PT-5 "The Teaching of the Old Testament"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/31/2020 9:57 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  PT-5 “The Teaching of the Old Testament”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:   OT Passages

 

            Message of the verse:  As mentioned earlier we are looking at different passages from the Old Testament that deal with divorce, and looking at them we find that God hates divorce, and that God intended one man and one woman to be married for life.  We will now try to pick up where we left off and also pick up where we left off in the quotation from “The Battle of the Ages.”

 

            We want to begin this SD by talking about how divorce was clearly taught to be defilement for a priest as seen in Leviticus 21:7 and 14.  “7 ’They [a priest] shall not take a woman who is profaned by harlotry, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband; for he is holy to his God.”  “14  ’A widow, or a divorced woman, or one who is profaned by harlotry, these he [a priest] may not take; but rather he is to marry a virgin of his own people,15 so that he will not profane his offspring among his people; for I am the LORD who sanctifies him.’"

 

             Now we want to look at Ezra 10:1-5 to show that in the Old Testament God does not condone or bless divorce as seen in this very unique case described here:  “1 Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly. 2 Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, said to Ezra, "We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. 3 “So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. 4 “Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act." 5 Then Ezra rose and made the leading priests, the Levites and all Israel, take oath that they would do according to this proposal; so they took the oath.”  John MacArthur writes “God actually commanded divorce through His priest, Ezra, because the existence of His covenant people was threatened (cf. Deut. 7:1-5)’ but that single exception did not negate His hatred of divorce.  Ezra’s call for divorce is an extreme historical example of following the lesser of two evils, and it applied only to the covenant nation of Israel in that one situation.”

 

            We have studied in the past the book of Hosea and that entire book is a picture of God’s forgiving and patient love for Israel as it is dramatized by Hosea’s forgiving and for his patient love for his wife Gomer.  Gomer prostituted herself in a similar that Israel did and yet like God, Hosea forgave his wife even though this happened more than one time.  He had to buy his wife back from a place where she would be sold as a slave.  Jesus Christ bought His bride from the slave market of sin, and we were in the worst shape we could be in but because of His great love for us He died in our place.  MacArthur writes “God looks on the union of husband and wife in the same way He looks on the union of Himself with believers.  And the way of God should be the way of His people—to love, forgive, draw back, and seek to restore the partner who is willing to be restored.”

 

            MacArthur concludes this rather long section:  “There must be forgiving love and restring grace in a marriage.  That alone makes marriage a proper symbol of God’s forgiving love and restoring grace.  That is the magnificence of marriage.  To pursue divorce is to miss the whole point of God’s dramatization in the story of Hosea and Gomer, the whole point of our Lord’s love for His church, and thus the whole point of marriage.  God hates divorce.”

 

PT-2 of “The Battle of Man”

 

            “Having instilled a doubt in the woman’s mind, Satan boldly proceeds:  ‘Ye shall not surely die.’  Then follows an appeal to the woman’s pride:  ‘For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’  ‘Ye shall be as gods!’  That did it!  “It is not right to frighten you with this penalty of death.  This dogma is retarding your progress.  You have within yourselves the possibility of being gods.’  It was an echo of Lucifer’s own ambition—‘I will be like the most High.’  It is suspiciously like the preaching we hear in these days concerning the spark of the divine in man with minifies Deity and deifies humanity.’

 

            “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat.  And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked.’  In that moment innocence died in the heart of man, the image of God in man was marred, sin rears its ugly head over a disordered creation, and fallen Lucifer exults over fallen man.  The first engagement in the Battle of Mansoul is over and Satan is triumphant.

 

            “But the Battle itself is not over.  The wheels of God grind slowly.  The Battle has just begun.  To fallen man, standing amid the ruins sin has made, God gives the promise of ultimate victory.  ‘The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent.’  The Warrior Christ shall come and the serpent shall lick the dust.  Satan has ruined God’s man, God’s man shall destroy Satan.  The first Adam is conquered, the second Adam shall triumph.  The seed of the woman shall one day rise, and under the conquering heel of the Christ, Satan’s head shall be crushed.

 

            “My friend in the great Battle of the Ages, the hottest part of the fight today rages in the heart of man.  The Battle of the first Man is the battle of every man.  The Battle of Mansoul is the battle of your soul.  There are two contending forces striving for the mastery of your soul.  One desires your ruin, one your salvation.  The same tremendous issues—life and death—are at stake now as then.  You are faced with the same old serpent and the same old temptation.  The first lie was so successful that the Evil has never troubled to invent a new one.  He just dresses up the old lie in new clothes.  When a convicted soul is wrestling with God’s decree, ‘The soul that sinneth it shall die,’ what is the serpent’s whisper but the same old, ‘Yea, Hat God said?’  When you turn a sympathetic ear to ‘Yea, hath God said?’ you are ready to receive the next poisoned shaft in your soul, ‘Ye shall not surely die.’  Believe that lie and you are doomed!  Who shall win the battle of your soul?  It is for you to decide.  God help you to decide aright.” 8/31/2020 10:37 AM

 

 

 

PT-4 "The Teaching of the Old Testament:"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/30/2020 9:08 PM

 

My Worship Time                                           Focus:  PT-4 “The Teaching of the Old Testament”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Various OT Passages

 

            Message of the verses:  Now we have been talking about what God’s plan for marriage was from the start of human history, and that was one man for one woman for life, but sin get into the way and sin is the biggest part of what we have been looking at, at the end of our Spiritual Diaries when I quote from Rev. John Linton’s booklet “The Battle of the Ages.” 

 

            So with this being said we can concur that the man who puts away his wife does what God hates.  If we go back to the passage that we ended with in our last SD, which was Malachi 2:13-16 we find in verse “16 “For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.’”  John MacArthur states “a literal rendering of which would be, ‘he covers his garment with violence.  It brings to mind the picture of a man who murders someone and is caught with the blood of his victim spattered on his clothes.  ‘Not one has done so [divorced] who has a remnant of the Spirit,’ Malachi tells us.  That sentence represents a Hebrew phrase that is difficult to translate, but I believe that rendering gives the right sense of it.  God’s Holy Spirit is never a party to divorce.” 

 

            I have heard stories that come from different Pastors who say that people come to them and say that the Lord is leading them to get a divorce so that they can have peace after they leave their spouses.  This is not true because of what we read from our passage in Malachi where God says “I hate divorce.”  Without any exception, divorce is a product of sin, and so God hates it.  God never commands it, endorses it, or blesses it.

 

            John MacArthur writes “The Pharisees used an erroneous interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 to defend their idea of divorce, conveniently interpreting that passage as a command for divorce (Matt. 19:7).  If fact, the passage neither commands nor condones divorce.  It simply recognizes it as a reality, as do other Old Testament passage.  In Isaiah 50:1, for example, God challenges the nation of Israel for their spiritual fornication:  ‘Thus says the Lord, ‘Where is the certificate of divorce, by which I have sent your mother away?  Or to whom of my creditors did I sell you?  Behold you were sold for your iniquities, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.’”  In Jeremiah 3:1 we read something similar “God says, "If a husband divorces his wife And she goes from him And belongs to another man, Will he still return to her? Will not that land be completely polluted? But you are a harlot with many lovers; Yet you turn to Me," declares the LORD.”

 

            The Old Testament does not encourage divorce as most references to divorce in the Old Testament put restrictions on it.  Let us look at Deuteronomy 22:14 and 19 as verse 14  talks about a husband who falsely accuses his bride of “shameful deeds.”  14 and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, ’I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin.’”  Verse 19 says “19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days.”  Now I want to move onto look at verses 28-29 of this same chapter:  “28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.”

 

            Now I want to move onto our quotation from “The Battle of the Ages” and look at a few paragraphs from the next section from this booklet entitled:

 

II. The Battle of Man.

 

            “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him.’  To this man God gave dominion over the earth.  Man was monarch of all he surveyed.  ‘And God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it…and have dominion over every living thing that moveth upon the face of the earth.  And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden.’  Into this beautiful environment God placed Adam.  ‘And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it:  for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.’

 

            “The third chapter of Genesis opens with ‘Now the serpent,’ and here begins the Battle of Man.  ‘Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, Yea, hath God said?’  He raises a question in the woman’s mind as to the integrity of God’s command.  Did God really say that?  Are you quite sure it was God who said it?  And if you are certain God spoke, are you quite sure He said just that?  May I say in passing for your thoughtful consideration, that the stock question of Modernism is exactly this, ‘Yea, hath God said?’’  The Modernist Professor smiles his sweetest, looks his wisest, and in dulcet tones says concerning God’s Word, ‘Are you quite sure it was God who said it.”  Granted that God did speak, how can we know that we have an infallible record of what God said?’”

 

            Lord willing we will continue to look at this second section from our booklet in our next SD.

 

8/30/2020 9:47 PM  

PT-3 "The Teaching of the Old Testament"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/29/2020 10:40 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  PT-3 “The Teaching of the Old Testament”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                 Reference:  Old Testament References

 

            Message of the verses:  We will pick up from where we left off yesterday in looking at this subject on divorce and remarriage as we continue to look at the foundations and the text from the Old Testament.

 

            Looking at adultery from several verses in the Old Testament shows us how serious God takes marriage.  Every form of sexual intercourse that is outside of marriage is sinful and defiling, however any illicit sexual activity that involved married persons was actually punishable by death as see in Leviticus 10:10-14 “10 ’If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. 11 ’If there is a man who lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death, their bloodguiltiness is upon them. 12 ’If there is a man who lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed incest, their bloodguiltiness is upon them. 13 ’If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them. 14 ’If there is a man who marries a woman and her mother, it is immorality; both he and they shall be burned with fire, so that there will be no immorality in your midst.”  Actually two of the Ten Commandments relate to the sanctity of marriage as not only is the act of adultery forbidden but even the intent of it in coveting another man’s wife as seen in Exodus 20:14 and 17 part of the Ten Commandments.

 

            Some people say that they live by the Ten Commandments which would be their ticket into heaven, but no one can do this, especially as we look at the tenth of the Ten Commandments:  “"You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.’”  If a married person even desires another partner it was a grievous sin.  In Matthew 5:28 we learned that adultery is forbidden to both the body and to the mind.  As we will not look at Lev. 18:18 WE WILL SEE THAT God went a step further and forbade polygamy, so every violation of lifelong, faithful, monogamous marriage was forbidden by the divine law.  “’You shall not marry a woman in addition to her sister as a rival while she is alive, to uncover her nakedness.”  I understand that this law was broken all throughout the Old Testament by some of the greatest saints including David.

 

            MacArthur writes “God established marriage as the physical, spiritual, and social union of one man with one woman, a lifelong, indivisible union that is never to be violated and never to be broken.  He confirms His absolute hatred of divorce in Malachi 2:13-16.

 

13  "This is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 “Yet you say, ’For what reason?’ Because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 “But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth. 16 “For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously."

 

I wish to close this portion of this SD with what John MacArthur wrote in his Study Bible on verse 15 a portion that I have highlighted:  “Noting God’s original institution of marriage (Gen. 2:24), in which He made two into one, Malachi reminded them that God provided only one woman for one man.  Though He had the life-giving power of the Spirit, and could have made Adam a number of wives he created only one—to raise up a ‘godly offspring.’  Polygamy, divorce, and marriage to idolatrous women are destructive to obtaining the godly remnant in the line of the promised Messiah.  Only when both parents remain faithful to their marriage vows can the children be given the security which provides the basis of godly living.  Because this foundational divine instruction of marriage was being threatened, Malachi urged that no husband act in a treacherous way toward his wife.”

 

Quotation from “The Battle of the Ages:”

 

I.                   The Battle of the Mount of God.

 

            “Therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire” (Ezek. 28:16b).

 

            “The inspiration of the writers of the Scriptures had to do not only with the foretelling of events future but also with the forthtelling of events past.  There is an inspired retrospect as there is an inspired prospect.  The vision of the Old Testament prophet embraced the backward stretch of history as well as the forward sweep of prophecy.  In two such remarkable passages the Prophet Isaiah and Ezekiel lift the veil from the distant past and show us the beginning of sin.

 

            “…Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire” (Ezek. 28:12-16). 

 

12 “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! 13 “But you said in your heart, ’I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 14 ’I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ 15 “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit” (Isa. 14:12-15).

 

            “In these obscure passages we find some light upon the beginnings of this mighty conflict that has been going on through all the millenniums, and will not end until Jesus Christ has put all enemies under His feet, and delivers up to His Father a kingdom with every stain of sin effaced and righteousness triumphant.

 

            “The battle of the Mount of God refers to this scene in heaven when Satan, a mighty angelic being, invested with power and great authority, and lifted up with pride, covets the heavenly kingdom, rebels against the divine rule, and strikes at the throne of God.  As a result of this titanic conflict Satan and his host of angels lose their first estate and are cast out of heaven.

 

            “This tremendous event when Satan says “I will,” marks the intrusion of sin into the universe.  Between a holy God and sin there must be unceasing and uncompromising warfare and from that moment the Battle of the Ages began.

 

            “We can see from this incident that the essence of sin is ‘I will,” instead of “Thy will.”  Five times in the Isaiah passage Lucifer declares “I will.”  When God’s man comes He will say “Not my will but Thy will,” and in this sign He will conquer.  Sin therefore is my versus God’s will, it is the clash of the human will against the divine will.  Sin therefore is war against God.  Satan’s rebellion was doomed to defeat and himself to destruction.  Are you following in his steps?  Be warned in time!”

 

8/29/2020 11:27 AM

 

 

 

 

PT-2 "The Teaching of the Old Testament"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/28/2020 12:41 PM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  PT-3 “The Teaching of the Old Testament”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  OT verses

 

            Message of the verses:  I will not post any verses here as we will look at different verses in this SD.

 

            We have been talking about the fall in our last SD and one of the most tragic consequences of that battle is the propensity to divorce.  There was a perfect plan for marriage that is seen in the Garden of Eden where God preformed the first marriage ceremony and since the fall when divorce happens it is like having someone cut off a leg or an arm.  Believe me, I do know what that feels like.

 

            At this point I wish to quote from a booklet that I have in my bookcase, something that up until several weeks ago forgot about it being there.  I am not sure of the date of this booklet, as there is no date in it, but the cost of it was 10 cents, so I have to believe it is very old.  The name of the booklet is “The Battle of the Ages,” and since we are looking at this era I thought it would be good for us to look at some things that are found in it.

 

THE BATTLE OF THE AGES

Rev. John Linton, B. A.

EVANGELICAL PUBLISHERS

858 College St., Toronto 4, Canada

 

15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel’ (Gen. 3:15).

 

            “The battle of the ages is the stupendous conflict waged between God and Satan from the moment when sin began.  It is an age-long conflict because the battle has been going on from the distant past, when sin first reared its ugly head in God’s universe.  The battle of sin is older than the history of man.  Man was not the author of sin.  Man was the channel by which sin entered into this present world, but sin was a black fact in the dateless past, long before the creation of man.

 

            “God’s agent for the defeat of sin is Jesus Christ.  He has been appointed Commander-in-chief of the heavenly armies that are set for the downfall of Satan and the ultimate over-throw of sin.  From before the foundation of the world it was planned in the counsels of the Godhead that Jesus Christ would be manifested to destroy the works of the devil.

 

            “There are three aspect of this conflict:  the destruction of Satan himself; the redemption of man from sin; the restoration of righteousness to the earth.  In the Old Testament there are three towering Messianic prophecies embracing these three aspects of His Saviourhood. In Gen. 3:15 Jesus Christ is set forth as the Seed of the Woman.  To the Serpent God said  “I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel’  In Gen. 12:3 Jesus Christ is presented as the Seed of Abraham.  To Abraham God said, ‘In thee (that is in his seed) shall all families of the earth be blessed.’  In II Samuel 7:12-13, we read of Jesus Christ as the Seed of David.  To David the King God said, ‘I will set up thy seed after thee…and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.’  As the Seed of the Woman he is to be at enmity with the serpent—that is Christ the Warrior.  This antagonism shall result in the destruction of Satan.  As the Seed of Abraham he is to be the Redeemer.  In Adam all families of the earth were cursed.  The seed of Abraham by his death and resurrection (typified in Isaac sacrificed by his father and raised from the dead) shall remove the curse and in Him as Redeemer shall all families of the earth be blessed.  As the Seed of David Jesus Christ is set forth as a King.  He is to institute a reign of righteousness upon earth, He will reign forever.  The opening chapter of the New Testament presents Christ in this threefold way:  ‘The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham,’ and in verse 18:  The Seed of the Woman.  We shall consider the first of these three Messianic prophecies in this address and trace the history of the Warrior Christ in his conflict with Satan in this battle of the ages.  There are four outstanding conflicts prior to the Resurrection of Christ and we shall deal with these four pre-resurrection battles.”

 

            I think that it is best that I quote from this little booklet at the end of each SD until we get through with it.  The reason that I wanted to look at this now is because we are in a battle, a battle that Christ has won, but nevertheless we are in a battle because of sin, and a part of that battle is having two saved or not saved sinful people live together in marriage and not desiring to have a divorce.

 

8/28/2020 1:14 PM

PT-1"The Teaching of the Old Testament"

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/27/2020 9:29 AM

 

My Worship Time                                           Focus:  PT-1 “The Teaching of the Old Testament”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                               Reference:  Matthew 5:31-32

 

            Message of the verse:  “31 “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 "But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.”

 

            The verses that I have posted here in this section are not what we will be going to look at as we go through what the Old Testament is teaching about this subject of divorce and re-marriage.  Now as we begin to look more at this subject of divorce we cannot understand it without understanding what the Bible has to say about marriage.  Genesis 2:24 states “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”  We can see here that marriage was God’s plan, and not man’s plan and in the deepest sense every couple that has ever been married and it makes no difference whether a believer or not, they participate in the union established by the Creator Himself, as marriage is God’s institution.

 

            As we look at that verse from Genesis 2:24 we have to realize that this verse was given before man sinned, and so without sin then all things would be made easier because we would not always be tempted to do what is wrong.  As I think about this, I want to say that since the fall of man all men who were born with an earthly father, and everyone has had an earthly father with the exception of Adam and Eve, and then the Lord Jesus Christ.  I want to ask all parents this question:  “Have you ever had to teach your children to do something wrong?  I know that there are exceptions to this, but children will do things that are wrong because like all people they were born wrong.  So as we go back to looking at marriage, and the fact that it was and still is God’s plan there is going to be struggles when two sinful people live together, but because it is God’s plan there is always going to be help from the Holy Spirit who lives in all believers and from the Word of God and also good counseling from church leaders. 

 

            John MacArthur writes “Cleave to’ carries the idea of firm, permanent attachment, as in gluing.  In marriage a man and woman are so closely joined that they become ‘one flesh,’ which involves spiritual as well as physical oneness.  In marriage God brings a husband and wife together in a unique physical and spiritual bond that reaches to the very depts. Of their souls.  As God designed it, marriage is to be the welding of two people together into one unit, the blending of two minds, two wills, two sets of emotions, two spirits.  It is a bond the Lord intends to be indissoluble as long as both partners are alive.  The Lord created sex and procreation to be the fullest expression of that oneness and the intimacies of marriage are not to be shared with any other human being.”

 

            I want to go back and talk about some more of the consequences of the fall as man’s first sin brought a separation from God, a separation of man and of nature, and also a separation of husband and wife.  The curse that God gave to Eve and consequently to all women after here is found in Genesis 3:16 “To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.’”  Then there was the curse of God on Adam and every other male which is found in verse 17 “Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ’You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.”

 

            We close with one more quote from John MacArthur “The fall distorted and prevented the marriage relationship.  Henceforth the wife’s ‘desire’ for her husband would no longer be the desire to help but the desire to control—the same desire that sin had for Cain (see Gen. 4:7, where the identical Hebrew construction is used).  For the man’s part, his ‘rule’ over his wife henceforth would be one of stern control, in opposition of her desire to control him.  At the Fall the battle of the sexes began, and women’s liberation and male chauvinism have ever since been clouding and corrupting the divine plan for marriage.”

 

8/27/2020 9:57 AM

PT-2 "The Teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees" (Matt. 5:31)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/26/2020 11:28 PM

 

My Worship Time                              Focus: PT-2 “The Teaching of the Scribes and Pharieses”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 5:31

 

            Message of the verse:  “31 "Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’”

 

            In our last SD we began to talk about things that were seen in Deuteronomy chapter 24 as that section spoke about the “certificate of dismissal.”  This is key to how the scribes and the Pharisees used that section to show that it was all right to get rid of a wife for any reason, which is not at all what that section in Deuteronomy, was talking about.

 

            MacArthur writes “The Lord’s primary purpose in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was not to give an excuse for divorce but to show the potential evil of it.  His intention was not to provide for it but to prevent it.  Verses 1-3 are a series of conditional clauses that culminate in the prohibition of a man ever remarrying a woman he has divorced if she marries someone else and is separated from the second husband either by another divorce or by death.  Because her first divorce had no sufficient grounds, could not go back to her first, ‘since she [had] been defiled’ (v. 4).  She was defiled (more literally, ‘disqualified’) because of the adultery brought about by her second marriage—which is the primary point of the passage.  Moses is saying, then, that the divorce for indecency or promiscuity creates and adulterous situation.”

 

            So as we look at God’s eyes here the granting of a certificate did not in itself make a divorce legitimate.  As we continue looking at Deuteronomy 24:1-4 it is not approving divorce, it is a strong warning against it.  Let me once again quote these verses from Deut. 24 “1 "When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, 2  and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3  and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, 4  then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.”   This passage suggests, or even perhaps assumes, that a divorce on proper grounds, accompanied by a certificate, was permitted.  This however does not offer divine provision for divorce, but it rather shows that divorce often leads to adultery.  So even on the grounds of adultery, divorce was tolerated in the Law of Moses only as a gracious alternative to the capital punishment that adultery justly deserved as seen in Lev. 20:10-14.

 

            MacArthur concludes “The most popular school of rabbinic tradition in Jesus’ day, as reflected in the Targum of Palestine (written in the first century a.d.), interpreted Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 24:1 as a command.  What God had provided as reluctant permission had been turned into a legal right.”

8/26/2020 11:50 PM

           

PT-1 "The Teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees" (Matt. 5:31)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/25/2020 9:16 AM

 

My Worship Time                                Focus:  PT-1 “The Teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 5:31

 

            Message of the verse:  “31 “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce’” (NKJV).

 

            We have talked about the words that Jesus said “It was said” in previous SD’s and have mentioned that He is speaking about what “the ancients” have said, and in this case in verse 21, the rabbis and scribes who had developed the commonly accepted Jewish traditions over the previous centuries which happened primarily during and also after the Babylonian Exile.  MacArthur adds “This is our Lord’s way of setting in place what is antithetical to the teaching of God.  I want to insert why I have used the NKJV of the Bible in some of these Spiritual Diaries instead of the NASB which I usually use.  In the NASB they capitalize sections that come from the Old Testament, and as we are learning Jesus is talking about what the “ancients” had said, and so I don’t think that this is really a quotation from the Old Testament.

 

            In our last SD we mentioned four different views on divorce and remarriage and in the case of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day on earth their view was the most liberal as their only requirement was the giving of a “certificate of dismissal.” 

 

            During this time period a man could dismiss his wife for burning his food, something that simple, and this had to put a lot of pressure on the wife to make sure that she continued to please her husband in every way. 

 

            So where did these Rabbi’s get this justification from?  They had an erroneous interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 which we find the Bible’s first mention of a “certificate of dismissal.”  

 

“1 "When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, 2 and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3 and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, 4 then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.”

 

            John MacArthur comments on this:  “The focus on that passage is not the question of whether or not divorce is permitted.  It does not provide for divorce, much less command it.  It is rather the statement of a very narrow, specific law that was given to deal with the matter of adultery.  It shows how improper divorce leads to adultery, which results in defilement.  Through Moses, God recognized and permitted divorce under certain circumstances when it was accompanied by a certificate, but He did not thereby condone divorce.  God’s permission for divorce was but another accommodation of His grace to human sin (see Matt. 19:18).  ‘Because of your hardness of heart, ‘Jesus explained to the Pharisees on another occasion, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way’ (Matt. 19:8).

 

            “The certificate did not make the divorce right, but only gave the woman some protection.  It protected her reputation from slander and provided proof of her legal freedom from her former husband and her consequent right to remarry.

 

            “A literal rendering of the Hebrew word translated ‘indecency’ in Deuteronomy 24:1 is ‘the nakedness of a thing.’  Some interpreters say it refers to repeated indecent exposure, but Alfred Edersheim (Sketches of Jewish Social Life [Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1996], pp. 157-158) says that the word includes every kind of impropriety and describes a generally poor reputation.”

 

            MacArthur goes on to explain that the only other place in the entire Bible where we find that Hebrew term mentioned is in Deuteronomy 23.  “13 and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement. 14 “Since the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.”  “Anything indecent” comes from the same Hebrew word as ‘indecency’ in 24:1.”

 

            We conclude this SD by stating that the meaning of this word found in Deuteronomy 24 does include every kind of improper, shameful, or indecent behavior that would be unbecoming to a woman and thus an embarrassment to her husband.  MacArthur states that this “cannot refer to adultery, because death was the penalty for that, even if it occurred during the engagement period (Lev. 20:1; Deut. 22:22-24).”   So we would wonder what kind of indecency then would lead to this “certificate of dismissal?”  It perhaps could have been what we may call flirtation and this word means “behavior that demonstrates a playful sexual attraction to someone.”  Now as seen in our verses from Deut. 24 that if this woman marries another man and that man dies she could not be remarried to her first husband, and the reason was because she had been “defiled.”

 

8/25/2020 9:58 AM

PT-2 "Intro to Divorce and REmarriage" (Matt. 5:31-32)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/24/2020 9:27 AM

 

My Worship Time                                               Focus:  PT-2 “Intro to Divorce and Remarriage”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                Reference:  Matthew 5:31-32

 

            Message of the verses:  “31 "It was said, ’WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; 32  but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

 

            We ended up yesterday’s SD with a quotation from Psychiatrist Armand Nicoli from Harvard Medical School and in the beginning of this SD we want to give six trends or situations that are the most destructive of the family that this man gives.  These six trends or situations include mothers working outside of the home, something that never use to happen, next frequent family moves, the invasion of television, lack of moral control in society, and lack of communication in the home.  The Dr. goes on to state that by far the major cause of emotional problems and the major detriment to the family is divorce.  “The trend toward quick and easy divorce, and the ever-increasing divorce rate, subject more and more children to physically and emotionally absent parents.”  He goes on to state “If the trend is not reversed the quality of family life will continue to deteriorate, producing a society with a higher incidence of mental illness than ever before.”  We are now living 40 years after this statement was given, and I know that this man is not a prophet, but his predictions have surely come true as we look at our country and for that matter the world around us today.

 

            Divorce is a huge problem in all countries, and causes troubles to children for the rest of their lives, but the biggest reason not to divorce is because it is against the Word of God.

 

            As mentioned the quote was from 40 years ago and the symptoms are all around us today, and also churches don’t even seem to care too much about this happening as many churches make it easy and not hard for couples to divorce, which is sad.

 

            John MacArthur writes “Only four basic interpretations of the biblical data on divorce and remarriage are possible, and all four are found to be held in various Christian circles.  The strictest view is that divorce is not permissible under any circumstance or for any reason.  The opposite position contends that both divorce and remarriage are permissible for any reason or none.  The other two views lie between thos extremes.  One is that divorce is permitted under certain circumstances but remarriage is never permitted.  The other is that both divorce and remarriage are permitted under certain circumstances.

 

            “The Bible, of course, actually teaches only one of those four possibilities and that view is taught by Jesus here in Matthew 5:31-32.  Like many people today, the Jews of Jesus’ day, typified by the scribes and Pharisees, had developed their own standards for divorce and remarriage—which they taught as God’s standards.  In this passage Jesus continues to correct the erroneous doctrines and practices of the rabbinic traditions and replace them with the truth.”

 

            Lord willing we will begin to look at verse 31 in our next SD.

 

8/24/2020 10:02 AM

PT-1 "Intro into "Divorce and Remarriage" (Matt. 5:31-32)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/23/2020 9:44 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus: PT-1 Intro into “Divorce and Remarriage”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matt. 5:31-32

 

            Message of the verses:  “31 "It was said, ’WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; 32 but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

 

            There is a lot of misunderstanding about divorce and then remarriage in our culture today, and that is not because it is not clear in the Word of God, but by the fact that sin has clouded men’s minds to the straightforward simplicity of what God has to say.  The problem is that when people read God’s Word through the lenses of their own preconceptions or carnal dispositions, a confused and perplexing picture is the only possible outcome, however the confusion is not with God but with man.

 

            John MacArthur writes “British physician David Graham Cooper in his book The Death of the Family (New York: Pantheon, 1970) suggests the best thing society could do is to abolish the family altogether.  He claims it is the primary conditioning device for a Western imperialistic world view.  An advocate of women’s liberation, Kate Millet, maintains in her book Sexual Politics (New York: 1970; Ballantine, 1978) that ‘the family unit must go because it is the family that has oppressed and enslaved women.’  City after city and even some states are passing legislation that grants increasing rights to homosexuals.  From every side the family is being directly attacked or indirectly undermined.

 

            Yet the famous Harvard Medical School Psychiatrist Armand Nicoli says that

 

‘certain trends prevalent today will incapacitate the family, destroy its integrity, and cause its members to suffer such crippling emotional conflicts that they will become an intolerable burden to society.  If any one factor influences the character development and emotional stability of an individual, it is the quality of the relationship he or she experiences as a child with both parents.  Conversely, if people suffering from severe nonorganic emotional illness have one experience in common, it is the absence of a parent through death, divorce, or some other cause.  A parent’s inaccessibility, either physically, emotionally, or both, can profoundly influence a child’s emotional health.’”

 

8/23/2020 10:01 AM