Helplines are Available

• Before we dive in, I want to encourage you to seek help if you’ve been a victim of abuse or domestic violence. 

• You can go to https://www.endvawnow.org/en/need-help for a list of helplines organized by country. They also have a few links to organizations. This is a resource that the United Nations has created in conjunction with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. 

God Does Not Condone Abuse or Violence

• The big biblical truth is: God does not approve or encourage or revel in abuse or violence.

• So, if you’ve been harmed in the name of God or Jesus, or in an environment that suggested it was required or approved by some version of God, that is an absolute lie from Satan. 

1. God is Holy - Which Means He Naturally Hates Violence

• God is holy which means He is 100% set apart from evil.

• Therefore, God cannot exist alongside any kind of wickedness. It simply isn’t possible.

• This also means that, as a natural result, God hates wickedness - including abuse and violence. He hates it for what it is - and for what it does to us.

• Psalm 11:5 (NLT) says, “The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked. He hates those who love violence.” [Emphasis mine.]

• Psalm 72:14 (NLT) says, “He will redeem them from oppression and violence, for their lives are precious to him.”

2. God Doesn’t Just Feel Love - He is Love

• Not only is God 100% set apart from evil, He is love.

• 1 John 4:16 (NLT) says, “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.”

• This means that love isn’t just something God feels - it’s an intricate part of who He is.

3. God’s Love is Perfect & Punishment-Free

• 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (NLT) gives us the definition of God’s love: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” [Emphasis mine.]

• From this definition, we clearly see that God’s love does not align with any type of abuse or violence. Which, being holy, makes sense.

• Furthermore, in 1 John 4:18 (NLT), a few verses after the statement that says that God is love, we read this: “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”

• Because God’s love is perfect love (as we just saw in 1 Corinthians), we have no reason to fear Him or His love.

• God’s love is not like the so-called love we can experience from the world where it’s twisted or affected by sin or methods of the enemy, Satan.

• Any abuse or violence (of any kind) that we experience is NOT from God. It is NOT something He wills, desires, or helps with.

  
  

Examples of God Rescuing, Loving, and Supporting Women Who Faced Abuse 

• In Genesis 16, we read that Sarah gives Hagar, her Egyptian maid, to her husband to sleep with - the goal being for them to have a son through Hagar. (Like a surrogate mother.) 

• It works; Hagar gets pregnant.

• But this is where things go downhill. Because of Hagar’s pregnancy, and her new status that comes from carrying Abraham’s child, friction appears between Hagar and Sarah. The end result being that Sarah beats Hagar, causing her to run away.

• God meets Hagar in the desert. He acknowledges her situation and her feelings. He comforts her. 

• God also supports her so that she can return home and face her less-than-stellar situation. He gives her son a name that means “God has heard your woes.” He tells her to return home, saying that He will “make [her] into a great nation.” (Some believe that her son Ishmael was the father of the Arabs.)

• This situation is also a bit ironic - and an example of complicated human behavior - because Sarah herself faced mistreatment of another kind by her own husband - twice.

• A few chapters back in Genesis 12, Sarah and Abraham go to Egypt because there’s a famine in Canaan, where they lived. When they get there, Abraham says Sarah is his sister because he’s afraid that he would be killed so another man could marry her. 

• Because of this lie, Pharoah takes Sarah into his household to make her his wife. But God steps in, striking plagues upon Pharaoh's household, waking Pharaoh up to who Sarah is. As a result, she is given back to Abraham.

• Abraham actually does this again (has Sarah act as his sister) later on in Genesis 20. This time, it’s King Abimelech who brings Sarah into his palace. But just like before, God steps in.

• Genesis 20:3 (NLT) says: But that night God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him, “You are a dead man, for that woman you have taken is already married!”

• Through this dream, and the conversation within it between the king and God, the truth is revealed and the king then releases Sarah.

• Twice Sarah faced being forced into an intimate relationship with another man due to her husband’s fears - and in both instances, God stepped in.

• God also redeems His daughters. Take Rahab, for example, who we read about in Joshua 2. She was a prostitute - as well as a courageous and smart woman. She and her family joined the Israelites; and Rahab herself was grafted into the genealogy that led to Jesus.

• We don’t know if Rahab chose to be a prostitute. (We often forget that in those days, and in some parts of the world even today, a woman has very limited options.) Regardless, that was not a profession that received respect. And from clients and society alike, she likely endured abuse.

• The same can be said for the Samaritan woman at the well whom we read about in John 4.