"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine,"
Song of Solomon 1:2.
"Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?" (Prov. 5:18-20).
We stated last week that God is the author of all true loves, including eros, or sexual intimacy. In the right context, it is a beautiful expression of the love shared between a man and his wife.
"There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid," (Prov. 30:18-20).
Many people have given up on God's pattern for marriage and are simply co-habiting without a lifelong commitment to the relationship. They have seen so many marriages, even among Christians, fail. Yet the Word of God declares that "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge," (Heb. 13:4).
Why is there an abortion in America on the average of one every fifteen seconds? If two people who were truly in love were being fruitful and multiplying, why would they kill their seed? The fact of the matter is that, when a woman becomes pregnant to a man she doesn't really love and who she knows won't be there to help raise the child... or, when the man doesn't want the responsibility and/or already has children by other women, the enemy causes them to justify or reason why it's better for this "fetal tissue" to be extracted from the body. The womb becomes a tomb. As with any holocaust or genocide, those committing the murder must soothe their own conscious by dehumanizing the objects of destruction, calling them anything but a human being. When eros love is "out of order" the results are devastating.
God meant for procreation to take place in the context of holy matrimony for the purpose of producing a godly seed in the earth.
"Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth," (Malachi 2:14,15).
What an awesome privilege God has given to mankind: to reproduce life. Children are meant by God to be a blessing.
"As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate," (Ps. 127:4-5).
"For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord," (Ps. 128:2-4).
When children get to be raised in a loving home by their biological parents, even if they are not Christians, they are still better adjusted, happy and secure. When children don't grow up with love (storge), their spirit is more vulnerable and prone to engage in deviant forms of "love". In other words, we all need love, and when we don't get loved the right way, we'll seek to fill that void in other ways. I often compare this with eating. We all know that there is a difference between eating healthy and eating junk food. When we're hungry, junk food is better than no food at all. Who wants to starve to death? Perversions of love is like junk food. When you're love starved because no one has fed you "healthy love", then perhaps masturbation, lesbianism, homosexuality, etc. may be the alternative that Satan brings into your life's experience. Deep within your spirit, you know it's wicked; if you don't, then it's a sign that you have been given over to a reprobate mind.
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them," (Romans 1:24-32).
America is becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities that came under divine judgment and subsequent destruction because they were filled with sexual perversion. Perhaps you have been snared by sexual sins and you want to be free. Jesus became sin so that you might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You are not stuck with your sin! Praise God! You do not have to come under judgment if you repent and come under the Blood of Jesus instead.
Regardless of how deeply entrenched you may feel the sin is... no matter are great a stronghold it may have become, when you have Jesus Christ on the inside, then greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Christ, the anointing that destroys every yoke, is your victory. Repentance involves a change of heart and a change of mind. You become transformed by the renewing of your mind. Understand that the stronghold begins in your mind, with imaginations, thoughts, fantasies, etc. that you entertain. You must begin to cast down every thought, every imagination that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 10:5). You must fill your spirit with truth and walk in that truth so that you do not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). Allow God to sever every relationship that is spiritual unhealthy for you. Recognize Jesus Christ as the Divine Bridegroom and understand that, spiritually speaking, you are His Bride. You are to be married to Him and you want to live this life in such a way that you are preparing yourself for that great Wedding Day.
"For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ," (2 Cor. 11:2).
God can restore you. Jesus will free you. And whom the Son sets free, is free indeed! Amen.
Is God ever in divorce? Even though He hates it, the answer is a profound YES! God Himself has been married, divorced and remarried. In His dealings with Israel and Judah, God looked upon His chosen people as His wife. When they committed spiritual idolatry and whoredoms, He divorced Israel, but brought her to repentance, and married her again.
7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. - Jeremiah 3
He commanded His prophet Hosea to marry a harlot as a prophetic picture of how His own people had treated Him.
"The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord," (Hos. 1:2).
In the time of Ezra, God led His people, especially the priests, to not only divorce the wives that He never intended for them to marry, but to also send the children from those marriages away.
3 Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law.
10 And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.
11 Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives.
12 Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.
14 Let now our rulers of all the congregation stand, and let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us. - Ezra 10
It is good to know the will of God before getting married. Unfortunately many people either do not seek godly counsel or do not heed it. After the damage is done, then they look for someone to rescue them from a bad situation. Nevertheless, they must now go through a process and reap what they have sown and wait for God's timing to release them.
Will continue this next week.
Song of Solomon 1:2.
"Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?" (Prov. 5:18-20).
We stated last week that God is the author of all true loves, including eros, or sexual intimacy. In the right context, it is a beautiful expression of the love shared between a man and his wife.
"There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid," (Prov. 30:18-20).
Many people have given up on God's pattern for marriage and are simply co-habiting without a lifelong commitment to the relationship. They have seen so many marriages, even among Christians, fail. Yet the Word of God declares that "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge," (Heb. 13:4).
Why is there an abortion in America on the average of one every fifteen seconds? If two people who were truly in love were being fruitful and multiplying, why would they kill their seed? The fact of the matter is that, when a woman becomes pregnant to a man she doesn't really love and who she knows won't be there to help raise the child... or, when the man doesn't want the responsibility and/or already has children by other women, the enemy causes them to justify or reason why it's better for this "fetal tissue" to be extracted from the body. The womb becomes a tomb. As with any holocaust or genocide, those committing the murder must soothe their own conscious by dehumanizing the objects of destruction, calling them anything but a human being. When eros love is "out of order" the results are devastating.
God meant for procreation to take place in the context of holy matrimony for the purpose of producing a godly seed in the earth.
"Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth," (Malachi 2:14,15).
What an awesome privilege God has given to mankind: to reproduce life. Children are meant by God to be a blessing.
"As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate," (Ps. 127:4-5).
"For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord," (Ps. 128:2-4).
When children get to be raised in a loving home by their biological parents, even if they are not Christians, they are still better adjusted, happy and secure. When children don't grow up with love (storge), their spirit is more vulnerable and prone to engage in deviant forms of "love". In other words, we all need love, and when we don't get loved the right way, we'll seek to fill that void in other ways. I often compare this with eating. We all know that there is a difference between eating healthy and eating junk food. When we're hungry, junk food is better than no food at all. Who wants to starve to death? Perversions of love is like junk food. When you're love starved because no one has fed you "healthy love", then perhaps masturbation, lesbianism, homosexuality, etc. may be the alternative that Satan brings into your life's experience. Deep within your spirit, you know it's wicked; if you don't, then it's a sign that you have been given over to a reprobate mind.
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them," (Romans 1:24-32).
America is becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities that came under divine judgment and subsequent destruction because they were filled with sexual perversion. Perhaps you have been snared by sexual sins and you want to be free. Jesus became sin so that you might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You are not stuck with your sin! Praise God! You do not have to come under judgment if you repent and come under the Blood of Jesus instead.
Regardless of how deeply entrenched you may feel the sin is... no matter are great a stronghold it may have become, when you have Jesus Christ on the inside, then greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Christ, the anointing that destroys every yoke, is your victory. Repentance involves a change of heart and a change of mind. You become transformed by the renewing of your mind. Understand that the stronghold begins in your mind, with imaginations, thoughts, fantasies, etc. that you entertain. You must begin to cast down every thought, every imagination that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 10:5). You must fill your spirit with truth and walk in that truth so that you do not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). Allow God to sever every relationship that is spiritual unhealthy for you. Recognize Jesus Christ as the Divine Bridegroom and understand that, spiritually speaking, you are His Bride. You are to be married to Him and you want to live this life in such a way that you are preparing yourself for that great Wedding Day.
"For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ," (2 Cor. 11:2).
God can restore you. Jesus will free you. And whom the Son sets free, is free indeed! Amen.
God and Divorce
Is God ever in divorce? Even though He hates it, the answer is a profound YES! God Himself has been married, divorced and remarried. In His dealings with Israel and Judah, God looked upon His chosen people as His wife. When they committed spiritual idolatry and whoredoms, He divorced Israel, but brought her to repentance, and married her again.
7 And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. - Jeremiah 3
He commanded His prophet Hosea to marry a harlot as a prophetic picture of how His own people had treated Him.
"The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord," (Hos. 1:2).
In the time of Ezra, God led His people, especially the priests, to not only divorce the wives that He never intended for them to marry, but to also send the children from those marriages away.
3 Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law.
10 And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel.
11 Now therefore make confession unto the Lord God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives.
12 Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.
14 Let now our rulers of all the congregation stand, and let all them which have taken strange wives in our cities come at appointed times, and with them the elders of every city, and the judges thereof, until the fierce wrath of our God for this matter be turned from us. - Ezra 10
It is good to know the will of God before getting married. Unfortunately many people either do not seek godly counsel or do not heed it. After the damage is done, then they look for someone to rescue them from a bad situation. Nevertheless, they must now go through a process and reap what they have sown and wait for God's timing to release them.
Will continue this next week.
Note: In classical mythology, Eros is synonymous with Cupid, the god of love, affection, attraction and desire.
