Matthew 5 (Part 12) :31-32

Matthew chapter 5 we're looking skip all the way down to verse 31 two verses here it says it has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness causes her to become an adulteress and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery we need to pray don't we father God open our hearts fill us with understanding and wisdom God we want to look to you we pray God that you would enlarge our hearts Jesus precious name amen for those of you who have been following along with our study here in Matthew you know that for the last couple of weeks Jesus has been citing a something from the law he has been kind of giving the common interpretation of that as it was received by the people and then he's clarifying that for example he began talking about murder and he said you've heard that it was said you shall not murder citing the sixth commandment and he said but I tell you if you even harbor those kind of thoughts in your heart it's the same thing and then he went on and he talked about adultery and he said you've also heard that it was said don't commit adultery citing the seventh commandment he said but I tell you if you harbor lustful thoughts in your heart towards someone you've already committed adultery so what Jesus has done for us here in the previous couple of passages is he has made us aware that sin begins in the heart right it doesn't begin with just a physical action where we tend to think that it usually happens and where obviously the people that Jesus was speaking to thought that that sin began to happen if you were to say to say you know that person committed adultery or that person committed murder we would all assume that was when the physical act took place but Jesus says actually God thinks it believes that it's it's way beyond that because out of member out of the abundance of the heart you know all these things take place it's in our hearts that God is most concerned you know and so we asked the question in the last couple of weeks you know have you ever committed murder pretty you know sort of alarming question even be asked and we had to we had to confess yeah from God's perspective I have I've harbored those kinds of you know angry thoughts in my in my heart and have you ever committed adultery well if you've carried on a lustful thought towards someone then the answer is yes you know the law what we're being told here goes deeper than just the physical ramifications of it so forth so now Jesus is going to do something similar as he comments on what the Word of God in the Old Testament said regarding divorce and remarriage and look you look with me again there in verse 31 he begins by saying it has been said anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce now stop there the Jews got this comment from a passage in Deuteronomy chapter 24 where Moses is simply talking about issues related to divorce and remarriage and so forth the problem with the Jews is that they began to look at this comment made by Moses as actually kind of giving them permission to end the marriage as long as they did it correctly you know that when people are into legalism they will they feel free to pretty much do anything as long as they do it right you know if I'm gonna blow my marriage off at least I'm gonna do it right you know what I mean I gotta follow the rules and we're gonna snuff this baby out but we're gonna I'll tell you one thing I'm gonna do it right so that as I stand before God you know he can at least say well you know you ended your marriage but by golly you did it right all right good for you sort of a thing as if God you know thinks like that that's really what the Jews had kind of started to almost embrace and so he speaks to them and he he's gonna he's gonna enlarge on this thing but the reason that he has to enlarge upon it is because we get so accustomed to seeing these things happen they did too in their culture that we stop considering the damage path that our actions leave behind when we make certain decisions now I know that as I'm sitting here today talking to you about marriage divorce and remarriage that touches just about every one of you even the divorce part if I were to ask for a show of hands here today of how many people have been touched by divorce whether you personally in your own in the ending of a marriage or whether you know maybe your parents were divorced or your siblings maybe your grandparents or something like that I'm willing to say that you know pretty much I would bet just about everybody here and it's a personal thing it's a very personal sort of a subject and and because it's personal we we don't really like to hear about it we don't really like to talk about it a whole lot but the fact of the matter is there's great confusion even in the body of Christ as it relates to do to marriage divorce and remarriage and we'll bring some of that out and there was confusion back in Jesus's day too because like I said they started to take some of the comments of Moses as actually giving them permission to be divorced as long as they did it just right and this is nowhere better clarified than in a conversation that Jesus had with the Pharisees in it's actually given to us in Matthew 19 look at this it says some Pharisees came to him to test him and they asked him this question is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason haven't you read he replied that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and he said for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh look at this next line so they are no longer two but one and then Jesus says and I love this therefore what God has joined together let man not separate before we move on to the rest of this passage you see what's going on here first of all they're trying to catch him in something you know a slip of the tongue of some sort but they're asking about divorce and remarriage and he says listen haven't you read haven't you read in the scriptures at the beginning God made them male and female brought them together in marriage God established marriage God created marriage it's not our idea guys we can't credit ourselves by saying well you know we came up with marriage we didn't God came up with it it's his institution he knows best how it works he laid down the ground rules for marriage and so forth God is the one who did it here's what he said he said for this reason for the reason of marriage a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two right will become one flesh not three four five six seven eight or ten the two will become one flesh he quotes that passage which is by the way in Genesis chapter 2 and then he says so which is a summary word so as a summary the two are no longer two but one God makes them one he brings them to that place of being called one flesh who did it who brought those people together as one flesh God did so what's the conclusion what God has joined together let man not separate okay now now remember Jesus is talking to a legalistic crowd who has come to believe that any reference in the Old Testament scripture about divorce was kind of God's permission of divorce as long as they did it right and this is exposed in the next section look at this next section why then they asked did Moses command look at that word that a man give his wife a certificate of a divorce and send her away Jesus replied you guys Moses permitted you to divorce your wives but let me tell you why it's because your sinners and your hearts were hard that's why he gave permission for you to do that but it was listen listen listen very important this next sentence but it was not this way from the beginning you know what that means that's Jesus saying listen to this people is very important God created marriage and he never factored divorce into the equation God created marriage Jesus makes it very clear right in this passage divorce was never his intention it was not that way from the beginning okay then he goes on to repeat what he has just said to us in Matthew chapter 5 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for marital unfaithfulness and marries another woman commits adultery. By the way, that term marital unfaithfulness is the Greek word pornea. It's where we get our word pornography, but it's certainly not limited to that by any stretch. In fact, the word pornea in the Greek, which is translated here marital unfaithfulness, refers to adultery, which is two married people, or at least one of the two married people, having physical relations with someone other than their spouse. It refers to fornication, which is sexual relations outside of marriage, two unmarried people having physical relations. It literally encompasses homosexuality, bestiality, it runs the gamut. Pornea just is one of those all-purpose words, you know, that really just, and that's why, you know, marital unfaithfulness is given here. Your Bible, if you have a different version, may have a different thing that it says, but it's specifically in this passage talking about, remember the context is marriage, so we're talking about somebody who's unfaithful in marriage. Unfaithful meaning being sexually active with someone other than their spouse, and so forth. But again, the key phrase that I want you to really zone in on here is that statement, it was not this way from the beginning. You see, what we're given here in this passage is we're given God's intention for marriage. I go through this when I do pre-marriage counseling with people before they get married. We go through and we look at all these passages, and we ask the question in pre-marriage counseling, what was God's intention when he created marriage? He intended that they be married for life. That was his intention, all right? Now the Jews came to the place of thinking that, well no, God gave us a total out here, and all we got to do is do it right. And God commanded us! He says, God did not command you anything regarding divorce. He permitted you some things. In other words, what Jesus said here is that divorce was a concession that God made, because sin had been introduced into the equation. But do you remember, God never even planned for sin. That was our creation. That was what you and I brought in, to the matter of life, and particularly marriage too. So let's make the point right here and now, and I'm not making this to offend anybody here in the room, but we need to make it nonetheless. Divorce is a disfiguration of God's original design for what marriage was intended to be. And I know that there are people, even in this room today, who are the victims of divorce. And what I mean by that is that you were married, and someone divorced you, and you had no desire that that divorce would take place. In fact, you might have even fought against that divorce taking place. But in the end, there was really nothing you could do to stop it. And you grieved over it, and you mourned over it, and it was the last thing you wanted in your life. But it happened. Well, I'm sorry that it happened. But it's still a disfiguration of God's original design, even if you didn't intend it to happen. And so here's the part that Jesus concedes when we talk about divorce being a concession. As much as divorce itself does violence to God's original design for marriage, so also the reasons people get divorced are just as guilty of profaning marriage. The institution of marriage. I suppose, you know, there's a lot of reasons why people would want to end their marriage. But what Jesus tells us in this passage, if you'll look with me again at verse 22, is he says, but I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, and we'll even say spouse, because women today can divorce, although they couldn't back then, except for this clause, this exception, which was pornea, marital unfaithfulness, adultery, causes that spouse to become an adulteress or an adulterer when they marry someone else. Now, what is Jesus saying here? He's saying that when two people come together in marriage, and one of those people is sexually unfaithful, that that breaks the marriage bond. That breaks that one-flesh bond that those two people have. And therefore, in that situation, if the person who has been cheated on, if you will, for lack of a better term, chooses to go the route of divorce, they are free to remarry because it was their spouse that broke the bond, not them. Okay? By the way, unfaithfulness does not mandate divorce at all. We talk a lot about grounds for divorce. I mean, the world has grounds for divorce, which God often doesn't even recognize. In the Bible, we have biblical grounds for divorce. You know what we rarely ever talk about? The biblical grounds for forgiveness. That we just leave out somehow. I am so glad that after the first five years of my own marriage that Sue and I found the biblical grounds for forgiveness. Because 34 years later, I am so delightfully glad that we are still married. But you know, we came that close. I mean, we were that close to getting a divorce. And we never went to church. I didn't want to have anything to do with God. And our marriage suffered. And we did all kinds of horrible things to one another. Let me tell you, grounds for divorce, we had them in our marriage. I know what that's like. But you know what? It was that very, it was that very thing in our marriage that led us to Jesus. It was the, it was the failure of our marriage that brought us to the cross. And there we found Christ. And there we found forgiveness for our own sins. And there we found the strength to forgive one another. And we found grounds for forgiveness. And man, I'm so glad we did. So you know, we can talk all day long about, you know, the grounds for divorce. But before you start doing that, let's talk first about maybe the grounds for forgiveness. Here's my point, though, about this earlier statement. It is possible for two people to be divorced by the state and not be divorced in God's eyes. Isn't that a shocker? See, we think that somehow if I make the decision in my life, it's done as far as God is concerned, too. It is possible for two people to separate, file for divorce, be granted that divorce by whatever state in which they live, and to still be married in the eyes of God. You say, well, Pastor Paul, how do you know that? That's the point of what Jesus is saying. That if you, if you divorce for other than reasons of unfaithfulness, for like, irreconcilable differences, you know, which is kind of a catch all for I don't like you anymore. But he says, you can do that. You can divorce for those reasons if you want. Doesn't mean I'm going to recognize it. That's what God's basically saying. And see, when you go off and you, you then you get that divorce, then you will marry somebody else. That's why you're committing adultery when you marry somebody else. Because in God's eyes, you're still married. And now you've committed bigamy. Now you're literally married to two people in the eyes of God. It's crazy. But that's the whole point of the two passages here in Matthew 5. And then also in Matthew 19, where Jesus says that, you know, if you get divorced and marry somebody else, you've committed adultery. Why? Because you're still married in the eyes of God. Because there were not biblical reasons. The bond between the two had had, you know, not been broken. And this is why the Apostle Paul, recognizing that sometimes marriages fail, told the Christians in Corinth, that if there were some unbiblical reasons for getting a divorce, they need to stay single. Let me show you this from 1 Corinthians chapter 7. It says, to the married, I give this command. But he says, wait, it's not me. This is the Lord giving it. A wife must not separate from her husband. But look it, if she does, she must remain unmarried, or else eventually just be reconciled to her husband. And a husband also the same must not divorce his wife. Why? He's basically talking to Christians here. The book of, you know, Corinthians is written to believers. This is not written to unbelievers, okay? To believers whose marriage just fails. For whatever reason, he says, listen, if this thing fails, you will stay unmarried because otherwise you get remarried you're gonna commit adultery both of you because in God's eyes the marriage is still there it's still intact this is this I know this is crazy some of you guys I'm sure some of you have questions rising in your mind I know email me later you know and I'll do my best really truly I'll in fact you know it's interesting I got a I don't know if somebody wrote this knowing that I was going to teach on this today but we have this section on our website called our Q&A page where people can email questions in and then I try to answer them biblically and put the answer on the on the web and we've been doing this for a number of years now and a question came into our thing just this morning here it is and here's the question can you remarry after a divorce if there was no infidelity so we got a divorce but there was no infidelity involved but we're divorced can we now remarry it's exactly what Paul's dealing with here it's precisely the situation we had this thing come up when I was up in Washington I was on the pastoral staff of a church up there and there was this lovely couple in our fellowship who Sue and I knew fairly well and they you know we everybody kind of thought everything was good in in their lives and they kind of shocked us one day telling us they were separated and going to get a divorce and we're like what is going on well the husband just decided didn't want to be married anymore but there was no other woman he just didn't want to be married and so he went through the process of separating from his wife and then ultimately divorcing her through the state right but no other woman and he had no intention of having another woman in his life well eventually the wife came to the pastoral staff at the church and asked the question am I free to remarry how would you like to answer that question and you know we had to sit down and we had to go through the scripture because again my personal opinion doesn't mean squat right so we're going through the Word of God and Jesus says over and over again that if anyone gets you know if these people divorce except for marital unfaithfulness that's the one clause I'll give them because that breaks the bond he said then they remarried they commit adultery so we had to go back to this woman and say well according to the scripture you are not free to remarry do you know that that often doesn't I was blessed that she even asked the question most Christians blunder their way through divorce and remarriage without even asking and it's shameful you know we get we get people coming all the time just you know saying hey you know we want to get married and they come to the church thinking this is just what we do you guys do marriages right I mean you know if I go to a funeral home I can get a funeral if I go to my insurance agent he tells me some insurance we come to the church you guys do weddings right wrong do you know there's nothing in the Word of God that says we have to do that and it's not a service that we consider ourselves necessarily obliged to perform that being said I want you to know that I love now doing weddings didn't always I used to hate it it's just I just only putting on a suit but now I've really as I've grown up and and I've grown up thank you and as I've watched other people grow up in our fellowship I mean I've been able to do some weddings from kids for kids that came to this church when they were three years old and then they grew up and they're in their 20s and I got to do their wedding that's fun I finally I finally realized it's an incredible privilege to be able to do a wedding and I see several couples here I've done your ceremonies but people come into the church and they just expect you know they kind of walk in they go yeah we're gonna do a wedding aren't you a preacher well we just don't do that and I've gotten to the place where I got to know you and I got to know your life and then we start at you know we have this application thing that will give people sometimes you know have you been married before if so how many times what were the circumstances of your previous divorces and we'll ask people from time to time when they come and say we want to get married we'll say are you eligible for remarriage and they say what do you mean it's just what I said are you eligible to be remarried well who isn't I'm divorced I'm single no I'm talking according to the scripture seen this is why we're dealing here people with Christians you know when it comes to the world anything goes you know what I mean I expect believers excuse me I expect unbelievers to act exactly like unbelievers should I don't expect an unbeliever to really care whether they show an honorable sort of a model or example of the institution of marriage they don't care anything about God I shouldn't expect them to neither should you but when I'm talking to two people who are born-again Christians and I start talking to him and I ask him do you know Christ do you know what the cross is all about did Jesus die on the cross for your sins yes he did all right now we can talk about your marriage I've established the fact you understand what it means to be a born-again Christian and you're you're you're trusting in the blood of the Lamb for forgiveness great wonderful perfect now are you eligible for remarriage and you'd be shocked how many people said to me I don't know and you know consider me weird I think that we know I think we ought to know what the Bible says about whether or not we're eligible to be remarried I think we ought to know I think we should have looked into these things we should know what the Bible says about marriage divorce and remarriage I expect believers to know and if they're brand-new and they say well you know what I've never studied that out before that's a fair statement grab your Bible let's talk about it that's what we're doing today we're talking about these things and we're being made to understand that the Bible has some some some guidelines that it's laid out here related to these things and where you and I are getting kind of a crash course in what God thinks about these things not what the world thinks we know what they think and I even know what some Christians think that's not worth a hoot either we want to know what God thinks what God has laid out in his Word and God says that when two people come together in marriage and they're joined together they are one flesh and unless that is broken in sinful immorality those people should not divorce and if they do separate and divorce they should remain you know unmarried if that if that unfaithfulness didn't occur I got to tell you you know when I when I shared with that woman up in Washington that I didn't see in the scripture that she had the freedom to remarry I tell you I was they looked at me like I was the dirtiest dog on the planet I mean I was that I was mr. bad guy because I came up with a conclusion what I thought was based on the Word of God to this woman that just didn't sound very nice and there's all kinds of people oozing with compassion who are willing to allow that compassion to overrun what the Word of God has to say and they'll say like well doesn't God want them to be happy listen don't get me even get me started the Bible does not say that God works all things together for your happiness says he works all things together for your good and sometimes his definition of good doesn't match up with ours and let me tell you something God wants you to be holy more than he wants you to be happy happiness is a goal of the world not a goal of the kingdom of God you and I can walk in the joy of the Spirit without being happy and that goes way beyond happiness happiness is a temporal condition of your life based on your current circumstances but joy overrides everything and God wants you and I to walk in the holiness of the Spirit even if it doesn't make us happy so don't throw out the happiness card anymore okay that's immaturity speaking that's worldliness speaking when Christians say I just want to be happy sorry grow up it just doesn't work that way sometimes what Christians ought to be saying is I just want to please my father in heaven and I want to glorify his name with my whole life and my whole heart even if it makes me miserable for the short term because what Jesus wants is more important than what I want I belong to him I do not belong to myself I've been bought with a price the precious blood of Jesus Christ and my life is not my own to simply do what I want with toss it away or or whatever so I was not a very popular guy when this when this kind of decision was was brought down and when people throw out these whole these statements about well you know doesn't God want this or doesn't God want that I have a question of my own that I often will ask people at that sort of a juncture and that is when you got married how long was it for how long did you get married for I've presided over dozens of marriages in my in my time as a pastor and you know what every single one of them says till death do we part But you know what? They don't really mean it. They honestly don't really mean it. What they're really saying is, I'll stay married and I'll keep trying and I'll work this stuff out as long as they do. As soon as they want out, I'm out. In other words, it's a conditional promise. It's not unconditional, it's conditional. And really, if we're going to be totally completely honest at a wedding ceremony, we ought to say, I promise to love, honor, and cherish you as long as you promise to love, honor, and cherish me. And what we end up doing in our marriage relationships is we police one another. That's what it comes to. We start policing each other. Make sure you're holding up your end of the bargain. We don't police ourselves, we police the other person. And when we think they've done something that kind of screws things up a little bit or they're not holding up their end of the bargain, oh, we're quick to point out and say, hey, what are you doing? You're not holding up your end of the bargain. You don't try, I don't try. You don't love, I won't love you. You don't put any effort in this thing, I don't put any effort. This is a 50-50 relationship. What a crock. It better be 100% on your part and their part all the time regardless. Here's a question. When you got married, as a believer, did you make a promise just to that person or did you make a promise before God? You know, I've been married 34, is it 34? I keep saying it, I just want to make sure I'm saying it right. June 23rd, we'll celebrate 34 years. Now, I have every confidence that my marriage is going to continue, even though I'm a total bonehead most of the time. But my confidence does not rest in the fact that Sue loves me. I mean, I know that she loves me and I'm really glad about that and I adore her too. But my great confidence of the perpetuation of my marriage to this lovely woman is that she loves Jesus Christ and she takes very seriously the promise she made to Jesus Christ when we got married. Even though at the time now, we weren't even walking with the Lord, but since we have brought Christ into our marriage, into our home, I know that she considers that promise that we made in the presence of the Lord to be an important and binding statement of her commitment and obedience to Him, not to me. And frankly, the same is true of my relationship with her. The glue that holds us together is not love and romance and all the other things that the world says is all there is. But in fact, it is Jesus Christ at the center of our marriage relationship. Our determination is to be obedient to Him above everything. And I don't say that to sound great in your eyes. I say that because that's what holds marriages together. You think we haven't had problems? You think we haven't had challenges and trials and difficulties? Heavens! If you could be a fly on the wall at our house, you would know different. We've had plenty. And frankly, the amount of problems in a marriage says nothing about the marriage at all. People come to me and say, we have so many problems, we have so many disagreements. I go, so what? Who doesn't? It's not any kind of a revealing sort of a thing about how good your marriage is. What's really going to reveal your marriage at the end of the day is how you resolve those things in obedience to Jesus Christ. How the man really decides, I'm going to love my wife as Christ loved the church because that's what I'm called to. And when the woman at the end of the day says, I'm going to respect and honor my husband because Christ made him the head of our home. That's what's going to make a difference at the end of the day. There's a passage in the book of Hebrews that I want to bring out. It's one of the ones I bring out in our pre-marriage counseling that we do. It says, marriage should be honored by all. It's not today though, is it? But it should be. Why should it be? Because it's God's institution. And he goes on to say, and the marriage bed kept pure. Why? Because God's going to eventually judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral, all the pornea, all those things that fall under that category. God, you know, there is going to be judgment coming eventually in those situations. But it says at the beginning here that marriage should be honored by all. In other words, we should be showing the world. If anybody should be showing the world, it's here, us, believers who love Jesus Christ. We need to be showing the world an honorable picture of marriage. We do that by honoring our commitment one to another and honoring our commitment to Jesus Christ. Now let me just say something. If you have been through a divorce for whatever reason, you can still do this. Because God wants you to know that you can start right where you are right now today. Maybe you've even been through a divorce that was unbiblical from the standpoint that you divorced and there wasn't unfaithfulness there. You just divorced for other reasons. And then you remarried. Well, the fact of the matter is you committed adultery when you remarried. That's what the Bible says. But it's not the unforgivable sin. God will forgive you and you can move on. And you can begin to walk in the reality of this passage from Hebrews. You can live and show forth a marriage right now, right here today, that is honoring to God because you are honoring your current commitment. You're honoring the situation that you're in. You're honoring the vows that you took and the covenant that you made before Almighty God. You can do that right here, right now. Aren't you glad that we serve the God of second chances and third and fourth and fifth sometimes? But aren't you glad about that? Aren't you glad that even though we've messed up majorly, that we can still walk in the freedom and forgiveness that comes through the blood of Jesus Christ to be able now to live the way we should live and the way we knew all along we really should have. But we didn't. And Sue and I didn't either. You know, we didn't get a divorce, okay? But you know what? We probably should have. At least from the world standpoint, we were awful to each other. And we came that close. So did we honor marriage at that time in our lives? Nope. Did the people who were watching our lives see an honorable picture of marriage? Nope. But we're doing it today. And you can too, regardless of your situation. We honor marriage by honoring the God who made marriage. Okay? That's what it's about, you guys. It's about honoring God. So stop thinking about your marriage as just this horizontal relationship between you and your spouse. Start thinking of your marriage as a relationship between you and Jesus Christ. Not predicated or conditioned upon their obedience, their participation, or anything like that. It's just you and Jesus Christ. That's when people begin to really start walking seriously with God. When life doesn't give them what they wanted, but they keep walking in obedience, step after step, day after day, and they put their hope in the Lord. I'm going to close with just one more thought. Again, Hebrews 13, verse 4 says, marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure. That's what Jesus is talking about when he says, hey, no adultery. Sexual activity within the context of marriage is made for a husband and a wife. And that's it. Did you catch what I said? A husband and a wife. What if two people are living together? Well, they're not husband and wife. There is no biblical marriage bed for an unmarried couple. They are involved in fornication, and it is a sin before God. And it is amazing how many people brazenly walk into Calvary Chapel and want to be married, and on our little application where it says, are you living together, they say, yes, we are. And they have absolutely no qualms about it. And we tell them, listen, we're not even going to touch this marriage ceremony until you guys start walking in obedience to Christ. Because you know what, if you can't obey today, you're not going to obey tomorrow either. If you're going to spit in God's eye today, you'll spit in his eye tomorrow, too. And I refuse to be your spiritual justice of the peace, because that's what people are often looking for. I made a determination a number of years ago, I'm only going to do weddings now with people that I know personally, and I know they're walking with Jesus, and I understand what a true biblical covenant is before God. And I'm only going to marry a believer and a believer. I'm not going to marry a believer and an unbeliever, because that person is in disobedience, too. And I'm not going to marry somebody who is blatantly disobeying God, because they'll keep disobeying God. And you know what? This may sound selfish, but I've watched too many of the marriages that I have officiated at go down in flames. I'd love to be able to stand up here in front of you today and say that every marriage I've ever done since I started doing them is thriving and strong and full of hope, but I can't do that. I consider my involvement in a wedding ceremony to be very personal, and I consider it also to be a responsibility that I do before God, not before a couple. And I will stand before God for my participation in marriage ceremonies. And I decided I'm going to take that seriously. So somebody comes to me who wants to get married, it's going to be a long road. And if there's blatant sinful activity going on, we're going to get that squared away too. And here's why. Because God doesn't love you as much? No, it has nothing to do with that. It's just that I'm tired of seeing marriages go down in flames. And if you can't walk with Jesus in this area, what are you going to do for the rest of your life? Because you know what? A good marriage is more predicated on simply walking in obedience to Jesus Christ than anything else. And I'm talking about love, money, children, homes, possessions, all the things we we strive for and put our hope in. Those are not the things that make a marriage, you know, valid and vital and warm and full. It is Jesus at the center of a marriage that makes it happen. And those two people making a determination at the outset of their marriage, I will be obedient to Jesus Christ. And if they can't do that, fine, they can go down and have somebody else marry him down the street. Because I'm tired of watching them end in divorce. Way too many have done that. So there you go. Like I told you, isn't this a great message? I mean, this is just, and I know, this is just wonderful. Yeah, it just gives you all kinds of warm fuzzies. Hey, you know what? We're just going to talk about, you know, where it's at, right? I mean...