Spiritual Warfare in Marriage - Review of "God, Marriage and Family"

Over summer vacation in July I read Dr. Andreas Kostenberger's God, Marriage, and Family. I highly recommend it for every marriage, especially for husbands. It is a bit academic and scholarly, but you can always skip the more academic interactions, and read Kostenberger's conclusions.

Kostenberger provides a full theological framework for marriage and family in light of the Old and New Testament. He covers issues such as singleness, children, male headship, birth control, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, etc. Obviously, those include some hot-button topics in the culture and in the church, and Kostenberger deals with them carefully and biblically, radically focusing upon God and the Gospel without losing cultural relevance.

One of the best sections that I found was his highlighting of the theme of spiritual warfare in marriage. Now, Kostenberger isn't talking bustin' a cap in a demon with a quick exorcism of your spouse via speaking in tongues. What does he mean then? He writes,

"Because marriage and the family are not merely a human convention or cultural custom but a divine institution, it should be expected that Satan, who seeks to rob God of his glory, would attack marriage...Spiritual warfare has been a part of married life and childrearing from the beginning. The foundational biblical narrative in Genesis 3 recounts how the tempter, Satan, prevailed upon the first woman to violate God's commandment and how her husband followed her into sin. Ever since, marriage has resembled more a struggle for control and conscious and unconscious efforts at mutual manipulation than an Edenic paradise. The first known instance of sibling rivalry issued in Cain killing his brother Abel out of envy and jealousy. The rest of the Old Testament chronicles a whole series of ways in which sin has affected marital and family relationships since the Fall" (163).

A bit later Kostenberger asks, "What is the key element in spiritual warfare?" (165). He answers, "According to the Scripture, it is human minds" (165). He goes on:

"'But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ' (2 Cor. 11:3, NIV)...Just as Satan reasoned with Eve as to why she should disobey God in the Garden, it is people's thought life that is the arena in which our spiritual battles are won or lost. For this reason believers ought to saturate their minds with scriptural teachings regarding their new position in Christ." (165)

What key areas does Satan use to attack marriage? Kostenberger lists three specific things: "sexual temptation", "unresolved anger", and "sowing the seeds of marital conflict through the husbands insensitivity to his wife" (166). How then does one fight this battle, these areas of Satanic attack: first, "an awareness of the fact that there is a battle" (167); second, "know one's spiritual enemy. This enemy is not one's marriage partner. Nor is it one's children. It is Satan the enemy of our souls..." (167); third, "spiritual battles must be fought by the use of proper weapons" (168). The proper weapons include the list that Paul gives at the end of Ephesians.

The spiritual armor of Ephesians isn't to be taken out of context (Eph. 6:10-20). It's right next to the practical issue of marriage (Eph. 5:21-33). The armor of God is meant to be used in marriage for the good of your spouse. It's not just a neat passage to memorize and do a Sunday School class on, its one that you need to utilize in your own marriage. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the Word of God, and prayer are marriage weapons. Not weapons to attack your spouse with, but use for the benefit of your spouse, your kids, and the glory of God.

Read Kostenberger's book, not just because he has an awesome last name, but because it will serve your marriage and family well and incite the worship of God in your heart.

Your Favorite Sport? Wisdom or Wickedness

Proverbs 10:23:

"Doing wickedness is like sport to a fool,
And so is wisdom to a man of understanding."

This verse challenged me to ask the question: What is my favorite sport? Wisdom or wickedness. Just as I derive pleasure from sports, I should derive pleasure from living and thinking wisely and practically with godly insight.

What if men tossed back ideas on how to live wisely with the same pleasure and passion that accompanies memorizing stats, naming every member of their favorite team, setting up fantasy leagues, predicting how every NFL team will finish this year, and committing to watching countless sporting events on TV .

The same pleasure that comes from your favorite sport should come from walking in wisdom.

Of course sports is a good thing not a bad thing, but even the best things can become desperately wicked. Are you choosing wisdom or wickedness? What sport are best at?

Spurgeon Answers: What is Faith?

Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, answers:

"Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation. That is one way of describing what faith is.

Let me try again. Faith is believing that Christ is what He is said to be, and that He will do what He has promised to do, and then to expect this of Him."

"All of Grace", The C.H. Spurgeon Collection, (AGES Digital Software, version 1.02), 33

Points for Married Men from Proverbs 5 for Sexual Purity

1. Listen to God's words and do them. Read your Bible and live what it says. (5:1, 7)

2. Know God is watching you. They eyes of the Lord watch your every action and your every thought. Knowing God's "eyes" are on you keeps your eyes from wandering. (5:21)

3. Be satisfied with your wife's breasts . Eyeing other women's breasts kills satisfaction in your spouse. Taking pleasure in your spouse kills the desire for lust and adultery. (5:19)

4. Stay away from the temptress. Don't "go near" her or where she lives. Flee emotional affiars with other women. Don't click-to pornographic web-sites. Be faithful in the small things. (5:8)

5. Recognize that the allure of a women that is not your wife is like a mousetrap. The cheese looks good: those luscious lips drip honey, but the mouth tastes of wormwood and poison. Adultery and lust is attractive, it appears to be sweet and satisfying, and offers the fulfillment of fantasy, yet in reality is death. (5:3-4).

6. Know that physical adultery and lustful addiction is suicide and murder. It will kill you, and it will kill your family, your friends, your time, your relationships, your mind, your ministry, and your emotions. (5:4-5)

7. Pursue Jesus more than purity. Pursuing purity often turns into another law that you make for yourself. Instead cultivate affection for Jesus, and a longing to see God. As Jesus makes clear, it is the "pure in heart that see God" (Mt. 5:8). (Yes, I cheated that's not from Proverbs 5, but from Jesus who embodies the wisdom that Proverbs speaks). A passion for God squelches impurity more than a passion for purity produces purity. You don't need to make another vow, make a new law, or go to another conference. You need to repent, and pursue Jesus.

Acknowlege Your Nakedness

John Stott:

"But we cannot escape the embarrassment of standing stark naked before God. It is no use our trying to cover up like Adam and Eve in the garden. Our attempts at self-justification are as ineffectual as their fig-leaves. We have to acknowledge our nakedness, see the divine substitute wearing our filthy rags instead of us, and allow him to clothe us with his own righteousness." The Cross of Christ, 162-163

We are all naked under our clothes; literally, as well as, the metaphorical self-righteousness we put on everyday. The only way to have your spiritual shame covered is not to make-up your own clothes, but take the clothes of another. God in Jesus Christ has taken away the naked shame of sinners who trust Him, and clothed them with the perfect righteousness of Christ. Admit your naked and helpless before God and by faith throw yourself on Jesus Christ, and not only will you will never be ashamed but you can stand unashamed before God as His friend, because the clothes you now wear are the clothes of God's Son.

Love & Joy in God & the Gospel the Test of Excelling Spiritually

Lest one think I was implying raw self-effort in my last blog, excelling spiritually is not moralistic or ascetic or pragmatic. The test of true spiritual growth--excelling spiritually--is Gospel-motivation that springs from love.

In reading AW Pink today, I came across this excellent, and pertinent quote:

"If love be healthy then my greatest joy will be in making [God] my chief Object and supreme End, but if I seek to do so only from a sense of obligation and duty, then my love has cooled." Spiritual Growth, 185.

One could appear to be excelling spiritually, and yet really be spiritually dead. The Thessalonians, of course, were not spiritually dead because their growth sprang from love. Spiritual growth is impossible if one's love is cold and heart is hard.

Many times I measure my spiritual growth by duties fulfilled and the spiritual obligations I've met. It looks good on paper. Its nice for the spiritual resume. Yet, it may be driven by self-love and not love for God, His Gospel, and neighbors.

The measure of your spiritual growth may not be by fulfilling your Bible-reading plan this year, but by your sense of affection for God and for others and the joy experienced in it.

Spiritual excellence may not be what you think it is. Excelling spiritually is a divine miracle evidenced by love and joy.

Test yourselves, most likely guilt sets in, and then saturate yourself with the Gospel that covers your sinful failures--your not measuring up--and fall in love with Jesus.

The Sunday School song isn't wrong, but it is radically deficient: "Read your Bible pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow..."

Instead: "Read your Bible, pray every day, and when you do and if you don't, preach the Gospel to yourself and love Jesus the Substitute for your sin and the Source of your growth."

Excel More

Read some provoking Scripture this morning in the book of 1 Thessalonians...

Paul says that the Thessalonians were walking and pleasing God (4:1), and were loving one another (4:9-10). He is recognizing the evidences of grace in the believer's lives of the Thessalonian community. However, he calls them in both areas to "excel still more" (4:1, 10).

You're doing great--keep doing it. You're growing--keep growing. You're walk is pleasing to God--seek to please Him more. You're loving other believers--seek to love them even more.

Are you feeling pretty good about the way things are going in your life? Are you encouraged by the fact that you've grown? Wonderful! However, don't get passive in your spiritual growth.

Get some holy discontent and continue on and "excel more".

The Importance of a Right Doctrine of Saving Faith

The American Puritan Revivalist, Jonathan Edwards:

"Therefore, doubtless, saving faith, whatsoever that be, is the grand condition of an interest in Christ, and his great salvation. And if it be so, of what vast importance is it, that we should have right notions of what it is! For certainly no one thing whatever, nothing in religion, is of greater importance, that that which teaches us how we may be saved. If salvation itself be of infinite importance, then it is of equal importance that we do not mistake the terms of it; and if this be of infinite importance, then that doctrine that teaches that to be the term, that is not so, but very diverse, is infinitely dangerous. What we want a revelation from God for chiefly, is to teach us the terms of his favour, and the way of salvation. And that which the revelation God has given us in the Bible teaches to be the way, is faith in Christ. Therefore, that doctrine that teaches something else to be saving faith, that is eseentially another thing, teaches entirely another way of salvation...Therefore he who teaches something else to be that faith, which is essentially diverse from what the gospel of Christ teaches, he teaches another gospel; and he does in effect teach another religion than the religion of Christ...Such doctrine as I have opposed, must be destructive and damning, i.e. directly tending to man's damnation; leading such as embrace it, to rest in something essentially different from the grand condition of salvation. And therefore I would advise you, as you would have any regard to your own soul's salvation, and to the salvation of your posterity, to beware of such doctrine as this." (emphasis added).

"Remarks on Important Theological Controversies", from The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 2, 595-596.

The Gospel is Good News not Good Advice

Late 1800's professor and pastor, James Denney:

"The proclamation of the finished work of Christ is not good advice; it is good news, good news that means immeasurable joy for those who welcome it, irreparable loss for those who reject it and infinite and urgent responsibility for all. The man who has this to preach has a gospel about which he ought to be in dead earnest. Just because there is nothing which concentrates in the same way the judgment and the mercy of God, there is nothing which has the same power to evoke seriousness and passion in the preacher." The Death of Christ, 173.

An Encouragement to Vomit More Often

The Puritan, Thomas Brooks:

"Repentance is the vomit of the soul; and of all physic, none so difficult and hard as it is to vomit." Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 63.

I need to vomit more often. So do you.