Marriage & Divorce "Shocking Divorce Stats Among Christians!"

If they want to leave the marriage, you can't time till a bad person makes them stay.

Good morning, everyone. My time is upon me.

You know, I was—I commented to my wife this morning that how different it is to prepare for it to come to church this morning than other mornings. I was ready all early and stuff, and then I couldn't even relax for more than about five minutes on the couch. I was up pacing around, but it's all good.

So I told you my message: marriage, divorce, and Play-Doh.

So I'm going to start with a couple of statistics, and this one comes from a simple Google search. Recent surveys and studies suggest that approximately 20 to 25% of Christian marriages end in divorce, with higher percentages reported among millennials and younger generations of believers.

This one comes from the Barna Group. Although many—the Barna Group is widely considered to be a leading research organization focused on the intersection of faith and culture. The Barna Group offers a range of customized research resources and training to serve churches, nonprofits, businesses, and leaders.

Although many Christian churches attempt to dissuade its members from getting a divorce, the research confirmed the finding that was identified by the Barna Group almost a decade ago that born-again Christians have the same likelihood of divorce as do non-Christians.

According to the survey, 30% of atheists and agnostics had been married and subsequently divorced, but the Barna Group pointed out that they have 65% lower rates of marriage and a higher likelihood of cohabitation.

Barna also stated in a 2004 survey that one can understand why atheists and agnostics might have a higher rate of—higher rate of divorce since they are less likely to believe in concepts such as sin, absolute moral truth, and judgment.

Yet the survey found that the percentage of atheists and agnostics who have been married and divorced is 30%, still less than the numbers for the born-again population of 33%. Among all born-again Christians, which includes evangelicals, the divorce figure was 32%, which was statistically identical to the 33% figure among non-born-again adults, the research group noted.

According to George Barna, who directed the study, there no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce. It is now seen as an unavoidable rite of passage.

What a tragedy.

So here's one from Pew Research. So those who are divorced or are separated, who are absolutely certain to believe in God, is 69%.

Those who are divorced or are separated, who are fairly certain to believe in God, is 18%. Quite a jump there. Those who are divorced or are separated, who do not believe in God, is 6%.

Those who are divorced or are separated, who are not too or not at all certain, is 4%. And those who are divorced or are separated, who don't know if they believe in God, is 3%. So that's the lowest percentage.

So 87% of people who are at least fairly certain to believe in God are divorced or separated. How can that be? Well, it seems—yeah, it seems like the closer people come to believing in God, the more they're—the more likelihood there is of being divorced or separation.

What did Jesus teach about divorce? We always have to go back to the beginning to see what actually Jesus taught.

So we go to Matthew 19.

I think—yep, Matthew 19, verse 1. So now it came to pass when Jesus had finished these things that he departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there.

The Pharisees also came to him, testing him and saying to him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?" And he answered and said to them, "Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female?"

And said, "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate."

It's interesting who Jesus quotes here. Adam says in Genesis, "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." We'll look at that a little later.

I was kind of surprised that Adam said it.

Paul later quotes the very same words, which we'll look as well at a little later. Verse 7. They said to him, "Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put her away?" He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so."

So Jesus here says it's because of the hardness of their heart, which is synonymous with sin. Hardness of hearts equals sin. From the beginning, it wasn't like that. God's design wasn't that from the beginning. So at the very least, the allowance was a compromise.

Jesus points back to the design that God had in the beginning.

Verse 9. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits or causes her to commit adultery." I think some translation say "causes her to commit," which I think is more original. "And whoever marries her is who is divorced commits adultery."

So we go to Mark 10. "Then he arose from there." He was in Capernaum and came to the region of Judea by the other side of the Jordan, and multitudes gathered to him again, and he was accustomed; he taught them again.

The Pharisees came and asked him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" testing him. And he answered and said, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and to dismiss her." And Jesus answered and said to them, "Because of the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God made the male and female."

So we could plug sin in here, and it would read, "Jesus answered and said to them, 'Because of sin, he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of creation, God made the male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate.'" In his house, his disciples also asked him again about the same matter. So he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

So let's look at the first verse of these two passages we just read side by side, Matthew 19 and then Matthew 10. So the words in blue state that these two accounts by Matthew and Mark are of the same incident.

If you read it, both state that Jesus came from Galilee and went to Judea. Capernaum is on the Sea of Galilee.

So in this interaction with the Pharisees, Jesus points them back to God's design in the beginning.

So let's go to the beginning and see God's original design. Genesis 2, verse 18 says, "And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone. Let us make for him a helper comparable to him.'" Also, God formed out of the ground—out of the ground. "Also, God formed out of the ground all the wild beasts of the field and all the birds of heaven, and he brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. Thus, whatever Adam called any living creature, that was the name of it.

So Adam gave names to all the cattle and to all the birds of heaven and to all the wild beasts of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him.

And God brought a trance upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and filled up the flesh in its place. Then the Lord built the rib he took from Adam into a woman and brought her to him.

So Adam said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.'" According to John Chrysostom in his homily on Genesis, the text reads, "From her husband instead of out of man."

So it would read this way. So Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken from her husband." I just thought it was interesting that Adam at this point calls himself her husband.

So verse 24. "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. Now the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed."

Notice that Adam was given authority to name the animals. It speaks of God's collaboration with Adam, this being before sin. So Adam in a sense ruled the earth along with God. And FYI, that's my hope for heaven in the future, of getting back to ruling the earth with God, not necessarily a city of gold.

How did Adam know that this woman came from his rib if he was in a trance at the time? It's almost as if Adam before sin was to a certain degree divine. Obviously, less than God, the created never can be greater than the creator.

Verse 25, the woman here is referred to Adam's wife. By this time, they were married, it seems.

So what happened here that they became married?

Why so little said about how or by what procedure a marriage is performed? In a few short verses, we have the first marriage. It's not like God proclaimed with a loud voice, "You are married."

So there we see in verse 9 that marriage happens here. God joins them together. I have some Plato here. Here's where the Plato comes in. Red and blue Plato that we're going to join together to represent what happens at a marriage.

So we have the man and the woman.

Man and the woman. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. So whatever all happens here, when someone gets married, God joins them together.

So we're going to look at what it takes to make a marriage and what all happens,

how two people get married. I think the biggest thing is God joins them together, and it's a mystery. It's a miracle that he performs.

I didn't do this beforehand, so taking a bit.

Apologize.

So we have man and woman married. It's neither red nor blue, it's purple.

The joining into one flesh of two people is something supernatural that God performs.

So what is a marriage? I don't believe that the Bible mentions anything about saying vows to each other. There's no mention of a service or any other formal event, except, of course, there was feasting in a marriage. We do know that.

Feasting speaks of much celebration.

I believe there is all manner of celebration in heaven whenever marriage takes place. Kind of like when someone is baptized into the kingdom, a brand new life is started, a purple life. Another opportunity for God to showcase to the world his perfect design for the church. We'll speak more of that later.

In order for a marriage to be real, does the state have any control, i.e., a marriage license? Most countries have civil weddings before a church wedding, and some, like the United States, don't have civil weddings. That's not a requirement before you have a church wedding.

So I have a friend in Chile who got married. He never had a church wedding, only a civil wedding. The law in Chile is you go have your civil wedding before the JP, and then you're married, sign your license, and then have a church wedding if you want.

But so he never had a church wedding, but I believe he was still married.

I know of someone else who got married without a license. He was from here. He forgot to get a license or something, or somehow didn't know you had to get one or not sure. But I believe he was married until he got one.

I believe the only thing the state can do in regards to a marriage is recognize what God has already ordained.

If a state wants to say, "Say two people are married, they can't be married according to God's design," no amount of license or signatures can make it real.

It seems like no matter how depraved a society gets, there is still a deep-rooted knowledge of what marriage means. I think God embedded that. God's embedded design is the reason for that. You know, people sleep together, have kids, act like they would be married, but still society knows whether they're married or not.

They can't get around that. Now, recently, I knew of a situation in which the couple was together for 14 years. I think faithfully they had several children, but they know they aren't married. The husband or the guy wants to get married, and the wife or the woman doesn't.

So they were together 14 years, acting like a marriage, have a nice family, but they aren't married and they know it. So how can that be? But we know that purely reciting vows don't prove to hold a marriage together either.

So what is a marriage? If it's none of these things, how are the man and the woman married?

So scripture doesn't define in detail a wedding, but yet if Hannah and I would have skipped a wedding and instead one day came back from having a date and said that we are married, would that have been legit if there was no one else around?

No publicity at all?

So I think the very first thing, the first important thing is intention. A man and woman have to be in agreement to be married.

Second, there has to be an understanding of what leaving and cleaving means. It's a placing more importance on a relationship with your wife than all other relationships besides God, of course.

So back to Genesis 2, it says, "Leave your father and mother and cleave to his wife, and these two shall be one flesh."

It's like Adam at the inspiration of God declared that two should become one flesh upon leaving and cleaving to each other.

So third, there has to be some sort of a public declaration, either a signing of a marriage license, a church wedding in front of witnesses, something. If someone would say they were married, but there is no public record of it, neither anyone could testify to the marriage.

We probably couldn't be sure if it was a true marriage or not.

Lastly, as I stated before, the joining of two in marriage is nothing less than a miracle of God.

So going back to Jesus' interaction with the Pharisees, the context here is Jesus teaching on finances. Luke 16:15-18 says, "Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they divided him. And he said to them, 'You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your heart. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time, the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.'" So then right after this, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus follows. So it seems here that verse 18 appears to jump out and stand alone.

That would make it seem like the most important or one of the most important laws of the kingdom. And I believe it is because I believe that marriage is supposed to reflect Christ and his church. Then later we'll get into what Paul says about that.

But if it's supposed to reflect Christ and his church, that's why Christ places such a premium on it.

So how did the apostles understand marriage?

Let's look at Romans 7:2-3. Paul says, "For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to a husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband."

Paul is speaking here of how in Christ the law of Moses is not binding anymore.

He was only using marriage as an example here.

It's almost as if he's expecting his listeners obviously to understand. It was explained in the law of Moses isn't binding anymore. In Christ, you're free from the law of Moses, kind of like a marriage.

Verse 3, "So then, if while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, although she is married to another man."

So the only way to be free from a marriage is death. Going back to this analogy here, so we have a purple marriage. Imagine if the red or the blue color would cease to exist.

Obviously, I'm not speaking of memories of the other individual. If it would cease to exist, it wouldn't be purple anymore. It'd be red or blue.

But to manually try to separate them, it's impossible because God put them together.

So 1 Corinthians 7:3-4 says, "Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does."

This here speaks of the one flesh. Now, to the married, I command, yet not I, but the Lord, a wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband.

And a husband is not to divorce his wife. But to the rest, I, not the Lord, say, if any brother has a wife who does not believe and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him.

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now are they holy.

But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. So he's speaking here of unbelievers married to believers. Obviously, a person can't hold someone against their will. If they want to leave the marriage, you can't time till a bad person makes them stay.

But if the one or the other leaves, if a spouse leaves, it still doesn't mean that the only option is to divorce.

I'm assuming here a legitimate marriage. If that's not the case, a signature may be required to have the public record set straight. I believe if that's the case, a situation would have to be looked at very carefully and with great wisdom before you do that.

So let's look at Ephesians 5:22-23. This is where Paul brings awareness to marriage being a foretaste of Christ and his church.

Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church, and he is the savior of the body.

That he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. That he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

Talking about the church here. So husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you, in particular, so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Just as the woman was flesh and bones of Adam, so is the church of Christ. And we see this in verse 40.

Paul even quotes verbatim what Adam said when he married Eve. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Talking about the church cleaving to Christ and becoming one with Christ.

So in thinking about your marriage being a direct reflection of Christ's relationship to his church, is there any question how we should relate to our spouses? Remember, your marriage, my marriage, is how the unbeliever and fellow believers view the church.

Is it possible that we do not understand fully what it means to become one flesh? That it goes a lot deeper than what we usually think about. After all, we have this verse.

The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now are they holy? I think there's a lot here that I don't understand about being one, about having a purple relationship.

What does it mean to be one flesh with Christ?

I believe that good marriages are the backbone of strong local churches and the subsequent families. They're the backbone of strong local churches, of societies, and then of whole countries.