1 — Bad News
+ Angel gives good news directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2 — Bad News
+ Angel gives good news directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3 ? No News
+ Angel gives good news directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4 — Bad News
+ Angel gives good news directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1 — Your fiancee is pregnant—not yours—best to divorce.
+ It’s the Holy Spirit’s baby—get married—get blessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2 — The king is going to kill your baby.
+ Leave now, with the baby and his mother—flee to Egypt, tonight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3 ? Time passes in Egypt.
+ The bad king is dead—go back to Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4 — Bad king’s son is king in Judea—afraid to go there.
+ Go to Galilee—re-settled in Nazareth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– – –<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think about all that !
Godly couple.
Doing right, God’s way.
Scandalous news warrants divorce.
What will people think ?
What will God think ? or do ?
What will happen to her ?
Divorce won’t fix pregnancy and the scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who will believe the couple, when everybody finds out (when they tell people, or when people see for themselves).
This was not routine, acceptable, normal, like in American culture now.
You may not have noticed that this pure, young girl, mother-to-be, did something practical in the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pregnant girl does something to bide some time peacefully.
She immediately left to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was six months pregnant, and stayed there three months. Hmmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– – –<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This girl had one visit from an angel—and that started everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The honorable, God-fearing husband got directions from an angel four times.
He not only believed what he was told—he acted on what he was told.
Think of how his readiness to follow directions from heaven disrupted his life, their lives, repeatedly.
He had established integrity, reputation, responsibility, livelihood, plans for family.
Everything was upended—all for obedience—without consulting anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God honored his obedience !<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– – –<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found a simple truth fifty years ago, watching and respecting the ‘old school’ principal where we taught—Roland Rehmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“God honors what pleases Him.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So also in this tribute to Joseph and Mary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1 — Bad News + Angel gives good news directions. 2 — Bad News + Angel gives good news directions. 3 ? No News + Angel gives good news directions. 4 — Bad News + Angel gives good news directions. 1 — Your fiancee is pregnant—not yours—best to divorce. + It’s the Holy Spirit’s baby—get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,3,4,7,9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","category-faith_based","category-family","category-financial","category-inspire_lifter","category-political-cultural","category-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6116"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6117,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6116\/revisions\/6117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}