The secret of the mystery, part 209. The mystery behind Christian marriage, part 2.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
The standards for Christian marriage, not unbeliever marriages, are something very special – the highest standards ever assigned to marriage on the part of those who possess a sin nature. Marriage is a divine institution for both believers and unbelievers.
Before marriage a man will lie awake all night thinking about something you said. After marriage he will fall asleep before you have finished saying it.
He did not love in order to get something from us but to give everything of Himself to us. Love like that.
Honor is summarized in this expression by the poet Tennyson, “Man’s word [of honor] is God in man.”
ISA 54:5 “For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth.”
The Message Bible –
HOS 2:19 And then I’ll marry you for good – forever! I’ll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness.
HOS 2:20 Yes, I’ll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go. You’ll know me, GOD, for who I really am.
Marriage and spiritual conflict are back-to-back and very intensive.
Christian marriage as a divine organization has the greatest influential power in the Church-age against principalities and powers that have fallen and are trying to make their case now before God by destroying that which God has created.
The real battle in Christian marriage is not being fought between the partners in a marriage; it is being fought between the kingdom of darkness and the marital partners.
It’s not just the superiority of weaponry by which wars are won but it’s also through information and intelligence.
The same is true in this great spiritual invisible battle in which we are waging war; we need that information and intelligence so that we will not be ignorant of Satan and his devices.
God has put the law of forgiveness in EPH 4:31-32, because Satan doesn’t want the battle to be turned from the couple against him but to the couple against each other.
When Satan can convince us that the battle is with flesh and blood and not with the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness, and the spiritual forces of wickedness, he succeeds in destroying the spiritual energy and potency that could blow him away, 1JO 4:4 because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
Satan’s greatest bid happened when the twelve were gathered together personally with the Lord Jesus Christ in the upper room and Satan entered into one of the disciples, called Judas Iscariot.
Diaboloi, a title for the devil = “rip apart” and Satan tries to tear apart the mind.
1. He creates discord.
2. He breaks up unity.
3. He destroys patterns.
He also brings in “false concepts” as truth.
Anything that causes confusion and division and splits your thinking up is “cosmos diabolicus” – of the devil’s world system.
There is assembled in the heavens, in the universe the entire angelic host, who are observers in this stage of history.
Elect angels rejoice over the salvation or the rebound of one person, LUK 15:7,10. LUK 15:10 “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
If a believer entertains a satanic agenda under prolonged carnality, the angels see the ruining of a possible witness for their benefit, and for the benefit of the plan of God.
1CO 11:10 – angels observe the attitude that the woman has toward her husband and the symbol of authority that it represents.
Satan is a master of twisting the scriptures, distorting the scriptures, misinterpreting the scriptures; therefore he hates when passages of scripture are fulfilled.
The fallen angels do not want the man and the woman to be restored to the original design of God.
There are husbands who, indifferent as they are to any words about God, will be captivated.
Submissive – hupotassoo = to be in subjection, to obey, to be under obedience, to submit yourself unto your husbands.
Chaste – adjective hagnen = exciting reverence, pure from carnality, clean, innocent, modest.
Respectful – phobo = reverence, respect for authority, rank, dignity.
1CO 11:9-10 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.
What matters is not your outer appearance – the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes – but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in.
Tekna = students or women who have learned from a doctrinal woman.
The weaker vessel does not mean that she is weaker mentally, physically, or spiritually; she is the responder in the marriage and you are responsible for filling up her vessel.
1CO 11:3 But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman,
1CO 11:7 …the woman is the glory of man.
When a man invests nothing in his relationship or marriage, he can expect nothing in return.
The man needs to understand that the woman’s desire is for him and that she desires to feel wanted and protected, GEN 3:16.
A woman truly desires to respect her man. She does not want to look at him as just another child to rear and handle.
The man needs to understand the female mind and the female body.
The husband is also commanded as a part of his responsibility to please his wife and to do his best to make the marriage a success, 1CO 7:32-33.
a. Rule his wife, GEN 3:18,
b. Support the family, 1TI 5:8,
c. Protect the family, EPH 5:23, 1PE 3:7,
d. Administrate the family,
EPH 5:23,
e. Set the spiritual pace for the family, EPH 5:23-25.