02/13/2016
10 Ways that Satan Loves to Watch Marriages Fall Apart
According the Bible, Satan prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8), but many times, he probably doesn’t have to do that much. I wonder if sometimes Satan sits back and laughs at us.
Marriage can be extremely messy. As sinners we can do dumb things in marriage—we hurt one another; we make false assumptions and then miscommunicate; we manipulate or say mean things to our spouse; we think less about serving and more about being served. We don’t always follow God’s Word or advice from godly leaders. We put our hopes in the world or each other more than we put hope in God.
We don’t need Satan to ruin our marriage. We do plenty of unhelpful things on our own to ruin our marriages. I’m sure Satan enjoys having a front row seat, watching our folly and foolishness.
What does he see?
The Battlefield of Marriage
1. Spouses live in the flesh and not in the Spirit (Galatians 5).
Picture a fight. You and your spouse are arguing about something big or small; and at just the right moment, you are faced with a decision. It’s the moment that I’ve heard some call the watershed moment—the point at which you pick a path to follow. You can satisfy your sinful flesh or follow the lead of the Spirit. You go down the path of a nasty fight or honor your spouse by admitting your wrong. Which do you typically choose?
2. No s*x in the marriage (1 Corinthians 7).
If you are fighting, the last thing you want to do is to be intimate with each other, right? Conflict is a barrier to intimacy in marriage. The two are not one, but two. One of God’s purposes for s*x is to foster “oneness” or unity (Genesis 2:24; 1 Corinthians 6) in your marriage. Couples who don’t have regular s*x are allowing a barrier to come between them. No s*x in marriage means the couples is less unified.
3. A husband is consumed by po*******hy (1 Thessalonians 4).
This causes him to be distracted from his wife’s beauty. Sometimes he gets drawn in by a pop-up. More often, he simply gives-in to lust (Galatians 5:13) and aggressively pursues it. She discovers it. It quickly shatters trust in the marriage. She is devastated and she asks questions like, “Am I not desirable?” “Why would he look at other women when he has me?” Worst of all, “Is there something fundamentally wrong with me?”
4. Lofty, sky-high expectations.
I’ve seen men crushed under the weight of their wives’ perfectionistic expectations. The husband says things like, “She expects me to be a holy man.” He constantly feels like a failure, and therefore has little to no incentive to actually work at the marriage. She beats him up (verbally, not physically) because (in the words of one spouse I counseled) “nothing else seems to work to get him to do anything.”
5. Nuclear war (Romans 1:28-32).
You go head-to-head every night. You have nasty, mean, tears-evoking, loud-screaming, door-slamming fights. Sometimes it gets physical. And you are weary…very, very weary…because you don’t know how to stop the fights, yet you are tired of dealing with nuclear war every night of your life.
6. Avoidance and withdrawal (Ephesians 4:26-27).
The most basic response to any difficulty is the famous fight or flight response. In marriage, the flight response often looks like avoiding your spouse. Maybe you live in the same house, but you live separate lives. After a fight, you avoid one another rather than doing the hard work of dealing with each other. Or, maybe you hide at work in order to avoid the marriage. You are really good at your job, so you often get praise and affirmation at work, but never at home. Is it any surprise that you like being at work more, especially when home is a war zone all of the time?
7. Hate speech (James 4:1).
In the heat of conflict, we say things that we all regret. I have a friend who calls this stupid talk. Things come out of my mouth, and the moment it launches from my lips, I regret having said it. I wish I could pull it back and stuff back into my mouth. Sadly, I ignore the maxim, “Not everything that comes to my mind needs to come out of my mouth.”
8. Weak boundaries.
The husband flirts with a woman at work by saying nice things to her. He finds her attractive. He finds ways to go out of his way to encourage her, and sadly, he doesn’t ever demonstrate the same kind of deliberateness with his spouse. There is no physical, immoral interactions, but his verbal affirmations and emotional flirting goes beyond what would safely be deemed as platonic. Wives are cable of doing this, too. Often times, in retaliation to the husband’s careless boundaries.
9. Work-idolatry (James 4:4-5).
You love your job and you pour yourself into it, to the detriment of your family. You rationalize, “They need me at work” or “She doesn’t understand the pressure I’m under at work.” If you were honest, you work matters more than your family. You cherish your job more than you do your wife and kids.
10. Lying (Colossians 3:9).
Lying can destroy trust in a marriage. A spouse lies because he is trapped and doesn’t want to have his sin exposed. For example, a husband who has been secretly having an extra-marital affair….of course he is embarrassed for anyone to find out. He is emotionally and spiritually immature—in a word, you married someone with poor character.
Sad, isn’t it, to see so much foolishness? This is the typical battlefield of bad marriage. This is why we put our hope not in ourselves, but in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. It is sinners such as these that Jesus came to save (Mark 10:43-45).
Dear Heavenly Father,I humbly come before you and thank you for saving us from distress when we call out in trouble and thank you for being there for us when things are good in our lives. We love you Dear God we seek and require You earnestly. Thank You Lord, for your kindness, tolerance, and patience with us when we fall into sin, and thank you for sending Christ to die for our sins and redeem us by the cross.
I come before you Lord to petition you in Prayer and ask your blessing on me and my (Wife/Husband) to come together in harmony with sympathy, compassion and humility, faithfulness, honesty, respect and most of all love.Lord, You have made us one in flesh and spirit and You are a witness to our marriage covenant. I believe that the Holy Spirit will come upon my (Wife/Husband) so that (She/He) never forget your teachings and that (She/He) keeps your commands in (her/his) heart. I believe that the Holy Spirit is working in our marriage, that my (Wife/Husband) will not be deceived by the persuasive words of anyone who would lead him astray or attempt to seduce (her/him).
I give You praise and honor, Lord, and I thank you that no weapon formed against our marriage has prospered and I believe that You Lord will silence anyone who is attempting to come between us, telling my spouse that reconciliation is wrong. With the spiritual authority given to me in Jesus name, I rebuke anyone who would attempt to put a wedge between myself and my spouse- through ungodly advice, use of banned spiritual arts as mentioned in the bible for direction, or through false teachings or words.
Lord, I believe the Holy Spirit is working in my spouses life right now, ministering to (Her/His) heart, and I believe the Holy Spirit will righteously convict and correct my spouses thoughts, words and actions and place in (Her/His) heart the burning desire to rebuild our marriage because (She/He) knows life is better with me and the grass is NOT greener in other pastures as the deception of the world leads us to believe. I petition you dear Lord, that (Name of Husband or Wife) would humbly accept Your conviction and correction and seek your direction.
Lord, I ask You to convict and deal with any unconfused sin in (Her/His) life. Enable us to deal with any sin that would be hindering our marriage.
Lord, I believe it is in your Will that we are reconciled back to each other despite anything we’ve done to each other in the past and I forgive my (Wife/Husband) for any wrongs I feel (She/He) has done as I pray that (She/He) forgives me.
God, Your words are trustworthy and you have promised these things to me though your words given throughout the ages through the profits, disciples and Jesus. You have promised that You will build a home for me and that it pleases You to bless my marriage. I praise and thank You Lord, for keeping the promise you have made concerning me, my (Wife/Husband) and our home.Lord I believe you will guard the fidelity of our marriage in this time, and will keep (her/his) eyes blinded to temptations of our Human nature or the influence of the Devil. In the name of Jesus, I pray that You would bind the work of Satan from this marriage and cast that influence away.
Lord, I believe that my (Wife/Husband) will acknowledge you and listen to your still soft voice in their head and heart. I believe if (She/He)tries to push away from Your wisdom and attempt to reject your words, your words on marriage will be exposed to (Her/Him) through TV, Magazine, Books, and your messages will grow louder and louder to correct (Name of Husband or Wife) into your Will for our marriage.Lord, I believe You will be here with me to assist me in staying strong and courageous throughout all the trials, struggles and issues , and I praise you for not allowing me to be afraid or feeling discouraged if things don’t seem to be progressing in my time. Your power is greater than the power of Satan and all who do his work, and I believe all good things will be done on Earth and in Heaven in Your time, such as the restoration of my marriage. I refuse to be discouraged, I refuse to be defeated. You are the God of all hope and I claim in every way this victory in my marriage though your Word.And I praise You that everything we have been through has not quenched (her/his) love for meand our love for each other. I pray we will live together in harmony with sympathy, compassion and humility, and that we inherit Your blessings.Father, I plead that we will speak the truth to one another in love. Cause us to honestly share our feelings without being arrogant or spiteful. Replace those feelings, Holy Spirit, with love and honesty and enable us to work through our differences.
Jesus, I plead that we/they will put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander, along with every form of malice. In the place of this, I pray that we/they would be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other. Father, I pray that You would rekindle passion and desire between myself and (Name of your Husband or Wife here), and heal any emotional wounds we may have caused one another.
It is Your Will that marriages to be for a lifetime and therefore go has joined together, let no man separate. I ask that this petition of prayer be read aloud, before all the angels of Heaven, before Jesus, the Holy Spirit and You my God. And I believe you will move to save and strengthen our marriage and I ask in the name of Jesus that You will do whatever it takes to protect and defend this marriage and place a hedge of protection over our home. In Your Mighty Holy Name O’God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit- Amen.
