🧎🏽‍♂️Holy Spirit Opens Bible 📖 Open Visions while Awake⚡️Dreams 💤 at Sleep Job 33:12-17; Matt 2:12, Prophecy🌬️Joel 2:28, Num 12:6, Acts 16:9...

[Chrysostom]

Your prayer has been received and we join with you in seeking the Lord according to His Word. We give thanks that you desire to abide in Christ and to have His words abide in you, to abide in His love, and to walk by His Word as a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. This is the sure way, for we are to speak according to the Law and the Testimony, and to hold the truth in righteousness, for the ways of truth are one while error is many and various.

We agree with you that God is able to save forever those who come to God through Jesus, because He lives to make intercession for us, and that nothing is impossible with God, though many things are impossible with man. He alone is the Savior, and salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, and we look to Him with humble confidence as little children, asking for love from a pure heart and a sincere faith and a blameless conscience.

Concerning marriage, we hear your burden for this husband, his wife, their children and family. Scripture teaches that marriage is a bond ordained of God, and it is honorable. It is not itself holiness, but it preserves the holiness which comes through faith, by keeping husband and wife from fornication and from union with another. To live chastely and orderly within marriage, each with his own wife and each with her own husband, is to follow peace with all and holiness. Fornication and adultery and the breaking of this covenant do not come from marriage itself, but from an unrestrained heart that makes ill use of good things. The profit of marriage is to preserve the body pure, and when that purity is forsaken there is great harm to house and honor and character and to the souls of children.

Therefore we do not ask God to bless waywardness or any union outside the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, for sex and living together belong within that covenant alone. Instead we pray that God would grant warning and mercy, to turn hearts from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, to preserve them from the pit. We pray that this wife would be brought to repentance, that she would turn from every defilement and be restored to faithfulness in her marriage, and that this husband would be kept in steadfastness, in chastity, in patience and in prayer, using marriage with moderation and reverence as God intends.

We also hear your desire for dreams and visions and prophecy. God is sovereign and His arm is not too short to save, and He has spoken in various ways in ages past. Yet we urge you to seek Him first in the settled Word that He has given, for His Word is the lamp by which we test all things. Let every impression, dream or vision be weighed by Scripture, and let your confidence rest not in seeking signs but in abiding in Christ, in continual prayer, and in a life that is grave, orderly and chaste. If God in His wisdom grants any warning or comfort, it will accord with His written testimony and lead toward repentance, humility and holiness, not away from it.

So we pray together now for you all. Father, in the name of Jesus, keep this husband, his wife, their children, their extended family, their prayer partners and ministry partners, and their church leaders in Your care. Cause them to abide in Christ and in His love. Keep them from temptation, from sin and evil, from lies and fear, from deception and from the evil one. Grant to the husband endurance and wisdom, to the wife a heart to return to You and to her covenant, to the children protection and instruction in righteousness, and to all a diligent following of every good work and perseverance in prayer. Lead them to honor marriage as You have ordained it, and to live in a way that is pure and faithful, that their home may be ordered and blessed and their lives may show the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory forever. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your longing for the Word to abide in you and for the Holy Spirit to make it a lamp to your feet is a good and biblical desire. To abide in Christ and let His words abide in you, to abide in His love and to test every voice by the law and the testimony, is the right foundation. When you ask that God would speak and keep you and your family from wrongdoing, pride, and the pit, you are asking according to Scripture.

God is able to do all things and nothing is impossible with Him. Jesus lives to make intercession for those who come to God through Him, and He is able to save completely. Scripture shows that God has at times spoken in dreams and visions, to His own people and even to those outside the covenant, to warn, to turn people from wrongdoing, to preserve life, and to reveal what He is about to do. We see this with Abimelech concerning Sarah, with Joseph and Pharaoh and his servants, with the magi being warned in a dream, and with Nebuchadnezzar. Job says that God speaks in one way and then another, in a dream in the night when deep sleep falls, to speak in ears and warn, to turn a person from wrongdoing and keep them from pride and from perishing. Joel prophesied that God would pour out His Spirit and that sons and daughters would prophesy and old and young would dream dreams and see visions. At the same time, the sure guide is the written Word. If what is claimed does not speak according to the law and the testimony, there is no light in it. Any dream or vision must be weighed by Scripture, which remains the lamp to our path.

For your marriage and family, take courage from what God teaches about His design. Marriage is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and the gift of intimacy belongs only within that covenant. Scripture urges a husband to find his full satisfaction in his own wife, to rejoice with the wife of his youth, and to let his children be his own before the Lord. The opposite path is warned against strongly. He who goes into his neighbor's wife will not be innocent, and adultery is not to be taken lightly.

The history of Lot is a sober warning about how compromise with a corrupt culture costs a family dearly. He lingered among the morals of Sodom and lost influence over his household. When mercy led him out, his wife turned back in her heart toward the city and was lost. In the same way, Jacob's long sojourn near Shechem polluted his family, and idolatry spread in his house until he had to call his whole household to put away foreign gods and be cleansed through the Word. Establishing God's Word in the home daily is not optional. How can a young person keep his way pure except by taking heed according to the Word, and how is a household made clean except through the Word Christ has spoken.

Joseph gives the opposite example. When his master's wife cast her eyes on him, he refused and said he could not do such wickedness and sin against God. God honored that integrity, and later gave Joseph understanding to say that interpretation belongs to God, not to man. Whether with Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar, the point was never the ability of the man, but that God reveals His purposes and is faithful to fulfill what He promises, as He was with Abraham.

For a husband with a wayward wife, God calls you to steadfast faithfulness and prayer. Scripture teaches that each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband, and that neither should withhold due benevolence but honor the covenant. If an unbelieving spouse is not willing to remain, the believer is not under bondage in such a case, yet there is also this hope, how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife as she observes Christ in you. Breach in a home is often deepened when faith in Christ is not shared, and following Jesus can cost dearly in family relationships, but God is merciful and able to warn, to convict, and to turn a heart from wrongdoing.

So pray with humble confidence as a little child, seeking love from a pure heart and a sincere faith and a good conscience. Ask the Father to keep you, your wife, your children, and your extended family from temptation, from lies and deception, from fear and evil people, and from the evil one. Ask Him to make His Word alive to each of you, to grant repentance where there is waywardness, to preserve from the pit, and to pour out His Spirit in a way that leads to holiness and obedience to Christ. Thank Him in advance, trusting that what He has promised He is able to perform, and that He who has begun a good work is faithful.

May the Lord keep you abiding in Him, guard your home by His Word, and work in your wife and children to bring them back to Himself and to the covenant you made before Him.

 

[hostadmin]

We thank you for giving us the privilege to pray on your behalf and we are glad that you asked us to stand in agreement with you in prayer according to Matthew 18:19.

We have continued to lift you up before the Lord as a husband contending for your wayward wife, your children, your family and extended family, and for your prayer and ministry partners, church leaders and team members. We are still agreeing with you that the Holy Spirit would speak clearly in every way, that His Words would abide in you as you abide in Him, John 15:7, and that you would abide in His love, John 15:10. We are praying that His Word would continue to be a lamp to your feet and a light to your path, Psalm 119:105, and that everything would be tested according to the law and the testimony, Isaiah 8:20.

We are asking the Father to pour out His Spirit as promised in Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17, to give warning and guiding dreams while sleeping and visions while awake to turn hearts from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, as described in Job 33:14, and to preserve your wife and family from the pit, just as He spoke to Joseph in Matthew 1:20 and to the Magi in Matthew 2:12. We are trusting that nothing is impossible with God, Luke 1:37 and Mark 10:27, and that He is able to save completely those who come to God through Jesus, Hebrews 7:25.

If your request has been answered and you have seen the Holy Spirit open the Scriptures and speak through dreams or visions or a turning in your wife and family, please post a praise report and let us all know so we can rejoice with you. If your request does not yet seem to have been answered, please post it again as a new request and allow us to continue with you in prayer.

May God bless you as you continue to seek Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. We continue to bring your family before the throne of grace and we pray all of this in Jesus Name, Amen.