31.  God Hates Divorce

It is commonly said that “God hates divorce.”  Of course, divorce is not the ideal marital situation, and the angels in heaven do not celebrate because a divorce has occurred.  Does anyone expect God to say, “I love divorce”?  No.  All the same, a lack of the ideal does not limit the options of God.  The Great Potter still makes other “good” options out of marred clays (Jeremiah 18:4-6).

It grieved God “that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:35), but that did not foreclose David from being made king.  God greatly regretted “that he had made man on the earth” (Genesis 6:6), yet He made a way for His fallen creation.  Divorce is not God’s ideal, but that does not limit the options of God (Genesis 24:7-8; 1 Samuel 13:13-14; 16:1), especially when they are options provided by Him. God did not institute divorce, but God recognised it all the same (Jeremiah 3:1; Deuteronomy 24:1-4).

If we should say in absolute terms that “God hates divorce” (and interpret that to mean that He forbids it); if “God hates divorce” means that whoever divorces is damned for doing what God hates, yet Jesus provides a ground for someone not only to divorce but to remarry,

Read more

6 Now when they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus, 7 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man called for Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so his name is translated) withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.

Acts 13:6-8, NKJV.

How did such a terrible man manage to secure such a prime place by the side of such a noble man, a lofty political leader?  What was a sorcerer looking for in such a stately place that was not his typical dark altar?

Sergius Paulus, the proconsul (or governor), was “an intelligent man” – so said the report about him.  To be intelligent means to be sensible, wise, sagacious, careful, learned.  What happened to that intelligence and sagacity that seemed inactivated when it came to that sorcerer and soul-enemy?  Where was Sergius Paulus’s wisdom and carefulness when such a dark man began to position himself so close?  Some Bible translations say that he was an “assistant” to the governor; a PA (Personal Assistant), we would say.  That was how close, yet the intelligent ruler seemed blinded and fooled – by a sorcerer.

A Roman governor was no mean man, yet this one appeared to have been blindsided where it mattered most to him.  Human wisdom and political skill seemed to have been numbed by subtle bewitchment.  Natural endowment could not help where spiritual discernment was needed.  A school certificate was great, but it had its limits when it came to dealing with sorcerers.  Roman soldiers were great bodyguards, but not in matters metaphysical, where the adversaries were spirits and their arrows invisible to the naked eye.

Read more

29.  The Samaritan Puzzle

It remains to clear the puzzle that started this trip: the apparent differences in approach to marriage, by Jesus in Judea and Jesus in Samaria, in the same New Testament.  In other words, what might have warranted Jesus’ implicit acceptance of divorces and remarriages in Samaria, in seeming contradiction to the general conception of His earlier teachings in Judea?  This is not an attempt to answer all “cases” of marital conflicts, marriage, divorce, and remarriage, but an effort at finding the possible missing link between two apparently contradictory positions of Jesus in two different contexts.

Read more

27. The Will of God or the Will of the Parties?

Since no one can force anyone to stay in a marriage, the willingness of both parties is crucial to the outcomes between a husband and his wife. According to Paul in our passage, the decision to leave or remain in a marriage is less about ‘the will of God’ and more about the will of the man and the woman. They can continue to stay IF he is “willing to stay” and IF she is “willing to stay” (1 Corinthians 7:12-13, Contemporary English Version). In other words, it is a matter of mutual choice rather than of force. When their wills no longer align, particularly due to a ‘new state’ or a new perspective on life, peace is already at risk. If tensions escalate to the point where one party insists on leaving, Paul’s clause is likely to come into play. While this might seem like a dismissive treatment of such a serious topic, it does not undermine the fundamental truth.

Read more

In many Christian congregations, women are usually more in number than men.  According to a survey on genders at religious events, “sociological evidence suggests that, generally, women tend to exhibit greater religious engagement than men” (https://medium.com/@elroypoet/the-examination-of-gender-and-religious-engagement-65703bb43e88).  There must be something about the spirituality of the woman that many mortals do not know; something that Satan knows and exploits to disastrous advantage.  There must be a spiritual frequency in the woman that is more easily accessible than in the man; something that disposes her more to spirits and spirituality than the man.

When the backslidden King Saul wanted to consult the dark world of the occult to divine his future, he said, “Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit” (1 Samuel 28:7).  If what he wanted was a medium, why didn’t he simply say, “Get me a medium,” or “Get me someone who deals with familiar spirits”?  Why did he so confidently attach the female gender to the dark craft?  What gave the king the impression that whom he would find in that trade had to be a female?  And she would be someone who did not merely deal with but “hath” the spirit; someone who possessed and was possessed by the “spirit” of the trade?

Well, we may dismiss that as an Old Testament tale, so let’s take a trip to the New Testament. 

Read more

21. Called to Peace

Despite the concession made, Paul was quick to add a caution: “but God hath called us to peace,” implying that the ‘believing’ partner should endeavour to seek an amicable resolution.  In other words, going or letting go should not be a hurried consideration, because your patience could save the other (v.16).  Paul’s caution implicitly stresses the place and power of individual choices (or commitment) in staying or leaving a marriage even when the grounds for divorce might have been present.

To the extreme conservative, who is persuaded that there is no place for any kind of divorce in the Bible, when Paul says, “but God hath called us to peace,” he meant enduring every marriage at all costs, no matter the grounds to separate, because divorce is essentially a contradiction to peace.  It is doubtful that that was Paul’s definition of peace in that passage; that making peace means staying in every marriage, even when it is dangerously abusive, marked with brutal daily battles, and where it might not even have been God that ‘joined’ them together.

Read more

That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear.

Luke 1:74

1. The Tip of the Spear

Every normal person has two hands. Two normal people would have four hands, and ten people would have twenty hands.  Accordingly, a plural number of persons should have plural hands.  However, in the prophetic and priestly prayer of Zachariah the father of John the Baptist, we hear about the singular hand of plural enemies; the one hand of many enemies.  What could that mean?

The implication is that, sometimes, there are more enemies than you may ever know; one visible wicked “hand” of many invisible enemies; one known hand that is merely a decoy, a planned distraction.  In other words, the wicked “hand” you see, that you contend with, that you complain against, could be merely the tip of the spear of many wicked people unseen, unknown.

In the bitter conflicts with a manifest wicked hand, the ‘unseen’ hands could sometimes act strategically ‘friendly,’ gaining your trust, while behind you they sponsor the fronted hand to continue to deal with you terribly.  In such circumstances, if you are not discerning, you could be manipulated to run to and confide in those ‘friendly’ hands, unaware that they are all part of the same plot to destroy you.  Sometimes, there is more to your battles than you see.  In this season, may God begin to expose them all. Amen.

 

2. One Hand versus Many Folks

Who was praying that prayer was a man of God.  He was speaking not only for himself but for a community of people of which he was part.  He was not praying for “me” and “I”; he was interceding for “we” and “us.”   Many people had been under the oppression of the one wicked hand; one enemy hand raised against a whole community of godly people; one known hand powered by many unseen and unknown enemies.

Such a hand that oppresses an entire people is no mere hand.  It is a monstrous evil hand.  Satan is a specialist at counterfeiting the things of God.  Moses often spoke of the “mighty hand” of God; the one mighty hand of the Mighty God (Deuteronomy 4:34; 5:15; 6:21; 7:8). Whereas Moses speaks of the good hand of God that brought His entire people out of bondage, in Zachariah’s prayer, he addresses the Satanic counterfeit; the wicked hand that keeps an entire people of God in bondage.

John the Baptist had been born already, but the battle was not over.  It was not yet time to dance.  A people still needed to be free.  Zachariah seemed to have been aware that his testimony was only a beginning.  Others, too, should be free.

The people had seen and testified about “the hand of the Lord” upon the child (v.66), but according to the unselfish intercessor, there was still “the hand of all that hate us” to be saved from, and “the hand of our enemies” to be delivered from.  That priest knew his peculiar battle.  It was against a hand; a strange hand that often took away the good and brought the bad.  What is yours?  A snake?  A cat?  A house?  A road?  A tree?  A river?

 

3. Contending with a Monster

Like the seven heads and fourteen eyes of the one red dragon in Revelation 12:1-3, it is not normal but monstrous that many people should share a hand.  Seven heads of one dragon is as unusual as the one hand of many enemies.  If you saw such a scene in your dream, of many people with one strong, long hand, you might flee or fight, not sit down to dinner with the hand.  Zachariah realised that he had been dealing with a monster; a many-headed but one-handed monster that had long resisted the birth of his man-child prophetic John the Baptist.

Zachariah suddenly knew something at the moment of that inspired prayer.  In verse 71, he prayed, “That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us.” He was addressing the one “hand” of many enemies, “our enemies,” all of them “that hate us,” hate our God, hate our temples, hate our dresses, hate our TV programs, hate our schools, hate our girls, hate our leaders, hate our economy, hate our marriages, hate our peace, strangely hate everything about us even when we have provoked them in no way to warrant it.

In the next verse, he reveals that deliverance from that monstrous “hand” was crucial to realising “the mercy promised to our fathers.”  In other words, that wicked hand had been resisting The Promise.  Two verses later, in verse 74, he again addresses the “hand,” or another “hand”; the mystery hand hindering him as well as his priestly clan from unceasing service to their God in “holiness and righteousness.”

So far as they served their God in iniquity and wickedness, it seemed OK with that monitoring enemy hand, but to be proper priests, serving God in holiness, it was taking a battle.  The interceding priest realised that until deliverance from that wicked hand was gained, they were not going to be able to “serve him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74-75).  As far as that evil hand was concerned, they could still be priests, still bear the honoured title of priests, still be very active in the courts of God, so long as they never went beyond the limit imposed.  What a wicked hand, sponsoring iniquity in the priesthood!

 

4. Their Obituary

Wise men visited Jerusalem, announcing that a king had been born, and that they had seen his star in the East and come to worship him, from over 500 miles away. At that news, Herod the incumbent king felt threatened and rose up to destroy the unknown baby King.  In a dream, before Herod could achieve his wicked aim, God told Joseph to flee to Egypt with the family. Times later, when Herod was dead, in those days without cell phones, without radios, without a television, an angel was sent to announce to Joseph, “Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life” (Matthew 2:20).

Who died was just one man, but the obituary announcement from heaven was about a plural people dead: “they.”  The angel should have said, “He is dead,” but he said, “They are dead.”  What could that mean?  Heaven certainly knew something more than earth would admit or announce.  Herod was more than one man in his fights against the New King and His New Kingdom.

Going by the obituary announcement from heaven, Herod was merely the visible front for many other wicked interests that did not have his means and boldness and power.  That wicked king had been simply the executor of a malicious plan that had behind it more than could be seen.  He was a front.  He was their great strength.  His death became their death also, the abrogation of their wicked agenda, the termination their evil dream.  In your land, in your life, who is ‘their’ hand?

 

5. The Enemies of the Holy

We should not pretend: even holy priests have enemies, and they could be many.  You do not have to be a non-priest to not have enemies; you do not have to have sinned to attract enemies.  That they have not struck might not mean that they are not there.

Despite his sufficient trauma with an aged barren wife, Bishop Zechariah had enemies; or perhaps those were the enemies behind that condition in his wife.  In other words, you cannot be so priestly or so holy that you have no enemy to deal with, no battle to fight, and no need for deliverance.  It is spiritual naivety to presume so.  Not being aware of your enemies does not erase them.  In fact, it helps their purpose better.  The priest prayed to be “delivered” out of their “hand.”  He was aware that they were there.

 

6. A Prayer

May God announce the obituary of all enemies, known and unknown, by cutting off their one arrowhead.  May God break the visible “hand” of the invisible enemies; the wicked hand by which they make even priests to serve their God in less ways than they should.  May the word of God in Ezekiel 30:22 be activated against them: “I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, the strong, and that which was broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.”

As Heaven’s obituary announcement of Herod meant the automatic restoration of Jesus back to His prophetic place in Israel, from which He was previously forced to flee, may Heaven again announce a big obituary in this season; one obituary of many enemies, that Messiah may return to His place in our lives, in our land.

O God, in the battles of the priesthood and the battles of life, grant us eyes that see properly, and deliver us from manipulations.  May the great miracle birth of John never blind us from the battles yet to be fought and won. Amen.

From The Preacher’s diary,

April 16, 2025.

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?

Galatians 3:1

According to our text, bewitchment makes people act foolishly.  The spell may be cast over a person, or over an entire population, as here, over the Galatians. Under such a spell, even otherwise very intelligent Galatians begin to act in surprising ways.

Bewitched people have been known to sell away properties at ridiculous prices just to give the money to who has hypnotized them. There have also been bewitched romances, where someone ‘fell’ or ‘crashed into love’ with someone that they otherwise would not have liked at all.  When their eyes were later clear, they wondered if they really did it.  Other saner people also wonder why they should act that way.

Bewitchment makes people act in such foolish ways as makes the reasonable observer to lament, “O!” as Paul did over the Galatians. They become a concern overnight.  Reasonable people then begin to wonder how it had come about, so suddenly.  Paul got so amazed by the sudden Galatian doctrinal foolishness

Read more

1. Much More than Sunrise and Sunset

To many, the calendar is just a table of dates.  To the spiritual, however, it is a table of mystic codes.  For some, every day is like any other day, starting with the sunrise and ending at sunset.  To the spiritual, days are much more than sunrise and sunset; they are spiritual, and dates are more than just numbers.  Even numbers speak.

 

2. Numbers Speak

If numbers say nothing, what was the sense or spirituality of the Israelite army being required by God to go around the fortified city of Jericho once every day for six days, and seven times on the seventh day, a total of thirteen times, to fully break down the psychic defences around the city, then gain access to capture it (Joshua 6:2-5), and why was Naaman the leprous nobleman from Syria told to dip seven times in the River Jordan, to completely wash off that curse of leprosy, which a greedily foolish and undiscerning young prophet attracted upon himself and upon his everlasting generations?  Was it meant to be just an exercise, after all (2 Kings 5:14)?  Numbers speak, and some days and dates could be more than just an entry in the diary.

Read more

1. The Living Book

The Bible is a strange living book, with its fathomless wells of puzzles.  No matter how many times you have read it, you never finish reading it.  Sometimes you come upon a freshness as if you had never read the passage before.

 

2. Of Symmetrical Paradoxes

In Acts 12, for example, I find an intriguing symmetry. It opens and closes with similar and contrasting actions.  It opens with one death and closes with another. It opens with the Church apparently vanquished; it closes with the same Church in triumph.  It opens with Herod the killer gaining grounds, from one mischief against James to the next against Peter; it closes with him stopped, then the further reversal of fates in the speedy advance of the same Church that he had sought to stop.  It opens with Herod being hailed, which urged him on; it closes with Herod being hailed, but that became his obituary.  That wicked king seemed to love the praise of men.  It fired him on, and it fired him down.

Read more