his goods, except he will first bind the strong man;
and then he will spoil his house. Mark 3:27
Let's edit that for KatieLyn:
No devil can enter into a strong woman’s house and spoil
her goods, except he will first bind the strong woman;
and then he will spoil her house.
The truth of Mark 3:27 is one of the reasons that I know KatieLyn did not "do the right thing." She allowed herself to be bound and did not resist it with all her might. That's a fact; no point in being offended by the truth. She was out-numbered though. There were three devilish forces trying to bind her, and there may have been others that were kept hidden from me. Furthermore, they worked together in unity, so it is difficult to see precisely where one stops and another takes over. The mental effect is that instead of seeing little imps that might have been aptly taken out with successive one-two punches, KatieLyn would see a monster of formidable size. She would be bound by at least three imps.
A. One imp was religious legalism. Legalism begins with a proper biblical precept, and then it goes amuck. It would be like, instead of using fresh paint and an airbrush on a smooth surface, one has thickened improperly stored paint she is trying to apply with brush that wasn't correctly cleaned the last time. The legalism began correctly with the command to honor one's mother and father. But KatieLyn was not 14; she was 28. The honor paid by a youngster is different than the honor paid by adult offspring. In a healthy, godly relationship, KatieLyn would not have experienced guilt for wanting to do adult things.
B. Another imp was immaturity, and this time it was not KatieLyn's, but her parents' immaturity that bound her. Her dad's immaturity had forced Gwen to take up some of the slack in parenting, and Gwen's immaturity had held on to KatieLyn and refused to release her into adulthood. If KatieLyn's parents had a healthy relationship with their daughter, they would have encouraged her to pursue God's call on her life and released her into the Lord's hands. Instead, they have instructed "their" Katie to play it safe. Gwen has a disincentive to let KatieLyn go because as long as KatieLyn is nearby, Gwen can substitute her Katie's emotional support for the support she either does not get or will not receive from her own husband.
C. You can see how the first two imps fit together like jigsaw pieces: It is to her parents' emotional advantage (albeit not their spiritual advantage) to keep KatieLyn at home, and KatieLyn is crippled with guilt if she does not please them. So the third imp is like icing on the cake: the Peace Deception! The Peace Treaty imp does its best work on poorly instructed or possibly immature Christians who still haven't learned that to follow Christ means to enter into warfare. This blends back into the legalism of Part A where verses like "live at peace with all men" are pulled out of context and used like a cudgel. All this imp had to do was create chaos, which is its natural element. If it could convince KatieLyn that "Peace" is a sign from God, and then rile Gwen with "misgivings," it would be able to sit back and laugh at the destruction of a godly marriage. Which is exactly what it did.
As Jesus taught in Matthew 12:25, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” Three imps, and possibly more, joined to appear as one giant monster to divide KatieLyn from Joe. They brought KatieLyn to a point of desolation because they tricked her into believing that calling off the marriage was the right thing. And then they made sure that she would have a strong support system of people who did not know Joe to tell her how "courageous" she was being. At the same time, the devilish imps also kept KatieLyn from hearing any "peace-disturbing dissension" from people who actually DID know Joe and the other half of the situation. Totally fiendish, this control of communication was purportedly to protect her. But if she was "so courageous," then why did she need protection? The fact is, courage to do the right thing does not need protection. It was the maintenance of the deception that needed to be protected.
The Lesson
The only power the devil has against us is through deception—illusion. He lies to us and then waits for us to fall for those lies, because he can’t do a single thing about plundering our house until he has us bound. But, make no mistake about it. Once he has us bound, he will spoil our goods until we do something about it. (G. Copeland)KatieLyn's decision to divide her house was not courageous. It was wimpy and motivated by fear that had been injected through deception. It shoved her right back into a place that she had begun the process of being delivered from. It is one of those vicious circle things: More deception leads to more division leads to more deception leads to more division leads to more deception. Courage and truth never make the list.
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