Common Enemies of the Marriage Covenant - Part 1 — Keith Malcomson

Genesis 3 and the Marriage Covenant

I want you to, this morning, turn with me to the beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapter three. And I guess we're continuing in the same mode as last Sunday morning, but with a very unique message for our time.

We had our wedding yesterday, had this wonderful wedding service. We've got another wedding coming up in just a day under five weeks. And so, again, it's just wonderful that we have a message here reminding you, concerning what the Bible says concerning the marriage, but it's for all of us.

And I believe this message is very much for us as a church. What applies to the marriage applies to the entire body of Christ or the local church. And so we're gonna read from Genesis chapter three. It was four weeks ago before school of Christ that the Lord, I hadn't been thinking about this message.

I didn't even have time. Sometimes I don't have time to plan. I give quality time to study prayer and the word of God, but sometimes God knows you're not gonna have time to prepare for things. And that's always a time where I find he comes with power and clarity to me, and it settles my heart.

And I'm always, this has happened so many times that I go, when it comes so clearly, so definitely, I go, he's given it so distinctly because he knows what's gonna happen. So then I walk into it and go, I could not have prepared.

I wouldn't have had the time. I wouldn't have had the ability. So he pre-prepares, and I'm always grateful for that. So for four weeks ago, he brought a specific message up that I preached in 2018 in the Marriage Covenant series.

This was four weeks ago, and a very specific message. I couldn't even remember all that was in it, but he gave me the title, and to go back and to preach that again. So I've sort of fine-tuned it, moved a couple of things around, but it's that basic message.

And this is the title, Common Enemies of the Marriage Covenant. Common Enemies of the Marriage Covenant. And this was one of 12 messages I preached five years ago. And if you remember, we had, when I preached that series, we had two weddings in this church.

We had Suf and Hannah coming up, and we had Ian and Eve coming up. And I preached 12 messages on what the Marriage Covenant is, with all the substance of what is a husband, what is a wife, all of these attributes.

We went into it in detail. But I'm just pulling this one message out, and I believe it'll be very timely, and fit in with last week. Last week, we dealt with hindered by Satan. This week, I wanna deal with common enemies of the Marriage Covenant.

And where you have enemies, things, you have an enemy. You have a real enemy. Let's read Genesis 3, verse one to verse eight together. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made.

And he said unto the woman, that is the serpent, yea, hath God said? That's where the serpent always begins. Did God really say that? A question mark. You can recognize the devil. He just asks a question.

Is that true? Is it for you? Did God really say that? Is it really for us? This is the word of Satan being spoken here. He said unto the woman, yea, hath God said? Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.

And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave it also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Let's pray together. Father, we love you. We thank you for such a wonderful day yesterday, this wedding.

We thank you for the marriage that's gonna come in five weeks time that we're gonna be a part of. We thank you for the marriages in this church. We thank you for the couples that you brought together.

Lord God, even those in an unsafe state that you brought together to raise up, to save them, to bring glory to you. And Father, we're asking that you give us strong marriages, that you give us strong family units in this church, that they would embody the love of Christ and the forgiveness of Christ and the goodness and kindness of Christ.

And we realize the difficulties of marriages. We realize the problems that can arise between two individuals that are born of Adam. Lord God, and we realize, oh God, the wrestling through these issues.

And we pray this morning, we humbly bow ourselves before you, the living God, and we ask for your grace and your help. Lord God, we're not those that are great and mighty. Lord God, we're simple. Lord God, sinners that were saved by your grace, oh God, and redeemed back to you.

And oh God, we have a hunger and a desire to walk in the light of your word. Will you shine a great light on our families? And Lord God, not only that, but as an entire church, every single individual in this church, shine a great light upon us that what we see, even in unity and marriage, we may see in this church, a unified church.

Lord God, we wanna be aware of the common enemies to disunity, to cause disunity, even in this church. Will you be gracious unto us this morning? And open your word, apply it where it needs applied, and come with power that Jesus Christ will receive glory and honor.

In Jesus' mighty name, amen. My message, common enemies of the marriage covenant. Marriage is a covenant. It's not just a promise, not just a social agreement. It wasn't man-made, God created marriage.

He invented marriage. One man, one woman entering a covenant, having no intimacy unless it's inside a covenant. No physical intimacy, no emotional intimacy unless it's inside a covenant. You know why?

Covenant secures love, love needs secured. You realize love is vulnerable. Love is open to attack. Love can change, love can be lost. I wanna tell you, that's why God brings love and relationships in the covenant to secure them, to protect them.

A covenant where God is the third person is there to protect love. And so God wants to step in. He will not honor fornication. He will judge fornication. Sex outside of marriage, you will experience the wrath and the judgment of God.

The love of God will not turn aside from that. If you live in sin, you will find the consequence. God doesn't even need to judge it. There are consequence to sin, real consequence. You can't disobey God and not walk in the consequence of it.

You will, guaranteed. But you know, real love is to be secured within this thing called a covenant. We're dealing this morning with common enemies of the marriage covenant. We're gonna deal with six common, I mean, obvious, popular, normal.

We're not ignorant of any of these six, you know them all. You've seen them or you've experienced all six or maybe five of the six in your own marriage. These are the pressures, the things that come against your marriage.

That if your marriage is to remain strong, you will have to get victory over these six things. But I'm not only, all these six things also apply to us as a church. We need victory over them. Because the same things that apply between a man and a woman in their marriage apply to the members of the body of Christ.

And you're gonna see this very clearly. We read in Genesis chapter three, the first attack upon a marriage. It wasn't just attack upon a spiritual walk with God. It was an attack upon a marriage. And if we had time, we'd go into it and we certainly don't.

We'd need an entire series on that. How Satan attacked a marriage in Genesis chapter three. And you know what? It was a real devil who hated marriage. And I want you to understand this. The devil hates marriage and always has.

From the very first marriage, he set himself against the marriage, against the wife, against the husband. He immediately come in. How did he attack it? By questioning the word of God. Did God say? He's not just attacking God.

He's not just attacking your obedience to God. He is attacking a marriage. And you know how he does that? He attacks the word of God. If he wants to attack your marriage, he attacks the word of God. It doesn't really mean that.

You don't need to worry about that. You don't even need to think about that issue. You can have that in your heart, but it won't affect your marriage. That's the voice of Satan. Satan is very real. And as soon as you've got a marriage covenant, the first one, the devil is immediately on the scene to divide and conquer.

How will he conquer you? He'll divide you. A marriage is a powerful thing. Two people united in love under the grace of God in a covenant is a very powerful thing, a very dangerous thing to Satan's kingdom.

So he hates it. He hates covenant. He hates love. He hates grace. He hates unity. He hates all these things. So he sets himself against it. Don't you realize Satan's wrath is against marriage? Satan's wrath is against your marriage.

Be warned, you that are getting married, that marriage is a very beautiful thing, a very powerful thing, a very wonderful thing. It's a gift from God, not a man's invention. Why do you think our new world order globalist system has unleashed a tidal wave?

The UN, the EU, the Irish government, all of our governments, why do you think they are attacking marriage, the marriage covenant? Who do you think's behind that? You think it's just them? You think it's just our generation?

It's just our society? Absolutely not. You know what that reveals? Satan is releasing a torrential attack against marriage and he's going for the children and trying to pervert their thinking on marriage.

One man, one woman in a covenant of marriage. I mean, it's getting perverted. Even the world knows that. Even the world says, what is going on at the minute? In our schools, in the UN releasing, do you know they released a document weeks ago actually beginning that process that there's nothing wrong with an adult having intimacy with a child.

Do you realize what's being released and set up and we haven't even seen it? You see, step by step by step, we're in a vicious, wicked, evil, immoral world. It is vicious and the schools, the Irish schools are being polluted.

Who would have ever thought we had seen come into our schools what we've seen and we haven't seen anything yet. You need to understand this morning, the devil hates marriage and you need to ask why. You need to ask why.

You need to say, what is so dangerous about this marriage I'm in of its potential of what can happen when two people are unified? What is it that the devil hates about this so much? What is so dangerous to his kingdom in marriage that he sets himself against it and especially in this hour?

See, in Genesis three, we see this with Adam and Eve and we see the devil coming against this first marriage. When you come over to 2 Corinthians 11, verse three, talking to the local church, listen to what Paul says, but I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, you don't see what he's doing.

He comes so cunningly, you don't even recognize that the devil's in this. But just as that happened, the serpent going to Eve, so your minds in the church should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

What was he talking about? Men come and preaching another Christ, another gospel, ministering another spirit. That's the equivalent of Satan, the serpent coming to Eve and her partaking of the fruit. You know what that fruit represents?

Another teaching, another gospel, a foreign teaching that is not biblical. In other words, did God say? Did God say? Did he really say that? That this is what he attacks to attack your marriage. Be assured of that.

And so Eve is a picture of how Satan approaches the marriage and the local church. Let me just go a bit further, Ephesians 6, verse 11. You know it well, don't you? Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Listen carefully, the word wiles of the devil, wiles. That word wiles, the Greek word is methedelia, where we get the word methods. You know the word methods. This Greek word methedelia, the methedelia of Satan, the methods of Satan.

So what does he say? Put on the whole armor of God, your helmet, your breastplate, your shield, your sword. Put on the armor of God. Why? So that you're gonna be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

If you don't put the armor on, if you don't have it on, you can't stand against Satan. He'll do what he done to Eve. He messed with her mind. Did God say that? Then next of all, he says, God didn't say that.

You can be like God. He's keeping something good from you. You can go sleep around, it's good. You won't get punished. There's no consequence. God loves everyone. It won't catch up with you. Whose voice is that?

You think that's your own thoughts? Absolutely not. The devil's messing with your mind and he's very good at this. He's done it for 6 ,000 years. He come to Eve. He come to King David. Just look down there.

Who do you think prompted that? He come to every prominent political leader in world history. And so it says here, put on the armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

This word methedelia, it means secret schemes. Cleverly crafted plans are tricky strategies. When you begin to understand this word, it means cunningly hatched methods of guile. That's what it was when he came to Eve in the garden.

It was a carefully planned, well thought out, tailor made just for Eve and Adam. Do you realize when he comes against your marriage, it's carefully thought out, uniquely fitted for you as an individual.

He knows what you're like. He knows your weaknesses. So he sits down and he plans. You know what this word also means? It means a pathway regularly used, well used. It means systematic ways. It means the devil's predictable.

It means he doesn't use any new fiery arrows that he hasn't before. It means I can go to my Bible and see what he's using against every single marriage in this room this morning, and everyone who'll watch online.

I can tell you his methods, his carefully thought out plans that are strategic. He has an arsenal of them. And he says, hmm, I'll use that one against brother Jer. I'll use this one against Hannah. Huh, I'll use this one against Neve.

And you know what? It's strategic. He's not just throwing weapons of assault. He's going, I'm gonna target you. I know you. I know what your marriage is like. I know what both of you are like, and I'm coming to attack your marriage.

You know why? Because he hates your marriage. And you know something that Satan attacks and something that he's against. I begin, I'm a thinking person, you know. I go, why does he hate this so much? Why is he attacking it in the way he is?

And so we see here in Ephesians 6, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. These are things he constantly uses. The devil's plans and attacks are well thought out, chosen carefully, and they're used in their timing.

Isn't he very strategic? He knows when not to bother. Just, you're on high do. Oh, you're rejoicing in God. Oh, everything's good. I'll just stand back. I'll just wait. And I'll come and kick you when you're down.

The devil is strategic. He is sensitive. He is secret. He is deceptive. He would rather blame your wife than be identified. Oh, it's all her. And he stands back and laughs. Oh, it's all him. And he stands in the shadow going, I started it.

Haven't you seen people in debates or arguments or in living rooms? And you know that person, that sneaky person who has the cunning ability to drop a bombshell and sit back and he laughs at everyone argue.

Have you ever, maybe it's only in Northern Ireland. There's a lot of them up there. They pride themselves. I've seen Christians. They are proud that they can drop a comment and leave everyone debating about it.

You know what? That's what the devil does with a married couple. He just drops something, a situation, an attitude, a thought, a word in the ear, and then he steps back and laughs at you because he is against the marriage covenant.

And so we have Paul here teaching on the armor of God, but look at the context for a moment. Ephesians 6, 11, the armor of God, the wiles of the devil, the methodology, the strategies of hell. Do you know what's before it?

Do any of you in this room actually know what is the context of this spiritual warfare? To any of you, no. Do you know what's in the verses just before this? In context, listen carefully. Ephesians 6, 10 -20 is the most important teaching on spiritual warfare, on the armor.

Okay, have you got that? Chapter 6, 10 -20, preceding that teaching in chapter 5, verse 21 -33 is about marriage. It's all about marriage, the responsibilities of a husband and a wife towards each other, how they function together.

So he teaches on the relationship between husband and wife. Then in chapter 6, verse 1 -4, it's all about children, how to rear your children, your attitude as parents towards your children. Then he immediately goes into the spiritual warfare about this battle.

Do you realize all of this is just before this? This is why you need to put on the whole armor of God because there's wiles, there's strategies, there's weapons that he'll bring against your marriage and you need to know these.

Unforgiveness as Satan's First Weapon

Let me give you six of them here this morning. I could give you a hundred, but I'm only gonna give you a six because I want you to be aware of the attacks of the enemy. Number one, and we dealt with it at the wedding yesterday, unforgiveness.

Do you think unforgiveness is only out of your flesh? Do you think it's only just a personal issue? Listen, I believe this is one of the main attacks Satan uses against a marriage. It says in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 10, to whom, and this is Paul speaking to the church, to whom ye forgive anything, I also forgive.

For if I forgive anything, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes, I forgave it in the person of Christ or because of Christ, I forgive because of him to help you. Listen to the next verse, verse 11. Lest Satan should get any advantage of us.

Do you hear what I've just said? He spends an entire verse just saying, I forgive, I will forgive. I'm forgiving people in the church. I will forgive. Why? Lest Satan should get advantage. So Paul's aware here, where you get unforgiveness, the devil moves in.

Be guaranteed of that. Satan will take advantage. You know what the word advantage means? It means to overreach or to defraud or to make a gain of you. It means to hold onto you and not release you or to come walking in your house when he's got no right to be there.

So he's saying, if I can find forgiveness in the church or in a marriage, you know what? The devil will gain advantage. Where unforgiveness is, the devil comes walking in places where he's got no right to walk.

You know what he says? He goes, oh, look at that. She's got unforgiveness towards her husband or he has unforgiveness towards her. And let's face it, friends, if you're married, if you've gone through your marriage and you've never had unforgiveness arise, then you're an absolute perfect saint.

Do you hear me? The best of marriages, they're gonna come to that day when they've gotta forgive their husband or their wife or it'll destroy that marriage. It will stir up such bitterness in their heart.

They won't even be able to live with that person. Unforgiveness is a terrible thing. You know what the word forgiveness means? Means to release. What is unforgiveness? I won't release it. I won't let go of it.

I will not forgive it. I won't let it go. I'm gonna hold onto it. And you know what? It burns within you. It undermines everything. So look at this. It says, where there is unforgiveness, Paul is forgiven because he says, I don't want Satan to move in on the church.

See, if I don't forgive, you're forgiving. I want forgiveness in the church and in marriages because Satan will gain advantage. Listen to what else he says. Less Satan should gain advantage of us. See, Paul said us.

Do you think Paul said, devil can't mess with me. He can't get advantage. I better forgive you where it's right to forgive because Paul says, I don't want Satan to gain advantage of us. For we are not ignorant of his devices.

To be ignorant means you don't consider it. You don't use your brain. You're ignorant. You're stupid. You're silly. You don't know. You don't have facts. You don't believe it. You actually do not believe that Satan can come in with devices.

The word devices there means to exercise his mind in inventing plans and schemes, very similar to the other word. We are not ignorant of Satan's devices. You know what? You need to know the plans of Satan's against a marriage.

One of them is unforgiveness. That's one of his devices. If I can get unforgiveness in that marriage, I'll wreck that marriage. I will disturb it. I'll steal unity. I'll steal love. I'll steal joy. I'll steal peace.

All I need to do is get unforgiveness in the heart. Don't forgive them. Don't let it go. See those people that can't help themselves but put something on their lips, then the thought comes. They just spew out.

You did this. You did this. You did this. You did this. You're asking for trouble. You're asking for real trouble. You know what the Bible says? We ought to forgive as Christ forgave us. That's the standard.

Do you think you deserve forgiveness? Oh Lord Jesus, will you forgive me of all my sins because I do everything so right? Lord, will you forgive me because I deserve it? You know what? When you come to ask forgiveness, you go, I blew it.

I messed up. I am so sorry. I acknowledge my guilt. I wish I hadn't have done that or said that. I'm so sorry for hurting you. Will you forgive me? Do you know someone who would say, no, I will not forgive.

That's a terrible thing. You know what? You've got a root in your heart that's gonna grow deeper. That's gonna broaden. That's gonna destroy. I had a man in a meeting once I preached in revival in Wales and I preached on the cost of revival and I mentioned forgiveness and he come up to me.

He stood behind me singing in tongues. He was a red cheeked older man and as soon as we finished, he came straight to me, shook my hand. He says, my son, I will never forgive him. Never. And I'm born again and I'm going to heaven and no one's gonna tell me anything else.

I went, there's no hope for this man. This old prune of a man sitting in the church speaking in tongues. You know what? That man, the devil has destroyed that man. You need to be careful. And this is the first thing I wanna tell you.

On forgiveness, the devil will take advantage. It's one of his methods. He wants it and in this church, he could wreck this church. You think he couldn't wreck the joy, the peace, the unity we have? Saints of God, I'm getting worried this morning in the prayer meeting because I'm going, it's beautiful what we have and it's shining forth and people are talking about what we have.

That gets me worried now. We've gotta be very careful, Saints of God. Don't take that for granted. We are not ignorant of Satan's devices. Will you please with me be praying into this? Will you please take care?

Will you please not be proud saying, oh, don't we have lovely fellowship? Let's walk humbly. I'm getting nervous. Not because we're doing something wrong but because we're doing what is right. And the devil, I'm not ignorant of the devil's devices.

Selfishness and Self-Worship

He hates this. Number two, selfishness. It says in Philippians chapter two and three, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. That's the word, vainglory. And notice the opposite of vainglory.

But in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look at not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others. Now, this word vainglory really means to be self-conceited, a self-centered person.

You know what vainglory is? It's someone who exalts themselves, puffs out their chest, thinks highly of themselves, and there's no basis for it. There's not anything more despicable than a person who is proud of themselves when they've got no reason to be.

It's bad enough to have someone who has good reason to be proud. That's bad enough. They get proud, they're gifted, they're able, they've done a lot, and they get proud. That's bad. But you know, with a selfish person, they're so blind, they can't even see their own defects.

They don't even have a reason to be proud, and they're proud of themselves. Oh, it's all about me, me, me. What, how do people think of my words and what I've done and why I've contributed, and why aren't you mentioning me?

Why aren't you noticing me? You've got a problem with self. You really do. In 1 Corinthians 13, that beautiful chapter on charity or love in action, that's what charity is. Love, acting. You know, love that doesn't act isn't love.

I love you. Well, it's gonna have actions. It looks like something. In 1 Corinthians 13, it explains and defines what love looks like when it's acting. This is one of the things. Seeketh not her own. Selfishness.

Those who seek their own are selfish. But where you get a gappy love, real love, charity, it doesn't seek its own. That's how you know it. Let me go just a bit deeper here for one moment. In 1 Corinthians 13, this word seeketh not her own.

How do you know, love? She doesn't seek her own. The word seek there means to plan, to plot, to gain worship. That's what the word means. So you've got someone that's there and they're thinking, they're planning.

I'm gonna say that in the conversation and I'm gonna drop this comment and I'm gonna share this or I'm gonna do this with these people. You pre-plan it. It's rolling. Why don't you do this? Why don't you say this?

And held within this word, seeketh not her own, it means so you get worshiped. Do you hear what I'm saying? This is a selfish person. I want to be glorified. I wanna be worshiped. I wanna be praised. I thought Jesus got that.

Do you realize selfishness is self-worship? I want you to worship me. Oh, we had never say that, would we? Oh no, I don't want worship. No, you're looking praise. Aren't you wonderful? Aren't you tremendous?

Aren't you better than anyone else? You're the most spectacular person I've ever met. Oh, praise God. Let's build everything. You're looking worship. Isn't it so subtle? Do you know who's behind this?

The devil. The actual devil is behind it. It is self-worship to seek its own interests or profit, to get its own way, my way or the high way, my way or no way. If I don't get my way, I'll destroy the whole thing.

I'll pull it down. Do you ever see the little kids like they're there. If I can't win, if I don't get my way, I'll destroy the whole thing. They're my marbles. I'm just gonna take the game. I'm gonna do a runner.

I'm walking out on you. That's a child. I've seen that in the church. God help us, I've seen that in the church. You ignore and neglect the needs of others because you're so absorbed in self. You're so absorbed in why isn't it being ministered to me?

What about me? You don't even think about others. Selfish people are the most neglectful people. See, in marriage, you're asking for trouble. This marriage ought to be about me. Really? You really think that?

This marriage, I ought to be the center star of the home. You really think that? How do you stop selfishness? Well, he gives us the answer. Let nothing be done through strife and vainglory. Do you know who's the best friend of vainglory?

Selfishness, self-worship. Do you know who is strife? Where you get someone who's selfish, I want to be the center. It's all about me. You get strife all the time. It's the best friend. But look at how you counter this, but in loneliness of mind.

Loneliness, that's humility. Do you know what that tells me? Pride brings selfishness. Humility brings a consciousness of others. If you're humble, you're aware of your wife. If you're lonely in mind, if you have a right perspective of yourself before God, you care about your husband.

You care about your wife more than yourself. You ought to stop. Oh, but I've done so much. Why doesn't he? Be very careful of the devil coming in on things. You know what? He's just waiting. If I can get you selfish, I will move in and I'll wreck the whole thing.

How many marriages have been wrecked through selfishness? You know how it manifests in thoughts, in feelings, in actions, in words. It's immaturity. It's rebellion against God. No wonder your marriage can't work because you're rebelling against God's word.

Selfishness is sin, like unforgiveness. If you're selfish, you're not worshiping God. You're taking something only God should have. It's not you that's meant to be the center. Christ ought to be the center of that marriage.

Shouldn't be the husband, shouldn't be the wife, shouldn't be the children. Children should not dominate the home, dictate the food, dictate the times. Husband, wife, you've lost the battle if those children rule the house.

They ought not to be in charge. There ought to be an order. And you know what? The sin of Satan that got him cast out of heaven, pride, I will exalt myself. I will be like the most high. I will be worship.

It's all about me. After all, look at me. I'm created as a musical instrument. I lead the worship of heaven. I am beautiful. Who made you beautiful? Who gave you your gifts? Who designed you? Who created you?

Do you think you can take any glory from anything that you have? You're a gifted person. God help you. You better not realize it. Oh, I can preach. God help you if you ever realize that. You're finished.

Oh, but I can do music. Really, can you? God help you. Humility is the cure of this loneliness. Show me a humble couple and they're not selfish. Show me a selfish couple. They're both proud. It doesn't put itself first.

Neglecting Biblical Obligations and Order

Does not think of itself first. Third of all, neglect of obligations. Unforgiveness, selfishness, neglect of obligations. In other words, by neglect of obligations, I mean rejecting biblical order. The Bible says things, but you don't care and you think your marriage can function.

Do you think you can reject what the Bible says? Oh, I know the Bible says, but you don't understand my marriage. You don't have an excuse. If you don't live according to the order, the obligations of the Bible, of what it says a husband is to be and a wife is to be, you know what?

You are rejecting God's order. Satan moves in on that. There's confusion. It's unbiblical. It's not according to the word of God. You know what contemporary men look like? Ladies, you listen carefully.

This is a modern man, 21st century man, a modern Irish man. Do you wanna know what he looks like? Listen carefully. This is what they look like. They're abusive. They're neglectful. They're adulterous.

If not embodied, then at least hard in mind, dominated by adultery, unfaithful, drunkards, liars, authoritarians, or wimps, weak, a follower instead of a leader, a yes man, and I could keep going. That's the modern Irish man or American.

Isn't it amazing how it applies to every country? The modern man outside the word of God. What does the Bible say about a man? It talks about headship. He's the leader. That's not a modern doctrine. That comes from the heart of God.

Man and husband and wife are not equally the head. There's only one head. If I stood here with two heads, I'm gonna get glaring looks this morning. You're just gonna stare. You won't even hear my message.

You'll say, you're a monstrosity. You're strange. You know, if I see a two-headed man, a two-headed dog, a two-headed anything, I'm gonna crash my car driving down the road. That is not normal. That is abnormal.

It's strange. Something is terribly wrong. No, no, we're in the 21st century. We're both the head. We both lead. We both decide. Nothing about biblical order. You've listened to the Satan. Satan has told you that.