Half of the marriages in the United States end in divorce.  It wasn't always this way.  In the past divorces were not easy to obtain.  It wasn't easy to just walk away.  One of the reasons was pressure from relatives for the married couple to stay together.  the relatives didn't want you to be the first one in the family to get divorced.  They'd tell you to hang in there like they did.  These days, there aren't many families left because they too gave up when the going got tough.  Our society also once made it difficult and expensive to get a divorce.  Preachers used to preach against it.  Churches used to speak authoritatively on it.

These days, however, too many churches are caving in and actually helping couples "throw in the towel."  With the removal of family, cultural, and church influences, people have followed the crowd toward the easy way out.

Jesus has given the definitive word on divorce - not the popular word - but the definitive word.  With absolute clarity, He has laid out for us what God says about the subject of divorce.

Misunderstanding Marriage Can Lead to Divorce. 

When questioned by the Pharisees about a legitimate reason for divorcing one's spouse, Jesus jumped over the question and went straight to an analysis of marriage.   He basically said, "The reason you're posing the question is that you don't understand marriage."  People who have a warped view of marriage have a Godless view of divorce.  If you accept God's definition of marriage rather than man's, you should accept God's definition of divorce as well.  The reason so many people want to get out of marriage is because their commitment is to man, not God.

Jesus asked them, "Have you not read?"  He hit the Pharisees right between the eyes by saying, "You don't know the Scriptures!"  These men were regarded as specialists in the scriptures, so Jesus appeal was to scripture, not opinion.  He said, "Let's clarify what marriage means, and then we can come back to divorce."  He said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?" (Matthew 19:4) 

When God created Adam and Eve, He created no extras.  There was one male and one female. Adam's only option was to learn to live with Eve.  After sin entered into their relationship, God told them there was going to be conflict between them (Genesis 3:16-19) but he never gave them an option out of the relationship.  The two were meant to stay together.

Jesus continued, "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 they are no longer two but ONE flesh.  He was talking about the nature of the relationship - that everybody and everything outside of the husband-and-wife relationship is to be viewed as secondary.

An inseperableness must occur where there is no more splitting of two, but bonding as one.  Many want to get divorce because they have never become bonded.  Too many couples never get around to becoming one flesh. Their relationship is stuck together based on cheap glue, instead of divine cement.

God's Will for Marriage is Permanence

Most people get married in a church because they want God to have something to do with their marriage.  All marriages are ordained by God for procreation, pleasure, and preservation of the human race. When you go to a judge and let him divorce you - when God has not agreed to the divorce - you're saying in effect, "God, I'm going to let man overrule what you have put together."  But since God approved the coming together, then only God can approve the breakup.  Marriage is God's agenda, and He is not interested in lowering His standard to suit you.  He expects you to raise your standard to accommodate Him.

The Pharisees thought they could confuse Jesus.  They pointed to the scriptures and said, "Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?" (Matthew 19:7)  But Jesus showed them that they hadn't been paying attention to what they read.  "Because of the hardness of your heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives;  but from the beginning it has not been this way."  The Pharisees used the word command but Jesus said, "He permitted you to get a divorce."  There is a big difference.

God never commands divorce, because He hates it (see Malachi 2:16).  Far too many men and women are smiling and practically skipping on the way to divorce court.  A divorce should bring pain to the heart and tears to the eyes. The couple should be experiencing excruciating agony because that which was supposed to be cemented is now destroyed.  If God hates divorce, so should we! Divorce is never a reason for rejoicing.

The Pharisees were looking for loopholes to accommodate their sin, like so many people today.  The question should be, "How can I save this marriage?"  "What can I do to make it  work?"  Too many Christians don't have the same attitude that God has toward divorce.  Malachi 2:14 refers to divorce as dealing treacherously with your mate.

The Pharisees spoke of a certificate of divorce.  This meant the divorce had to be legally acceptable.  1Corinthians 6:1-7 says that the church is to act as a court to adjudicate legal issues among it's members.  Before a Christian gets a divorce, he or she needs to seek permission from the church.  That believer needs recognition under God that the divorce is permissible, and a sincere saint would want to know that. Instead of thinking "I don't want the church to know because they might come up with a biblical reason not to," the Godly person thinks, "Give me a Biblical reason.  I want to be stopped, because I want to please God if at all possible."

Illegitimate Divorce Leads to Illegitimate Remarriage

Jesus said to the Pharisees, "Whoever divorces his wife except for immorality, and marries another woman, commits adultery." (Matthew 19:9)  Why adultery?  Because, in the eyes of God, the man who divorces his wife is still married to her (The converse is also true ladies)!

Anybody who divorces a spouse for "irreconcilable differences" and marries some one else is an adulterer.  Why?  Because God never approved of divorce for irreconcilable differences.  Whenever you get two sinners living in the same house, you are going to have irreconcilable differences!  But those differences are not grounds for a divorce; rather, they're grounds for more work.

In Matthew 5:21-32, Jesus said, "It was said, 'Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce'; 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."  This can create a mess.  If a couple gets divorced for irreconcilable differences, and both remarry, then all four of these people are committing adultery because the first couple is still married to each other in God's eyes.  Immorality provided the option for divorce but it still never provided the commandment.  If God gives you permission to divorce, He then gives you permission to marry another Christian.

Now the question is: Did God give permission?  Paul addresses this in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11: " But to the married I give instructions, not I, bit the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife." 

If things are rough, don't quit.  Stay in there and work toward solutions.  If things become intolerable and you must leave, either remain unmarried or be reconciled to your mate.  God still views you as married, irreconcilable or not.