Hard Hearts Won’t Understand – Matt 19
“He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” — Matthew 19:8
In order to really understand what God is saying we must have a willing and submission heart. We see this in Matthew 19:1-12 with the Pharisees questions about divorce. There was some kind of debate about what constituted a lawful divorce.
Jesus pointed them back to God’s original plan for marriage to be: 1) between a man and a woman, 2) stronger than the parent-child relationship, 3) a permanent union, and 4) not to be put asunder by man.
Their question was why Moses commanded they give a writing of divorce in the law. Jesus told them that Moses only did that because of the hardness of hearts. Though this was not God original plan, Moses knew they were going to go ahead anyway, so God gave requirements that governed divorces they were going to go through with regardless.
The issue in Moses’ day, in Jesus’ day, and even today with figuring out what God wants us to do is how much we want to know God’s will. God may allow many things that He does not necessarily approve of. The first step to knowing what God really wants is to have a genuinely humble and soft heart, to be willing to do whatever God wants.
How do we come to God’s Word? With our minds already made up and our hearts already decided? Or with a softness and a willingness to obey, to change, and to repent?
“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.” — Romans 6:17
“For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” — Hebrews 4:2