so that she would be a fool to leave you let that be your thought at the beginning of the day in the end of the day that you are going to be such a husband that everyone looking from the outside will say to her Sally you'd have to be a fool to leave George. And likewise if she's a Christian you've really got a invincible secret weapon if she's a Christian then you know she loves Jesus right. All you have to do is look more like Jesus and then she'll fall head over heels and love with you invincible weapon but you say well the problem isn't her it's me. I just I don't have any more feelings for the woman I'm like a vacuum I look across the breakfast table and feel nothing well then I say I've got some good news for you. God is in the business of giving us the gift of love go to the well spring we love because he first loved us whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how we know what love is Jesus Christ lay down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers go to the savior ask him to fill your heart with such love it's just like a cup that's overflowing and it will overflow on your spouse. Let me encourage you to when you're so given to be nitpicking and extremely sensitive to her or his faults. Remember in the scriptures you need to be more offended by your own sin than by anyone else's Jesus said why do you look at the spec of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own I remember clearly as as if it were yesterday one wonderful marriage counseling situation I was in for weeks the husband kept pointing the finger and saying she's a creep you should you can't believe you can't believe what she did to me the other day. The other day and so on and so forth and then he came to Christ this doesn't always happen I wish it were the case but right in the middle of our counseling sessions he came to Christ and it was like night and day I've never seen it before so vividly right smack in front of my eyes the next counseling session he begins in it's all my fault. It's worse than she says and then he began telling on himself things that she wasn't even aware of here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm the worst may God enable you in me if we're in marriage to love our spouse with a love that only can come from Jesus Christ and will perfectly therefore reflect by his grace his own love for us let us. Father in heaven we ask that you might so empower us fortify our resolve those of us who are in difficult marriages to not give up but to be emboldened by your precepts encouraged by the fact that nothing else need worry us in terms of the breakdown of a marriage that whatever problems we've had you can solve in may our lives henceforth the demonstrations of that fact and we pray for those in our midst who might be cowering back from marriage because they're afraid to make such a lifelong commitment may our marriage is being encouragement to them indeed a cause of holy envy that they might realize that you who invented marriage stand behind it and will give us the requisite love even until death do us part in Christ name we pray. Amen.