Copyright © 2025 Michael A. Brown
God’s desire for the first created couple from the
very beginning was that they might live under his blessing, both as a couple
and as a family as this grew around them:
‘God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful
and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it...”’ (Gen.
1:28)
Furthermore, as I have emphasised
elsewhere, God’s purpose and intention was always that he might live in close
fellowship with the couple, ‘walking and talking with them’ in a relationship
that was a three-fold cord and which therefore could not be easily broken (Gen.
2:19-20; 3:8a).
However, in the wider context of the
creation narrative of Genesis chs.1-3, there is also a fourth being mentioned:
the serpent. As the narrative shows us,
the serpent (aka Satan) wasted no time in seeking to attack this new
couple. This helps us to understand
several very significant and important truths about the spiritual context of
marriage. Marriage and family
cannot be separated from their wider spiritual context. Even though it is true that God desires to
‘walk and talk’ regularly with a believing married couple, yet all such couples
live their lives, conduct their marriage relationship and build their family in
the context also of the activity of an implacable spiritual enemy who desires
to ‘steal, kill and destroy,’ and therefore to disrupt, hinder, spoil, damage
and, if he can, rip apart and destroy what God has joined together and created
(cf. John 10:10a).
The reasons why
Satan hates marriage and family
There
are several reasons why Satan hates marriage and family:
·
Marriage creates the fullest form of the image of
God in human beings, as male and female are joined together (Gen. 1:27). Marriage brings about physical union and
procreation, and through this the image of God is extended down through
generations. Satan hates God, and
therefore he also hates the image of God displayed in human beings. He himself was not made in the image of God,
and seeing this in human beings arouses envy in him towards them.
·
Satan is a fallen cherubic being, and he is
therefore a purely spiritual being. He
cannot live in union with other angelic beings to procreate with them and
produce offspring. Again, the God-given
ability in us to procreate provokes his envy towards us.
·
Ever since he fell into sin, Satan lives under the
curse of God, and so out of jealousy he wants to deprive married couples of the
blessing of God on their union.
·
Satan is excluded from the God-man-woman triangle
of relationships in marriage, and so again out of jealousy he tries to ‘get in
on the act’ and thereby bring his own destructive influence and dominion over a
couple and their family.
The intentions
of Satan towards married couples and families
Satan’s
intentions towards married couples have several elements:
·
He wants to separate the couple from God, and in so
doing to destroy God’s purpose of a three-fold triangle of relationships with
the couple. He wants to destroy the
blessing that marriage is intended to bring.
He wants to bring the couple under his evil dominion instead.
·
Furthermore, if possible, he wants to separate the
couple from each other. To try to
accomplish this with the first couple, he used the following tactics:
◦
He tempted them to deny the word of God and live in
disobedience towards it (Gen. 3:1-4).
◦
He intertwined this with the deception to live
independently of God and become self-centred (Gen. 3:6).
◦
In succumbing to temptation, the
couple experienced an inward sense of guilt, shame and fear over their failure
in disobeying God, and they sought to avoid him and to hide themselves from him
(Gen. 3:8-10).
◦
They then started to blame one another for what
happened, so bringing strife and divisiveness between them. In order to avoid facing and dealing with
their own inward guilt, the man blamed the woman, and the woman blamed Satan
for what happened (3:12-13).
◦
This would then break down transparency
and intimacy between them, leading to coldness and emotional distance, and
potentially even to separation.
◦
Separation would ruin the blessing of
the protective two-parent context in which God ideally intends that children
should be brought up and nurtured, and thereby create an opening for greater
satanic influence in the children’s lives.
◦
The couple might still remain married
and joined together, but there would be unresolved issues and therefore ongoing
tension, division and strife between them.
For as long as they did not learn to deal with this, they would not be
happy together.
◦
When a couple separate and divorce,
Satan has well and truly got into the lives of all concerned. The couple’s children grow up thinking that
divorce is an acceptable option, and all too often they also end up getting
divorced themselves in adult life. And
thus begins the kind of generational divorce pattern which is now all too
common in westernized cultures.
·
Furthermore, Satan also aims to
introduce ungodliness and sin into the lives of a couple’s children, and, if
possible, through this to destroy the family unit. Cain’s anger and jealousy towards his
righteous brother Abel resulted in the tragedy of the latter’s untimely
death. So the family life of Adam and
Eve experienced real tragedy in the loss of one of their children to
fratricide. Even though they later had a
third son in Seth, yet experiencing such a family tragedy would have marked
them for life as parents (Gen. 4:1-8,25).
·
He also desires to bring about the long-term if not
permanent separation of children from their parents and/or siblings, if
possible. After the tragedy with Abel,
Cain was obliged to leave home permanently and ended up living far away from
his parents, so they probably never saw him again. His parents lost not just one, but both of
their first two sons: one to murder, the other to permanent distance. Cain lost not just his brother, but his
parents as well. So this first family
unit was pulled apart and destroyed by sin and its consequences. Adam and Eve had to start afresh by having
another son (Seth), and later on other sons and daughters. Perhaps Seth too never got to meet Cain, his
elder brother (Gen. 4:9-16, 5:4).
Be aware of Satan’s intentions
Every Christian couple that desires to
walk with God and to experience his blessing in both their marriage and their
family life, therefore needs to be aware of this wider spiritual context of
marriage and family. Simple observation
and research into marriage statistics shows just how many marriages and
families end up being separated, ruined and destroyed with all the untold
heartache and ongoing wounds that this causes in people’s lives. We need to be aware of Satan’s tactics
and plans against us and to deal with these when we become aware of them. The following basic points will help in this
regard:
·
Resolve to walk closely with God in your own
life. Your relationship with him is the
post important relationship in your life, and this will give you the necessary
foundation to succeed both as a spouse and a parent. So develop a devotional life with him which
you re-visit frequently and therefore keep fresh.
·
Develop the discipline of praying together as a
couple. This is the deepest form of
intimacy together, and it binds a couple strongly both to each other and to
God. Couples that pray together,
stay together.
·
As an extension of this, it is a helpful practice
if couples occasionally fast together, especially when they are aware of the
enemy’s attacks against them as a family. Beware of accidents, wrong influences and unhealthy
relationships in your children’s lives. When
you fast together, you are fighting together.
·
Spend time regularly in the word of God and
proclaim his promises over your lives, your home and your family (e.g. Ps.
112:1-2, 128:3, 144:12).
·
Commit yourselves as a family to regularly attend a
church in which you can all grow in the nurture of the word of God and in
healthy relationships with others.
Church is essentially a family of families in which both parents and
children can form the kind of healthy wider relationships which will encourage
them and help them to grow and develop as believers.
·
Do your best to bring up your children in the
nurture of the word of God, not through a legalistic approach, but in grace and
wisdom. Create relationships with them
which are undergirded by both love and firm discipline when needed. Teach them the wisdom of establishing
healthy boundaries.
·
Communicate openly with one another, and deal with
problems that arise from time to time whether these are between you as a couple
or within your family. Do not leave
problems to fester. Practise grace and
forgiveness as a lifestyle. Deal
with issues within yourself such as hurt, anger and resentment (Eph.
4:31-32).
·
Commit yourself to spending regular times together
relaxing as a couple and as a family.
This helps to keep relationships fresh, warm, loving and
supportive. In particular, spouses
should not neglect intimacy with one another (1 Cor. 7:3-5).
·
Be vigilant, and wear the spiritual armour of God
(Eph. 6:10f). Do not allow
doorways into your life and family which may result in the devil gaining a
foothold and thereafter a demonic stronghold developing (Eph. 4:27). Learn to close any such doorways and windows,
and refuse to open new ones. Such things
as pornography, any form of sexual immorality, alcohol or any other kind of
substance addiction, internet addiction and unhealthy online influences, witchcraft
and the occult, gambling, toxic anger, domestic violence and other forms of
controlling and coercive behaviour, all have the potential to destroy a
marriage and/or break up family relationships.
If you are unsure of how to deal with such areas in your life, then
speak with your pastor or his wife. In
addition, you need to be careful of watching inappropriate material on screens
and allowing its influence to come into your home.
·
If Satan can somehow get a foothold in your life,
then he is already into your marriage and he will also soon get into your
children’s lives. If you do truly
love your children, as any normal parent does and as you yourself say you do,
then you need to get sin out of your own personal life and allow no doorways to
remain open through which Satan can enter, or else it is certain that
he will also get into your children’s lives as a consequence in some way, shape
or form. Ask king David, he knows a lot
about that! Successful parenting
starts not with your children, but with getting your own life in order as a
parent, as only then do you have the moral authority to speak
effectively into your children’s lives.
·
Be aware of particular temptations and demonic
oppression which may come against your children, especially during their
teenage years. Know what is going on in
their lives. This is a period when
sexual desires develop and temptations to follow the carnal ways of the world
come against growing children.
·
If you are aware that you have opened any of the
above doorways into your life, or indeed others, and are experiencing its
destructive consequences in your marriage or in the life of your family, then
the time has come for you to close this doorway. You need to acknowledge
your sin before God, and thoroughly and whole-heartedly repent of it and
forsake it. He is merciful to forgive you in Christ, and he can set you
completely free from the bondage you have been in. He can help you to
close this door and to keep it closed. He is a giver of new life, a
rebuilder of broken walls, and a restorer of that which has been lost. He
can give you, your partner and your family a new start with a living hope and a
blessed future.
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