FAMILY MATTERS
March 7th, 2009
Men Are Not From Mars…Women Are Not From Venus
Thanks to best-selling author John Gray, the myth about men and women being two completely different entities has been perpetuated one reader at a time. There is no disputing the fact that roles have changed in this world. Men used to be providers and brought home money and provided for the security of the family in many areas of life. However, women today are in the workforce and are able to provide for themselves what men were once counted on to do. Consequently, the clear Biblical delineations that define the role of men and women in the home have been blurred. However, there is one essential element that is consistent between men and women and that is the ability to be tempted.
As Christ is the head of the church, so is the husband supposed to lead his family. Consequently, just as Christ was tempted by the devil in the wilderness in an attempt to topple the church, so too, is a man tempted of the devil in an attempt to destroy his family. Without a strong father in the home, the likelihood of families being close spiritually, and on fire for God is certainly lower than when men don’t shirk that responsibility.
My concern for women is this…if you take up the role of spiritual leader in your home in lieu of a strong husband, you’ll open yourself up to the desires of the devil to topple you. If the devil gets to a husband, but the wife still faithfully tries to raise her children for the Lord, I guarantee you the devil is not happy with that and won’t be satisfied until he can inflict the most damage in that family. What does that mean? It means that you will be targeted in the same way your husband was, so it’s important to become aware with how the devil goes about doing this.
There are two parallel accounts in the Bible about the devil showing his cards, so to speak, in how he tempts people. It would be wise and prudent to study these out because in each case, it happened to a different sex. Jesus was tempted in Matthew 4:1-11 and Eve was tempted in Genesis 3:1-6. I chose those two because each was tempted in the exact same fashion with the same core desires we humans have. There are other examples of men and women sinning, but these two accounts clearly describe the devil’s tactics. So when it comes to temptations, despite all the differences we would like to believe exist between men and women, men and women are the same in the sight of Satan when it comes to getting them to fail. I’ll briefly go over the texts and pull a few things out and then at the end I’ll make a few parallels between the two and how they relate to today’s life.
Jesus had been fasting for 40 days in the wilderness where he had been led by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by Satan. Satan came and tempted Jesus with a few rocks saying to Jesus that if He was Who He said He was, that He should turn those rocks into bread. Jesus fought back with Scripture and momentarily put the devil in his place. Then, somehow He and Jesus found themselves on the highest point of a temple when Satan again asked Christ to prove Himself by jumping off the temple and allowing His angels to catch him before He hit the ground and hurt himself. Jesus again refused and the devil plotted another attack. Finally, Satan tried one last time to get Jesus to sin. Satan took Jesus way up high on a mountaintop overlooking towns and villages and Satan offered all the kingdoms of this physical earthly world in exchange for Jesus’ worship. Finally having enough, Jesus refused and told Satan to take a hike. He obliged and immediately thereafter angels came and ministered unto Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11).
The first thing to notice is that the time Satan chose to tempt Jesus was when He was in a weakened state and was hungered (vs. 2). Satan’s first aim was to attack Jesus’ fleshly carnal needs (lust of the flesh; I John 2:16). Jesus got hungry like everyone else, and being 40 days without food, and to deny the flesh in such temptation takes enormous spirituality. But Jesus fought off that temptation by using Scripture against the devil (vs. 4). Next, Jesus was tempted with claiming God’s providential hand at a time that hadn’t yet arrived when He was tempted to prove his deity by jumping off the temple (vs. 5,6). To achieve the glory that would be due Christ, He needed to first die on the cross. It was not appointed to Jesus at that time to achieve glory and defy mortality by God supernaturally intervening (pride of life; I John 2:16). As the devil misquoted Scripture (vs. 6) Jesus staved off the attack with correct use of Scripture (vs. 7). Lastly, with the temptation to rule over all the earthly kingdoms (vs. 8,9) the devil tried to entice Jesus with everything He saw, but to no avail (lust of the eyes; I John 2:16). One last Scripture verse and the devil was gone and the angels came (vs. 11).
Now Eve, many centuries before, was tempted by Satan and was not as successful as Jesus was for resisting temptation. In Genesis 3:1 Satan is recorded using God’s words incorrectly, as he did while tempting Jesus. This cast doubt in Eve’s mind over what exactly it was that God had told them in Genesis 2:16. Right away the devil created confusion in her mind. Then, Eve, in Genesis 3:3 used the words “lest ye die.” This was more or less a statement of unbelief over the statement God made to them in Genesis 2:17 about “surely” dying if she ate of the fruit. So, ultimately the devil gained a foothold by causing confusion and doubt about what God told Eve.
Now the rest was easy. The devil tried to explain to Eve what God really meant in verse 5, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Now the same three-fold temptation he used on Jesus was used on Eve. Eve saw the fruit as “good for food” (vs. 6; lust of the flesh) and “pleasant to the eyes” (vs. 6; lust of the eyes) and a “tree to be desired to make one wise (vs. 6; pride of life). Then she and her husband ate and the lie the devil told them of having their eyes opened was revealed when their eyes were opened, but to horrific realities of nakedness and shame and guilt.
The connection to make here is that the devil’s first and foremost concern is to diminish the effectiveness of the church by creating confusion. One account has the number of Christian denominations in America at 38,000. Of course, people who crunch those numbers can’t even agree on what is truly a Christian denomination or not…adding to the confusion. It worked with Eve, and it continues to work today.
After confusing his victim, the devil will use any or all three of his deceptions –being the lust of the flesh (which could topple men and women in so many ways today), the lust of the eyes (perhaps desiring things other’s have that God hasn’t deemed for you), and the pride of life (the desire to become as God as in Genesis 3:5). This pride of life is the basis for today’s New Age religions where people believe they are little gods and that part of God lives in all of them. That leads to moral relativism, which in turn, makes sin a matter of opinion thereby making the temptations of the flesh and eyes subjective. Then, the devil wins again and again.
Why say all this? In today’s church there are four types of families. First is the family who is half-hearted in the matters of the church and neither parent desires to grow and mature in the faith. The devil, more than likely, won’t spend much time with this family. The next two families are similar: A strong husband as leader with a weak wife, or a weak husband with a strong wife. The last family is the one in which both husband and wife are godly and desiring to grow in the faith.
As was the case when Satan tempted Christ in an attempt to topple the church and thwart the plan of God for salvation, Satan will attack the father of the family in an attempt to bring down that family. This will be done in those instances when the family is of the strong husband leader, with or without a strong godly wife. But remember, if Satan can destroy a family, it is one less family in the church living for God, so even if the father in the family is weak, but the wife is godly and bringing her children to church, I contend that the devil will go after the wife. And so that goes also for a family that has both parents as godly members of the church. Recall that Adam and Eve were both created by God, therefore you can rationalize that they were godly and perfect prior to the fall, and yet Satan targeted Eve.
So, back to the John Gray’s of the world. Too much focus is put on the differences between men and women, because the fundamental way that we are all alike is the likelihood of being attacked by Satan in ways that do not differ from one sex to another. Regardless of who is acting as the spiritual head of the household, with it brings a devilish assault. So men and women beware. When it comes to the devil…we’re all the same…
