Hurt Spirits Working

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Some months ago I visited a family struggling to resolve marital issues. What I sensed there prompted me to explore a new approach to spiritual warfare for marriages and families.

In this case both husband and wife had claims and counter-claims against each other. The wife had various demands and her husband had various defences. He had evidence of her unreasonable behaviour, but she had justification for her actions. She had a case against him for his actions, while he had his own explanations for the situations.

I observed for a long time as this couple did verbal battle, both exasperated by the other. I silently prayed for wisdom and insight into how to best move their situation forward.

What came to my attention was that the couple had become pawns in a bigger game – and the key player was not the husband or the wife. The whole game was being controlled by a “Hurt Spirit”. Both husband and wife were drowning in their feelings of being hurt by the other. They then took aim at their spouse, as the source and cause of the hurt. The accusations and counter-claims only became bullets which created more hurt. The anger, frustration, accusations, justifications and so on, just kept adding fuel to the fire.

When I finally had opportunity to speak into the situation both husband and wife expected me to bring some clarity as to whose claims should be acceded to. Instead I had them join me in praying against the work of a hurt spirit. By that time the night was late and I did little more than take authority over the work of a hurt spirit in the marriage.

Within days I heard from the wife that the atmosphere in the home had been transformed from that very night. Both husband and wife have been growing in wisdom and grace since then and the relationship, while still challenged by many years of upset and hurt feelings, is stronger each week.

That has prompted me to wonder just how many marriages are being torn apart by a third party – not a person, but a hurt spirit. A hurt spirit, which is not anything defined as such in the Bible, but which I describe by that title because of its focus, aims to stir up feelings of offence in husband or wife. By arousing hurt feelings that spirit can goad a person to begin attacking their spouse, or acting toward them from a position of hurt.

Once that cycle has been started it can gain its own momentum, with the hurt spirit adding extra spin to the wheel from time to time. Eventually the couple can be completely at war with each other.

Now, consider Paul’s insight in such situations. He says that we are not wrestling and contending with each other, but with spirit forces at work around us. He says “we do not wrestle with flesh and blood (people) but against principalities, powers, rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness (spirit beings)” Ephesians 6:12. So what I am describing to you about a hurt spirit is not as absurd as it might at first sound.

Join me in taking authority over the hurt spirits which have been messing with marriages and spoiling godly relationships. We have authority to bind them (Matthew 18:18). And if you have been messed with, make up your mind not to serve the hurt spirit any longer. Your marriage belongs to God and then to you and your spouse. It will never belong to a hurt spirit or any other kind of evil spirit. Resist the presence and influence of anything that is not fit to be in God’s presence.

“Hurt Spirits which are working in marriages, we bind you in Jesus’ powerful name and we command you to get your hands off husband and wives, hearts, minds and relationships. We resist you and your work in the lives of Christian marriages and we release healing and love to flow into each place where you have been doing your evil work. And we do this in the authority of the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

‘This Holy Estate’ – Real Marriage

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There is much fudgy thinking today and marriage is one of the areas where Christians can be as confused as anyone else. Considering that God invented marriage and it finds its greatest fulfilment as a representation of Christ and the Church (see Ephesians 5:32) Christians should be the first to have a good understanding of ‘Real Marriage’. My fourth son’s recent marriage brought to mind this subject yet again and my mind journeyed even further down some tracks it has trudged before. And I think I’m onto something that has fairly sweeping implications.

Before I get to my latest ‘rev’ on marriage I should let you know that my fourth son, Jonathan, married the lovely Katie Gunn a week ago. He, like his father and three of his brothers before him found a ‘treasure’ and made a ‘field’ out of her (which is a pretty lame pun on the man who found a treasure in a field and bought the field to have the treasure – it wasn’t any funnier when I said it at my own wedding over 30 years ago).

Now to the matter at hand. I have met many couples who have lined up with their personally created vows, ready to pledge their troth to one another, as if they are the architect of the relationship they are about to enter into. In the past few generations western culture has shifted from the idea that marriage is an historical reality which each new generation gets to enter into, to the notion that marriage is now malleable, able to be what the couple wants it to be. Since the 1970’s in particular, there have been notable examples of couples having a ‘tricky’ wedding – such as being wed underwater, while bunji-jumping, etc. This trend brought with it the notion that marriage is what ever the couple make it to be. The Australian government, under its previous Prime Minister, John Howard, sought to rein in this self-directed notion and to restore marriage as an institution which it expects its citizens to take seriously.

The idea that marriage is in the mind of the betrothed is strong, at least at a subliminal level. Couples want to have their dream wedding, with their choice of guests, their own vows and even their own idea of what the marriage will be. One couple told me they want a 50:50 marriage. We hear tell of the ‘open marriage’, the ‘trial marriage’ and other evidences that marriage is seen as adjustable, to suit the wishes of the couple.

Ah but here’s the rub ….. Marriage was not created by man. Marriage is not a social invention, nor a relationship of convenience, nor a reflection of past economic realities. Real Marriage, which is the only true marriage, is a ‘holy estate’ created by God. That is why the traditional western wedding ceremony starts with a description of what marriage is and then announces that “into this holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined” (quoted from the Book of Common Prayer 1928). However this modern wording is simply an updating of ancient lyrics. The wedding ceremony text recorded in the 1549 Prayer Book of King Edward VI states the same theme in ancient verbage and spelling: “Into the whiche holy estate these two presones present come noew to be ioyned.”

Western marriage has always been understood as something instituted by God, not by man. It is ‘This Holy Estate’ – a relationship which man is privileged to access, but which man has no power to dictate. The 1892 Anglican Prayer Book accounts for marriage as Holy Matrimony which is “an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church”. Because of the supreme quality and divine nature of This Holy Estate – Real Marriage, the Prayer Book goes on to warn that it “is not by any to he entered into unadvisedly or lightly ; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God.”

The eager young couple fronting up with their carefully re-worded vows and their desire for a wedding that has the stamp of their own individuality all over it, may well fail to realise the awesome significance of what they are about to do. Their notion of having some control over what the wedding is, may tempt them to think they have some control over what marriage. They may think they can excuse their own actions and thoughts, just as readily as they can modify their own wedding program. This is not so.

Whatever vows a couple come up with and whatever personal agreement they make in the form of their own wedding commitment – that couple has no power to alter, by one iota, what they are getting themsevles into. If, for instance, they agree to have an ‘open marriage’ where infidelity is allowed, God will ignore their arrangement and judge them based on what they did with what God created as a reflection of Christ and the Church. If the couple choose, as I know of some that have, that their marriage is not subject to the cultural mores of their family, and they will enter into a secret and peculiar arrangement of their own, including pre-marital sex, God will completely ignore their arrangement and judge them based on what they did with what God created as a reflection of Christ and the Church.

A godly wedding, such as Jonathan and Katie exemplified this past week, is a joy to all who see it. Marriage is a blessed relationship and I encourage all who have opportunity to enjoy it to do so in the fear of God. I am not down on marriage or young people. I am simply recognising one evidence of man’s tendency to become his own Lord and Master, where God does not give him leave to do so.

And, in closing, let me broaden the sweep of my brush. Most westerners live as if their own life were their ‘own’. They act as lords and masters of their own destiny. This is exactly the same disease that afflicts western marriage. The implications of what I am pointing out here sweep across all those places where we disband God’s reality and make up our own. Such behaviour is vile – yet ever so culturally acceptable, in the same way that tinkering with marriage is now seen as the expected thing. Hmmmmm… Methinks this goeth a long way – and methinks I will wax lyrical about it yet again in due course.

Woman of Faith

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I was blessed this week by an email from one of my team sharing about her challenges as a wife. She prompted me to realise that women have a possible advantage when it comes to faith. To help you appreciate what I am perceiving let me share with you an observation out of my family teaching.

Children are required to obey their parents. The Bible reveals that this is an act of faith. Children are instructed in Colossians 3:20 to obey their parents. In the same sentence Paul points out that this is “well pleasing” to the Lord. “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing to the Lord.” That doesn’t directly say anything about ‘faith’, except when you correlate that with Hebrews 11:6, which says that “without faith it is impossible to please God”. If children’s obedience is ‘well pleasing’ and only faith can ‘please’ God, then children’s obedience is an act of faith.

Faith kicks in when a child has to suppress their own idea of what is good for them, to comply with the requirements of their parents. Many a child has been afraid of missing out, being looked down on by others, or otherwise suffering because their parents make decisions which they would like to change. For a child to happily honour and obey his or her parents in the face of those challenges the child needs to be trusting that God has everything under control.

Similarly, everyone who is under authority must exercise that same kind of faith. This includes wives. So wives are often more in a position of conscious faith than their husbands might be. This is compounded for the men because men are more likely to be in the workforce seeing a direct correlation between their effort and their income. This can block their awareness of God’s provision, and prompt them to think of themselves as the ‘provider’. A wife who is reliant on her husband’s endeavours and the favours he bestows on her must turn to God and look to God’s grace to see her needs and wishes met. Herein is the seed-bed of the ‘woman of faith’.

A dependent wife should find it easier to be a woman of faith. It should be easy for her to take a faith posture. Note, however, that a grasping woman, who wrests control from her husband or who manipulates him to get her way, has missed the special faith posture which other women have. A grasping woman fails to be moving in faith and so fails to please God.

There are many examples of godly women who have been strong in faith, despite their vulnerability, while their husbands have found it hard to trust God. Even when a husband does well financially he can simply lift his expectations, and hoard what he has, rather than trusting God to bless him. This is not to say that all dependent wives are women of faith or that all working men are devoid of faith. But I do recognise that a woman of faith is a precious thing and that the limitation which some women struggle with is seen by others as an advantage – helping them stay reliant on God.

I’ve just remembered a time when I was the man of unbelief and needed my wife to prompt me out of my lack of faith. I will share that incident with you in a future post. I have been blessed over the years by having a woman of faith in my wife, Susan. I commend each woman, child and youth reading this to not resent their place of dependence but to see the advantage it offers them to be a person of faith.

Godly Seed & Introduced Seed

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In my parenting seminars I teach on the significance of ‘godly seed’. In recent posts on the Bible I have discussed the fact that the Bible is an indestructible seed and an introduced seed. I now want to put those thoughts together as a lesson for parents and all who work with young lives.

The Old Testament prophet Malachi gives us a key insight into the parenting role. In Malachi 2:15 we are told that the reason God created marriage is because God is seeking ‘godly seed’. I have discussed this before and it is covered in my books, but to refresh the point let me simply note that a seed is something that reproduces after its own kind. A ‘godly seed’, then, will create a new godly seed, which will create a new godly seed, and so on. Parents are to raise ‘godly’ children, not ‘good’ children. (see my posting of 9 Feb – Godly Seed with a Heart After God)

What makes this prescription difficult for many parents is that they are not ‘godly’. They may be Christian, but not have the experience of being raised as ‘godly seed’ and so be at a loss to know how to raise ‘godly’ children. This is where the other ‘seed’ comes into play.

The Bible is miraculous, divine seed, introduced to earth and enabling mortal beings to propagate eternal growth in their life. The Bible is an ‘indestructible seed’, so it produces a crop that is indestructible. What is born of God within us, by our faith in what the Bible teaches, is victorious, triumphant and glorious. This is the eternal seed which parents must apply to their natural seed, so the natural seed becomes godly seed.

Two steps in this process are worth suggesting, for those who would like some practical application of this. Seed needs to be planted and watered. Reading the Bible with your children and praying with them for God to give revelation and apply the Bible’s truth to your lives is a good start. Read, discuss and put your faith in what the Bible teaches.

The related step is to ‘touch your child’s palate’ with the Word of God. Since godly things are not going to seem as ‘tasty’ to humans as sensual and even evil things, it is important to create a taste for divine truth in your children. Reading and discussing the Bible together is the right starting place. Praying to God about the issues raised by your Bible reading is also good. Another way to prompt a taste for spiritual things in your child is to take them to a Bible believing church, especially where people enjoy a living faith in God, rather than a religious devotion to their doctrinal statements. When children befriend people who love God and love God’s word, have committed themselves to serving God – such as on the missionfield, or who are delighted to know and serve God, those children will get a taste for faith that is real.

If you don’t apply the special ‘introduced seed’ which God has brought to us from eternity, then you will not be able to transform your natural seed child into godly seed. And remember, the reason God gave you the privilege of marriage is because He expects and is looking for ‘godly seed’.

Extra Baggage on Your Honeymoon

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Is your wife addicted to buying shoes?

At a recent Valentines Day session I presented to married couples from the Philippines, one wife admitted she has a weakness for buying shoes. I called it the “Imelda Marcos Anointing”, after the wife of Philippines President Marcos, famous for her many shoes. A huge shoe collection, however, is not the worst of what people bring into their marriage. Often far more subtle things have more profound impact.

At a recent Parenting Course a pastor confided that one of his members had recently wed and has married badly. The couple were both very talented and seemed to work well together in the area of their skills. That fact gave them confidence their marriage would work well. One of them, however, brought unexpected baggage into the marriage. Past drug taking and unwise lifestyle choices had taken a large toll, and the person was not yet properly restored in their inner life. Their ability to perform well in areas of their talent did not mean they could perform well in responsibility, commitment, and the challenges of married life.

Each person entering marriage brings their hopes, fears, expectations, pre-conceived ideas, family programming, attitudes, values, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and pain on the Honeymoon and into the marriage. Some of those things are not even understood by the people themselves, let alone by their spouse.

However, God designed marriage to be robust enough to survive these surprises. Proper respect for God, faith in God, humility before God, godly character, godly wisdom, application of God’s grace, willingness to put “self” aside, and the application of Biblical principles empower people to work through the unexpected baggage.

I encourage you to recognise the baggage which you and your spouse brought into the marriage. It’s no use ignoring it or pretending it isn’t there.

Then seek godly wisdom for dealing with each thing. Fears can be dealt with through God’s love, since “perfect love casts out fear”. Pride can be dealt with by humbling yourself. Pain can be dealt with by letting God heal the broken heart and bind up the wounds.

Understanding that baggage exists and what your baggage is does not bring fear, but gives direction to your spiritual journey as you work through the challenges, with God’s wisdom and grace.

If you are facing challenges in these areas and would like some additional input, email our team to see what we would suggest in your situation.

Address your questions to: Questions@familyhorizons.net