Divine pattern of marriage
By Ivan Ho 31 Mar 2017
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:21-25 NKJV
The influence of humanism
“From Principle viewpoint Humanism is the reversal of all God’s principles. It sounds nice and has seemingly good aims for a better world, but it puts Object over Subject (Wife over Husband; Children before Parents; Students over Teachers); humanism is putting the external and horizontal over the internal and vertical. Because of that, automatically humanism destroys all vertical and horizontal order in the society.”
(Author unknown)
Secular humanists consider themselves as enlightened thinkers who put rationalism and science over and above God. In fact, they are atheists who don’t believe in the existence of God and regard religions as destructive and restrictive forces to human freedom. Their thinking is not governed by the word of God and hence they regard themselves as free thinkers who are free to think what they want. Since they are essentially rationalistic thinkers and philosophers whose mindsets are not governed by godly principles, their minds are open to all kinds of suggestions. Eve was open to suggestions from the serpent and her mind was “liberated” from the confinement of instructions from God. God says “No” but the free thinker says “why not?”.
Right from the beginning, satan had challenged the authority of God and attacked the divine order of marriage when he singled out Eve and led her to rebel against God, then turned her against her husband. First, the cunning serpent got near the woman and whispered into her ears: “Did God really say that….?”. The devil put a thought into the woman’s mind which started the process of decline and the fall of man.
In the past 50 years or so, marriages and relationships under the influence of secular humanism basically attempts to reverse the divine order of marriage and downplays God’s involvement in the process. By messing up divine principles, the foundation of family values based on godly marriage is collapsing, resulting in breakdown of marriages and with it, the destruction of society.
The devil knows that strong marriages between a man and a woman ordained by God is the biggest threat to his kingdom. Believers would be forgiven to think that the greatest threat to the devil’s kingdom is the church. Think about this: In the beginning, God did not build the church. Instead, God instituted marriage between a man and a woman. Satan cannot prevail against the church that Christ builds, but if the devil can succeed in the breakdown of marriages as God intends, he has taken huge steps into advancing his kingdom in our societies. When marriages collapse, the society collapse with it. When marriages breakdown within the church, the church becomes powerless and looses her influence in the world. In the world indoctrinated with humanistic ideologies, around 50% of marriages end in divorce, and the divorce statistics within the church is also on the rise.
The idea of free love
Under humanism, the idea of free love means that anyone can hook up freely with another person (usually of the opposite sex but not always) without God’s guidance, and they get married.
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
Genesis 6:1-2 NKJV
Nowadays, men choose whoever they see are beautiful, pursue them and took them as wives for themselves. Women are free to date anyone who take interest in them. Marriage is for them, not for God. God is totally taken out of the equation.
The Bible says “God is love” but the humanist says “Love is god”.
For them, love has no principles, no boundaries, no restrictions. A person must be free to pursue love and connect with anyone they want without any restriction.
For them, dating often leads to nowhere because they are only looking for emotional and physical experiences during dating rather than the commitment of marriage.
The rise of feminism
Under the banner of human rights and equality, feminist movement has risen in western societies, influencing the minds of young women today. Feminism is a satanic movement with its root in the garden of Eden when Eve was influenced by the devil to desire to become like god, having the same authority and equality with the Creator. Eve was tempted into rebellion against God, and having usurped God’s authority, she told Adam to follow her lead to partake the forbidden fruit. Instead of taking responsibility as a godly man to uphold the word of God, Adam followed Eve to disobey God.
Satan has always been attacking marriage since the beginning by sowing seeds of rebellion. Feminist movement is a modern day movement of mass rebellion under the disguise of liberation of women and equality between the sexes.
God has never intended for women to be subservient to men, that females are regarded as second class citizens in a male dominated society. Having said that, in the context of a family, God has set the husband to be the head. That is a divine order designed by God. When husband and wife follow the order of creation and subject to divine authority, children also learn obedience and the whole family is protected and in order.
Under the influence of feminism, however, the woman rebels against her husband and in so doing, turns the order of leadership upside down.
Someone, whether man or woman, who is not submitted to the word of God and to God ordained authorities, will sometimes use witchcraft to control the victims in order to get his or her ways. In fact, anyone who operates outside of divine order and obedience is subject to another authoritative structure under demonic influences.
As the result of the operation of rebellious spirits, the husband, out of fear of loosing the woman, now takes the back seat, allowing Jezebel spirit to work its ways with the ultimate goal to destroy marriage.
In the godless humanistic society, men become ungodly and women have no godly leadership to follow, and children become just as rebellious because of that.
That is not how God designs marriage to be in the beginning when God created Adam and Eve.
The divine pattern of marriage
In the beginning, God created Adam first, then He created Eve and brought her to the man, and they were united in one flesh as husband and wife. The whole process was designed and governed by God. Not only that, God has set up the headship of husband over the wife, just as Christ is the head of the church, not the other way round.
Feminists, however, have other ideas. The spirit of humanism attempts to remove God in marriages, and basically makes the woman the head in the relationships. To emphasis my point: nowadays men have to kneel before women and get their permissions in marriages, a phenomenon which the modern world call proposals.
In the beginning, no proposals were necessary. God brought the woman to the man and they became husband and wife. It wasn’t man nor the woman who initiated the idea of marriage in the first place. Marriage is God’s idea all along. No man needs permission from a woman or vice versa if God has approved it. If anything, approval on the earthly level ought to come from parents as only those above us have the authority to give approvals.
Just as the builders are not supposed to give the architect approvals of his design, neither the man nor the woman nor the priest should give the stamp of approval in marriage. The approval comes from heaven above.
What the man and woman need is agreement based on God’s guidance and leadership. When that happens, the divine pattern of marriage is established.
If we want to return to the divine pattern of marriage, we need to throw out the ideas we gather from Hollywood and popular culture.
I am not saying that proposals leading to marriages are wrong. All I am saying is: without God’s initial approval, human permissions are baseless, and when God approves it, proposals are unnecessary. Ultimately, it is God who initiates the idea and it is God who joins a man and a woman together in marriage.
And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’ ; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Mark 10:5-9 NKJV
In the beginning, God intends husband and wife to rule together when the woman is submitted to godly leadership of her husband. That is why the enemy is hell bent on breaking that unity.
When God joins the man and woman together, they become the power of one that rules and reigns together with Christ on earth.