All you have to do is watch the news or read the newspaper, and it won't take long to realize that the family is under attack. The most basic institution of society - on which all other institutions are based, the basic, foundational building block of society on which every other aspect of society depends - is under attack. By what? By a tolerant attitude towards sin. By a tolerant attitude towards pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, living together outside of marriage, pornography, homosexuality, divorce. Breaking the sixth commandment is so commonplace, so ordinary, so tolerated, that the very thing the sixth commandment seeks to protect - marriage - is itself at risk. Imagine that the sixth commandment is a safe, and marriage is inside the safe. For years our society has been hacking away at the safe, accepting and promoting and flaunting and encouraging sins against the sixth commandment, the safe. Is it any wonder that now, having destroyed the safe, our society is succeeding in destroying marriage itself? Gay couples are fighting to get married. Married couples are fighting to get divorced. Single couples are rejecting marriage entirely by living together without getting married at all. Without a doubt, marriage is under attack.

What's even worse, is that your marriages are under attack. Mine is too. Who's attacking your marriage? Who's attacking my marriage? You are. I am. The devil is attacking your marriage and my marriage through you and through me, through your sins and my sins. Today's text, therefore, is absolutely important for all of us. In this text, Jesus was under attack by the Pharisees. And the way they were attacking Him was by attacking the institution of marriage. Jesus answered that attack by going back to God's Word. The way to deal with the attack on your marriage, on my marriage from your sinful flesh, from my sinful flesh, is to go back to God's Word. And there God teaches us this wonderful, comforting, and encouraging truth about marriage. Husbands and wives, you are no longer two but one. Let's think this morning about what this means for the attack on marriage.

As I mentioned, in our text, marriage was under attack. The Pharisees really wanted to attack Jesus, so that asked Him a question that put marriage under attack. They asked Jesus if divorce was OK. If Jesus were to say, "Yes," then the Pharisees could say, "Jesus is soft on divorce." If Jesus were to say, "No, divorce is not OK," then the Pharisees could say, "Jesus is contradicting Moses, because Moses allowed it as long as a man gave his wife a certificate of divorce." In fact, when Jesus turned the question around on them, that's what they said, "Moses said that if a man wanted to get a divorce, all he had to do was give her a certificate of divorce and send her away."

There are two things wrong with that. First of all, that's not what Moses said. Listen to what he did say: If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her… and so forth. Moses says that something indecent, shameful, like adultery has been committed. That's a far cry from allowing divorce for any and every reason.

Moreover, that's not all Moses said. The same Moses, as Jesus says, wrote that at the beginning, God made them male and female, and that for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one. So what God has joined together, Jesus says, let man not separate. Moses clearly upheld that it is God's will that divorce not happen.

Now there is a warning in those words we want to take to heart first. Who made your marriage? Who gave you your spouse? God Himself did! After all, God not only brought Eve to Adam, but God brought you and your spouse together. It may not be the person you always dreamed of. It may not be the person you have absolutely everything in common with. It may not be the kind of person you ever though you would marry. But God, in His infinite goodness, directed your steps towards each other - either by accident or through someone else - and God brought you together. Every marriage is a marriage made in heaven. Your spouse is God's gift to you.

So let me ask you a question. Husbands, wives, do you always appreciate the gift of God that is sitting next to you? Do you always treat the person sitting next to you as the gift that they are to you? Do you love them? Remember how St. Paul defines love? Love is not a feeling. Sometimes people say, "We just aren't in love anymore." That's foolishness! That's the way this world thinks of love! Listen to how God thinks of love. Does this perfectly describe you? Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. Beautiful words! A beautiful pattern for Christian love! A beautiful pattern for a husband and wife. But we do not perfectly, beautifully live it.

Some people think then, that the easy answer is divorce. Can a person get a divorce? Yes. Notice - Jesus doesn't say, "What God has joined together, man cannot separate." A person can get a divorce in the same way as a person can murder. Can a person commit murder? Yes. If a person takes a gun and shoots it, God permits the bullet to strike and kill someone. But that doesn't mean God wants us to murder. In the same way, a person can get a divorce, a person can separate what God has joined together, but that doesn't mean God wants a person to do that. Unless there has been a situation in which there is adultery or malicious desertion, God does not want a couple to get divorced. He says that He hates divorce. It does terrible things to us. It does terrible things to our children. So shame on us - shame on us for thinking that divorce might be the easy answer. Shame on us for longing for the easy days when we were single. Shame on us for committing sins against our spouse, the gift of God. Shame on us for taking a tolerant, easy attitude towards divorce.

Let's all go to the cross of Jesus. If you've been divorced, let's go to Jesus' cross. If you've contemplated divorce without the exceptions God gives of adultery or desertion, let's go to the cross of Jesus. If you've sinned against your spouse, let's go to the cross of Jesus. And who is that on that cross? It's a husband. It's a bridegroom. It's your bridegroom - the bridegroom of your soul. His love never fails - to what extent? To the extent that He has bled and He has suffered and He has died for you. He has died for the divorced. He has died for the spouses whose sins have threatened their marriage. He has died for the unloving husband. He has died for the unloving wife. He has died for all. Your sins are forgiven. You are safe from God's wrath. The blood of Jesus that covers you, is the blood that washes you so that you are holy and blameless in His sight.

And there's a bit of comfort to draw yet from this phrase: what God has joined together, let man not separate. God has joined you together. He will help you stay together. How? By hearing God's Word together. By studying God's Word together. By coming to church together. By confessing your sins together, by being comforted that Jesus died for both of you together, by helping each other fight against the sins that are pulling you apart. By His love, Jesus will maybe not put you in love again like you were when you were dating or on your honeymoon, but He will rekindle your love so that you love one in another in a way that is deeper and stronger - an imitation of the love of Jesus, to love the one who has sinned against you, to love the unloveable. That is how Jesus loves me, the unloveable sinner, and you, the unloveable sinner. He takes the unloveable, and makes them lovely in His forgiveness. The person sitting next to you is a sinner like you, whom Jesus has loved, whom Jesus has washed, whom Jesus has cleansed, whom Jesus has forgiven, just like you. May Jesus help you to love one another, to grow in love for one another, as long as you both shall live, until finally God, who joined you, separates you in death, and brings you to the marriage feast of eternal life! Amen.