Do you or someone you know struggle with infidelity in marriage? To an outsider looking in the family may look perfect.
The husband is a great provider, each of the children is healthy and happy and they make excellent grades in school.
The mother stayed home and loved and nurtured them herself.
The family goes to church every Sunday and in fact they play an integral role in the church community.
Life is good; at least it looks that way to the family friends.
In fact it even seems to be good until a call comes into the home.
The wife answers the phone.
The woman on the other end claims that she has been involved with her husband for several months.
In fact she knows the names of their children and their favorite colors.
She claims that she and the husband are having an affair.
To add insult to injury, she says that he would marry her, but he does not want to lose half of everything that he has worked for.
When the husband is confronted he admits that everything the woman had said was true.
He agrees to end the affair so that he can keep his reputation in the community intact.
He believes that now that he has come clean, that everything in the home should go back to normal.
He believes now that he is no longer engaging in an illicit affair that his wife should be grateful.
She is filled with grief, hurt, anger, disappointment, and sometimes she is filled with just nothing.
He seems to feel that she should just snap out of it so that they can go on with life.
The children know that something is wrong, but they can't quite figure it out.
She cannot discuss the situation with anyone, because he is a respected businessman in the community and he holds a position of leadership in the church.
She is captured in a living hell.
She has no one to turn to.
There is no one to listen to the story that is eating her up and destroying her from the inside out.
How does it come to this? How does the foundation of a marriage that was seemingly built upon the solid rock of Christ and the Word of God dissolve into tomb of death where nothing is left but a clump of confused, yet silent emotions? How does one partner become so raw and inconsolable and the other so detached, cold, and unsympathetic? If it was true love that brought this couple together, and if their commitment to each other, Christ, and the vows that they made before God were sincere, then I can think of one reason for it all to be reduced to a place of weakness and potential dissolution.
The Word of God tells us that our enemy goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
Marriages are a prime target for his destruction.
I believe this is true because marriages are the king pin of our society.
In a marriage, a family comes forth and children are born.
Relationships are established and sustained in a family.
Society and the Church itself are strengthened by the vitality and strength of the family unit.
I believe that the enemy's ultimate goal is the destruction of the Church and the society where it resides.
His strategy is to destroy the church one marriage at time.
He could weaken the family slowly by cutting away its income source, create financial strain and tension in the home, and pit family members against each other.
This can wear family members out until everyone forgets why they ever loved each other in the first place.
This strategy takes time and often fails in a home that is fortified by the Triune God.
The strategy to lead one of the partners into an adulterous affair is quick and effective and more often than not it is a deathblow to the marital relationship as well as the health and vitality of the children.
With the one blow of an adulterous affair the enemy sets into motion the destruction of the marriage, the joy in the home, the family's influence in the church, security of the children, and the position and influence that they possessed to impact their community with their depth and commitment to Great Commission.
This message is written with one intention.
To draw attention to a potential threat to not only your marriage but every marriage built upon faith.
It is written with the hope that it will encourage you to cover your marriage and family with prayer and resist every temptation to throw in the towel and look for something better, more satisfying, and exciting outside of the marriage.
Pray with passionate faith that as you open your mouth and speak the truths promised in God's Word, that you are mobilizing cosmic forces that will surround your marriage and ensure that no weapon of hell formed against your marriage will prosper.
Never lose sight of the fact that your enemy is not your flesh and blood spouse.
Your enemy is poised to attack through principalities, and powers, and the rulers of the dark places of this world.
Specifically they are the serpents and scorpions that Christ gave you the authority to tread upon.
Look beyond the other woman/man.
That is not your enemy.
Wake up to the reality that darkness has infiltrated your home with the intention to destroy it.
Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God and do battle for God's purposes for your life and marriage.
Finally, look up to the reality that God has an expected end.
He will see you through to overcoming victory as long as you do not faint in the midst of the battle.
If you are the victim of marital infidelity and don't know where to turn.
Check out my resource box.
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