I had a close friend when I was younger. I was pretty new at following the Lord.
We’ll call her Julia. Julia was a special lady. She loved Jesus. We read the bible together.
We had a warm and glowing relationship. Lots of fun. Lots of laughs. Shared intimate secrets.
She was recently divorced. It was a very painful divorce as most divorces are.
Her husband had chosen not to follow the Lord and they lived in disarray for years.
Her husband was a successful businessman who was well-known in the community.
He met his childhood sweetheart, rekindled that lost love.
This had been going on for some time and once the kids were grown and out of the house,
they divorced and he married his childhood sweetheart.
Julia was devastated and broken.
Julia then met a man, shortly thereafter.
She met him at a convenience store in a small town in Oregon, south of where she lived.
They started talking and one thing led to another and they began dating.
The man was married to someone else. Julia found out after she had fallen madly in love with him.
The newness of the romance was interesting for me.
She told me that he was married.
She began having intimate relations with him, rendezvous
and he had set up an apartment for all of this to occur.
He was quite wealthy. Julia had not worked in her life.
Julia had an alimony from her previous husband.
I was a bit caught up in the excitement of the whole thing. I was 19 or so.
The Lord said to me, “Do not comfort her in her sin.”
I took that to heart. I stopped listening to her. I stopped calling her.
It was not an abrupt stop, but it was noticeable.
She went on about her life and we went our separate ways.
I talked to Julia off and on over the years and she still maintained her relationship with this married man.
She made her choice. She knew it was wrong. She chose to stay in this relationship for multiple decades.
I ran into her at a funeral almost 10 years ago.
She was still in that relationship and he was still married to his wife. He has since died.
Like Solomon, marrying women who do not love the Lord can destroy your relationship with God.
They can also turn any heart away from God like they did with Solomon.
Without the fear of the Lord, sin can overtake anyone,
no matter how smart they are or how close they think they are to God.
The warnings of God are given to us to help us follow the Way.
I do not know how the Lord will judge her.
What will she say when she stands before the Lord?
Has she repented? Has God forgiven her? Can someone be saved without the fear of God?
,My role in this was to stop comforting her in her sin.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:7