Silas
Beloved of All
There is real pain and confusion in what you have described, and God sees the turmoil that has come into your neighborhood and into your own home. What you are feeling is not unfamiliar in Scripture. When people turn away from God's order and each person does what is right in his own eyes, confusion follows. That confusion is shown from early in the Bible as a sign of a disordered life apart from God. God Himself establishes order and peace, but man on his own makes confusion, and that confusion spreads quickly from one household to another.
You spoke of meddling in another house, of aggression and violence, and of a contagious pattern of broken marriages. Scripture warns plainly about the habit of meddling in matters that are not our own. There is a natural tendency to insert ourselves into relationships and situations where we do not belong, and it never helps. It always brings hurt to the one who meddles, it breaks down defenses and it takes away peace and treasure. Wrong relationships, and the bitterness and envy that grow around divorce, are among those things. They promise something but they only bring pain and loss.
You also spoke of torment and of evil spirits that seem idle and destructive. The Bible does teach that torment can be very real, painful like the sting of a scorpion, and that evil spiritual forces work to deceive and to stir up strife. A person cannot hide from that kind of torment by simply closing a door. At the same time, Scripture teaches that Jesus Christ has authority over all powers of darkness and that He gives protection to those who belong to Him. Those who are sealed in Him are kept, and fear itself is a form of torment that is driven out as His love is made perfect in us. We do not need to live in dread of what those forces may do, but we do need to watch, to keep our lives clean before Him, and to trust His power rather than our own.
God's standard for marriage remains what Jesus taught. Moses permitted divorce because of hardness of heart, but from the beginning it was not that way. Marriage is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and intimacy and living together belong within that covenant. The works of the flesh described in Galatians, which include envy, strife, sexual immorality and outbursts of anger, are contrasted with the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, peace, patience and self control. Those who once lived in malice and envy, as Titus describes, are called to be transformed by the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. Salvation is through Jesus alone, and He alone can change the heart that is hard.
Loving God with all the heart is the first and greatest command, and the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. Love fulfilled is the whole law, because love does no harm to a neighbor. That does not mean we approve what is wrong or invite harm into our own home. It means we do not return evil for evil, we do not speak lies or slander, we do not deceive with peaceful words while planning harm, and we do not work ill against those around us even when they are working ill against us.
So we pray with you in the name of Jesus Christ for rebuke of the violence, the false accusations, the bewildering confusion where people pretend to be someone they are not and claim ties that are not true, and the spirit of strife that seeks to invade your life. We ask the Lord to bring His order where there is confusion, His peace where there is torment, and His protection over your household. We ask Him to restrain what is aggressive and imprudent and to bring conviction where there is hardness of heart.
We also pray for every man and woman, including those you mentioned who have been through painful divorce and who are now in boyfriend and girlfriend relationships. We do not ask God to bless what is outside His design, but we do ask Him to bring healing from the tragedy and disgrace that divorce leaves, to bring repentance where there is sin, to bring comfort where there is ruin, and to lead each person to find wholeness in Christ and to walk afterward in holiness and in obedience to His way for marriage and purity.
Ask the Lord to keep you from being drawn into meddling yourself. Keep clear boundaries, do not enter into quarrels that are not yours, guard your home in prayer, and continue to do good and speak truth. Trust Him to be your defense. If you have not already, seek wise and godly counsel nearby for practical help with safety and with neighborhood matters, and stay rooted in Scripture and in prayer, loving God supremely and loving your neighbor by desiring his true good, which is to know Christ and to live in His order.
You spoke of meddling in another house, of aggression and violence, and of a contagious pattern of broken marriages. Scripture warns plainly about the habit of meddling in matters that are not our own. There is a natural tendency to insert ourselves into relationships and situations where we do not belong, and it never helps. It always brings hurt to the one who meddles, it breaks down defenses and it takes away peace and treasure. Wrong relationships, and the bitterness and envy that grow around divorce, are among those things. They promise something but they only bring pain and loss.
You also spoke of torment and of evil spirits that seem idle and destructive. The Bible does teach that torment can be very real, painful like the sting of a scorpion, and that evil spiritual forces work to deceive and to stir up strife. A person cannot hide from that kind of torment by simply closing a door. At the same time, Scripture teaches that Jesus Christ has authority over all powers of darkness and that He gives protection to those who belong to Him. Those who are sealed in Him are kept, and fear itself is a form of torment that is driven out as His love is made perfect in us. We do not need to live in dread of what those forces may do, but we do need to watch, to keep our lives clean before Him, and to trust His power rather than our own.
God's standard for marriage remains what Jesus taught. Moses permitted divorce because of hardness of heart, but from the beginning it was not that way. Marriage is a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and intimacy and living together belong within that covenant. The works of the flesh described in Galatians, which include envy, strife, sexual immorality and outbursts of anger, are contrasted with the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, peace, patience and self control. Those who once lived in malice and envy, as Titus describes, are called to be transformed by the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. Salvation is through Jesus alone, and He alone can change the heart that is hard.
Loving God with all the heart is the first and greatest command, and the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. Love fulfilled is the whole law, because love does no harm to a neighbor. That does not mean we approve what is wrong or invite harm into our own home. It means we do not return evil for evil, we do not speak lies or slander, we do not deceive with peaceful words while planning harm, and we do not work ill against those around us even when they are working ill against us.
So we pray with you in the name of Jesus Christ for rebuke of the violence, the false accusations, the bewildering confusion where people pretend to be someone they are not and claim ties that are not true, and the spirit of strife that seeks to invade your life. We ask the Lord to bring His order where there is confusion, His peace where there is torment, and His protection over your household. We ask Him to restrain what is aggressive and imprudent and to bring conviction where there is hardness of heart.
We also pray for every man and woman, including those you mentioned who have been through painful divorce and who are now in boyfriend and girlfriend relationships. We do not ask God to bless what is outside His design, but we do ask Him to bring healing from the tragedy and disgrace that divorce leaves, to bring repentance where there is sin, to bring comfort where there is ruin, and to lead each person to find wholeness in Christ and to walk afterward in holiness and in obedience to His way for marriage and purity.
Ask the Lord to keep you from being drawn into meddling yourself. Keep clear boundaries, do not enter into quarrels that are not yours, guard your home in prayer, and continue to do good and speak truth. Trust Him to be your defense. If you have not already, seek wise and godly counsel nearby for practical help with safety and with neighborhood matters, and stay rooted in Scripture and in prayer, loving God supremely and loving your neighbor by desiring his true good, which is to know Christ and to live in His order.
