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God Hates Divorce

Categories: Bible Study Lessons

From the beginning God established the home as foundation and assistance to everything He wanted to accomplish on earth. He intended that a man and woman would join together for life. Man, however, because of the hardness of his heart began to betray the wife of his youth and take other wives (Matthew 19:8). When a man does this he breaks his promise to his bride, fails in his leadership in his home, does irreparable harm to his children and slaps the face of God who authorized and sealed the marriage in the first place.

It is no overstatement to say that God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). Man will say that he deserves to be happy and if he doesn’t love his wife any more that he ought to be able to divorce her and find a woman he can be happy with. Why would God hate that action if a man’s happiness is on the line?

The man that would divorce his wife, looking to his own happiness, is arrogant and selfish. Proverbs 8:13 says, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.” Many suffer because of the man who divorces his wife; wife and children, church and society all feel the loss. Bound up in divorce is the breaking of both the greatest laws as ranked by Jesus (Mark 12:30-31). You can’t love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself and divorce your wife.

God hates divorce because his nature is truth. He cannot lie (Titus 1:2). The breaking of the marriage covenant is to break your word. Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight (Proverbs 12:22).

God hates divorce because His nature is love (1 John 4:8). We are to love our neighbor because God is love (Mark 12:31). Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25) because God is love. Divorcing your wife is no act of love.

The point of teaching that God hates divorce is to turn men back from it. What can a man do who has been thinking of divorce but now sees the folly? First is to resolve to never even think of divorce again. Don’t accept it as an option. Resolve to find a way to live peacefully with your wife until death parts you. Next is to seek to heal old wounds. Without taking into account how your wife may have hurt you rebuild the bridge between the two of you from your side. The change your wife will see in you may cause her to resolve to sweeten things between you. But, even if it doesn’t, you will have done what you could.

What should you do about those things that displease you in her? She may be a poor housekeeper or spend too much money or too much time with friends you don’t like. She may have habits that irk you. There is no perfect person and there are no persons that stay the same. People grow over time. It would be better to set up the best conditions for growth and be at peace with her about her shortcomings. People grow when fed praise, attention and encouragement. There are some things that irk you that may never change. Love her anyway. This is God’s will for you.

God hates divorce and you should too. You should teach your children to hate it. You should insist that the preacher where you worship thunder against it. You should accept nothing less than the soundness of the family, that your wife be loved as God wants her to be loved, that your children grow to have families where God is honored.