Fear God, Not “Man”

2 thoughts on “Fear God, Not “Man””

1. Dear DM,

   Thank you for your blog.

   I came here after reading your comments on John Piper’s view on divorce. No idea who John Piper is, but his views echoed that of David Pawson, a man I respect a lot for his bible study videos. However, last night, I came across Pawson’s video on Divorce and Remarriage and felt condemned by it. I recently divorced my unfaithful and abusive spouse. It took me too long to divorce him, after years of abuse because I wanted to be a “good Christian”. Finally it took a serendipitous discovery of his adulterous relationship with a married colleague for me to finally feel like I have the biblical “permission” to leave him. Even the divorce was a horrendous process, but a process in which I realised he is a sociopath with no remorse, who lied, threatened and bullied me through out the process, and I know without a doubt that God is behind that accidental discovery which saved my life!!! Even before reading your blog, I had felt raped. You call it rape to the soul but I felt raped physically as well. For during the time he was living a double life, he suddenly treated me better. I thought he had changed and we started trying for a family. Had I known he was sleeping with his married colleague, I would never have consented to sex, especially unprotected sex. So, wearing the mask of “faithful husband”, he raped me in my unconsciousness (of his other life). During that year, I had two miscarriages (because we were trying for a baby), and when the first miscarriage happened, he disappeared for a while, leaving me alone to comfort myself (much later, I found out he was meeting his married lover in a hotel that day), and the second happened in the days after I discovered his adultery. When I told his married lover I had a miscarriage over the discovery, she said to me “Miscarriages are very common, I’ve had one too.” When his older brother whom I thought was a stronger christian found out about the affair, he comforted my husband by saying that it must be my fault because I had not understood him, so he sought for comfort from another woman. At least he was not having one night stands. (Prov 17: 15 “Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent– the LORD detests them both”). The only way I could fathom their reaction was: they were both sons of a man who committed adultery and abused his wife over many years, so in their eyes, I was wrong to want to leave him when their mother never left their father but instead begged him not to leave her for his mistress.

   Anyway, I felt like I was surrounded by a pack of wolves. I ran to the Lord for shelter and took comfort in His Words, and recently started attending bible study classes which use the video material by David Pawson, which I had enjoyed and benefitted from. Wanting to learn more, I found Pawson’s sermons on Youtube and came across his video on divorce and remarriage. Felt he was using the bible to condemn me, and people like me… Today I googled the internet for what David Pawson might have said about wife abuse and that led me to your blog. Thank you for taking the time to minister to crushed souls.

   As for the bible verses about divorce which condemned me, instead of trying to ran away from them, I am going to embrace them. Jesus was stating a standard of God higher than Moses’s law, and the bible does say that God hates divorce, divorce was an institution started by man, not ordained by God… but is staying in an abusive marriage the way to please God? NO. We are redeemed not by our perfect obedience, but by the blood of Jesus. Just as God did not intend for divorce, God did not permit Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but they did, and as a result Sin entered the world, and there is no redemption except by the blood of Jesus.

   I did find in the end a short video clip from an interview with Pawson in which the interviewer asked Pawson about the successful ministeries of people who had divorced and remarried (like Joyce Meyer for instance?). Pawson replied: “I just praise God for His grace. If He had waited until any of us were perfect, he would never have used any of us… Grace blesses us even before we started being right.”

   So God’s grace remains my only hope. Bible verses can be used to slay and condemn us, and God’s words cannot be destroyed. Yet in it, is also our antidote, our salvation. I am not interested in using bible verses to prove that I’m right or wrong, but it is the Life within His word that I want to partake of.

   Well, apart from this short extract about grace, Pawson did backpedal a little to say that ” that doesn’t mean these people are living right…” Perhaps by being divorced, I am not living right, as suggested by Pawson based on the verses… So I am going to hang on to the grace of God because that is my only way to be blessed and righteous before God – by His grace, by Jesus’s blood, by His perfect sacrifice resulting in my continuous forgiveness, by His perfect obedience, by the great exchange on the cross. – I am loved by God.

   Thank you again for your blog which ministered love and acceptance to me and helped me come to the above conclusion.

   1. Joyce,

      I am so sorry you had to go through infidelity too! I’m glad you’re seeking comfort in God’s word. The Bible clearly states that you are INNOCENT of your ex-husband’s sins and that he will bear the guilt of his own sin (Numbers 5:31, Ezekiel 18:20).

      Another thing that I found comforting is noticing that “For I hate divorce” in Malachi 2:16 isn’t necessarily directed at every divorcee. In fact, God appears to hate divorce because the men in this passage were hurting their spouses (whom they tossed away for no good reason) and children (Malachi 2:14-16). Because God loves the people like you who are being hurt! I figure they would have likely been divorcing faithful women, because adulteresses could have been put under a curse by a priest (Numbers 5:11-31) or put to death (Deuteronomy 22:22, Leviticus 20:10).

      Jesus also said “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:9). The word for sexual immorality in greek is porneia. Greek lexicons tend to define porneia as illicit sexual intercourse including adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc. There is a debate among denominations as to why Jesus used the general greek word for sexual immorality (porneia) instead of the specific greek word for adultery (moichea) in Matthew 19:9. There are some, even many, who believe His reason was to broaden the reasons why one could divorce and remarry. In their view, one could divorce and remarry when there was adultery as well as fornication during the betrothal period, etc. Others believe Jesus was attempting to narrow the reason to just fornication during the betrothal period. Both sides have their arguments, but greek lexicons do include adultery among the definition of porneia for good reason. So those who suggest Jesus meant to include adultery as a valid reason to divorce and remarry may have merit to their argument as well.

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