Scripture Reading: Genesis 2:18-25
Will You Destroy or Strengthen Your Marriage?
Intro.
1. Marriage has been under attack for centuries. Today, the attack on marriage is profound, and designed to weaken and destroy your marriage. Heb. 13:4
2. Many enemies of marriage, including unbelief and irreverence for God and His arrangement of marriage and home, worldliness, and selfishness, along with other assorted sins.
3. Investigate one specific enemy of marriage that has had a cascading effect on the decline and destruction on marriage.
I. FEMINISM: CALCULATED TO WEAKEN AND DESTROY YOUR MARRIAGE.
-Weakening of marriage has been happening for a long time. Hindsight gives us a clearer view of the progression of its deterioration. Its decline is vivid when seen through the lenses of the feminist movement.
A. Feminism and Its Goal.
1. Definitions. (Much more than “women’s rights”)
2. Built on believing a lie: “Different roles of men and women in the biological family means they are not equal.”
a. Struggle for equality. Women treated as equals to men.
b. Suffrage, wage discrimination; Motherhood is a penalty (cf. Shulamith Firestone).
3. The truth: Men and women are equal, with different roles, Gen. 2:18-23. (No difference in value, intellect, spiritual needs and blessings, Gal. 3:28).
4. Different roles does not mean superiority and inferiority, 1 Cor. 11:3, 11-12.
B. Feminism’s Progressive Evil Influences on Marriage.
1. The Sexual Revelation of the '60s and '70s.
a. Promiscuity/fornication: Selfishness that tears at the heart of marriage.
b. Birth control pill (easy, convenient): Sex without consequences.
c. Legalized abortion (1973). Women: “It’s my body!”
2. No-Fault Divorce. Mal. 2:16; Matt. 19:6
a. Enshrined the rights of partners to dissolve their union at will.
b. Destroyed the values and the restraints of commitment, perseverance, compassion upon a marriage.
c. Accelerated the rampant destruction of the nuclear family.
3. Sexual Perversion Normalized.
a. Premarital and extramarital sex.
b. Pornography has taken the place of honorable place of sex in marriage.
c. Homosexual agenda, fueled by “sexual expression” without moral restraint.
d. The permeating social impact of the LGBTQ agenda. (Not just acceptance, but its normalization and endorsement)
4. Same-Sex Marriage.
a. Redefining the sexual structure of marriage and the gender roles that God enshrined in marriage. Gen. 2:24-25; 1 Cor. 7:2
b. Marriage now has little to nothing to do with children (disrupting God's arrangement of the home).
c. The family structure is redefined, while children’s need for a father and a mother is set aside for the selfish, indecent lusts of adults.
II. GOD’S ARRANGEMENT: CALCULATED TO STRENGTHEN YOUR MARRIAGE, Gen. 2:18-25.
A. Intimate Companionship, Gen. 2:18-24a.
1. Loneliness is replaced with a true and faithful life companion (“one that accompanies another…one that is closely connected with something similar,” Merriam-Webster).
2. Leave (2:24): “to loosen, i.e. relinquish, permit” (Strong’s Dict.). Companionship with spouse takes precedence over parents.
3. Unselfish sharing by husband and wife. One flesh (2:24); same direction in life.
B. Intense Commitment, Gen. 2:23-24.
1. Bone of bone, flesh of flesh, cf. Eph. 5:28-29.
2. Cleave (2:24): Cling, join to, adhere (glue), cf. Deut. 10:20.
3. Devotion, peace, protection, security, strength, Eccl. 4:9-12.
C. Intentional Communication, Gen. 2:24-25.
1. Communication inside the bedroom, 1 Cor. 7:2-5; Prov. 5:15-20.
a. Marriage bed must remain holy, honorable, and honest. The most personal, private and intimate communication between husband and wife.
b. Get acquainted, and stay acquainted, cf. 1 Pet. 3:7.
c. Not a tool, a weapon, a reward; Act of love, 1 Cor. 7:3. Must be the most unselfish act of all!
2. Outside of the bedroom, Gen. 2:25; Jas. 1:19-20; 3:9-14.
-Good communication helps solidify your marriage, Col. 4:6; Jas. 3:5.
Conclusion
1. Forces of evil and good are at work in this world.
2. Abhor the evil, cling to the good, Rom. 12:9.
NOTES
Historic definitions of feminism
-Core beliefs of feminism:
--Sexism exists
--Sexism against women (misogyny) is enduring, pervasive, systemic, cultural, and ingrained
--Men and women should have equal rights and opportunities
--Women are intellectual equals and social equals to men
--Women should be recognized and treated as equals to men
-Activism
--Activity aimed at ending sexism, patriarchy, and misogyny. Activity in support of women’s rights and interests.
(The Definition of Feminism: What Does Feminism Mean?)
Modern definition:
Feminism: What is it?
Feminism is an interdisciplinary approach to issues of equality and equity based on gender, gender expression, gender identity, sex, and sexuality as understood through social theories and political activism. Historically, feminism has evolved from the critical examination of inequality between the sexes to a more nuanced focus on the social and performative constructions of gender and sexuality.
Feminist theory now aims to interrogate inequalities and inequities along the intersectional lines of ability, class, gender, race, sex, and sexuality, and feminists seek to effect change in areas where these intersectionalities create power inequity. Intellectual and academic discussion of these inequities allows our students to go into the world aware of injustices and to work toward changing unhealthy dynamics in any scenario.
Feminist political activists campaign in areas such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, fairness, social justice, and workplace issues such as family medical leave, equal pay, and sexual harassment and discrimination.
Anytime stereotyping, objectification, infringements of human rights, or intersectional oppression occurs, it's a feminist issue.” (Day, Lisa. "What Is Feminism?" Women & Gender Studies at Eastern Kentucky University. 18 Feb. 2016)
Shulamith Firestone (radical feminist)
In her book, “The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution” (1970), Firestone argued the traditional family structure was at the core of women’s oppression.
“Unless revolution uproots the basic social organization, the biological family—the vinculum through which the psychology of power can always be smuggled—the tapeworm of exploitation will never be annihilated,” Firestone wrote. She elaborated, with characteristic bluntness: “Pregnancy is barbaric” …and childhood is “a supervised nightmare.” (“Death of a Revolutionary,” Susan Faludi, The New Yorker, April 15, 2013)
What a truly tragic life!
She was found in her NYC apartment in 2012, apparently dead of starvation at 67-years-of-age. She had struggled with schizophrenia for decades, living on public assistance. At her funeral a passage from her book, “Airless Spaces” (1998), in which she wrote of herself in the 3rd person, was read:
“She could not read. She could not write. . . . She sometimes recognized on the faces of others joy and ambition and other emotions she could recall having had once, long ago. But her life was ruined, and she had no salvage plan.” (Ibid)
By: Joe R. Price
Posted: April 5, 2018