The Way To Growth In Christlikeness - Part 5

We want to continue our study in growth in Christlikeness, which is the title I've given for our study of the Sermon on the Mount. And so far we looked at nine right attitudes that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 5, which are also known as the attitudes by some. That's in Matthew 5, verse 3 to 12. We covered that and we saw at the end of it that Jesus said, this is what makes the salt have its taste and this is what makes the light shine brightly. So if you don't have these qualities and if you don't pursue them, the salt will lose its saltiness and the light will become dim. And that's how the foolish virgins missed out on being ready for the coming of the Lord. So this is a very relevant passage in relation to the coming of the Lord. And we saw that the salt refers to the inner light, invisible, but which can give taste. And the light refers to the outer visible light that your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father. Then we're 17 onwards, Jesus speaks about the law. Moses came down from the mountain and gave a law to Israel, which was showing them a little bit of the heart of God for mankind. Now Jesus expands on that and he says, now what I'm going to tell you now is not canceling the law and the prophets. No, I did not come to abolish them, but I came to fulfill them. Please remember that. So in what we read in Matthew five, six, and seven is an expansion and a fulfillment of the full purpose of the law, which was seen only in a very small way, 1% of it in the mosaic law. Here, Jesus explains that same thing. It's not an abolishing of the law, but making that 1%, 100% the full picture. And then he goes on to say that your righteousness must, he says, if you cancel any of these commandments, you'll be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, verse 19. But if you keep even the least of them, he shall be called great. The important thing here in verse 19 is to see how Jesus gives importance to the least commandments. So that teaches us there are commandments which are more important than others, but the test of our obedience is not in whether we keep the main commandments, which even non-Christians may be keeping, but in whether we keep the least commandments. That's where our fear of the Lord and love for the Lord is tested. Not in the major commandments, but in the small ones. Please remember that always, right through everything in the New Testament, there are major commandments and commandments with Jesus called here in verse 19, the least, the least means right at the bottom, not as important as some of the others, but our value in God's kingdom is determined by our attitude to the least commandments. And even in the church, there are commandments that are very small and there are commandments that are big, and many Christians glory in the fact we're keeping the big ones. That's fine. But to be great in the kingdom of heaven, according to verse 19, you're tested by what your attitude to the least of God's commandments, because the important thing is not what the commandment is, but who gave them. Almighty God, Jesus Christ gave them. So then the least is as important as the greatest. Okay. Now we go to verse 20, which is again, what Jesus was saying about fulfilling the law and the prophets. He says, the Pharisees only understood the external letter of the law. And unless your righteousness surpasses, exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. So the righteousness of the Pharisees, when it exceeds, Jesus is not talking about how often you pray or how often you fast or how much money you give. He's talking about the quality, the quality of the righteousness of the Pharisees was cleaning the outside of the cup, as he said in Matthew 23, and the inside was dirty. It's very clear. And now he says, your righteousness must exceed that. Meaning if your righteousness is only on the outside, you're no better than the Pharisees. If you keep only the external commandments that people can see and admire you for and esteem you for, you're no better than the Pharisees. And we don't apply that to believers in the church, to every one of you who are listening, born again Christians. If your testimony is only something that other Christians admire, because they can see it, you're no better than a Pharisee. The important thing is the inner life, the salt, which cannot be seen, but which can be tasted. And God is the one who tastes it. In other words, that inner life, which only God can see, that is where our righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, not in quantity, but in quality. In other words, not just our words and deeds, which others can hear and see, but our words and deeds in private, which the vast majority cannot hear and see, and our thoughts, which nobody can see, not even the devil, only God, our attitudes to people, inward attitudes, not how we behave towards them, but our inner thoughts about them, our inner motives with which we do something, which can be discerned by discerning believers, but otherwise it's hidden. So these are the areas that are important. So if you want to seriously grow in Christlikeness, you've got to concentrate on thoughts, attitudes, motives, and words and actions done, which are not seen by your fellow church members. Evaluate your Christian life by these things I just mentioned. And then he says, I'll explain to you, the Lord says, what I mean by your righteousness will succeed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. First example, he says in the old covenant, the law was Moses gave was, you shall not commit murder. That was the law. He said, no, I'll go to the root of it. The Lord says, murder comes from anger. So the mosaic law was only giving you the surface thing. The outside of the cup, you don't commit murder. The outside of the cup is clean, but the inside of the cup can remain dirty if you're still angry. And most Christians who glory in the fact that I don't commit murder, the inside of that cup is filthy because they got anger. And it's, Jesus speaks here about three stages, how this anger can develop. It starts with just being angry in the heart, and then you're guilty before the court. And then that anger, which is in the heart, comes out through your tongue in a few words to your brother and rude words, and then you're more guilty. And then to not content with that, you go on with still stronger words against your brother in anger. The anger is exploding now. It's like a volcano. Then you are guilty enough to go to hell. So anger in the heart is the first of three steps to hell. That's what Jesus said. Now, very few Christians believe that. Hardly any church preaches it. And yet Jesus said that if you hear these words, remember the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and you don't do them, you're like a man who built his house on sand, he can stand for your whole life. But when Christ comes back, it'll be discovered there's no foundation there. It was destroyed because you heard these words, but you did not obey them. You did not seek to get rid of anger in the heart. Let me show you a verse in Ecclesiastes, which says here that anger dwells in the bosom of a fool. Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse nine, because that's where Jesus started speaking about anger. The last part of Ecclesiastes seven, verse nine says, anger is dwelling, making a permanent residence in the heart of a fool. That's what a person is, who's got anger in his heart. But this person who's a fool with anger in his heart, we read here in Matthew five, verse 22, calls his brother a fool. He thinks there's something wrong with him, but he doesn't realize this anger in his heart makes him a fool. And he's a bigger fool when he expresses it. Now, how many of you have seen that? Unless your righteousness goes beyond the righteousness of the Pharisees, that means we don't just clean the outside of the cup where we control our tongue and don't say anything angry. That's Buddhism and yoga. Whereas Jesus taught the cleaning the inside of the cup, but there's no anger in the heart. It's from there, from the heart. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 12, that from the evil treasure in a man's heart, the evil words come out. The mouth speaks, this is Matthew 12, 34. The mouth always speaks of that which fills the heart. So don't just say, oh, that was in an unguarded moment that I said that. In an unguarded moment, you discovered what was in your heart, face up to it. Like a saintly person once said, a cup full of sweet water can never spill sour, dirty water, however violently it is shaken. So if it is sweet water in your heart, no matter how violently somebody shakes you, what will come out is sweet water. And if what comes out in this provocative situation is bitter water, you've got to thank God for that person who provoked you because he helped you to see what is inside your heart. He helped you to see the snake that was hidden under the cupboard when he toppled that cupboard. Thank God that he toppled the cupboard and exposed the snake hidden there. Anger is something very serious. It says in Ephesians 4 and verse 26, Ephesians 4 and verse 26, be angry. That's a command, but don't sin. It's not, don't be angry, let's read it carefully. Be angry, but don't let it be sinful anger. So there is an anger that is not sinful. And there is an anger that is sinful. We need to distinguish between the two. And like I've often said, when you want to know the meaning of an English word, you go to an English dictionary. And when you want to know the meaning of a word in the written word, you go to the living word, the word made flesh, which is Jesus. So Jesus is our spiritual dictionary, the word made flesh. And how do I see in Jesus, be angry righteously, but don't be angry unrighteously. Very clear. When Jesus saw people making money in the name of religion, in the name of the Jewish faith in the temple, he was angry. He made a whip of cords and chased them all out, toppled the tables of the money changers. Another time when he saw the Pharisees unwilling to let him heal, a man was sick in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. It says he looked at them with anger. There was anger in his eyes, even though he never said anything. And then he rebuked those Pharisees and healed the man. So where was Jesus angry? Whenever the glory of God was being touched or affected in the temple, in our case in the church, or when people were very hard on someone who was suffering. Whenever people were violating the law of love to God and love to man and violating the principle of doing everything for the glory of God, Jesus was angry. When they violated the sanctity of God's house. And when was he not angry? He was not angry when they called him visible, he forgave them, Matthew 12. When they spat on his face, he forgave them. When they crucified him, he forgave them. So he was not angry even when they killed him. Even when Judas betrayed him, he put his arm around him and said, friend, you betrayed the son of man with a kiss. So what we see there is, be angry whenever it concerns the glory of God and never be angry when it's only you who's affected. Now, is that what we see in Christians? No. How would Jesus react? For example, today, when he sees Christian preachers on television, urging poor people to give money to them to support their grand lifestyles, for them to buy aircraft to fly around the world. How would Jesus react to people making money in the name of Christianity? Would he get angry? Yes. It is just like those money changers in the temple. So if you're a Christian and you watch that TV program of that man trying to make money in the name of Christianity, and you don't get angry in your heart against that man, you are not Christ-like. That's not the place to be gentle. But when people abuse you, accuse you, if your wife is upset with you or your husband is upset with you, and then anger in the house or anger in the office, there, if you get angry, you are sinning. It's very important for us to understand this clearly, because anger is one of those sins which the entire human race is enslaved to. And Jesus mentions it, number one, in your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees to show them how important it is to finish with this, first of all. He goes with the things which man is most enslaved to. And he even warns them in Matthew 5:22 that if you don't control this, it will finally lead to hell. It's like a doctor telling him this cancer you got is pretty serious. If you don't cut it out and cut out even perhaps the organ that is infected with cancer, it'll kill you. And you despise it and say, well, it doesn't really matter. You see an illiterate, uneducated person in a village who doesn't even know the meaning of the word cancer will sleep peacefully when a doctor tells him he's got cancer, because he doesn't know the seriousness of it. It'll go and bother him one bit. He'll go about his normal duties and he'll die. That is an educated person who knows the meaning of cancer. The doctor tells him you got cancer in the fourth stage, but I can cut out that organ of yours and save you from death. He won't sleep that night. He'll do something immediately the very next day. He'll start doing things to get rid of that organ that's causing the cancer. That's the difference between being uneducated and educated. Now apply that spiritually. When Jesus says that anger can lead you to hell, finally, the first of three stages, a spiritually uneducated person will say, oh, it's okay. Everybody gets angry. It's not serious. That's a spiritually illiterate, uneducated man. And you need to ask yourself whether you who think you're born again and wholehearted, whether you are actually in God's eyes, spiritually uneducated and illiterate proved by your wrong attitude to your anger. That you don't get angry when it concerns the glory of God. You don't get angry when people are making money out of others in the name of Christianity, but you do get angry when your wife gets upset or something goes wrong in the house and you do get angry with others in your office. You got it all wrong. You got it upside down. You're angry just like the worldly people. That is not Christ-likeness. And if you want to grow in Christ-likeness, you've got to take this seriously. Think anger like a cancer. The other thing I want you to see in Ephesians 4 is be angry, but don't sin, he says. But if you do get angry, he makes a provision for those who are willing to travel second class. You don't want the first class. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. It's a provision God has made. It's like saying if you've got a thorn in your foot, best is take it out immediately. Best is be careful that you don't walk when you walk, that you don't get thorns in your feet. But if you do get it, at least take it out before you go to bed. Otherwise, it'll get infected. That's what he's saying. Okay. You didn't get victory over anger. At least do the second best, which is before sunset, which is the time when people go to sleep. By then, settle it with whoever you got angry with. Confess it to God. Confess it to your wife or husband or whoever you got angry with. Settle the matter and then go to bed. Very, very important advice. In fact, this quotation in Ephesians four and verse 26 is actually from the Psalms. And I want to read that verse to you in the Psalms. In Psalm and chapter four, Psalm four, this is a direct quotation from Psalm four and verse four, where it says, and the margin of my Bible says, tremble with anger, but don't sin. That's what he's quoting in Ephesians four, 26. Psalm four, four, tremble with anger, but don't sin. But in the Old Testament, there was no Holy Spirit dwelling in people's hearts. So he says, here's the next best thing you can do when you're angry. Verse four, go into your bedroom, lay down in your bed and keep quiet till you cool off. Meditate on God's word. That's the provision under the old covenant. In the new covenant, it is, seek for the power of the Holy Spirit who can help you to overcome anger. And definitely go to bed with all anger settled. And the other thing I want you to notice in Ephesians four, 27, is if you don't get rid of your anger, you're giving the devil an opportunity, Ephesians four, 27, to get a hold on you. I don't want the devil to have a hold in any area of my life. And I hope you feel like that too. So anger is a very, very serious thing. Take it seriously. And he says that if you hurt your brother, Ephesians four, sorry, Matthew five and verse 23, and you come to pray to God, stop praying. Stop praying. Stop giving your money to God. Stop preaching until you have gone to that person whom you offended. Maybe your brother, maybe your wife, maybe your husband. Don't do anything till you go and ask forgiveness, be reconciled, and then come and offer your offering. Whatever that person may have done, what he did was evil. Maybe he crucified you, but you still have no right to be angry. You have to ask forgiveness for your anger. That's not permitted in God's kingdom. And then God will accept your offering. Otherwise here, you know that so many people's prayers are not answered because they got angry with somebody and they never asked that person's forgiveness. That's what it says here in Ephesians, sorry, Matthew five and verse 22 to 26. Meditate on that. I'll stop there. And then we go to the next thing. We've seen one wrong attitude, which is anger, sinful anger. And then the next wrong attitude is sinful sexual lust. As I said, there is a right anger, holy anger, and there's a sinful anger. In the same way, there is sex, which is holy and right, which God spoke to Adam and Eve. Multiply them. He blessed them and told them to multiply. How were they to multiply? By legitimate sex in marriage between husband and wife. That is the right good sex. But here he's talking about the bad sex where you lust after some other woman. In the old covenant, it was commandment number 10. You shall not lust after your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's daughter. Neighbor's wife or neighbor's daughter covers every woman in the whole world. Everybody is either your neighbor's wife or your neighbor's daughter. And I must not lust after her. I must be satisfied with the wife God gave me. And if I'm not married, then I must be satisfied with the Lord himself until he gives me a wife and control my passions. Seek for the power of the Holy Spirit to subdue my sexual desires that I don't give into them in any sinful way. Because it says here about adultery in the Old Testament, it was commandment. You shall not commit adultery, verse 27, in Matthew 5, 27. But I say to you, if you look at a woman, not if you look at a woman only, but if you look at a woman with lust, you haven't done anything, but you looked at a woman and there was something attractive in her which made you lust. Proverbs says, don't even lust after a beauty in Proverbs 6. Don't lust after a beauty. Don't lust after a body. If you do, you've committed adultery. It's very dangerous to admire pretty women. Let me tell you that. To recognize that someone is pretty, you've got to avoid it. But to begin to admire it, whether on the screen or in a poster or on the street or anywhere, it's dangerous. It leads to sin. The sin has already begun when you begin to admire someone who's not your wife. It may not be just a phase to admire a woman for anything that she's better than your wife at. You're on the way to adultery. The standard of the New Covenant is very high. And that's why he gives us the power of the Holy Spirit. He doesn't just give us a commandment. At the end of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount, he said, ask. Ask the Father and he'll give you the Holy Spirit to help you to keep these commandments. That's how the Sermon on the Mount concludes. So that's what we need to bear in mind here. And if your right eye causes you to stumble because you're lusting with it, tear it out. Can you imagine a man pulling out his eye? The doctors do it sometimes when it is so badly infected that it would kill you or ruin the other eye. So there are situations where medically they remove an eye. So here's your right eye causing you to lust after a woman. It says, this is such a serious sin that you should be willing to be blind in that eye. Lord, blind that eye with which I'm lusting after this woman. But you know, you get rid of your right eye and then you can lust with your left eye. You don't need two eyes to lust after a woman. One eye is enough. So what do you do when you lust with your left eye? Got to pull that out too. That's the spirit of this commandment. In other words, be willing to be totally blind. So in practical terms, what that means is when you're tempted to lust, turn your eyes away from there. That's the meaning of pull it out. Turn your eyes away from there and say, Lord, I don't want to admire that. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see it on the screen. I want to scroll down and go somewhere else. I don't want to be on that page. I want to turn immediately. See, we live in a world today where accidentally we can see these terrible pictures and billboards on a computer screen when you're not even expecting it. I mean, there are evil people who go seeking for it in pornographic sites. I'm not talking about that type of evil. I'm talking about accidentally coming across something like that when you were not looking for it. Well, and the Lord says, cut it out. That means become like a blind person at that time. Switch off the computer. Turn it off. There's one thing which we are told to run away from. One Corinthians, you know, many sins we resist, we stand and resist. The Bible says in James 4, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Even the devil himself, you're commanded in James 4, 6 and 7 to resist him, submit to God and resist the devil and he will flee. But there's one sin from which we are told to flee. The devil will flee from us. But when it comes to this sin, which is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 18, flee from immorality. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 18, flee from immorality. And the same thing Paul tells Timothy. Timothy is a 45 year old man. And when Paul writes to him, he says to Timothy 2, 22, flee from youthful lusts. A wholehearted brother who has worked with Paul for 25 years, 45 year old wholehearted Timothy, flee from youthful lusts. And I would say to every wholehearted brother listening to me, even if you're as wholehearted as Timothy about whom Paul could say, he does not seek his own in anything. Even if you're like that, here is the word of God to you, flee from youthful lusts. Don't try and battle it, run away, turn your eyes away. Against Goliath, that's the devil, you can stand and resist. But when it's Bathsheba coming against you, turn and run. Bathsheba knocked down David, the one who had conquered Goliath. You can resist the devil, he'll flee from you. But if you stand in front of pornography, instead of running away from it, you will never conquer it, it'll knock you down. Bathsheba has got more power than Goliath, please remember that. And so the only way is to flee, turn off the computer, turn off your phone, immediately run away from that temptation. And in relation to sexual sin, the Lord also says in Matthew 5 verse 30, if your right hand makes you stumble in some sexual way, cut it off, act as one who doesn't have a hand, act as one who doesn't have a left hand or a right hand. Jesus doesn't go into any detail, but he tells you that these are dangerous things that can ruin our life, attitudes towards sex, illegitimate sex in our thoughts. This is in our thoughts, you see, this is talking about the inner life, the inside of the cup. And many, many Christians, their life is ruined because the inside of the cup is dirty. The ministry is corrupted. The good, clean water of the word of God is corrupted with this filth that is in their system. You can't preach God's word in purity if your mind is full of these dirty thoughts. And I'll tell you something, one way to know whether we have dirty thoughts in our mind is watch your dreams. See our dreams are very often the accumulated result of years and years and years of filthy thinking. So we don't have to get condemned over it because dreams are unconscious sin and we don't have to confess it, we have to ask God to cleanse us. But it's not something we are consciously choosing, good. But we must acknowledge that it is the result of years and years of polluted thinking and watching polluted pictures. And the person who's never watched polluted pictures in their life will not get filthy dreams. So what should we do now? We should be careful that from now on, it may take years to cleanse the filth of the past. The illustration I've often used in terms of the pollution of our mind is, here's a bowl full of dirty, muddy water, where we put mud in it for years, that's our mind. Now we're going to pour into it, into this basin of dirty water, a jug of clean water, the pure word of God. And as we pour the pure water, the word of God, that water gets more and more diluted and less and less filthy. And it begins to overflow, overflow, overflow. It may take years, but one day that basin of water will be pure water, but it should be getting less and less and less and less and less. God wants to keep our thoughts pure. And because he watches that, I asked the Lord once, Lord, why have you allowed the sexual desire to come up in a person when he's just 13, 14 years old? And he can't get married for another 10 years. Why didn't God allow it to come up only when he's 24 or 25? I believe the reason is God wants us to overcome sexual temptation before we get married. Otherwise marriage won't solve the problem. Many married people are totally defeated in their thought life, though they won't acknowledge it. And so we need to battle it when you're single, that's the time to battle it, battle it, battle it, and seek for the power of God. So it goes on from there to sexual sin that leads to the other aspect of this is the inside of the cup is our attitude to marriage. Marriage is a holy act in God's eyes. And so it goes on from there to see sexual unity is one of the functions of marriage. Marriage is given primarily for companionship. It's not good for a man to be alone and therefore God gave him a wife. And it's also for men and wife to procreate and have children so that they can have a family that glorifies God. And thirdly, it's also for sexual unity to make the unity between man and woman a pleasurable experience only within marriage. But unfortunately, even in the old covenant, there were people who would divorce their wives. So he goes on from this in verse 31 to the subject of divorce. He said in the old covenant, divorce was permitted. That's basically what he's saying. You just give a certificate and divorce and this same thing is today absolutely true in Babylonian Christianity. One mark of Babylonian Christianity is they don't bother about divorce. Divorce people are pastors and divorce people are preachers and divorce people are elders in churches and all types of things, music leaders and all types of things. Divorce doesn't make a difference. That is the mark of a Babylonian church. But Jesus standards are higher that your light shine before men, let the salt not lose its taste. And his standard is if you divorce your wife, except for the reason of unchastity or fornication, as it says in some verses, you commit adultery. Now it's very interesting. There are two different words used here. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. It's very clear. Jesus is against divorce. And if you marry a divorced woman, it is an act of adultery. You're not supposed to marry a divorced woman. That's what Jesus said. But do you think Christians bother about that? They say, who cares for Jesus? We follow what the rest of Christendom follows and we have to follow what our lusts tell us to do. Okay. Then be honest about it and say, I don't care for God's word. Scratch it out of your Bible. Just scratch out that verse and say, that's not for me. They won't do that. They want to act holy, but they're disobeying it all the time. So we have to take this matter seriously because it has become so rampant and common. And the percentage of divorces and unconverted people in the world today is about the same in America, even among Christians. It's not such a big thing in India, but it's slowly coming up. But it's an area that we all need to, in the church, have a clear stand on. So I want to show you a few verses in this connection. Matthew, I'll try and show you all the verses in the New Testament about it. In Matthew 19, we read similar words. And you know that this Matthew 19, I don't have time to go in detail, but you can read it yourself. Matthew 19 and verse three to nine, the Pharisees asked Jesus, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? And Jesus said, it is because of the, verse eight, because Matthew 19, eight, because of the hardness of people's hearts, that Moses permitted divorce. A person who divorces his wife is thereby testifying. I have a very hard heart. I'm divorcing my wife. I'm divorcing my husband because my heart is hard, in the words of Jesus. He permitted it. But from the beginning, it was not so. God made a one man for one woman. He didn't provide a number of women in Eden for Adam to choose. One man for one woman. Very, very clear. And what God has joined together in verse six, let no man or no preaching or no doctrine separate. That is God's standard. And for a church to be according for a new covenant church, we have to maintain those standards, no matter who gets offended or who ignores these standards. In Mark's gospel, chapter 10, he says in verse 11, whoever marries, whoever divorces his wife, Mark 10, 11, and marries another woman commits adultery. And now here's the case of the woman. And if the woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she's committing adultery. Both are mentioned here. Any man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery. And a woman who divorces her husband or his divorce and marries another man is committing adultery too. Now here, there is no clause saying, except it be for immorality. In Matthew five, we find that phrase, if a person divorces his wife, except for unchastity or fornication and makes her commit adultery. And I want to say a word here. There are a lot of people who appear to be very scholarly or pretend to be scholarly and who go to the Greek and say, this is what the Greek says. And the Greek says this for this word and that word. But the interesting thing is that Jesus never spoke Greek. And these people, the disciples who were sitting on the Mount, when Jesus spoke, he was not speaking to them in Greek. So when he was reading the Greek translation of it, he was speaking to them in Aramaic, which is a language spoken by people in Israel. Now, how in the world are we to know exact word that was used there? I'll tell you, you don't need to know. What you need to know when you read scriptures to understand the spirit behind, to see that God has given us his word to see his heart. If you understand the heart of God, you will understand this passage. On the other hand, if you're going to the Greek and the Aramaic and all that, well, you will go astray. And I'll tell you why, because Jesus said in Matthew 11, verse 25, thank you, father. You've hidden this from all the great scholars, clever, intelligent people who can study Greek, Aramaic and everything else, but you reveal them to little babies who don't know these things, who don't know these languages, but you've got a heart of humility and simple faith. That's what children have. Children have a simple faith in their parents and humility. Such people understand these verses better than all the great scholars. So I wouldn't waste my time going to scholars. I want to see the heart of God. A child wants to know the heart of his father. And the heart of God is here in Malachi 2, verse 16. I hate divorce, says the Lord. I hate it. So I've understood the heart of God there. And so I'm not even a person who's going for this exclusion, this one condition under which divorce gets permitted. People are trying to analyze that. They're not interested in the God. They want to find some excuse to satisfy their lust to marry somebody else or their dissatisfaction with their wife or husband. They want to give bent to that. They're not interested in the heart of God. Will such people go astray? Yes, they will go astray. And they deserve to go astray because their hearts are not right. Luke 16 is the other passage where he says, everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. And he who marries one who's divorced from her husband commits adultery. Very clear. Why don't people take these passages of Mark and Luke? God has left it like that. He's left it a little condition in Matthew chapter 5 and 19, but no condition in Mark chapter 10 and Luke 16. And God is watching from heaven. Which chapter will these people go to? The whole hearted person will say, well, I understand God's heart in Luke 16 and Mark 10. Very clear. That's God's heart. No divorce under any conditions. And those are looking for an excuse. God sees them. They'll go to Matthew chapter 5 and try to analyze and study the Greek and whatever it is, and try and find an excuse to satisfy their own lust or to please people. Then I want to turn to Romans chapter 7 and verse 3. A married woman, verse 2, is bound by law to her husband while he's living. But if her husband dies, Romans 7, 2, then she's free. So if while her husband is living, talking about a woman, Romans 7, 3, she marries another man, she should be called an adulteress. She's an adulteress. How many Christians would dare to say that in today's churches? No. We've allowed the devil to lead us into Babylon, so many Christians. 1 Corinthians chapter 7, to the married, verse 10. Now notice the difference here. Paul says, this is what the Lord is saying. 1 Corinthians 7 and verse 10. This is not me, but the Lord saying a wife should not leave her husband. That's it. And if she does leave, she must remain unmarried. Or else we reconcile, come back to her husband. Yeah, go back to your husband or go back to your wife. And the husband should not divorce his wife. Crystal clear. This is what the Lord says. But he says, now I give my opinion for those, for the rest, I say, not the Lord. He makes it clear. He says, I'm making a little concession here, not the Lord. And the concession is not for divorce. That if a woman has an unbeliever husband, you don't have to divorce him. You know, some people have thought, oh, my husband's an unbeliever, let me divorce him. No. If he's agreeing to stay with her, don't send the husband away, even if he's an unbeliever. Because he says, through your husband or wife, your children may be converted. That's what he's implying in verse 14. But if the unbelieving husband or wife leaves on his own, then don't try to force him to stay with you. You're not under bondage. That means you don't have to feel guilty that he went away. It just doesn't permit divorce. No. He's just saying, okay, you're free to let him go. But as far as possible, allow him to stay so that you may convert him. Verse 16. So that's what the New Testament teaches on the matter of divorce and remarriage. It is so crystal clear that only clever people will try to find a way out of it to satisfy their own desires. Now the question comes, what position shall we take in the church when we are living in a situation where there are so many people who are divorced? Does God forgive a person? The times of ignorance, God overlooks and forgives, but he commands all men to repent. So we saw that passage which says that if a person has fallen away, go back to your first husband, go back to your wife, because we read that passage already. But what shall we say in the church where people who were unconverted and they divorced, they got remarried, and they had children, and now they are born again. It's more serious if the person who was born again went and divorced and got remarried. But that also God can forgive. But any sin that we commit after we are born again is, I believe, a hundred times more serious than the same sin committed as an unconverted person, or a thousand times more serious, because we now have God's word. We have the Holy Spirit. But every sin can be forgiven. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin. No, unpardonable sin is sin against the Holy Spirit, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. So it can be forgiven. But the question is, how shall we deal with such people when they come to the church? But first of all, I must say, we have an example in Jesus' treatment of the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8. They all wanted to stone her. And there are Christians who would like to stone such people. Don't join them, because Jesus says he was without sin through the first stone. So we're not here to stone anyone. Definitely not. Then Jesus taught us how to deal with such people. He asked the woman in John 8, has no one condemned you? And she says, no one, Lord. See his answer, two things, and say both those things, John 8, 11. Number one, I don't condemn you. Second, don't sin again. That's the full gospel. Not half of it, you're forgiven. But don't sin again. That's the full gospel. So that should be our attitude. We don't condemn people. They've already made a mess of their life, and unhappy, broken marriage, children here and there. Be merciful, and God will be merciful to you. But don't be merciful to the extent where you ignore God's standards. Don't sin again. Be careful. And the other passages, John chapter 4, where we read of the woman in the wells in Samaria, whom Jesus said, you have had five husbands, John 4, 18. And the one whom you now have is not your husband. So here was a woman who was divorced five times. And each time she got married, it was a new husband. Jesus called them husbands. When you get married a second time, that is your husband. And you have two husbands now. And if it's a wife, then you've got two wives. If you divorced your wife and you married another one, you've got two wives. You're not the husband of one wife anymore. You're the husband of two wives. Here it says you had five husbands. She was a woman with five husbands. And now she was living with a man who was not her husband. Not her husband means she didn't get legally married to him. So here Jesus distinguishes between just living with a person and being married to a person. She, you asked this woman, how many husbands did you have? Five. Jesus said that. And if it is a man married to, divorced five times, he has five wives. So, and now she's living with someone who's not her husband. But Jesus was merciful. He even used her to give the gospel to the Samaritans. Wonderful example. So we have to be merciful. That's the first thing we must recognize. But at the same time, we have to be careful that we don't give them responsibility in the church. That's the one area we've got to be careful because the church has got a very high standard. And so we turn to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and we think of two ministries mentioned here. One is elders who are the spiritual leadership of a church. That's mentioned in called overseer in 1 Timothy 3 verse 2. And the other is those who do other ministries like, you know, taking care of the offerings or taking care of the music or taking care of different aspects of not spiritual ministry, but a second level ministry. They're called servants in 1 Timothy 3 verse 8. It's a Greek word diakonos, which unfortunately they did not translate because it's undignified to call them servants. But that's the meaning of that word. I don't know. They invented a word called deacons. So people don't know what it means. It's like the word baptism, the Greek word baptizer, which means immerse. And the translators didn't want to offend the church leaders of that time in the 17th century. So they were being christened in the church. So they invented a word called baptism, not in the English language. Deacons, not in the English language. It just means servants. People are doing other ministries like serving food or anything, which is not spiritual leadership of the church. But for both of them, the rule is the same when it comes to marriage. Two things, an overseer and elder in 1 Timothy 3 verse 2 must be about reproach. Number one, there must be no reproach upon him, especially in his married life, the husband of one wife, not the husband of two wives, one, not the husband of four wives like the Samaritan woman and four or five husbands. No, just one. That means married only once. Above reproach. If he's divorced, he's not above reproach. He's forgiven. He can become a member of the body of Christ and he can be a member of your church, break bread with you, but he cannot be an elder. And what about deacons? Those who serve in other ways, like other ministries, which are not spiritual leadership, but any other ministry in the church. Deacons, they must also be above reproach and husband of one wife. It says in verse 10, deacons must be beyond reproach. That's the number one thing. And in verse 12, the husband of one wife, that means not divorced. So even for that level of any type of ministry in the church, whether it's looking after the accounts or leading the singing, a person must not be a divorced person or having married a divorced person. He must be above reproach. Now you can go to the Greek and the Hebrew and everything else, but if you come like a child, the answer is very clear. Now it's only a question of whether we want to obey God's word and we want to build a new covenant church, or like everything else, like other Christians, just compromise a little bit. I'll tell you something. Once you get onto the slippery slide and take one step down, it's just a matter of time before you go to the bottom. The devil will ensure it and God will allow it. And by the time you try to correct it, you'll be halfway down the slippery slide, it'll be too late. So I believe God wants churches in these last days that stand for the truth of God's word. If you hear these words of mine, Jesus said, and obey them, you will build on the rock, a house that will not shake. But if you compromise because you want to say, we don't want to take too radically to the stand, people will think we are fanatics or legalists. I don't care who calls me what. God's word is unchangeable. Now I'll tell you this, we must not be legalistic. I told you clearly our attitude should be the attitude Jesus had to the woman caught in adultery, to the woman, the Samaritan woman, that we are merciful, completely merciful. That's why you welcome a person five times divorced, but really born again now with his fifth wife, born again, I would welcome that person to church. We can't set right all this past, what can you do? If it were exactly as a money matter, he could set it right. But in a case like this, where all those other four wives or husbands are married, somebody else here, this person comes, we have situations like that in the world today. They're really born again, the past is forgiven, we welcome them, but we will not give them leadership. There's an example in the Old Testament where Joshua once made a covenant with the Gibeonites. You read in Joshua and chapter nine or 10 it is, and later on he discovered that they were Gibeonites and they were in the same country, people who should have been killed. And he said, okay, we can't kill them because we gave our word to them, but they can do other ministries like carrying water and doing wood, et cetera. There are ministries which are not related to spiritual ministries or anything that makes a person stand up in front, which we can give. Background ministries, which other people don't see that person up in front. Those types of ministries are open to those who are really repentant of their divorce and accept God's standards now and are welcoming to the church as believers. Now I know this is a controversial area and it doesn't matter to me one bit if 99% of Christians don't agree with me because God didn't tell me to preach things that make people happy in any case. I gave up that long, long ago. I say, this is God's standard and all that we can say at the end of it is whether it's relating to anger, whether it's relating to lusting after women, whether it's relating to sexual sin of any sort, whether it's relating to divorce or remarriage, all that we can say at the end of it is he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And the rest, I say, I don't judge anybody because it's not called me to judge. It's not called me to give an opinion unless someone is within my sphere of responsibility. I keep my hands off. I say, okay, God is their judge and I will not be their judge. So let us pray. So heads above in prayer, it's good to ask yourself, are you really serious about cleaning the inside of the cup at any cost? Are you looking for loopholes? Are you looking for ways in which to avoid this high standard? Or you say, Lord, I want your highest standard. Heavenly Father, please help us to be merciful. We are sinners ourselves who have received great mercy from you. And we want to be merciful to the worst sinners, the murderers, thieves, adulterers, divorcees, those who have divorced everyone, Lord. We want to be merciful, but at the same time, help us, Lord, to be true to your word and to preserve your standards. We humbly ask in Jesus' name. Amen.