And it is strong with the truth that was discovered by Jesus, of course he knew it, and Paul and Peter, and the reformers, that the law is not our thing anymore. ♪ Free from the law, O happy condition ♪ ♪ Jesus has bled and there is remission ♪ ♪ Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall ♪ ♪ Grace has redeemed us once for all ♪ ♪ Once for all, O sinner, receive it ♪ ♪ Once for all, O brother, believe it ♪ Cling to the cross, the burden will fall. Christ hath redeemed us once for all. Now we are free, there's no condemnation. Jesus provides a perfect salvation. Come unto me, O hear His sweet call. Come and He saves us once for all. Once for all, O sinner, receive it. Once for all, O brother, relieve it. Cling to the cross, the burden will fall, Christ has redeemed us once for all. Children of God, O glorious calling, Surely His grace will keep us from falling, passing from death to life at His call. Blessed salvation, once for all. Once for all, O sinner, receive it. Once for all, O brother, believe it. Cling to the cross, the burden will fall. Christ has redeemed us once for all. Isn't that good? Isn't that good? I just get excited about that kind of thing. And that it is so widely known by the folks that we reach out to that this is no longer our burden to bear. In the book of Hebrews, that phrase is used, once for all. It's become a common part of the English language. Mom will say, once and for all, I'm telling you. But once and for all is a very descriptive phrase of what happened at the cross. It happened once, the only sacrifice for sins that God could and would accept. not the animals, not the Levitical sacrifices, certainly not the pagan sacrifices, and for all, on my behalf, in my place, and for my benefit, once for all, Jesus died for me. I love the word, the English word for, has so many instances. inclusions in it, if you will. All right, we're in Matthew chapter 5, and the place we've come up to here in three or four weeks is verse 21, where Jesus is speaking to a great multitude. His disciples are close to him, but there's a big crowd down below him, and they're listening. And so he's teaching, and he's teaching a mixed lesson, a lesson for lost people and a lesson for saved people. But most of the instructions in Matthew chapter 5 are instructions for the disciples who will be his disciples and his evangelists, I think, during the tribulation period. So we have to keep that in the back of our mind. This is not church time truth. The Bible, it is all for us, but it is not all to us. We'll start here in verse 21 where Jesus begins to amplify the law. They lived in his day under the law. The cross has not yet been suffered. And so we read verse 21 down to verse 26. This in the Schofield Bible is on page 1,000. If you have one of those in your hand, that's good. If you want one, it's in the pew in front of you, unless you've slid all the way back into the corner, and then you have to find your own Bible. There you are. All right. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the council, but whosoever shall say, Fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, until thou hast paid the utmost farthing." It's a long passage. It's in the notes. I hope you have a copy of the notes. Not that they're perfect, but they're useful sometimes. He says at the beginning of this, a phrase he uses multiple times in this section, you have heard. You have heard. Why is that especially for them? Because much of the society couldn't read. He didn't say, you read in your Bible, because most of them couldn't. So what they knew of God's word, they knew because they had heard it. You have heard. It was said of them, by them of old time, thou shalt not kill. They accurately quote the content of the law, Exodus chapter 20, or the repeat of it in Deuteronomy. Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. Thou shalt not kill. The law itself didn't have there the penalty, but here, in danger of the judgment, he says. This word kill in the Hebrew Old Testament is actual murder. Killing in war, not killing by the state in execution of the command God gave Noah after the flood, by man shall his blood be shed, but murder. And murder in the law was included to be both doing it on your own hand or if you paid somebody else to murder for you, you still guilty of murder. That's in the law of Moses. He said, you'll be in danger of the judgment. The note says, deserving of death by the judgment of God to be executed by men after the verdict of the great Sanhedrin of 23 men or the 71 man Sanhedrin, the great, great Sanhedrin. They had courts and they had supreme courts and they all were ready to execute the law's penalty until Rome came and then they could give a verdict but they couldn't do the execution legally under Roman rule. Verse 22, Jesus says, that's what you heard, but I say unto you. What's he doing? He's taking a tone of superiority, a tone of moral superiority at least, over both Moses and their traditions. You heard this, but I say to you, whosoever is angry with his brother without cause will be in danger of that judgment. that judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Rakah, shall be in danger of the council. But whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Now in English, that's a little confusing. You say, wait a minute. So in the notes, if you will, the council was the great Sanhedrin. It was instituted by the Maccabees in that 400 year period where we don't have Bible between Malachi and Matthew. It's about 200 years before Christ, according to history, something like 72 members, six from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. It was sort of a supreme court. That's the council. Raqqa is not a Greek word exactly, and it's not an English word, and it isn't even a Hebrew word. This is an Aramaic word. That's where they were captive in Babylon, where they spoke Aramaic. Another name for Babylon is Aram, so Aramaic. And that's a word that means empty. And one of the commentators says, that expresses contempt for a man's head. Empty. He's saying, you stupid. You stupid. But when you get down to the word fool, it's a different word. It is a Greek word, morei. I would mention we, of course, get our contemptuous word moron from that, and not a nice thing to call somebody. But it expresses contempt for the head, excuse me, for the heart and the character. He's not saying you're stupid, he's saying you're a scoundrel. Criticizing contemptuously the person's character, not just his intelligence. So there's the difference in those words and the ascending fear and penalty. Therefore, well, I'm sorry, before we get there, in danger of hellfire, hellfire, if you look this, if you want to see it, let me put the dictionary here just for a second, this is a word, that we've heard, but you may not have recognized. Hellfire. This is Gehenna. Gehenna. So where's the H? It's a breathing mark over the E. Gehenna. And it is a Hebrew word. And it was talking about the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom. It's an actual physical place outside of Jerusalem. And because it was a low place and kind of downwind, they used it for the dump. But as time went on, they used it for the disposal of paupers' bodies. If you didn't have a tomb like David, you were thrown into Gehenna if you came down off a cross. And this other word here is the word for fire. It's pur. Gehenna pur. That's the hell of fire. It was a word, if you look at the notes, the name of the dump outside Jerusalem up from which endlessly rode the smoke of the burning. It was always burning, it was always smoking, it was always stinking. The idolatress, that's the Jews in idolatry, before God carried them off into captivity, the idolatress there worshipped one of the gods was Moloch. Moloch. Do you know Moloch? I don't want to go into it right now, but Moloch was a huge idol of brass, metal, brass, let's say, with a gaping open mouth and a furnace built in the bottom, and they would take the result of their illegitimate sexual activity and throw it in the mouth of the idol and do some more. It was a vile, ugly form of justifying immoral activity and calling it worship of this false god, Molech. When they became back from captivity in Babylon, it became the place for the burning of all dead carcasses and the filth of the city. It was loathsome and a fit image for the eternal lake of fire. Matthew seven times records Jesus referring to Gehenna. Mark three times records Jesus referring to it. And James himself, James in his letter, refers to it once. So that's the Gehenna of fire. That's very literally a place outside Jerusalem that well pictures the eternal lake of fire that's referred to in the book of Revelation. I'd like to look at some of these references, not nearly all of them, but some of them, just to show you this is not a come and go. In Matthew 10, Jesus is instructing his disciples. He says, what I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light. What you hear in the ear, preach you upon the housetops, and fear not them which kill the body. That's not a big deal. You're on your way. but they're not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him, him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. I'll give you a clue, that is not the devil. That is not some bad religious leader. That's God himself is the one that's able to render destruction to the soul and the body in Gehenna. In Gehenna. One of the other places that it's used in Matthew 25, They're taking the ones who survived the tribulation and standing him before the judge. And he separates what he calls the sheep from the goats, and the goats are on the left hand. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, the Gehenna of fire. Prepared for the devil and his angels. This takes it out away from Jerusalem and the city dump into that eternal lake of fire. It says it was prepared for the devil and his, the devil's angels. The demons are the angels that belong to the devil. Went away from God with him. There is no salvation provided for them. They made a once and for all choice as well. Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." And he says, I was hungry, you gave me no meat. I was thirsty, you gave me no drink. I was a stranger, you took me not in naked. You clothed me not sick and in prison, and you visited me. Knock, and they're going to say, we didn't see you! This is coming out of the tribulation alive, and what they did see were Jewish witnesses for God that needed provision because they couldn't buy or sell not having the mark of the beast. And then shall he answer them saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you did it not, any of those things I just listed, to one of the least of these, he calls them these my brethren in the previous verses. You did it not to me. And then he says again, these, these goats shall go away into everlasting punishment, the righteous into life eternal. At the end of the tribulation, there is a judgment where the Lord sorts out the survivors of the tribulation between sheep and goats and his brethren that managed to survive. And the goats go into hell right then, right there, do not pass go. because they did not believe the message of those evangelists that said they should believe in Jesus. We'll look at another passage here in Luke chapter 16. In Luke chapter 16, we have the often repeated story. This, I think, is the story that I have to refer to when I have to do a funeral for a person who may or may not have been saved. because this is the truth and this is the only thing you can help the family with. There's a rich man and there's a beggar, Lazarus. All he wanted was some crumbs. The dogs came and licked his sores. That was probably a mercy, I don't know. It came to pass the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. That is not the name over the place down there. That is where Abraham was giving hugs, Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, his body was buried, but he went to this other place in hell. He lift up his eyes being in torments, being in torments in hell. But he can see a long way over. Like being in Texas, you can see a long way off. You get halfway across Texas, you can see the lights of El Paso, but you're hours and hours and hours away. But he sees Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. This lets us know lost people in torment in hell still see. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, he can speak. He recognizes Abraham. He asks for mercy, doesn't get it. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." There's flame in hell. It's hot. His tongue is hot. Abraham said, you know, you got your good stuff and Lazarus got evil. Now he is comforted and thou art tormented. Wherever Abraham and his hug-giving place is, Lazarus is comforted. The angels carried him there. And he's comforted. And he says, Abraham says, Jesus' words through Abraham's mouth, beside all this between us and you, there's a great gulf fixed. Now, since we live in Florida, we know what a gulf is, right? A gulf is a place to go deep sea fishing. No, it's a big expanse, an empty place, an opening, a barrier that you can't, we can't walk to Mexico from here. If we do, it's a long way around. A great gulf fixed so that they which would pass from hence to you. If Lazarus wanted to go and help you, he can't. Neither can they pass to us which would come from thence. You probably want to come over here. Can't do it. The rich man in the torment of hell gives another request. He said, I pray thee therefore, Father, thou would send him to my father's house. Send Lazarus back from the dead. To my father's house I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. There's the point for the funeral. If there's a person and you're not sure they're saved, you can say, I don't know this person is in torment. I hope they're with the Lord. But I want you to know, family, if he is in torment, he wants you to not come also into this place of torment. He's praying that you'll get the message and believe in the Savior. He does not want you to come and be with him. Sometimes, I just want to go be with my grandma. She doesn't want you if she's lost. It's a place of torment. The only place of comfort is with the Lord. Abraham said unto him, they have Moses and the prophets. They've got God's word, the Bible. Let them hear them. He said, no, no, Father Abraham, if one went unto them from the dead, they will change their minds. They'll repent. They'll change their minds. How clear is that? He's wrong, and Jesus is telling the story as though it was Abraham and Lazarus, but really he's telling his own story, isn't he? Abraham speaks the words Jesus says he spoke. He said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded. You wanna know what repent means? It means be persuaded, it means change your mind. Neither will they be persuaded, though one rose, from the dead. Looking forward just weeks, just days to when Jesus rose from the dead and his disciples got up and proclaimed him risen from the dead. And the ones who wouldn't hear Moses and the prophets didn't believe even though he'd risen from the dead. Now many, many, many did. By percentages, there's many more Jewish believers in the early church than Gentiles. It was a surprise to the Jewish believers that the Gentiles could be in. but many of them have hardened. We are so happy. My Savior is Jewish, my book is Jewish. I'm so grateful for the Jewish people, but right now there's a blindness, a blindness on them. There's a blindness on Gentiles, too, because the devil, the adversary, doesn't want people to believe and be saved. This description of hell is given one more place that I want you to look at. In 2 Thessalonians, the first chapter, Paul begins his letter back to this little church in Thessalonica. He'd only spent two, three, four weeks there teaching, and then sends him these two letters that have so much depth of doctrine that we're ashamed of ourselves for how little we understand after years of teaching and understanding. But here he describes, he says, So it's described as vengeance from God on them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is to obey? You believe in the Savior. You believe in the promise of the gift of eternal life. He died for your sins. He rose again. He offers eternal life as a free gift. And he says, that don't know God and obey not the gospel shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe. Sometimes when I'm thinking about what makes heaven heavenly, for me I know it's not going to see mom again, it's not going to see my daughter again, those are good things, but the heaven of heaven, the glory of eternity, is being with the Lord Jesus, to depart and be with Christ, and the hell of hell is not the fire, it's not the torment, it's not the heat, it's being everlastingly from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. All those other things are true. But the hell of hell is to be separated, not just now, but for all eternity from God. We'll look at that again in a bit, maybe. But there's one other verse that references, and you don't think of this as referring to hell, but there it is, John 3, 16. God loved the world this way. He gave his only begotten son once and for all that whosoever believeth in him should not. What's that word? perish, but have everlasting life. In one little word, perish, we have this whole idea of eternal separation from God and conscious torment in a lake of fire wrapped into that word. And the only way to escape it is to believe in Jesus. Whosoever believeth in him You sometimes look—I like the passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I like it so very much I'm going to go there now. In 2 Corinthians 5 at the end of the chapter, He says, all things in verse 18 are of God who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and has given or committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. We've got the trays full of the food in the kitchen. We've got to get it out onto the tables in front of the people that need it. He's given to us the ministry, the service of reconciliation. Here's what it is. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Here it says, God The eternal God was in Christ. That's God manifest in the flesh. And what he did was take the sin that stood between him and God, took the sin out of the way. He reconciled the world unto himself. There's no sin in the way anymore. He doesn't impute their trespasses unto them because he took them and put them in the ground. And he's committed unto us the word of reconciliation, we who believe. He's already reconciled the world unto himself, but we still have to tell them. And so we, as ambassadors for Christ, as though God was beseeching the world by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. From God's side, the sin is taken care of. From man's side, you have to believe to be in the presence of, in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Verse 21 wraps it up. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the very righteousness of God in him by believing in him. That's the truth of the ministry of reconciliation. So we get back to where we were here in Matthew chapter five, and there's a practical instruction in verse 23 and 24 and 25, therefore, because of this wonderful truth, strong worded truth about danger of hell fire, therefore, Mark Cameron, the good teacher that's in heaven for so long now, used to say, if you come to therefore, you ought to look at what it's, see what it's there for, right? You want to know what it's there for because of what just passed. If this happens, if you bring your gift to the altar, you're going to do religious observance, and there remember us that thy brother hath ought against thee. Somebody got something against me. I'm just struggling with this. Just don't even go on with your religious observance. Leave your gift By the side there, don't offer it. Go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift." Something more important than doing service to God is really restoring a relationship with a brother that you have offended. Agree, he says now in verse 25, he's getting into a more specific kind of offense. Agree with an adversary quickly. If you owe somebody money is what the instance is here. While you're in the way with him, lest at any time, agree with him quickly, make a deal, settle. Don't go to court, don't go to the judge. When you're in the way with the adversary, settle, agree quickly, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. I say unto you, thou shalt in no means come out thence till thou hast paid the utmost farthing. Wow. Leave your gift, go your way, first be reconciled to thy brother. It is not, dismiss from thy breast all ill feeling. It's not when you got somebody, it's not me having a grudge against Blake, it's Blake's got something against me, I need to go to Blake and take care of it first. Get thy brother to dismiss from his mind all grudge against thee, and then come and offer thy gift. Go on with your service to God. The end of the notes it says, "'til thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." It's all about money, how to be recompensed if it's not a capital crime. If you're looking through the whole Bible, you're not going to find a lot about prisons except by the pagans. The Egyptians had prisons, the Babylonians had prisons, but God's people didn't use prisons so very much. There's a debtor's prison under Roman rule here apparently. But what if it was a crime that could be dealt with by money, they did recompense, and they added a certain portion to what was taken unjustly. They'd pay them back, or if it wasn't that kind of a crime, they'd kill them. Many, many crimes in the law are capital crimes. I think I counted more than 40 one time as I was going through. Capital crimes. Aren't you glad we're not under the law? Aren't you glad? It's too many bodies to throw into the dump, I don't know. All right, we're going to go on to the next section here. It's not about murder anymore, it's about lust, as the heading says there. Verse 27 down to verse 30, he starts off again with, you have heard, because the society is illiterate, it was said by that of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery. Now that word very much meant all kinds of sexual inappropriate activity. But the Pharisees, being Pharisees, had taken that word and said that just means sexual relations with somebody that's married to somebody else or with somebody that you're not married. It's only adultery, specific adultery. This doesn't, fornication, it's okay, no big deal. The Pharisees were a little weird. I'm not going to compare them to anybody today. But Jesus said, thou shalt not commit adultery. I say unto you that whosoever even looks on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in her height. And the Pharisees are sitting back there saying, what's he trying to say? If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. It's profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. There comes hell again. If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from me. It's profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body should be cast into hell." We'll get to those verses in a moment, but verse 28 and verse 27, Jesus is dissipating, I said in the notes, such delusions. Actually, Jameson Foster Brown, one of those guys said it. The traditional perverters of the law restricted the breach of it to acts of criminal intercourse between or with married persons exclusively. Our Lord now dissipates such delusions." Another commentator said, they had received it by tradition that the sense of it which had been given to their ancestors was that this law is to be taken strictly as it lies and only regards the sin of uncleanness in married persons. or what was strictly adultery, and that actual, so that it had no respect to fornication or unchaste thoughts, words, or actions, but the single act only." John Gill. I emphasized his words, some of them. Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no, no. Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, another of the commentators says, it is the property of a Pharisee to abstain only from the outward crime, to know how far they may satisfy their lusts without destroying their bodies and souls utterly by an open violation of the law. That's not good. It's not good to say, I'm not touching, I'm just shopping. It's not good, you know? It's not good. If your right eye or your right hand, you know, those are the two members of the body that lead a man or a woman into sexual immorality. The hand and the eye is where your evil thinking, your eye can start it and your hand can finish it. It's the things that are involved. It's if they offend, if they offend, make you stumble, catch you in a snare, catch you in a net like a bird that's being caught by a bird hunter, cause you to fall into sin. And he says, pluck it out. He says, cut it off. These are not to be taken literally. Dr. Seymour used to say, if the literal sense makes good sense, seek no other sense. The corollary to that is if the literal sense is nonsense, find out the intent of the context. One of the commentators said, the dearest objects, if they cause us to sin, are to be abandoned, that by all sacrifices and self-denials we must overcome the evil propensities of our nature and resist our wanton imaginations. I got enough problems, I don't need help with getting into sin. And then about cast into hell. The sinner, will be sent there as he is." This is a note from Albert Barnes. With every evil desire, every unsubdued propensity, every wicked and troublesome passion, and yet with no possibility of gratification, it constitutes our highest notions of misery. You say, wait a minute, didn't Jesus pay for all that stuff? Yeah, He did. The penalty of the law has been paid, satisfied once and for all. And yet Jesus agreed with the commentator here. If we look over at John chapter 8, Jesus said this to these self-righteous ones, to these Pharisees. Jesus said, said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, verse 21 of chapter 8, and ye shall seek me and shall die in your sins. What does he mean? Whether I go, you cannot come. And they said, what? They didn't care about dying in your sins. They cared, where's he going? He said unto them, you from beneath, I'm from above. You're of this world, I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, you shall die in your sins. If you believe not that I am he, you shall die. your sins. I need to build you a picture here. I need to build you a picture here. Before the cross, bodies were buried or burned right there in the surface of the earth, but the real person, the soul and spirit, was kept in a place sometimes called paradise, like Abraham's bosom, and sometimes called Hades or Sheol, the Hebrew in the Old Testament, Sheol, the Hades in the New Testament, it is at least one place described as being in the heart of the earth. We don't have much scientific knowledge of what is in the heart of the earth. We just haven't gotten that far. They barely, barely grazed the surface of the mantle the other day with a hole, I think. But we don't get down there. When you get past the crust of the earth, what do you get? you get a volcano. That's not a good place to play, right? So in the Bible, the place in the heart of the earth called loosely translated hell by the translators. Hell is either Sheol or Hades. It's not the Gehenna, that's the eternal lake of fire. But hell often is referring to this place in the heart of the earth. It had a place of comfort where Job wanted to go, where David said, I can't bring my boy back from here, but I'll go to him there, where Abraham obviously was, according to Luke 16, where the beggar Lazarus went. And there's a place of torment in the heart of the earth. Jesus died on the cross, all sin, sin, from man to Jesus on the cross. He paid the penalty for sin. He died. He was buried. Three days later, he rose again. No sin. But in the between of the dying and rising again, he wasn't unconscious. His body was right there in that tomb, didn't go anywhere. But Jesus went where dead people go. I think on his way past the place of torment, this is just from Bob Gilbert, it's not anything in the Bible, he dropped all the sin off in the place of torment. So that those Pharisees, when they died not believing in Him, died right into their sin. Couldn't escape it, couldn't be gratified by it. It's no longer fun. It's awful, as the commentator said there. And then he, having shed himself of the sin, went on over to the saved person side and had a conversation, I think, with the people that died in the flood that were saved. But that's another story for another time. We'll go on here. In the notes, Jesus died as the substitute for all mankind, paid the penalty for all sins, but when his body was buried in the tomb, he went to the place of the dead in the heart of the earth, taking with him the believing thief. This day shall thou be with me where? Paradise. He didn't go to heaven that day. He went to paradise in the heart of the earth that day. I think on the way by the place of torment into which all unbelievers before the cross and resurrection went to paradise, Abraham's bosom, the place of comfort. I think on the way by he dumped the sins of mankind from Adam to the end of time into the place of torment. No one goes into death and hell to pay for their sins. The penalty is paid in full. But no one dying escapes his sins either. You die and there you are in the misery of your sins. So there's a picture. I hope it's right. I've been teaching it for a while, but it's as good as I can get for now. We're going to go on just a little bit. The next section we may not be able to finish, but we'll go on here. Going back to Matthew chapter five. His next discussion after lust is about divorce, which is a subject covered in the law. Are we under the law? Oh, no, but it's still God teaches things about divorce in the law and even before the law that are principles that are still true today. What did Jesus say about the marriage of Adam and Eve? Jesus is not in favor of breaking the union. The Pharisees and the others administering the law in the day had done this. They'd taken what Moses said. It has been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. Write it down. Don't just say to her, I divorce thee. That's not Bible. Jesus says it this way. I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery. What? The guy that puts away his wife is making her commit a crime against God, causes her to commit adultery. Jesus calls it the cause of a crime to put away his wife. And whosoever marries her that is divorced commits adultery. There's another crime involved. Wow. It's in Matthew 19 that he spells this out more completely. In Matthew 19, I quoted it at length in the notes, but down in verse 3, he says, the Pharisees came to him, tempting him, saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? It's like the serpent coming to Eve in the Garden of Eden and said, You can't eat anything, can you? He said, no, no, that's not right. And he answered and said to them, have you not read? You guys are supposed to be able to read. He doesn't refer to what you've heard. He says, you've read that he made them at the beginning, made them male and female. And for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore, they are no more twain. There are no more two, not two separate, one flesh, what therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. It's not just part of the marriage ceremony. It's in the book. Jesus said it. And then they said, well, why did Moses tell him to get a command to write a divorce and put her away? And he said, Moses did it because of the hardness of your hearts. But it wasn't so from the beginning. And I say, don't do it except for fornication. You're committing adultery. Whosoever marries her is committing adultery. It's serious stuff. It is serious stuff. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul has a word to say about this for the church. This is church time. 1 Corinthians chapter 7 is not that verse, it's this verse. Paul is giving instructions to the church at Corinth, largely Gentile, some Jews, And to the married, he says this. And he says, it's not me giving this command, it's the Lord. Let not the wife depart from her husband. He says, we don't do divorce. And then he says, and if she depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. Don't let the husband put away his wife. It's happening. It shouldn't happen. It's wrong. Don't do it. But if it happens, don't marry somebody else. Go on back to your husband. And then he says to the rest, To the rest, what? To the married, he's talking to the married in the church, the believers. To the rest, he's thinking about, there's people out there where there's a married couple and some of them, one of the people, man or husband or wife has gotten saved and the other one hasn't. He says, this is me giving some clarification here. If a brother, that's a believer, has a wife that believes not, and if she'll be pleased to stay with him, don't let him put her away, keep her. The woman that has a husband that believes not, and he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. He says, if you're married already and one of you gets saved, it's not an excuse to get divorced. Stay. The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the children. Otherwise, your children are unclean, now they're holy. In other words, you got a better chance of winning him if you're still with him. And then he gives this, if the unbelieving depart, let them depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases. God has called us to peace. You're not committed to an abusive relationship when you get married. I got a minute, I got half a minute left. I just want to point out one more thing that Jesus says on this matter. When he came to the woman at the well and was sharing with her the wonderful gospel message, whosoever drinketh of this water shall, well, First he says, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, you'd have asked him and he would have given thee living water. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. The water I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Give me some of that. And he said, go call your husband. She said, got none. A very curt, very abrupt answer in the original language. And he says, you don't have a husband. You have had five husbands, but the guy you're living with now is not your husband. So you're telling the truth. And she said, can we change the subject, please? But he did not say to her, you've had one husband and four adulterous relationships that we don't consider marriages. He did not say that. He said, you've had five husbands. Jesus said it. That's good doctrine. Well, we're out of time. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for your word, how rich it is, how good it is to know that the things that we believe are not up for us to decide, but are there written down for us. And we thank you for the freedom we have from the law and the curse of it and the principles we can learn from it to apply even in our time here in the church. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you.