Part 2: Clarifying My Perspective on Divorce and ‘Marriage’: The Role of the Holy Spirit
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Recently, I heard these words just as I was awakening: “tell them about ____ ____.” I’ll call him ‘Pastor E.;’ though, this is not one of his initials.
About 20 years ago, after most of the chairs were vacated in a revival meeting, I just happened to be seated behind a previously famous evangelical leader whom I knew personally. He was bent over in his chair and sobbing. The evangelist who was leading the meetings came over to him and asked him what was wrong. Pastor E. said, ~”I’m a pastor and I’m all washed up. My wife and I divorced. We had an Old Testament scripture. And then I remarried, and now I’m all washed up.”
The evangelist said: ~”you’re not washed up.” But he had just preached in this meeting how Kathryn Kuhlman temporarily lost her anointing and her ministry after she married a man who was unbiblically divorced. She annulled the marriage, and after a time her ministry was restored.
This is a summary of her story, from godsgenerals.com/person_k_kuhlman.htm:
She [Kathryn Kuhlman] founded the Denver Revival Tabernacle in 1935. That same year, Kathryn met Burroughs Waltrip, an extremely handsome Texas evangelist who was eight years her senior. Despite the fact that he was married with two small boys, they soon found themselves attracted to each other. Shortly after his visit to Denver, Waltrip divorced his wife, left his family….
Burroughs and Kathryn decided to wed. While discussing the matter with some friends, Kathryn had said that she could not “find the will of God in the matter.” These and other friends encouraged her not to go through with the marriage, but Kathryn justified it to herself and others by believing that Waltrip’s wife had left him, not the other way around. On October 18th, 1938, Kathryn secretly married “Mister,” as she liked to call Waltrip, in Mason City. The wedding did not give her new peace about their union, however. After they checked into their hotel that night, Kathryn left and drove over to the hotel where Helen was staying with another friend. She sat with them weeping and admitted that the marriage was a mistake. She decided to get an annulment. …
In a moment’s time, the ministry that Kathryn had so diligently built was completely undone. People stopped attending her services. Her ministry was dissolved. Kathryn sold her portion of the Tabernacle. She’d lost everything. Her relationship with the Lord had suffered because she had put a man before her God. But from the moment she made the decision to divorce Waltrip and to surrender herself fully to the Lord, she never wavered again in answering the call that God had placed on her life so many years before. …
As Kathryn searched the Scriptures about divine healing, she made a life-changing discovery. She read that healing was provided for the believer at the same time as salvation…. The crowds at the Tabernacle grew. Auditoriums would fill to capacity hours before she was to speak, and thousands were turned away. Countless miracles took place….
Unlike Kathryn, ‘Pastor E.’ decided to not get right with God by taking the huge step of annulling his unbiblical marriage (which is why he was crying. Like Kathryn, he knew…), and he’s had a spiritually dead ministry ever since. But this man once was greatly anointed.
He was nationally known because of his successful ministry to a particular group of men who are famous in American culture. His Holy Spirit anointed gifting was so contagious that many people were drawn to him. A friend of mine and I once drove to another town just to hear him speak one more time. I was so impressed, and wanted to know more about him!
But then he divorced his wife (who stayed single for a long time, by the way). He left the ministry position that he was famous for, and with his new wife, he started a ‘church’ that many unbiblically married couples gravitated to. With his natural talent, he was able to keep the doors of the ‘church’ open; though, because he lost his spiritual anointing, this ‘church’ never had a reputation for being spiritually alive. And he’s doing something else now.
So what does this mean? People who are unbiblically married (or who didn’t really have a word from God that their additional exception to Jesus’ one exception was legitimate) are living in adultery, no matter what people say.
Not only can adulterers not go to heaven, but they will also lose the anointing they once had — unless they annul their man-only ordained marriages.
People may say this is a hard message, but that’s because so much of what ‘Christians’ do today isn’t really Holy-Spirit-led. People are making major decisions without making sure that it’s God — even directly disobeying scripture — because “how can it be wrong when it feels this right?”
But it never did really feel right, deep down. And just because ‘everyone’ is doing it doesn’t make it okay. “In the last days, the deception will be great!” We must live in Jesus’ narrow way that leads to eternal life — and is a Spirit-filled life here too. Our consciences must be clean.
We need to all be right with each other and God to not just be real, going-to-heaven Christians — but also so ‘ONE’ can happen. Jesus promised He’d give us His glory so we would be ‘ONE’ with each other and Himself — that the world would know! (John 17)
“Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.”
Let’s be free from deceptive, evil spirit originated thinking — and live as ‘ONE’ — pure and holy with God’s glory flowing through us — bright lights, beaming!!!
Related:
Clarifying My Perspective on Divorce and ‘Marriage’: The Role of the Holy Spirit
(video) David Pawson Interview on “Divorce & Remarriage” — Unbiblically married? What to do…
Regarding the specifics of who goes to heaven, who are the children of God, who will have faith to enter, I wrote this article which no one can refute: Who-Goes-To-Heaven Scriptures — Narrow is the Way | Who are the Children of God?
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