Monday, April 13, 2015

Parental Mythbusting

Myths—they intrigue, entertain, and sometimes even humor us. From health and history to sports and science, myths and misconceptions seem to find their way into every realm of human thought and activity—including parenting.

As Christians, we probably dismiss most of the parenting myths we encounter without a second thought, right? After all, we’re Christians, those who look to and depend upon God’s Word to determine our reality, not worldly platitudes or cultural traditions. If you’re among those who think only naïve and untaught Christians fall for unbiblical substitutes when it comes to parenting, maybe you’d better take a look at our list.

Here are ten of the most common myths confronting Christian parents these days. Mom and dad, as you endeavor to raise your children to the glory of God, take note of them:


Myth # 1: “Children must be the first priority in our family.”

Heard that one? According to this myth, the child-centered family is the successful family, so the more attention you give your children, the better they’ll turn out. Basically, you’ve got to prioritize your children over your spouse. No matter how pious they make it sound, it’s not pious at all. The Bible says your spouse is your priority, second only to God. Husbands, you understand this…God commands you to love you wife as your own body (Eph. 5:28). Why? Because you’re in a “one flesh” relationship with that woman (Gen. 2:24; Eph. 5:31). There is no such relationship between parent and child; it’s a different level of intimacy. To elevate the relationship with your children above the more intimate relationship you have with your spouse isn’t positive in any sense. It’s a subtle but dangerous myth that always weakens and sometimes wrecks a home. Beware.

Myth # 2: “I should rely mainly upon the church—particularly the children’s ministry, to teach the Bible to my children.”

Most of us would probably deny believing this myth, but how we live tells all. Evaluate your habits at home, parents. Where does the majority of your children’s spiritual instruction take place—church or home? Who provides that instruction—an Awana leader or you? We’re not belittling the role of your local church’s teaching ministries. We are pointing out that Sunday school and youth group should supplement your teaching at home, not replace it. Both the Old and New Testaments assign parents, not pastors, the responsibility of teaching their children (See Deut. 6:4-9; Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21).

Myth # 3: “The behavior of my children is a sure measure of successful parenting.”

That statement would cease to be a myth with a slight adjustment: Your response to the behavior of your children is a sure measure of successful parenting. See the difference? Your child’s behavior is mostly out of your control; your response is not. None of us, especially after the early years, can control our child’s behavior. But you can and must control your response to their behavior. God’s simple instruction to parents is found in Ephesians 6:4, “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Your success as a parent relates to how faithfully you carry out that charge, not how well your children receive discipline and instruction.

Myth # 4: “Quality time with my children is more important than quantity time.”

Some parents use this myth to ease their guilt for spending too little time with their kids. That’s not the biblical model. When God instructed parents to impart His Law to their children, notice how much time is involved: “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deut. 6:6, 7). We’re mistaken to think we can somehow schedule those teachable moments into a few scattered, “quality” interactions between dinner and dessert. Faithfulness to the parenting task requires more time than that. As you make yourself available, you’ll begin to see how many unplanned opportunities arise out of those times of sitting, walking, lying down, and rising up.

Myth # 5: “My children belong to me.”

Behind this myth is the false notion that, “My children are my property, and it’s my right to raise them as seems best to me.” Psalm 127:3 says, “Behold, children are a gift from the Lord.” Even life itself is a gift, isn’t it? But it still belongs to God. Parenting is a stewardship, and we are stewards of all God’s gifts, including our children. We provide care, impart instruction, and teach them to fear God, and one day we’ll give an account to Him for how we carry out our charge. Children belong to God.

Myth # 6: “My wife should take responsibility for training our children since I work.”

Husbands, don’t turn God’s calling for your wife (Titus 2:4-5, to love you and your children, and keep the home) into a fatal parenting myth. God’s instruction to your wife doesn’t excuse you from parental responsibility. Scripture presents parenting as a joint-effort, and it also issues several commands directly to you fathers—it’s your responsibility to train your children (Eph 6:4, Col. 3:21). It’s true, your wife will spend more time at home with the kids while you work, but that doesn’t eliminate or diminish your responsibility to join her—in fact to lead her—in the parenting task.

Myth # 7: “My children won’t be able to understand spiritual truths until they are much older.”

Biblical history, human history, and common experience demonstrate how young children can comprehend spiritual truth. Remember the prophet Samuel, or the young king Josiah? Samuel’s close relationship to the Lord began at a very young age (1 Sam. 2:26), and king Josiah instigated spiritual revival in Judah when he was only a teenager (2 Kings 22:1; 2 Chronicles 34:33). In 1735, during the American Great Awakening, God saved Phebe Bartlet, a young girl in Jonathan Edward’s congregation, when she was only 4 years old. Parents and pastor alike thoroughly examined her comprehension of gospel truth and found clear evidence that she was born again. Time proved the genuineness of her profession. One of her favorite activities was attending church to hear the preaching of her pastor, Jonathan Edwards (not a theological lightweight). Don’t fool yourself parent—and certainly don’t try and fool your children. They are sharper than you think.

Myth # 8: “If I spank my children, it will exasperate and provoke them.”

Sadly, this myth is alive and well in many Christian homes. It intimidates parents and spoils children. Contrary to our anti-spanking culture, Proverbs 13:24 says, “He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” Truth is, if you want to provoke and spoil your children, just continue to shelter them from the painful consequences of disobedience (Prov. 29:15). No kid loves a spanking, and we don’t like discipline either, do we? But the writer of Hebrews tells us that discipline yields peaceful, productive fruit (Heb. 12:5-11). (Here are a few other Scriptures to counter this insidious myth—Prov. 19:18; 22:15; 23:13; 29:17).

Myth # 9: “Spanking my children is the key to successful biblical parenting.”

For some of you, spanking your child seems quicker, easier, and more effective than the relentless dawn-to-dusk instruction called for in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (see Myth #4). Ephesians 6 also calls for “discipline,” but Paul clearly has more in mind than spanking. The positive command, “Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (v. 4), refers to the systematic training and instruction of children. Literally, the word “instruction” could be translated “putting in mind.” As a parent, you want to impart the knowledge of God regularly and lovingly to your child under the guidance of Scripture. That is the key to successful parenting. Spanking is just one part of that larger task.

Myth # 10: “If I teach my kids properly, God promises they’ll eventually turn out well.”

No doubt you’ve heard this myth. It’s a popular interpretation, and application, of Proverb 22:6—“Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.” How many times have you seen a parent cling to that verse in desperation as they watch defiant children forsake all they were taught? Some children sit under loving, prayerful instruction from their parents, only to later shame them with a scandalous lifestyle. It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it. But Solomon’s proverb is not meant to be a gilt-edged guarantee your child will eventually trust Christ and live righteously. Solomon is simply saying early training usually secures lifelong habits. It’s a charge to give great care and consistency to how and what you teach your children. God promises to bless us for parental faithfulness, but that doesn’t necessarily mean our children will be saved. They have their own relationship with God to work out.


Posted with permission:
http://www.gty.org/Blog/B101022

Going Down the Drain?

Since I've been studying the Old Testament a lot lately, I've also been relating what I learn with the times we're now living in as well as with the rapture, tribulation and millennium. I was thinking about creation last night, and how the fall contributed to all that we're experiencing now and wanted to share something with you all that I find really exciting.

I'm sure we're all aware of what evolutionist say about the earth, humans and everything, as we've all been taught it since we were children. I could never accept a lot of it, even before I knew God. It just didn't seem "right" to me. What I'm going to share next, is not exactly stated in the bible, but is extrapolated from what is stated. So it's certainly not gospel truth, but it is quite possible. To me, this makes a whole lot more sense then what the evolutionists say though. I know we talked about one aspect of this on another thread, so some may be familiar to you.

First, just to explain the theory, let me share my notes from a book I have called
Tonopah by Christopher A Lane:

Before the fall, Adam and Eve were super extraordinary creatures. They were supremely intelligent, highly advanced, beings that put today's finest scientific minds to shame. Contrary to popular secular thought, they were wise beyond imagination, knowledgeable beyond belief, gifted in understanding the secrets of the universe. Drawing on the full capacity of their complex brains, they were undoubtedly the most brilliant, insightful human beings ever to walk the earth: Godlike in the true sense of the term. Until the fall.

Free will was perhaps their most astonishing trait. God created Adam and Eve with the ability to choose the depth, and quality of their relationship with Him. Unfortunately they chose poorly. Instead of "evolving", many believe that the bible supports an entirely opposite movement: a de-evolution from near perfection to a state of chaos. We see this in the universe itself - the principal of entropy: everything moving from available energy to a state of disorganization. Instead of getting smarter and smarter, becoming more civilized and advanced, mankind is moving backwards, degenerating.

Consider some of the marvels of the ancient world: the great pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon, Easter Island.... we can't even figure out how to build these using modern technology. So it's been suggested that aliens from other planets may have helped construct them. But if the theory of de-evolution is true, if ancient man was incredibly advanced rather then primitive....

Adam named and cared for all the animals, so he was apparently quite knowledgeable in the area of veterinary biology. He and Eve took care of the Garden - they must have had a pretty good grasp of animal husbandry and botany. Cain built an entire city. Jubal invented musical instruments, Tubal-Cain invented all manner of bronze and iron tools - and they were starting from scratch. We're talking about a metallurgist ushering in the metal age a few short generations after the creation of the world!

The Fall twisted all of creation: tame creatures became wild; safe, kind beasts became predators; plant eaters began to seek meat. Death entered the system and mankind had to struggle to survive. That was all part of the curse. We're still seeing the results of that today, entire species becoming extinct as the ecosystem sputters and stumbles along, out of control.


Maybe I'm nuts, but that makes a lot of sense to me. I've always felt that mankind was a whole lot smarter then we give him credit to be, back in the beginning. And once sin and death entered the picture, what happened was natural, all that knowledge and intelligence was turned toward evil and so everything became very corrupt in a very short period of time. If you look at the time span between creation and the flood, it's really not all that long, not as long as we've been around since the flood anyway.

So why didn't things get just as bad, just as quickly again? Simply because humans were devolving. By the time the flood was over and they were starting over again, they'd already devolved some so they couldn't have progressed as fast as they did before. Plus, we're told that this time God limited the evil we were able to do and He still does. Even so, one of the very first things to happen once the flood was over, was evil! (Noah got drunk and his son found him naked) Then, also to slow things up, God dispersed people all over the earth instead of allowing them all to be in one big group together. Then He confused the languages so we didn't all speak the same language which further slowed down the progression of evil. So those things and others, helped prevent us from destroying ourselves again quite so quickly, giving God time to call Abraham and begin the line that would ultimately bring Jesus into the world to save us.

Look what's happening now though. Basically, due to technology, (which is not evil in and of itself) we have gotten back the ability to all be together again like we were in the beginning. While we still have nations and we're still spread all over the earth and have different languages, all of that is overcome by technology such as the internet and translation devices etc. Daniel 12:4 tells us that during this time of the end, knowledge will increase and it most certainly has. We haven't gotten smarter, we're still devolving, but we can now share knowledge with each other more then ever, faster then ever, and plot yet more evil.


Think back again to just before the flood and what happened then. We have the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" getting together and creating a foul race of "giants". This was also during the time that God shows us just how quickly human kind advanced and how very intelligent they were. They most certainly weren't "cavemen." Knowledge was increasing exponentially, and at the same time, so was evil. That's when it got so bad that God decided to destroy it all, even the animals were becoming evil!

Jesus said it would be the same way in our time, the last days, and so it is. Knowledge is increasing exponentially, so much so that encyclopedias are out of date before they can finish printing them, which is why they no longer print them. Knowledge has increased so much that it's impossible for us to keep up with it, even with our technology. And with that knowledge, evil has also increased exponentially as we're all very aware of. Even in the animal kingdom this is true. We see news reports of certain wild and tame animals doing things that were unheard of or very rare before - seeking out, attacking and killing humans, of animals for the very first time (that we know of) having homosexual relations! If you recall, one of the judgments during the tribulation will be animals
seeking out, attacking and killing humans, so this is like a mini preview of that judgment.

Now, leaving this a moment, I'd like to go out on a limb with something that came to me recently as I studied. it's about the sons of God and daughters of men. (Gen 6:1-2) Here's a wild idea for you. What if for us, in our time, this is simply showing how the "sons of God", those of us who have been saved and are now children of God, saw the "daughters of men" those who are unsaved, and saw they were "beautiful". In other words we liked what we saw, and "married them" or in other words, yoked ourselves to them - no longer living the way God commands but living like the unsaved do? Isn't this a picture of exactly what's already happened to the majority of the body of Christ? It's a picture of "bad company corrupting good morals, " another thing the Lord warns us about, as well as a picture of what happens when we become "friends with the world" to any degree. It's right after this, in Gen 6:5 that we're told that God sees how great the wickedness on earth had become - like this is the final straw. Could the final straw be that God's people are corrupted or in danger of it? It looks like it just might be so to me.

In Noah's time, God allowed this to continue until at the end only 8 people were saved. Only one man and his family were found to be decent enough that God saved them from the flood. I put it that way because they most certainly weren't perfect.

We've also talked about this, but I think again that this points to the fact that we're going to discover that there's a lot fewer people that are really saved then is normally thought. But, we know for sure that God will indeed take us from this earth before He begins His judgement of it. And we know for sure that while He keeps the body of Christ safe with Him, He will also save a remnant during the tribulation. So we can rejoice in that as well.

One other point I'd like to bring up though and another reason why this resonates with me. Often people wrongly believe that once we're in heaven we will suddenly know all the answers to everything and understand everything. The bible shows this isn't exactly true. What is true is that our minds will no longer be finite and we'll be able to use all of our minds instead of the less then 10% we now use. (which reminds me that even our scientists have discovered that we used to use more of our minds then we do now and that for some reason we've been using less and less as time goes on) Therefore our ability to learn and understand things will be tremendously better then it is now. Better then we can really imagine I suspect. Because of that, things that we "kind of get" but not quite, will become clear to us then, like a veil has been removed from our minds. But, things we never thought to ask about and that actually need some thought and study before understanding, we still won't know. We will have to study them to learn the answers, but once we do, we will certainly be able to learn and understand them. So no, we won't know all things as soon as we get to heaven, but we will have the ability to learn and understand that far surpasses what we can now do or imagine.

I believe that's how Adam and Eve were before the fall - before decay and degeneration and de-evolution set it. After all in Gen 1:26 God tells us that He created mankind to rule over the whole earth and everything in it. He most certainly wouldn't want dummies doing something like that, so to me that says they had to have been very intelligent. Of course many other things in His word point to that as well too. It's exciting to me to know that one day soon we'll be able to use all of our minds again the way the Lord intended us to, without the taint from the Fall.

All of this points again to everything coming full circle and to me shows me yet more of what our Lord meant when He said that these times would be like the days of Noah. What do you think? 
They were supremely intelligent, highly advanced, beings that put today's finest scientific minds to shame. Contrary to popular secular thought, they were wise beyond imagination, knowledgeable beyond belief, gifted in understanding the secrets of the universe. Drawing on the full capacity of their complex brains, they were undoubtedly the most brilliant, insightful human beings ever to walk the earth: Godlike in the true sense of the term. Until the fall.
Every time I consider this, it makes more and more sense to me. God made man in His image and made mankind to be "perfect" in every way. He never gives us a job to do without first giving us the ability to do the job. And He gave them the job of overseeing everything on the earth! Plus, God walked and talked with them every day in the Garden. I would think that would be pretty boring to Him if they were dumb. I think it'd get pretty boring if they were only as intelligent as we are now, actually. But, if they had full use of their brains instead of only using a tiny portion of them like we do, that makes sense then. Even just thinking back a couple thousand years ago when Jesus was here we see a huge difference between what people did then and what they do now with their minds. Back then, Jewish children began memorizing the Torah as soon as they could talk practically so they had it down, word for word by the time they were adults. When the epistles were written, the Christians memorized each one and then sent it on to another church so that church could memorize it. Long before they were put into book form as we have them, the early Christians had memorized every book of the NT verbatim! That's incredible to us, but to them, it wasn't. It was "normal".

On the other end of the spectrum, look at how quickly evil grew too. Because they were so advanced, they were also able to come up with horrible evil. A really stupid person isn't very imaginative and can't generally come up with things that are really evil, but the more intelligent you are, the more evil you can conceive. So even the fact that evil grew as fast as it did, shows their intelligence.

Plus, I'd never really considered or reflected on the fact that the evil contaminated the animals as well as the humans. I knew that sin had corrupted them as well, but just hadn't really thought about it much. But God did say that everything, including the animals were evil by the time of the flood and that's why He wanted to wipe out everything. If they hadn't been evil as well, God could have simply caused every human being to stop breathing and have been done with it. And that brings us to the plants, the vegetation. Even that was corrupted!

Now think of what's going on today. We're seeing more and more allergies to plants and animals, finding more and more plants that are dangerous to us and animals are becoming more dangerous to us as well. Remember the news reports of the little girl and the adult who'd been attacked with a disease that was literally eating their brains??? It was an amoeba!!!


There have been all kinds of weird new diseases caused lately by plants, animals, and who knows what, as well as old ones, so called rare ones, and even ones from third world countries that are now flourishing in civilized countries. With all our knowledge and technology, instead of getting healthier, people are getting sicker and are often told by doctors that they just don't know what's causing their pain or suffering. 

Instead of getting smarter and smarter, becoming more civilized and advanced, mankind is moving backwards, degenerating.
We've talked about this in numerous threads before too. For example, we've often talked about how much smarter children were in previous generations. (kind of like that show, "are you smarter then a 5th grader".) I remember we had a thread in the chat forum years ago that showed either a 4th or 5th grade test that I believe was from the 1950's or so and asked if we could pass it now. None of us could have and none of our kids or grandkids could either!

Now days though instead of realizing just how marvelously we were created to be, most folks would rather believe we used to be apes and aliens came here and did all the neat things we've found from the past. 
It gives me a whole new thrill now when I read:

Psalm 139:14 —I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 

Signs, Signs, Everywhere A Sign

I've been thinking a lot about the weird weather all over the world, the so called "natural disasters", as well as the terrorist attacks, and the political and economic problems around the world. The Lord told us about the many signs there would be that would show us that the time was near for the tribulation to start and of course that would mean that it was also time for the rapture to happen as well. I'm sure you all noticed long before now that many of the signs are simply milder versions of the actual judgments that God will send on the earth during the tribulation right? The signs that didn't have to do with that, seem to be signs of how people will react toward everything.

Anyway, every sign the Lord gave us seems to be getting stronger lately. There seem to be more of them and each one is often "bigger' then the one before. That too is scriptural and no surprise to any of us I'm sure. I thought it might be interesting though, to look at the tribulation judgments and see if there had indeed been a "sign" showing that yet.

What I did was look up each judgment during the tribulation and whittle it down to as few words as possible to describe the effect it would have, such as "famine" and also the cause, such as "earthquake". Then I put all the effects in one list, and the causes in another. Next with each repeated effect or cause, I put the word "more" in front of it. I then deleted all the extra "mores". leaving only one, since that's all we need one to know more will be coming.

Before I show you the lists themselves, let me share 4 scriptures that I think describe "why" all this happens:

Matthew 24:12Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, *

Matthew 24:37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. *

What was it like in Noah's time?

Genesis 6:5The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. *

Genesis 6:11Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. *

Ok, here's the lists, which I've kind of combined, but note that Everything listed just keeps getting worse and worse with each succeeding judgment.

people killed for their belief in Christ
people torturing and killing just for the sake of doing so
terrorism

war(s)
Grief and mourning
jobs lost
Economic disaster

famine

thirst
The gap between the rich and the poor becomes constantly wider.

disease
unusually painful sores, stings and bites
animals killing people

earthquakes

soil erosion,
wildfires,
floods
mudslides
Air pollution

tidal waves

meteors
ecology will be in chaos
Extreme heat
severe worldwide earthquake
100 pound hailstones falling

Extreme cold
fear
more wars
more lost jobs
More deaths

more severe weather

more famine
more thirst
more disease
more painful sores etc for unbelievers that last for months
more fear

etc.

When I look at all of that, I can honestly see that I've not only seen "signs" of each of those, but the signs I've seen have been getting progressively worse over the last year or so.

I think the one that surprised me the most though, was the recent talk of meteors and that there are now official groups who are trying to get government funding in order to locate all that are in earths vicinity in order to destroy any that might threaten us.


People aren't as friendly toward others anymore and that would be easily covered in the fact that God says their love will turn cold. That's very obviously happening. In fact, I'd say you could say it's already happened and is happening more so every day. I'm blessed in that I also live in a very good neighborhood, but that's just the immediate homes next to me. Not far down, we've got drug dealers who sell to children and other stuff just as bad.

As far as diseases go, not only are their new illnesses, but old ones that were wiped out have returned with a vengeance and many diseases that were only seen in third world countries are now running rampant here in the US and other advanced countries! On top of that, old diseases or maybe you could call them "regular known diseases" have become even worse then they were originally. Also some that were considered for most people minor nuisances are now major problems that affect people's ability to work and live their lives normally. Allergies are one of those I've noticed like that. I've always known people that have had allergies. I have them myself. In fact, when I was a child, even the doctors would have said mine were pretty bad. Not by today's standards though! It seems as though a huge number of people don't just "have allergies", but have them so badly that they can't function without getting regular injections for them! Illnesses and diseases that existed, but were rarely seen when I was a child or young adult, are now rampant all over the world and considered "normal". On top of all of that, we have diseases from all those categories that medicine can't cure, and many that are killing people. I've also seen that "normal" things like bug bites and insect stings are affecting many people differently now days then they did before. All my life until the last couple of years, a bite or sting bothered me because it itched or stung, but it was only a nuisance - no big deal. And except for people who happened to be allergic to bee stings or something, that's how it was for everyone. Not anymore though. More and more people are reporting bites and stings that really hurt and or itch terribly for a week or even weeks instead of days! I sure hate to see what it's going to be like during the tribulation, although the Lord gives us hints with the stings that cause severe pain and last for 5 months etc.

Because of all this and everything else that's happening in the world, I no longer say we're living in the end times. Instead, I say and believe that we're living in the last days - the last days of the end times to be exact. I say that because the end times actually started when the church was born and have been progressing ever since then. Now, however, the birth pangs of the next age have become very obvious and are happening faster and harder then ever. Just like a woman in labor. Labor can last a very long time, but when it gets to this stage, every woman knows her time is at hand. And so is ours.


The sinkholes are another sign and even that's going nuts lately, happening more often, and with them getting larger and larger and people losing their lives because of them.

And then of course there's the wild fires too. Those too seem to be happening more frequently and cover more ground then ever too. Even happening in places that it doesn't normally.
 
We can all say that the weather has been very unusual for the last few years and instead of going back to "normal", each year seems worse then the year before it.  Hardly a day goes by that we don't hear about some so called "natural disaster" that's happening somewhere in the world, and often it's right here in the US.

The same with earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and everything else! Just look at the recent past at all the tornadoes and that alone should be enough to make people think! Those too are happening in places they don't normally happen, like New Hampshire! In fact, we've had several actually sighted this year already and some have touched down and caused damage. It got so bad that the local weatherman in trying to calm people's fears, made the statement that it wasn't "really" true that we never had tornadoes here in NH, because we normally had one every year somewhere in the state. When pressed on it though, he had to admit that they didn't normally touch down or cause damage, but were more often just that they would form and then break up right away. Up until last year, in the 25 years I'd lived here, I could honestly say I'd only seen one and was concerned a second time that one would form, but it didn't. We've had a number of them in the last year alone though!

There's also been a lot of activity in the heavens as well. And all of this is again pointing (strongly) toward the end of this age.
Soon, the Father will be sending Jesus to come and get us. I honestly cannot imagine Him allowing us to stay here for "years" longer.
 
(I originally wrote this well over a year ago) 

What the first Three and a Half years of the Trib will be like

I know some people seem to think that the first half of the Trib will be peaceful but that's simply not biblical.  People generally get that idea from movies and books, but not from the Bible. Think of it this way. I wouldn't even call the way things are now entirely "peaceful" and these things aren't going to get better, they're going to get worse! If nothing else just reading the judgements that are going to happen during this time show it's going to be far from peaceful.  Think about it...between a third and half of the worlds population are going to die during these first 3 and a half years!  And that's AFTER all the people have disappeared from the rapture!  Just realizing that one fact alone should be enough to show that the world is going to be in complete chaos.  If it wasn't, they wouldn't need a "savior"; they wouldn't think they needed the antichrist!  I think another reason that causes some people to think that the first half of the Tribulation will be relatively peaceful is because Jesus called the second half of it the "Great Tribulation". You have to realize why He did that though.  For one thing, the second half will be worse then the first half for everyone, but it will be especially worse for the Jews and that's who Jesus was talking to at that time.  He was letting them know that as bad as the first half is going to be, the second will be even worse.  

Another way you could look at it is this:  Human beings might just be able to survive as a race if we only had to go through the first half of the Tribulation.  I say, "might", because honestly, with all the devastation both supernatural as well as that done by men that the earth itself is going to go through, it's also possible that we could do enough damage even in the first half that could cause enough chain reactions for the earth to be eventually uninhabitable.  But I think it's more likely that we could survive it. But there is no way humans could survive the second half of the Tribulation. If Jesus did not return and make the earth habitable again, all life would soon die off on the earth by the end of the Tribulation.  That's one reason Jesus tells us that no one would survive if the Lord doesn't shorten it. (Matthew 24:22)

The AC will get elected because the people are so afraid, so tired of being afraid and hungry and sick etc that they'll be snatching at straws, they'll be desperate for someone to help them. Of course, we know he's not going to help them, he's only going to make promises to help. The only thing he will do that will make people "think" he's just wonderful and that he CAN help, will be to sign the treaty between Israel and her neighbors. We already know he isn't going to keep that treaty though, and we know he isn't even going to totally enforce it either, even at the beginning. Like I said, that will last only long enough to get him into power.


Let's see what the Bible says will happen during that first half of the trib.

The 7 seals will come first: keep in mind that this is occurring during the FIRST 3 years of the Trib:

Revelation 6:1-17 I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword. 



During the first part of the Tribulation then, we have the AntiChrist coming on the scene promising peace but giving people war instead.  That's another thing people are often mistaken about.  They think the AC will actually bring peace during the first half, but he won't.  The bible tells us that he lies to the people making them believe that he wants peace and that it's not his fault that the wars break out all over the world.  These wars will affect the entire world, not just parts of it.  Yes, that means even here in the US! No one and no place will be exempt. 

  When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!” 

Now, because of the wars and other problems, we now have famine all over the world.  This is most likely due to the economy failing as well as crops being destroyed by the wars.  The Bible says that the rich people will be OK, but the rest of the world is going to be pretty miserable and hungry.  Hungry, miserable people often start riots, loot stores, and are violent. They rob others to get what they want. (now keep in mind that a huge number of the population has recently disappeared in the rapture, and many of them are in law enforcement agencies. Plus there could be a lot of chaos left from when the rapture happened that will still be a problem.  So now we have a whole lot more crime, plus wars that are quite possibly nuclear, and a lot of hungry, scared, people all over the world, many of which will be the ones behind all the crime, with little to no police available to help stop it all.  Does that sound peaceful to you?  it sure doesn't to me!
 
When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.


Next comes disease and more death.  My guess is that due to the wars obliterating and or poisoning the crops, the animals are going to get sick, possibly rabid and begin attacking people a lot more often then ever before.  Keep in mind too that evil is on the rise.  More and more people will be giving up all restraint and doing anything that pleases them, meaning sin, no matter who it hurts. It will be a time of "anything goes" on the earth. At this point one fourth of the people who were left behind after the rapture will die.  Let's pretend there were only 100,000 people left on the earth after the rapture.  If that were true, then out of that number, 25,000 of them would die!  Now that's not taking into account the number of people who had already died from wars, famine and crime!  What do you think would be a good guess for that number on a world with little police force left?  Let's say 5% of the population which would be another 5,000 people.  So that would leave only 70,000 people left.  The reason I'm using such low numbers is because we can grasp those numbers a lot easier then the actual numbers of the population. So this allows us to at least grasp the huge number of deaths that will be happening.
 
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.



And now we come to the martyrs being killed and a huge number of them as well.  Yet more violence.  As you can easily see by now, the world has become a very violent and ugly place to live in.  It's nothing like what we know it as now. Well nothing like what most of us know it as.  Perhaps those people who currently live in places where ISIS is terrorizing and killing so many people can imagine a whole world like that, where there is no safe place to live. 
 
I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”




Finally, we know that a great earthquake will happen during the first half of the Tribulation as well, which will kill and maim a huge number of the population.  Keep in mind now that none of the other things have stopped happening.  There are still wars, famine, disease, crime, people being killed for their faith in Jesus, and wholesale sin going on constantly.  And we haven't even gotten to any of the Trumpet judgments yet! Scholars differ in just how many of them will happen during the first half of the Tribulation, and a few think they'll all happen in the second half.  So I'm not even going to count any of them, although I do believe that at least the first few of them will happen during the first half of the Tribulation.  So what I'll do is simply list them for you at the end so you can check them out for yourself.

As you can see, during the first 3 and a half years, that's just 42 months, millions of people are going to die! There will be wars, not peace, famine, disease, disasters, unemployment, etc. Food will be scarce and so will money.  People will be living in fear - fear that someone will rob them or kill them, or rape them or beat them. Domestic violence and crime will rise tremendously, as will riots and looting, in part because of all the stress.. This doesn't sound peaceful to me at all! The whole earth will be in utter chaos! I think I can honestly say that the only people on the earth who could be said to be "comfortable" would be those foolish souls who sell out to the Antichrist and work directly for him, staying near him all the time.  While they wouldn't be immune to the judgments, they'd have more money and be part of the rich who would at least still be eating and have a decent roof over their heads, if nothing else.


Remember what happened when Rome fell?  The same kind of things only in smaller measure, just like what's happening now really.  What did Rome do to try to control the masses?  They provided them with "entertainment".  Entertainment that was full of death in the Colosseum. They made it easier for the people to get booze and drugs, and passed laws making it legal for homosexuals to marry.  Homosexuality became the "in" thing after awhile.  Women's lib was introduced as was abortion.  Sounds a lot like us doesn't it?  I've always believed that what happened to Rome was a picture of what was going to happen not just to the US, but ultimately to the world. .

Going back to the Judgements though, if you start at the beginning, each judgment adds to the next and is carried over; in other words, things get progressively worse. How can all of these things have happened and yet everyone is still "comfortable". It simply can't be! People are falling for fantasy rather then reality in this. I think the reason for that is that it's so hard for us to imagine the world being that bad.  We think things are horrible now, but really, compared to the way they'll be then, they're not at all.   Think for a moment about what God said about the people on earth during Noah's time.  He said that every single thought and feeling they had was evil.  Not "most of them", but ALL of them.  Not most of the people, but "all of them" except for Noah and his family.  That's how it will be after the rapture.  All of their thoughts and desires will be evil, except for those of the people who are saved or are being saved. .


The first 3 and a half years won't be as bad as the last 3 and a half but that doesn't mean that people will be comfortable. One reason it will be even worse in the last half of the trib is because the people will still be dealing with the effect all of the previous judgments have had on them as well as with the next new judgments. Plus you have to take into account how things are right this minute. Even now with the problems with the economy, and with the tension in the mid east, and the current wars, and the threats of more wars, the unemployment etc. most of the people are not as "comfortable" as they were before and we know from the financial advisers and well as from the bible that these things are going to get worse, not better. Remember, that one of the things that will happen is the economy will continue to get much worse.  The rich will get richer and the middle class will become the new poor (just like is already beginning to happen) and the poor will get even poorer.  But even the rich won't be living in peace.  They're going to need that wine and booze they can afford to buy, to calm their nerves, because they'll be in constant fear; fear for their lives and fear that their money will be stolen or lost and they'll become one of the poor. 
  
So knowing how things are now and having read some of what is going to happen in the first half of the Trib, there is simply no way that people are going to be at peace and nice and comfy during the first half of it. It's not a pretty picture and certainly not something comfortable to think about, but if we tell people the Truth about it, perhaps then it will be enough to plant some seeds about salvation, and perhaps, if we face the truth about it, it will give us the courage to actually speak up to people who need to hear about Jesus.  


Finally, here are the Trumpet judgments, some or all of which may also happen during the first half of the tribulation. 

Revelation 7:1-4 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.


Revelation 8:1 When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

 
Revelation 8:7-12 The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.


The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.


Revelation 9:1-6 The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

 

Revelation 9:13-19 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number. The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury

Do you curse the darkness or light candles for your husband?

Do you curse the darkness or light candles for your husband?

I was so touched by this story, that I wanted to share it with you guys. This is the kind of wife I want to be.

Proverbs 31:12She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. *

‎Early in his marriage, the Reverend E. V. Hill and his wife, Jane, faced financial difficulty. He had foolishly invested in a service station, and the business had failed. Money was very tight. Shortly after the fiasco with the service station, E. V. came home one night and found the house dark. When he opened the door, he saw that Jane had prepared a candlelight dinner for two.“What meaneth thou this?” he said with characteristic humor. “Well,” said Jane, “we’re going to eat by candlelight tonight.” E. V. thought that was a great idea and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. He tried unsuccessfully to turn on the light. Then he felt his way into the bedroom and flipped another switch. Darkness prevailed.

The young pastor went back to the dining room and asked Jane why the electricity was off. She began to cry. “You work so hard, and we’re trying,” said Jane, “but it’s pretty rough. I didn’t have quite enough money to pay the light bill. I didn’t want you to know about it, so I thought we would just eat by candlelight.” Dr. Hill described his wife’s words with intense emotion: “She could have said, ‘I’ve never been in this situation before. I was reared in the home of Dr. Caruthers, and we never had our lights cut off.’ She could have broken my spirit; she could have ruined me; she could have demoralized me. But instead she said, ‘Somehow or another we’ll get these lights on. But let’s eat tonight by candlelight.’

Tears come to my eyes every time I read this story. Mrs. Hill’s optimism and readiness to walk through tough times with her husband exemplify the two qualities I desire in my own life and pray for most in a wife. I’m looking for someone who will light candles, not just curse the darkness.

Excerpt from the book: I kissed dating goodbye by Joshua Harris

A Plan for Your Family: God's vs. the World's, Part 2

A Plan for Your Family: God's vs. the World's, Part 2

Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 5 and we're looking at the divine pattern for relationships. This is part two in our series on the family, on marriage, and raising children. We're going to get into a lot of wonderful things in the weeks ahead. And we're looking at a sort of a launch pad in Ephesians chapter 5, a great place to begin this study because the Word of God is so specific with regard to these matters.

I want to read to you from verses 18 through 21, Ephesians chapter 5. "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ."

Last week we said that the foundation of all Christian family success, all Christian marriage blessing is set out in that text. It's not gimmicky, it's not trivial, it's not superficial, it's not manipulative. What it says is that before we can even talk about wives in verse 22, before we can talk about husbands in verse 25, before we can talk about children in chapter 6 verse 1 and parents in chapter 6 verse 2, we have to set up some foundations for all of those relationships, namely this, you must be Spirit filled, singing, saying thanks and submissive. And we focused on those four things last time. Where you have filling of the Spirit which means you're under the control of the Holy Spirit by obedience to the Word, where you have overflowing joy that comes out in songs, where you have constant thanks for everything and where you have mutual submission, you have the foundations of happiness, success and blessing in a marriage and in a family. All of that is built on that spiritual foundation, whether we're talking about husband and wife relationship, or children and parents.

One of the most popular books on this subject over the last few years was titled, Pillars That Support A Fulfilling Marriage. At the time that it first came out it was a very popular book. And the book suggests that what is foundational to marriage, what really makes a marriage successful is five pillars. Here's what the book suggested, a Christian book, by the way. Number one is security. Number two is communication. Number three is romance. Number four is touch. And number five is intimacy of spirit.

The book says things like this, quote: "If a woman truly wants to have meaningful communication with her husband, she must cultivate the right side of his brain." It says this, "The best way we know to bond within a family is by going camping." Pretty shallow suggestions, wouldn't you say? I'm not quite sure how the right side of my brain works, I'm positive my wife has no clue...and I'm really not much for camping either, as a matter of fact.

I would expect that kind of thing in a secular book, I just am shocked to read it in a Christian book. The pillars of marriage are not security, communication, romance, touch and intimacy of spirit. The pillars of a marriage are being Spirit-filled, having an overflowing joy, being thankful for everything and mutually submissive.

The Bible says that families are built on spiritual foundations, not psychological ones, not emotional ones. The Bible says that what is most important in a good marriage is love for God overruling love for self. What is really important in a good marriage is the pursuit of the needs of others rather than your own. What really matters is having a submissive heart that cares more about the other, true spiritual joy, gratitude, devotion to God and His Kingdom and His purposes and His glory, true holiness, obedience to Scripture.

In other words, marriage is just a place where you live your Christianity. And if you live it right, it's a happy, productive, fulfilled and blessed event every day. If you don't, it is fraught with pain and disappointment and unfulfillment and sadness and anger and all the rest. It has nothing to do with some human techniques of touch, or romance, or intimacy, or communication, or even financial security, and everything to do with your relationship to God.

In fact, there is no better place, no more important place for you to live out your Christianity than in your home. And if your home isn't what God wants it to be, it is because the highest standards of Christianity are not being carried out there. It may be that one partner is making every endeavor to do that and the other is not, it may be that both are falling short. In either case, great difficulty results.

The family is the environment where your spiritual strength, your spiritual devotion, your spiritual consistency are most manifest. And not only most manifest but, listen to this, most demanded. Because of familiarity, because of being together all the time under every conceivable kind of circumstance and in every trial and difficulty, the home is the truest test, your marriage is the truest test of your spiritual life. That is why in 1 Timothy chapter 3 it says about an elder, a pastor, "He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity, but if a man doesn't know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?" Simply what Paul is saying is he manifests the character of his Christian commitment, he manifests his spiritual leadership in the home, and if it isn't showing up there, why would you ask him to lead the church?

A family is just the most significant place where you live out your faith. I'll even go so far as to say, instruction with regard to the techniques of marriage, if that's a word that's appropriate, instruction with regard to the skills of marriage, instruction with regard to all of the nuances of sensitivity toward male and female differences, when you've added all that up it is of minimal significance. It seems to be that today we would assume that it's the main theme and the main necessity because so much literature and so much effort has been devoted to it. But it is really not of grave importance if you have two Spirit-filled, joyful, thankful, submissive, godly people. It all starts with that spiritual foundation and apart from that there is major trouble and major conflict.

And the reason I'm emphasizing this is because this is where it all begins, this is where it all succeeds and this is where it all breaks down. In fact, the whole wonderful design for marriage won't work very well where there is sin. When you invade that domain of marriage and family with sin, it becomes a very oppressive, unfulfilling, miserable experience. And that's how it is for most people, certainly the unregenerate world today that has been fed a steady diet of justification for personal pride and personal fulfillment has sowed the seeds that destroy all relationships finally. They're all crushed under the weight of pride. And even this has effected the church. Those of us who know the truth have a difficult time living it because we are inundated with the world around us.

In fact, I suppose the term "conflict" is almost synonymous with marriage and family today. We hear all the time about how oppressive men are, how insensitive they are, how chauvinistic they are, how abusive and uncaring they are. And on the other hand, we hear so often about women being overbearing, seeking freedoms and the exercise of their own will and their own purposes and not wanting to submit to their husbands. And why is this? Well it's because of sin.

And maybe we could go back to the beginning and get a glimpse of this. Turn back in your Bible to the third chapter of Genesis. I want to share with you what may well be an interpretation of Genesis 3 worthy of consideration. I cannot be dogmatic and say it is absolutely unequivocally accurate. There are some who would take issue with any effort to be dogmatic in this regard but is at least an interesting possibility in understanding where the conflict comes from. We know, of course, it comes from selfishness, it comes from personal pride and personal sin. That's what makes relationships difficult, certainly in the family. But there may be another element to this conflict of very great interest. And if we look at Genesis chapter 3, let me call you to Genesis 3 verse 13. "And the Lord said to the woman, `What is this you've done?' And the woman said, `The serpent deceived me and I ate.' And the Lord God said to the serpent, `Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field, on your belly shall you go and dust shall you eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise Him on the heel.'" That being the curse of Satan.

But now the woman, verse 16, "To the woman He said," here's the penalty you're going to pay and this is for all womankind, "To the woman He said, `I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.'"

The curse obviously that came upon the human race as a result of the Fall in Eden altered significantly and dramatically the original design of God. Before sin there was perfect union. There was no conflict. Adam and Eve got along perfectly. And sin was introduced and sin brought with it chaos and conflict.

Now there were several features to this curse. There was a separation between man and God as a result of sin. And man, you remember, was thrown out of the Garden, and intimate and free and full communion with God was ended. There was also a separation between man and nature. No longer would nature yield all of its bounty to man without any effort on his part. Now he had to go out and by the sweat of his brow he had to till the soil and work very hard to make the world yield to him what once had gave him so freely.

Separation between man and God, separation between man and nature, and finally, separation between man and woman. And the key part of the curse for us, at the end of verse 16: "Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you." It is very possible that that one statement answers the question why there is such conflict between men and women...why? Looking first to the husband it says at the end of verse 16, "He shall rule over you," and the word "rule" means reign, it's a word of sovereignty.

So the curse said the man as a result of the curse is going to dominate you. And as a result of the curse you are going to desire him. What does that mean? Does it mean that she will desire him physically and sexually? I don't think that's a curse. I don't think that was a curse before the Fall. It was already true that she had a desire for him and he had desire for her physically. It is the highest form of love's fulfillment in terms of physical pleasure. It is not that she would desire him as protector, as the one who could care for her and support her and cover her. That too already existed. From the very beginning she was designed to complement him, but he was the one responsible to care for her. That already existed. She was the weaker vessel and that is a delight to the woman to have such care and protection before the Fall.

So it has to be something other than a sexual desire, it has to be something other than a desire to be cared for, protected. It is also true that the curse could not be physical or emotional desire because not all women desire that, but all are cursed. All women are cursed. But not all women desire their husbands physically. Not all women desire the emotional love and protection and care of their husbands. This has to be something...something that touches all women, just as it is something that touches all men.

First, the woman was cursed with pain in childbearing. Right at the very life-giving point, the very...really the very high point of womanhood, to bring life into the world, she is cursed. But additionally she is cursed with this desire for her husband. What is it? What does it mean? Well the only other time that word "desire" is used, it is used over in chapter 4 and we learn something when we find how a specific word is used in a given context, it's the only other time it's used in the whole book of Genesis. In fact, the only time in the whole Pentateuch, the first five books. And you'll notice in chapter 4 how it's used in verse 7. The middle of the verse, "Sin is crouching at the door and its desire," exactly the same word, "is for you, but you must master it." The construction here in the Hebrew is exactly parallel, it is an exact parallel construction using the very same word.

What's he talking about? Talking about Cain. You remember Cain. Cain offered a sacrifice that God did not accept because it was not what God had asked. And then out of anger, you remember, he killed his brother. And it says here, "The word comes to Cain, the Lord says to Cain, `Sin is crouching at the door, Cain, and its desire is for you but you must rule over it.'" Now what did sin want to do to Cain? It wanted to crush him. It wanted to dominate him. It wanted to take over his mind and his action. Sin wanted to rule him. Sin wanted to force him to do certain things. Sin wanted to control him. And that, I think, that is the parallel to what you have in verse 16. When it says "your desire shall be for your husband," it is the same construction, the same term as the desire that sin has to control you. Part of the curse is the woman no longer willingly, eagerly welcomes submission, but there is something in her that wants to control the man. She wants to usurp authority over her husband. That's precisely what Eve did originally, right? She should have gone to her husband, sought his wisdom when tempted, Satan knew that, Satan isolated her, Satan deceived her, she acted independently out from under the loving submission that should have been a part of her commitment to her husband and led the whole human race into sin. As she had done in the original sin when listening to Satan and never consulting Adam, she exercised authority over the man, took things into her own hands and that was in essence the curse. And since that time the sin of a woman, the innate depravity in women seeks to control.

Man then is left with a curse as well. He seeks to dominate. Why is there always a Woman's Liberation movement? And if not a movement, it's still there in the heart of women. And why is there male chauvinism and has been and always will be? Because that's how the depravity of the human heart reveals itself in women seeking to rule and men desiring to suppress. And therein is one very possible explanation for the intensity and the ubiquitous character, that means all the time everywhere, of conflict in marriage. Woman by the Fall, in her fallenness is not willing to submit but desires to control, to exert her individualism. Man by the Fall wants to stay king of the mountain and his rule can be oppressive and insensitive. Thus the battle of the sexes began with the Fall in Genesis chapter 3. And children who come into the family just enter into the ring during the boxing match. Not a good place for children to be.

So there is male chauvinism in the world. And you can find it in cultures throughout human history. There is women's liberation in the world, and the same thing, you can find it throughout history as each one expresses the effect of the curse. Everyone selfishly fighting for his or her own turf.

And the question then comes...how can a marriage survive this kind of conflict? How can a marriage work and how can children find any peace in this kind of environment? And even the more important question...how can it be ended? How can it be ended? We've already answered that question--by two people who have come to know Christ, whose lives have been transformed, who are characterized by being Spirit-filled, joyful, thankful and submissive to one another. And that is a spiritual transformation.

In other eras, in other cultures marriages have done better than in our contemporary world. Not too many years ago, 25 years ago or so, people stayed together. That was the standard way of conduct. That's what society expected out of people and that's what happened. That does not mean that there was any less conflict. Because of fallenness, there will be conflict.

You have to go back to the spiritual dimension to end it. And that's what's so wonderful about this passage that we're looking at, and you can go back to Ephesians now. That the solution to the conflict in marriage is spiritual. And it starts with letting the Holy Spirit control your life, letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, obeying the Spirit of God as He reveals His will through the Word of God. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can reverse the curse in a home. Where you have a Spirit-filled person in the home, you have hope. Ever try to pick a fight with a Spirit-controlled person? Ever try to pick a fight with a totally joyful person that just has rising joy in their heart? Ever try to pick a fight with somebody who is thankful for everything, even the conflict? Ever try to pick a fight with somebody who is totally submissive? Very difficult. Where that exists, there's hope and it's a spiritual issue. Conflict goes where the Holy Spirit dominates.

Now as we look at the text before us, we've already kind of talked about this foundation. And Paul in verse 22 is going to launch into the specific conduct of a wife, a husband, children and parents. And we're going to look at that in detail in the next few weeks.

But before we do that, it wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't do justice to the apostle Paul if we didn't at least for a few moments consider the kind of world that he was writing to because certainly the argument comes up...Well, you know, this stuff is ancient history, this stuff is way back, it really doesn't comprehend the kind of world that we lived in, that we live in, they lived in a different time with different perspectives. And I think you need to understand what was going on, so I want to give you a little bit of history on it. I know that I may indulge myself on this from time to time, I happen to love history. When I went to college I decided that I couldn't...I couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted to minor in, I wanted to major in religious studies and so forth, and I did that. But I couldn't decide what I wanted to minor in, so I doubled minored in history and Greek. And I've always had a fascination for history, and I think through the years if I'm ever very interesting to listen to, it's probably because I have gone back into history and reconstructed some of the backgrounds that make the Bible live. And that's very, very important so that the Bible speaks for itself. And it was written in a time and in a context which demands our comprehension. So let's set a little of the scene to which the apostle Paul was writing, and you'll see some amazing parallels.

Let's talk about the Jews, first of all. Obviously there were Jews in the church in Ephesus and this was a circular letter and got around to all the churches, and eventually not only all the churches in Asia Minor, but all the churches everywhere and still getting around to all the churches everywhere. But there were many Jews in the early church and they too needed to understand the biblical view of marriage.

The Jews themselves had a low view of women. It did not come from the Bible, but then a lot of their religion by the time of Paul and Jesus did not come from the Bible. They had developed their own apostate religion. And part of it was a very low view of women. In fact, there are Jewish prayers used by Jewish men every morning of their lives. And in one of these prayers there was one line that illustrates their attitude. This is what it was, "God, I thank You that You have not made me a Gentile, a slave or a woman."

Now they perceived a woman as lower on the human level than a man. A woman was an object, not a person. A woman had no legal rights. She was in the absolute power of her husband to do with her whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. In New Testament times then, among the Jews, divorce had become tragically easy ad tragically common. And they supported it with a passage from the Old Testament, you know, wanting to be fastidious about their devotion to the Mosaic Law, they quoted from Deuteronomy chapter 24 and verse 1, "When a man takes a wife and marries her and it happens that...and I'll give you what the old translation is...she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her...NAS translates it indecency...some uncleanness and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house..." Stop right there. Now you'll notice that that's really an appotisis(?), or merely an introductory statement to something else, but they took it as if it was a command, basically, or certainly an allowance. And they simply said if you find...if your wife loses favor in your eyes because you find some uncleanness in her, then you can write her a divorce and send her out of the house.

There's a lot more to that passage than that. It was not intended to permit that, it was intended to forbid the fact that if that happens and she remarries, she can never come back and marry you. That was really the issue. But they didn't get that far, they just said...There it is, if you find some indecency, some uncleanness, ship her out, give her a bill of divorce.

Now the question became...what is the uncleanness, what is the indecency? Strict rabbis, most familiarly represented by a rabbi named Shimmei(?), strict rabbis said it refers to adultery, and that's all it refers to. If she commits adultery, you can divorce her. But liberal rabbis said it refers to absolutely anything and that its vagueness is intended by God to allow you to fill in the blank. This is represented by a famous rabbi named Hillel. So throughout sort of rabbinic history, even till today, Jews argue over the view of Shimmei and Hillel.

Hillel said that a man could divorce his wife if she spoiled his dinner. It meant that she could divorce...he could divorce his wife, get this, if she spilled his dinner because, of course, a spilled dinner is a spoiled dinner. He could divorce her if she put too much salt on it. He could divorce her if she walked in public with her head uncovered. He could divorce her if she talked with men in the streets. I like this one, he could divorce her if she spoke disparagingly of her mother-in-law. And this is really good, he could divorce her if she ever argued with him.

Rabbi Achaba(?) even went further. He interpreted the phrase to mean that a husband could divorce his wife if she became unclean in his eyes because he found somebody prettier.

Now take a guess which was the most popular view among men. Shimmai had very few followers. Hillel had many. So divorce became rampant in the time of Jesus. Women were discarded all over the place. And they were victims of such discarding, left with nothing. All a man had to do at the time of Jesus, at the time of Paul, was simply to hand her a bill of divorce. And all it took to get one of those was to have a rabbi write it in the presence of two witnesses and it was done, that was it. You go to the rabbi, he writes it, there might be a little cash involved, two witnesses were there, it's done. The only alimony or support that was required was the return of the dowry and it was a done deal.

The Jews were fastidious, by the way, about following the technical side, making sure you get to a rabbi and get the documentation, but their hearts were full of cruelty and wickedness.

In Matthew 5:31 Jesus refers to this common custom. "It was said, `Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of dismissal.'" That's the way you operate, you want to divorce your wife, just make sure you do the paperwork. That's all. Just do the paperwork. And I think, just in fairness, to Jewish history, in different eras of Jewish history there were different views. But at the time of Jesus, this was the prevailing view. So divorce was the solution to any conflict, short term or long term.

And consequently the whole institution of marriage was threatened. And by the way, prostitution was rampant in Jesus time even among the Jews.

Now let's look at the Greeks. The Greeks had a very similar approach to this. They didn't have to worry about any Old Testament technicalities. They didn't have to worry about finding a verse to misinterpret, to justify what they did. They just lived in blatant disregard for any marital fidelity. Prostitution was an absolutely essential part of Greek life. Their religions were just loaded with prostitutes and it was believed, as we saw last time, not only did you commune with the gods by drunkenness, but you communed with the gods by having sexual relationships with a priestess-slash-prostitute. Demosthenes, not less than that famous orator, said, "We have courtesans for the sake of pleasure, we have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation, and we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and having a faithful caretaker for our household affairs." You have the babies and you pay the bills, and that was it.

The Greek man found his pleasure and even his friendship outside his marriage. His wife was a housekeeper and a baby maker. His pleasure, outside his marriage sexually. His friends, outside his marriage. Home and family life were almost extinct and fidelity was non-existent. There was no legal procedure for divorce. You just put them out.

So when Paul lays down the principles that he's laying down here, he is really running head on into the culture. This is why Paul writing to the early churches emphasizes the sin of fornication so strongly. As you read the Pauline letters, the sin of fornication comes up again and again. He talks about porneiaor the verb form porneuo, to engage in sexual sin. References to prostitution, harlotry, sexual perversions of all kind because the world was dominated by those things, the Gentile world. It's not hard to remember that when you read his epistles how common that kind of stuff was. It's just a part of life. The word porneuoor porneia, the root means to prostitute. Porne is a woman for sale. Pornosis a man who lies with a prostitute or a male prostitute, a gigolo, or a homosexual. It was just everywhere and porneiais a common word in Pauline vocabulary.

According to citizenship law of 451 B.C., for example, how we're going four and a half centuries before Christ, inhabitants of Athens, for example didn't have any citizenship rights if their parents were not both Athenians. For many this meant material disadvantages so that non-Athenian women had no hope of getting married. If you weren't an Athenian woman, you didn't get married because you couldn't produce children who would be citizens and no man wanted to have children who couldn't be citizens of Athens so non-Athenian women became prostitutes. In fact, they were a professional class called Heteri which in Greek means "of a different kind."

So the ancient world, for example in Athens was just loaded with prostitutes. Married women were uneducated. They were regarded as eukoraima(??), chattel, used for keeping the house and having children. Slavery which was rampant in that Greek world allowed men to take slave girls basically for no other purposes than sexual fulfillment, mistresses. Wide-spread prostitution, harlotry, sexual sin of all kinds was all over the place in Greek culture. They encouraged the Athenian women to fulfill their sexual needs with slaves and indulge in lesbian love. By the way, also spreading all over the ancient Greek world, long before Paul and still there during Paul's time, was pedophilia, men having sex with young children. Prostitution existed in the form of worship in the fertility cults. That was Athens.

Move to Rome for a moment. The degeneracy in Rome, if anything, was worse. William Barclay who has done a lot of background history writes, "For the first 500 years of Rome there had not been one single case of divorce on record. The first recorded divorce was that of Spurious Canelius Ruga(?) 234 B.C. But at the time of Paul, Roman family life was wrecked." Athens was way ahead of the game, 451. It was another couple hundred years before Rome indulged. By Paul's time Seneca says, "Women were married to be divorced and divorced to be married." The Romans did not commonly date their years by numbers, they dated their years by two things...men dated their years by the name of the Roman consuls who ruled and the women by the number of husbands.

Jerome tells of one woman who married, the records we have found on this, who married her twenty-third husband and she was his twenty-first wife. That's kind of how it was.

Emperor Augustus demanded that one woman should divorce his wife...or one man should divorce his wife, this is Emperor Augustus, while she was pregnant so he could have her.

Jerome Carcopeno(?) has written a little book called Daily Life in Ancient Romeand in the book he says there was rampant feminism in early Rome that led to continual demoralization. Some women, he writes, avoided having children for fear of losing their good looks. Sounds familiar. Some took pride in being behind their husbands in nothing and even vied with them in tests of strength. So you had women involved in building up their physical strength so that they could compete with their husbands. Some women carried on lives apart from their husbands and never blushed to charge into a male world to compete. By the end of the second century, Carcopeno writes, many Roman marriages were childless. He writes, "If the Roman women showed reluctance to perform their maternal functions, they devoted themselves on the other hand with a zeal that smacked of defiance to all sorts of pursuits which in the days of the republic men had jealously reserved for themselves."

Women didn't want to be in the home. Again this is the curse working itself out. They wanted to dominate. They wanted to be defiant. And they started charging in to areas where only men up to that time had been allowed to go. They quit their embroidery, he writes, their reading, their songs, their playing of instruments and they put their enthusiasm into an attempt to rival men if not to outclass them in every sphere. Does that sound familiar? Some plunged passionately into the study of legal suits, or current politics, eager for news of the entire world, greedy for the gossip of the town and the intrigues of the court, well informed about the latest happenings in Thrace or in China, weighing the gravity of the dangers, threatening the king of Armenia or of Parthea with noisy effrontery. They expound their theories and their plans to generals clad in field uniform while their husbands silently look on.

Juvenal, another writer, criticized the women, listen to this, "Who joined in men's hunts, with spear in hand and breasts exposed, they took to pig sticking, especially those who engaged in fencing and some...would you even believe?...in female wrestling." I don't know if they did it in the mud or not, but they did it. He writes, "What modesty can you expect in a woman who wears a helmet and delights in feats of strength? These woman took to gluttony and they took to drunkenness."

"Before long," writes Carcopeno, "women began to betray the pledge which they should have made to their husbands and which many of them in marrying had had the cynicism to refuse to make. `To live your own life' became the formula which women had already brought into fashion by the second century B.C. `We agreed long ago...says one lady...that you were to go your way and I mine. You may confound sea and sky with your

bellowing...she said to her husband...but I am a human being after all.'"

It sounds familiar, doesn't it? Equal rights, equal everything. Unhappy marriages were innumerable. Divorce was epidemic. Juvenal again writes, this is an ancient Roman writer, "Thus does she lord it over her husband but before long she vacates her kingdom, she flits from one home to another wearing out her bridal veil."

Marriage literally became a form of prolonged prostitution. Divorces were so common from Roman jurists that a series of them not infrequently led to the lady returning after many intermediate stages to her original bridal bed...he writes.

Well, you get the picture. It is against this kind of background which is basically because of the fallenness of the human race, it is against this kind of background so similar to ours today, a background of infidelity, a background of divorce, a background of incest, homosexuality, adultery, prostitution, pedophilia, all of that stuff, it is against that background that Paul writes. He is not here saying what everybody believed. He's not reciting the common view. He is calling men and women to a kind of life that was the absolute opposite of what they were involved in.

It reminds me of when I went to Northridge, Cal State Northridge to speak in a philosophy class. And the professor was a former rabbi with a Ph.D. in philosophy. He asked me to speak to the class on biblical...Christian biblical sex ethics...knowing that that's a great way to get your head chopped off in a secular university. It was a very challenging opportunity. After having laid out what the Bible says, I said, "Of course, none of you will agree with this because you don't have the internal commitment by virtue of knowing God, having a transformed heart, and loving Christ to be interested in maintaining these standards."

But just as they are counter cultural today, they were counter cultural in Paul's time. It's important to realize that what we've got going on today is a whole bunch of individuals demanding to do whatever they want living out the Fall, listen carefully, without any cultural restraint, in some cultures, even in ours years back, there were some cultural restraints, no more. So now you're seeing the reality. Marriage is just a fight for rights but not by God's definition. God has a completely different plan and that plan unfolds here. And just to give you the basic principle of that plan, all I need to say is it is an authority and submission plan. Somebody is responsible to lead, the other to follow. It has nothing to do with inferiority at all. It only has to do with harmony.

The woman is not to seek to usurp the authority and dominate the husband. And the husband is not to unkindly and insensitively rule over her. Whenever this is allowed it creates massive chaos, as we are living to attest in our own day.

When the divine pattern is followed, the whole relationship is right. There's one beautiful picture of this that I...I want to take a few moments to show you and then we'll close. Turn to that most favorite book that is so often read and little preached, Song of Solomon. And some time early in their Christian experience young people always wander through this book and wonder...how in the world this girl ever believed all this flowery talk?

Song of Solomon is an incredible and marvelous book, a beautiful picture of a right relationship between a man and a woman. And there is authority and submission here but you don't feel it because it's lost in the beauty of love and it's so natural. For example, chapter 2, notice the love of this man for this woman, like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men...she's speaking for him--of him now. "In his shade I took great delight and sat down." Now that's the kind of authority we're talking about. He's like an apple tree among the trees of the forest. What's the difference between an apple tree and a pine tree? I'll tell you, fruit. He provides. So is my beloved among the young men. I mean, he has so much more to offer. And she looks at him for all that he brings to her. "In his shade I took great delight and sat down and his fruit was sweet to my taste." That is what delights the heart of a woman, nothing oppressive about that, that's just productive, that's just providing. And I'll tell you, he's lavish, "He brought me to his banquet hall and his banner over me is love." I mean, he just pours it on, he just pours it on. "Sustain me with raisin cakes, refresh me with apples because I am love sick."

I mean, she is so in love with this guy. "His left hand let it be under my head, his right hand embrace me." I want him to hold me. She's talking about physically. I want him to put his arms around me. Here is a woman who is so...so fulfilled to come under his protection, his strength, his care and his love because of what he provides for her. And then she calls to the daughters of Jerusalem, you know, sort of the bridesmaids. "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field that you will not arouse or awaken my love until she pleases." Now the husband is responding, or the husband to be, the one who loves her. "Listen, my beloved, behold he is coming, climbing on the mountains, leaping on the hills." The guy's athletic, can't be it. "My beloved is like a gazelle, or a young stag. Behold, he's standing behind our wall, he's looking through the windows, he's peering through the lattice." Now you know, this woman is really in love because every single move the guy makes enthralls her.

"And my beloved responded to me and said, `Arise, my darling, my beautiful one and come along.'" And I know what you're saying...Boy, they haven't been married very long. "Behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have already appeared in the land. The time is arrived for pruning the vines. And the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. The fig tree has ripened its figs, the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along. O my dove, the clefts of the rocks, in the secret place of the steep pathway, let me see your form, let me hear your voice for your voice is sweet and your form is lovely."

See, this bride just can't say enough about this...you don't hear any of this, "Boy, you know, I want to control this relationship, I've got to get this guy in line." You don't hear any of that.

Verse 16 really sums it up. "My beloved is mine and I am his." That's the issue. It's a mutual thing. But his part is to care for me and to provide for me and to embrace me and protect me and to hold me.

Chapter 4 verse 16, "Awake, O north wind, and come wind of the south, make my garden breathe out fragrance, let its spices be wafted abroad, may my beloved come into his garden and eat its choice fruits." You know what she wishes for him? She wishes the best. She's glad to submit. He belongs to her and what she possesses is absolutely thrilling to her. She wishes only the best. This is a model of relationships.

Chapter 7 verse 10, just picking some highlights. Again, "I am my beloved's and his desire is for me." In this case this desire is a right desire. His desire is for her. He wants her. He longs for her.

Go back to chapter 5 verse 10, "My beloved is dazzling," I like that translation, "and ruddy." Outstand...this is the handsomest guy among ten thousand, "His head is like gold, pure gold, his locks are like clusters of dates and black as a raven." I mean, he's just bronze, you know, with black hair. "His eyes are like doves; gentle, soft. Doves beside streams of water bathed in milk." She's getting a little carried away here. And then "reposed in their setting." I mean, it's a dove, it's not just a dove, it's a dove beside a stream, it's a dove bathed in milk, it's a dove reposed. "His cheeks are like a bed of balsam, banks of sweet scented herbs, his lips are lilies dripping with liquid myrrh." Try it, guys, who knows what might happen. "His hands are rods of gold set with beryl, his abdomen is carved ivory inlaid with sapphires. His legs are pillars of alabaster set on pedestals of pure gold, his appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars." Lebanon was high and snowcapped and tall. "His mouth is full of sweetness, he is wholly desirable. This is my beloved...I like this...and this is my...what?...my friend."

There is no conflict here. But there's no question about authority and submission. I suppose they could have problems. Go back to chapter 5 to verse 2. "I was asleep but my heart was awake. A voice, my beloved was knocking. `Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the damp of night," which is another way to say...Let me in, it's wet out here. "I have taken off my clothes, how can I put them on again?" I've washed my feet, I've had my shower, I don't want to get dirty again.

"My beloved extended his hand through the opening and my feelings were aroused for him. I arose to open to my beloved and my hands dripped with myrrh and my fingers with liquid myrrh on the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved."

You know what the implication is? For some reason she shut him out, what's he doing out there? Getting wet after he's already cleaned up. They must have had an argument, right? And she said, as women will say sometimes when all the preparations have been made for a conjugal time, something bothered her and all of a sudden he's outside in the rain. But the conflict can't last. "I opened to my beloved but my beloved had turned away and gone."

Too late...too late. "My heart went out to him as he spoke, I searched for him. I didn't find him. I called him, he didn't answer me." That's the way to resolve conflict when the heart grieves over whatever caused it. She apparently got everybody involved. "The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me, struck me and wounded me. The guardsmen of the walls took away my shawl from me. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved as to what will you tell him? For I am lovesick."

She is so lovesick that she actually goes to find him. Chapter 6, "Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned that we may seek him with you?" She wants to resolve this as quickly as possible. She says, "My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of balsam to pasture his flock in the gardens and gather lilies. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine, he who pastures his flock among the lilies." I know where he had to go.

Verse 4 follows it up. And finally in verse 7...chapter 7 rather, we find them making love together.

I guess the reason I wanted to take you through that little scenario is to point up that there are going to be times when there is a moment of conflict, but when the heart is pure it gets resolved so fast...so fast. And she goes to him and she finds him.

Chapter 6 verse 4, "You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling, as lovely as Jerusalem, as awesome as an army with banners. Turn your eyes away from me for they have confused me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, you've descended from...that have descended from Gilead." You can see that, goats coming down the mountain, white against the dark background. "Your teeth," or I should say...yes, "Your teeth..." black goats, rather, black against the snow coming down from Mount Gilead, reverse that imagery. "Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, white which have come up from their washing, glistening white. Your temples are like a slice of pome..." I mean, she's laying it on, she finds him and she tells him all this. And in chapter 7 they're found making love.

That's the kind of spirit, the kind of attitude...Song of Solomon is not an allegory, it's just a picture of marital love. In fact, a very important one. And you see in this marvelous example of resolution in conflict and a beautiful picture of how authority and submission works together where two people love each other with such an amazing devotion.

Well, we don't have any more time. It's important to understand the simple principle in marriage that the spiritual foundation determines everything. Secondly, there is an authority/submission relationship but it is not burdensome, it is not difficult, it is not abusive.

Finally, it is best illustrated, and I'll close with this, 1 Corinthians chapter 11, by the relationship between Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Father. First Corinthians 11:3, "I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of a woman and God is the head of Christ." There's no inequality between God and Christ, they're equal. There's no inequality between the man and the woman. One is in authority and one is in submission. And when it is carried out properly, it is magnificently beautiful. The woman pursues it, she runs for the protection, she runs for the affection, she runs under the leadership, the shade the provision of her husband. And he leads her with such tenderness and such sensitivity and such care and such gentleness and such strength and such consistently and such fidelity and such faithfulness that she just relishes his presence. There's no fear on her part. There's no abuse. And thus there's a willing, eager submission...a magnificent picture in Song of Solomon, absolutely magnificent. All she can do is complement, all he can do is complement her, they both understand their roles perfectly. When conflict comes it is easily resolved because they adore each other.

You say, "Well, how can a person love like that?" It comes from a transformed heart, doesn't it?

Father, we thank You tonight for some time to think about these important things, so foundational. We want, Lord, in our marriages that the Spirit of God would be in charge of everything. Authority, yes...submission, yes, but an eager devotion to each of those roles that is absolutely contrary to the curse where a man doesn't seek to dominate but to tenderly provide, lead, sustain, cherish...where a woman doesn't seek to rise, take charge, but lovingly, willingly longs to follow. And we know that this can only happen through Your power, only in the Spirit of God can the curse be set aside and replaced with this magnificent picture. Father, may we know that the most important thing in our marriage is not the behavior of our partner, but our relationship to You, and if it's right we'll be what You want us to be in that marriage and that's the only way the ideal can ever be met. I pray for every person here, every partner. Lord, lead us to the place where we take complete responsibility for the quality of our marriage and bring ourselves before You to be the men and women You want us to be. And we thank You, Lord, for such clear instruction in our Savior's name. Amen.


posted with permission
http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/1943B/a-plan-for-your-family-gods-vs-the-worlds-part-2