Audio recording Sermon manuscript: John the Baptist was put in prison for telling his ruler, Herod Antipas, that it was not right for him to divorce his own wife and to marry the divorced wife of his half-brother. John the Baptist was in jail for telling Herod that divorce is wrong, and marrying someone who has wrongfully divorced is adultery. This was the same thing that Jesus taught. He was once asked about whether it was allowable to get divorced. He responded by saying that it betrayed a hardness of heart. That was why Moses allowed certificates of divorce to be issued. Then he says that it was not like that from the beginning. Adam and Eve became one flesh, so, Jesus says, “What God has joined together let not man separate.” Except in the case of sexual immorality divorce is not real and effective according to him. A wrongfully divorced person is committing adultery if he or she joins with another, and the person who marries a divorced person is committing adultery. In God’s sight the one who has wrongfully divorced is still married to their first spouse. The second spouse is like taking a lover while married. Most people do not know what the Bible says about divorce because it is not a very popular teaching. It is not a very popular teaching because it condemns a lot of people. Nobody likes to be condemned. Most people don’t like to tell others that they are condemned. You might make them sad or angry. They might seek revenge. So everybody keeps their mouths shut for the sake of numero uno. John the Baptist, however, did not keep his mouth shut. John was a man full of love and zeal. He loved the Lord his God. He loved the word of the Lord his God. He believed with all his heart that the word of God was a true and reliable guide for the way that human beings can be blessed beyond measure. So he was not ashamed of what God said and commanded, even if it made others sad or angry. Does not the Word of God put us on the spot all the time? Doesn’t it always reveal the shame of our nakedness? That is because God’s Word brings light into the darkness of our lives. Jesus says that how we react to the light is the basis for how each and every individual will be judged. Jesus says, “This is the basis for the judgment: The light has come into the world, yet people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. In fact, everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, or else his deeds would be exposed. But the one who does what is true comes toward the light, in order that his deeds may be seen as having been done in connection with God.” The light is good. We are evil. That is why we are so prone to shun the light and allow ourselves and all those we know and love to remain in the darkness. While we are in the darkness our wickedness is not known. Many hope that the darkness can go on forever, but it won’t. Everything will be exposed, Jesus says. The light is either going to shine on us in this life or it is going to shine on us when we die. It is much better that it should shine on us in this life, during this time of grace, so that we may repent and shun the darkness rather than the light. Then we can come to love the light rather than the darkness. This is what would be pleasing to God too. Just before the quotation I just read to you from Jesus about the light he also rather famously says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up [on the cross], so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned, but the one who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the onl