No Middle Ground

From my June 24th sermon .. transcribed and cleaned up a bit ...

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In my sermon two weeks ago I said things which later caused me to think quite a bit . There is a lot of concern in our world about how we conduct ourselves, what we should do, and how we define things. The burning question in our society today is still what do we say when someone asks us about marriage. I'd like to read, continuing somewhat in the 7th chapter of 1st Corinthians, where Paul writes this :

1. Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me, It were good for a man not to touch a woman.
2. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
3. Let the husband give unto the wife due benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
4. The wife hath not the power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not the power of his own body, but the wife.
5. Defraud not one another, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and again come together, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
6. But I speak this by permission, not by commandment.
7. For I would that all men were even as I myself am. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.
8. Therefore I say unto the unmarried, and unto the widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I do.
9. But if they cannot abstain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.
10. And unto the married I command, not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband.
11. But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled unto her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife.
12. But to the remnant I speak, and not the Lord, If any brother have a wife that believeth not, if she be content to dwell with him, let him not forsake her.
13. And the woman which hath a husband that believeth not, if he be content to dwell with her, let her not forsake him.
14. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
15. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not in subjection in such things, but God hath called us in peace.
16. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or what knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?
17. But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all Churches.[Geneva 1560]

In a somewhat light frame of mind, several weeks ago I made a comment that I thought that perhaps God runs a binary universe. I meant that in the sense that with God, things are either "Yes" or "No". They are good or evil. There is salvation, or damnation. There is Heaven, or there is Hell. There is right, and there is wrong. In God's universe, there really is no middle ground. It's either one, or the other.

The world looks at that says, "Oh, that sounds like you have a very harsh and difficult God. No middle ground? No compromise? Nothing that you can cling to in the center?"

The citizens of the world take the Ten Commandments and would turn them into the Ten Suggestions. They would say, "Well that sounds OK, up to a point. We prefer something like "You will have no other gods before me , unless, of course, it offends someone. Honor the Sabbath Day, unless you've got something better to do. Honor your father and mother, and the authorities that have been set over you, up to the point that you know better than they do. You shouldn't covet, unless you can afford it. You shouldn't kill any one, unless, of course, it's in self-defense. You shouldn't steal anything, unless you are really in need, and you shouldn't tell a lie, unless maybe it will help smooth things over'." The powers of this world abhor absolutes.

Regarding marriage, Jesus, in the 19th chapter of Matthew, talked about the two becoming one flesh. He talked about the fact that in sexual intercourse, God mysteriously created an indissoluble bond. Even His disciples said, "Master, that's pretty harsh. You've got to find some middle ground here. Who could be saved if we're going to have this kind of standard, where its either yes or no, good or evil? There needs to be some kind of middle ground or nobody can be saved." And Jesus said, "No, not really -- with God, these things are possible." As His followers, we have to be careful how we approach these kinds of things.

So, in looking at the definition -- God's definition -- of marriage, I questioned, I looked very deeply, into what the Scripture had to say. It still comes down to the idea that the two become one flesh. What God has joined together, no man can take apart.

In our language, there are a lot of words that we don't use any more. They've kind of fallen by the wayside, and I suggested two weeks ago that perhaps instead of talking about marriage, the Church ought rather to speak about Holy Matrimony. It might sound old fashioned, but it would make a little bit of a distinction from what the world has to say about it.

However, there is another English term that we very rarely hear any more, and that's the term wedlock. Occasionally you will hear it referred to as Holy Wedlock. Maybe it fell into disfavor because it sounded too sexual; I can only conjecture. But that term, if you go back to its roots, reaffirms the idea that what God has joined together, what He has made one flesh, that's bound for as long as the two shall live.

In 1st Corinthians 7 Paul lays down some instructions for Believers. He says, "You know there are some things that I teach that are pretty much my own idea. There are things that the Lord has let me teach by permission, not by commandment."

He then outlines some of the things that are in this category. He talks about people going through life not being married, and he says, "You know, this is the way I am . I wish everybody could be like I am because that would free them from so many of the cares and responsibilities that they have." As married people, yes, we do have cares and responsibilities. There are things that we are bound to. First, of course, we are bound to our spouses. Then we find that we are bound to our children, and the matters that have to do with the family sometimes compete with the things that have to do with church , with serving the Lord in some ministry. For unmarried people, to be able to decide that they'd like to go and spend several weeks or months or years on the mission field, to serve the Lord that way, they are free to do that. For a married couple to make that kind of decision, that's something that really is a major step.

Married people have all kinds of responsibilities that have to be addressed before some of these things can be undertaken. The single person is not bound by some of these things. So Paul says, "In terms of your service, it's good if people could be like I am." But he says, "I realize that not everybody can be like I am." So he gives further instructions and again, he says he's doing this by permission. He says its not something that God said, but something that the Lord allowed him to say -- "If they can't contain, if they can't hold back, let them marry. It's better to marry than to burn with passion, to be overcome by illicit sexual desires."

But, having given his own opinion, he then comes back to what he says is the Lord's command.

We then read his exposition of the Lord's words in Matthew 19, and he says, "Let not the wife depart from her husband, but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife." And its interesting that he uses that term, reconciled, because in another place, he says that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

When we consider the Lord's Prayer, right in the center of it is a statement that speaks to the ministry of reconciliation. It's where Jesus told his disciples to pray "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." You see, when you forgive someone, you must in a certain sense be reconciled to them. There has to be this kind of giving in of our own will. When we forgive, we give something up. Perhaps its our own stubbornness, perhaps its our pride. Perhaps its an expense -- maybe they cost us some money. Maybe they cost us our reputation. Maybe they cost us a lot. And we forgive and we can be reconciled to them; there is no reconciliation without forgiveness. From what Jesus said, we can conclude that if two people are not reconciled, they need to be considering their own standing before the Lord.

Think -- have we really gone the last mile? Have we really taken every effort, every opportunity to be reconciled? Its a price that we have to pay; when we think about the price that Jesus paid for our reconciliation, that was the ultimate price. He died for us, He shed His blood for us. There is no greater price that could be paid. We are called to that.

The entire substance of our life as Christians is centered around the fact that we have been reconciled to God by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. As we serve Him, He says, "If you want to be considered children of your Father, you have to do His works." He says, in His address to His disciples before He left them, "You are going to do greater works than I've done." And from our perspective, sometimes extending a hand of friendship to someone who has wronged us is one of those greater works. Its one of those things that absolutely rubs us the wrong way . We look at things and we say, "But I'm justified in holding a grudge. I'm justified in keeping back." So, Paul speaks to these people who've suffered great loss, and it would be a very great loss indeed for a husband to leave a wife or a wife to leave a husband.

Sometimes we might look at the abandonment and we might say, "There was reasonable cause for that. Perhaps one of the spouses was abusive. Perhaps one of the spouses was simply unreasonable, or cruel." Yet Paul says, "Wait a minute -- what is it that you were called to? You see," he says, "if these people leave, you have to abide by that. You have to absorb the loss." He says, "In these kinds of things, they should remain unmarried, because there is always that hope of reconciliation." Reconciliation is our highest calling.

In looking back over the years, in our experience, we've seen that there have been those who decided to go the route of separation. They decided that because of their situation, they had to be separated from their husband or their wife. They were encouraged by people who said that it sounded like there was a reasonable cause. It seemed to be a situation where it would be better if they were separated, and those kinds of things definitely occur, for the safety of a wife, perhaps, or the safety of the children. But then, having separated, the two people remarry, because the logic has been, well, that person is pretty much spiritually dead, the one who caused the situation. And then we find, perhaps years later, the offending spouse is converted and repents.

Now there is a serious situation, because God has said, the two became one flesh, and what He had joined together, no one -- no decree of man -- can take apart. Having married another person, an adulterous situation was created. When we start to use God's definition as the definition of marriage, all the things that our society is throwing at us today can fall by the wayside. God's definition of marriage is definitive. It doesn't matter what some court says, it doesn't matter what some legislature says; they do not override the Word of God.

In the cases that we've seen where people have thrown God's Word aside and said, "We're going to decree that a marriage is what we decide its going to be", then we have things like homosexual marriage. It's interesting to note that currently a new question has risen, can we have homosexual divorce? And the world is stuck on the problem. The problem would disappear if they would simply look at God's Word and see what He says. We have to take it for what it is, exactly as He says, and not try to make exceptions or try to go around it. We aren't to try to be some sort of lawyer and find the loopholes.

This doesn't bear only on the question of marriage. It bears on everything else that God has said for us to do.

What is our position as we look at the Ten Commandments? Lots of people want those Ten Commandments posted in the courthouses and in the schools. They think that's great, that those rules are something that we ought to look up to. But when you ask them if they really believe that that's what they should do, if they really follow the Commandments to the letter, you get excuses. You hear people ignorantly claim they are no longer required to obey the Law. They turn their backs on Paul's statement that the Law was a schoolmaster -- an instructor in what was right and good -- to bring us to Christ as we saw our need for a Savior because we could not keep the Law perfectly.

You see, God set those Commandments down as absolutes. Those rules, those regulations, those laws, define sin, and sin is something that separates people from God. The instant we begin to make excuses, or begin to find loopholes around the law, the instant that we take God's standard of righteousness and we find excuses, we drive a wedge between ourselves and God.

True, there is no one who can keep all those laws. They are a yes or no proposition. You either do it, or you don't. And it's so hard to uphold, just in our everyday speech. As we talk with people, do we tell the absolute truth? Or do we shade it just a little bit? If we do, we've gone over the edge. And that makes us uncomfortable, thinking about it. We'd like to say, "You know, God's got to make an exception in this case. We can't keep these things." And, He says, "I know you can't. I know that you cannot keep all these things. That's why Jesus had to die for you."

You see, if our righteousness was centered on keeping the law, not one of us would be able to fellowship with God. Not one of us would have a hope of Heaven. Not one of us would be able to say that we are saved. But God has given us salvation. He's given us a Savior who has paid the price for us. Our sins nailed Him to that tree. Our sins caused Him to be mocked and scorned. Think of that.

If we do everything that God asks us to do -- not just asks, commands us to do -- if we follow through on what He says, the world will mock us. Oh, those foolish Christians. You would rather starve than steal? You would rather give up your life than tell a lie? You would rather go without, than covet what your neighbor has? Oh. those foolish Christians. But the Scripture tells us that we have something that eye has not seen and ear has not heard. It's reserved for us, but we need to remain faithful. We need to believe that what He has said is true. If we don't believe what God has said is true, we are calling Him a liar.

Think about that for a minute. If we don't trust what He has said, we're calling Him a liar.

In our Bible Class lesson this morning we touched on the idea that the disciples were there in Galilee and they were probably fishing because they were hungry. And Jesus even said. "Do you have any food?" "No", they replied. He invited them, "Come and dine." They didn't need the huge number of fish they had caught. You see, God can provide for His people, even in the direst circumstances. All we need to do is take Him at His word, to believe what He says.

He says that certain things need to be followed, that our job is to seek the Kingdom of Heaven first, and His righteousness. Part of our job is the ministry of reconciliation where we reach out to people who have offended us, people who have sinned against us. We don't wait for them to come to us and say "I'm sorry." Jesus didn't wait for us to come to Him and say, "I'm sorry" before He paid the price for us. We must reach out to them, in reconciliation.

Just as Jesus has been slapped in the face by so many people over the centuries who have seen and heard what He did for their salvation, what He gave up, the price that He paid, and they have experienced the knowledge of God and they have turned Him down and rejected Him, we need to understand that when we go to be reconciled with people we are going to be rejected too. That doesn't matter. If we do what He says we are to do, it doesn't matter.

God does run a binary universe. We will either obey or disobey, there is no middle ground. If we have obeyed Him and have followed through on His word, we have exercised all of the rights and privileges and the characteristics of our Father in Heaven. That's what we should be doing.