The Jason DeMars Podcast

Ordering Love, Resisting Evil, And Raising Families In Christ

• Jason DeMars

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What if love isn’t soft compliance but courageous order that leads people toward Christ? We dive into a hard but hopeful truth: agape love is a Spirit-born action that sets boundaries, confronts evil, and prioritizes spiritual growth over comfort and image. Starting with Eden and moving through Cain, Saul, and David, we explore how God’s correction exposes a dividing line: repentance that opens the door to maturity or scapegoating that calcifies into evil. The difference is not the size of the sin but the heart’s response when God says, Come up higher.

From there, we press into the everyday: how to order human loves under divine love; why dependence on pastors or parents can masquerade as care while actually stunting growth; and how real love redirects dependence to Christ. We unpack biblical boundaries—unequal yokes, counsel of the ungodly, forsaking the foolish—and why saying no can be the most loving yes to God’s design. We also navigate abuse and manipulation with clarity: protect the vulnerable, seek wise oversight, refuse cover-ups, and create healthy distance when closeness enables sin.

On the home front, we map Paul’s order of provision—God first, household next, then extended family, then the church—and show how disordered love sacrifices children to image or ministry. We offer practical ways to train sons and daughters toward maturity, align generosity with calling, and discern tasks versus burdens so we help without enabling. Throughout, we hold fast to Romans 8: trials can’t separate us from Christ; they shape us into His image. Ready for love with a backbone and mercy with wisdom? Follow along, share this with a friend, and tell us: what boundary will you set to love well today? If this helped you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it to help others find the show.

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Greetings, Bible believers and followers of the Endtime Message. Welcome to another episode of the Jason Demars Podcast, the place where we explore the incredible mysteries hidden within the pages of the Bible. I'm your host, Jason Demars. It's time to get started on another journey into the heart of God's Word. If it's your desire to grow in Revelation and see the message in the light of the Bible, you're in the right place. Today, brothers and sisters, we delve into the scripture, guided by the extraordinary revelations that God chose to unveil through Brother William Marion Branham, a messenger with a unique calling to fulfill Malachi 4 and Revelation 10:7, and unlock the secrets of the end time message. Our purpose isn't to have another basic Bible study. We're going to dig deep and peel back the layers of prophecy, decoding the signs and perhaps discovering how the Bible resonates within the very fabric of our present day and time. In this podcast, my purpose is to help you grow in your faith through solid Bible teaching through the lens of the message of Malachi 4. So grab your Bible, a cup of coffee, and let's get started. And remember that your feedback, testimonies, questions, and prayer requests are always welcome. Please send them on social media or at jasendamars.com. With that said, let's get into today's podcast. We are going to continue on the subject of love, family, inheritance, and redemption. And I want to look more at love and evil this time and send spend some more time showing the biblical grounds for having boundaries in our life. I trust you all will be enjoying some time with your families during the Christmas season. Now, let's review some points about love before we get into evil. So, true agape love is not a feeling. You don't fall into agape love. It's not a falling, it's a choice. Agape love is an action that permeates and transcends all human loves. It's also not a manufacturing of love. It's done automatically out of the heart. A sheep is not asked to manufacture wool, it's an outflowing of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost in us produces love. It's the Holy Ghost, which is shed abroad in our hearts, the love of God, which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. Not even the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. How is that possible? You say it's a choice, it's a decision. Yes. But it comes based upon the nature that God has placed within you, not based upon I must do this, I must do that. Love is love, only love when it's freely given from the heart. So we spoke about this and defining love in the broadest possible term is love is a power or force to extend yourself for the highest good of others, which is spiritual growth, growing into the image of Christ. And so, as we started to get into last time, this gets us into the definition of evil. You know, usually we typically think of good and evil, and that's true, that's that's how we should think about it. But when we're understanding what is good, God is good, God is love. And so when we're looking at the goodness of God, this is manifested through his love towards us. And the goodness of God isn't just a simple thing of easy get living an easy life and getting an easy life, but in fact, it has more to do with him working through the circumstances of our life in order to produce the image of Jesus Christ within us. For God, that's more important than our comfort, uh, than our material prosperity. But God is looking at the our heart, the character of Jesus Christ, and he wants us to be a reflection of him. And so anything, let's look at the definition of evil, and uh it's ultimately anything that goes against the purpose of God, that's evil. So we look at this Genesis 3 and Genesis 4. You know, when you want to find what a definition is, you typically look at the first time that this is put forward in the scriptures. And so we have this. And Genesis 3, 9 through 13, and the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me and I did eat. So here we see the first evil committed on earth, the first sin committed on earth, and we understand what is the what is sin, it's unbelief. So Eve manifested unbelief in God's word. And so Adam being being the head of creation was to have responsibility for his wife. He was told, he was commanded to guard and to keep the garden, so to protect it and to to work in it and to protect it. And so Adam's failure goes into failing to guard and to protect and keep the garden, which was not just the garden, it was primarily firstly his wife and his family. And so Adam failed in in his task, and so ultimately when he gets the the results of his sin, which is he feels the guilt, he feels he's naked, and he runs away from instead of running to God, he runs away from God. And when confronted over why he was hiding and why he tried to cover his nakedness, the response was the woman you gave me. And so here we have two things that Adam is doing. He's passing, he's put scapegoating first his sin to his wife, and secondly, his his the problem off to God. So he's blaming his wife and he's blaming God. He's scapegoating, he's not taking personal responsibility. And if you know, this is a whole message unto itself, really, when you think about it, because for us, you look at this the story of David and you look at the story of Saul. And if I can just summarize it quickly, when Saul was confronted over his sin of not obeying what God commanded to kill all the Amalekites and everything that belongs to them, Saul said the people save the best. And he was more, he wasn't worried about his relationship with God, he was worried about his position and being honored before the people. And then you see, and then he was rejected, ultimately rejected, and rejected, his lineage was rejected from being king. And so then you have David when he committed his grave sin in committing adultery and having a man killed to cover up this adultery. What is what is his response when he's confronted by the prophet? His response, I have sinned against the Lord and him only. So this is taking responsibility. Adam, when confronted, instead of taking responsibility and repenting, he shuffles the blame off to his wife and then ultimately to God for giving him a defective wife. Then Eve is confronted and she says it was the serpent. So neither took personal responsibility. I don't believe that means that they're lost or they're they're in hell now. I believe they're they were forgiven. God came and covered them with the sacrifice, gave them that covering, offered the sacrifice himself for them, a lamb offering, and that was what ended up bringing forgiveness of their sins. But ultimately, what am I looking at is that evil always has a scapegoat. Next part, Cain and Abel. We spoke about that briefly on our last podcast, but we'll go into it more closely. Genesis 4, verse 4, and Abel, he also brought of the first things of his flock and of the fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt that not be accepted, and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with his brother Abel, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against his brother Abel and slew him. Again, Cain is confronted by God over his sin. Instead of repenting and receiving the correction that God gives, he turns and he ultimately ends up killing his brother, thinking, okay, now everything will be fine and I'll be accepted because my brother is out of the way, and his convoluted sacrifice is out of the way. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is thy brother Abel? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother keeper? So he lies to God. And he said, What have you done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, and now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. So what does evil do? Evil seeks to preserve itself. So it wants to it wants to preserve keep its own viewpoint and position about it about its own self intact. Evil doesn't want to be confronted, it doesn't want to change, it doesn't want to be held personally responsible. It's going to shovel that off and scapegoat someone else. And in the end, in seeking to preserve itself the way it is, ultimately what it's ended up end up ending up doing is it's hindering, blocking, standing in against, fighting against spiritual growth. Saul, Adam and Eve, Cain, David all had a different response towards God confronting them, saying, Come up higher. There's something higher for you to come into. David's response was repentance. And God gave forgiveness. The problem wasn't so much the sin, of course, the sin is a problem, but the problem is the response to God's confrontation over our sin. If we're willing to repent, if we're not so stubborn, then God will give forgiveness and bring redemption into our life. But if we're stubborn and we refuse to receive correction, God washes his hands from us. And so that's that place where God is confronting for what purpose? To bring us higher into spiritual growth. And we're coming from this position and place where we're saying, Hey, I like myself, I don't want the trouble of changing. That's where it turns into evil. Saul, you know, Saul was in that position, in that place where he was really, you know, he he already had the condition that he was going to reject spiritual growth. Don't get me wrong. But really, when he came to that confrontation, that's where he turned into evil. You know, Saul made a horrible mistake. He didn't listen to God, he didn't heed God, but God knew what his response would be. If Saul, if Saul would have had a heart to repent, God wouldn't have out of hand rejected him. But Saul had a hardened heart against God and only wanted to preserve himself. That's where it turns from a need for repentance to a place where this person is evil. And so let's put it all together. Evil is anything that hinders or stops spiritual growth in order to protect its own spiritual sickness, and it always has a scapegoat. So think of it this way: don't let's not be so hard on ourselves or other people. But the reality is every one of us have done evil. Every one of us parents has hindered our child's spiritual growth. Now the question is: do we want to continue to do that? Or do we want to change and be a means of their spiritual growth? Love. Do we want to actually love our children so that they can grow spiritually, or do we want to be in this place where we're continually hindering their spiritual growth? And then we're known as what we would say is evil. Now, there's a difference between people that are doing evil and in the process of growing and repenting, and the people, a difference between people who have embraced evil and even become possessed by demons because of their embracing of evil. Those kind of evil people, they're not aware they're evil. They think they're normal, they think they're actually exceptional, and that what they do is for the greater good, and that they themselves are extremely loving, extremely wise, extremely good. They never evaluate the fruit of their lives. Why do they not evaluate the fruit of their lives? Because then they would have to acknowledge their own spiritual sickness and that the that the evil that's all around them is coming from themselves. They don't want to evaluate the fruit of their lives. All around them is confusion and hurt and anger and pain, frustration, but they'll also have a perfect reason why this is somebody else's fault. Someone else did it. Someone else, someone else was the result. That was their mistake, that was their fault. This happened because this I did this because this person did this. They're not going to own their own faults, they're not going to take personal responsibility. Someone else is always to blame. Again, a scapegoat. Why do they find a scapegoat? Because they're trying to preserve their own sick self. They're trying to protect that sickness that they have. To go further on in my illustration about raising children, to go beyond that, let's say that another example would be a pastor, that he constantly creates reliance upon himself. The people can't make a life decision without asking the pastor permission. They can't study something, they can't look at something, they can't, they can't ask questions because it's a personal uh affront to the pastor. And this hinders, this is evil because this man is hindering spiritual growth, and he's creating dependency upon himself. Then problems arise, the pastor quickly blames the people for the errors that have happened. Instead of taking responsibility that he made mistakes, he passes it on to others. So evil creates also creates dependency. Now, agape love is not dependency on our human level. Agape love is always putting dependency off on Christ, not upon ourselves as humans. So we're raising our kids not to create a dependency on us, but to get them to dependent on Christ. We are leading a church to create dependency not on ourselves as ministers, but on Christ. We're planting churches as missionaries, not to create dependency on ourselves as an apostle, but to create dependency on Christ and the order that He has. That's hindering spiritual growth. Why are we doing that? Why are we hindering their spiritual growth? Because we want them dependent on us. We don't want them to leave. And that's a sickness. Parents should not do that. The parent's duty is not to raise children, but to raise adults. Raise people that are dependent on Christ, not on them. Instead of teaching our daughters about modesty and being a homemaker, we let them follow the ways of the world. That's flat out evil. It's our job as parents to spend time to establish the word of God and the principles of the scriptures in their hearts. If we're raising our, as I said this before, if we're raising our daughters and our sons exactly the same way you go to school, you get an education, you go to college, you get a job. That's our to our daughters, to our sons. You go to school, you get an education, you go to college, you get a job. If we're doing that, we're not following the scriptures at all. What does First Timothy tell us to do? What does Titus tell us to do? Does it tell us to raise our daughters exactly the same way? To aim for being having a degree and having an education. You say, that's that's easier. What else are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to do this? We don't want our daughters having to rely on their husband for their future. That's evil. That is flat out evil, and it's not scriptural. We are supposed to aim our sons for being for being men who take responsibility in the home, who work, who know how to lead, who know how to lead spiritually. You know, if as your sons are getting older in teenage years, dad, you should allow them to take responsibility for family worship under your oversight. You know, they start turning 15, 16 years old. Start allowing them to take some leadership over family worship. Why? Because they need to learn into that. Teach them how to manage finances, teach them about what a return on investment is, teach them about a profit and loss schedule. Help them understand this. And for our daughters, we need to teach them how to cook, how to clean, how to take care of a home, how to live under headship. In the Bible, we understand headship passes from a father to a husband for our daughters. Right? So the father doesn't hold, once he's given his daughter in the hand of marriage, he doesn't hold a dependency upon his daughter. He lets her be under the headship of her husband. But if there's no intermediate state where suddenly she turns 18, now she doesn't have headship. No, it doesn't work and operate like that. Woman is a weaker vessel, girls are a weaker vessel, and they need to be under headship. This is scriptural. Well, how will my daughters function in the modern world? This is not the question that we need to be asking. How will I train my daughter to be a keeper at home, to love her husband, to love her children, to rule, to rule the household? These are the things that the Bible tells us to instruct our daughters in. You say, oh, does this mean we can't educate our girls? No, every every every young lady should learn, become a reader, become a student of and become a person that loves lifelong learning. But her purpose is not to have a career, and then suddenly when she's 35 years old, some 35 or 50-year-old man plucks her up and says, I want to marry you. Brother Branham says, get married young. The Bible says, the wife of your youth, children of your youth, these are a blessing. You know, there's so many things there. I don't want to get sidetracked, but what I'm trying to say is loving our children well means training them in the way that they should go. And the way that they should go is not merely a spiritual life. That's part of it. Spiritual life and the natural life as Christians should be ingrained in each other. The position of a daughter and then a wife and a mother is different than a position of a son and a husband and a father. They have a different purpose and a different function. We should be training our sons and bringing them to adoption as sons. We should be training our daughters and bringing them to a place of adoption as daughters, bringing, which means this place of mature daughters who are ready and prepared to run a household of their own and to be subject to a husband, not to be a manipulator of a husband, but to be subject to a husband. We should be bringing our sons to adoption that they know how to how to work and to provide and to run a business and to spiritually lead a household. And if we're not doing that, if we're not leading this way, then we're not loving our children and our families well. All right. Romans 8, 28 and 29. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be firstborn among many brethren. Verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? So God takes those things, those hard trials, and those never separate us from his love. But in fact, those are the very things that God is working in for good for us who love him. And what is his purpose? What is the purpose of his love? Working these things out for good, it is that we would be conformed to the image of his son. It's to bring them, bring us to a place of spiritual growth in Christ. So that's the purpose. And for the love of God to be in us, the same thing it should be functioning in us towards others to help others to grow spiritually. Now, let's begin to go in again to the four loves and human love versus divine love. So human love, filio, storge, eros, filio is friendship, storge is affection, eros is falling in love or sexual love. So all these human loves on some level are selfish or self-serving. And it they look for what we get out of the inf the relationship. Of course, it gets it's part of what we give to the to be in the relationship, but ultimately it's looking for okay, this is a help and a blessing to me. Help, friendship helps others, but also helps me. Affection helps others, but it also helps me. Eros is the the it is the if expressed right, it's what you give to others, but it's also the pleasure you get back. So agape love goes further and it sees the value in the individual themselves as created in the image and likeness of God, and seeks to help them and lead them up higher into all that they can be in Christ. And so all the human loves have a small kernel of true love in the loyalty of friendship, the warmth of affection, the devotion and surrender of falling in love. But when these loves reach their full human height, uh they become a god. And then when they become a god, they become disordered, and then they become destructive in every which direction. And so on one hand, we see love is done automatically out of a nature change, and love is other than us, it's separate from us. God is love, and that yet at the same time, within that, it requires a surrender, it requires effort, it requires action, love is hard work, it's a continually of surrendering our own human will to the will of Almighty God. As we spoke of before, Romans 5, 5, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. So it's shed in our hearts, it's other than us, into us, and through us, becoming a channel of his love. So genuine agape love requires, and it's a it's a very, we could say it's a very mysterious thing because it cause it's other than us and yet it's molded and shaped in us. It's Christ in you, the hope of glory. It's separate from you, and yet it is you. So genuine agape love requires self-examination, searching our motives, considering why we do what we do, and working to order our love correctly according to the word. So a disordered love is not true love. It can be one of the human loves, but it's not the love of God. Love, as we said, does not create a dependence on yourself. If I'm raising children, and by the time they're 18, they can't cook, they can't do the laundry, they don't know how to operate a bank account, they don't know how to save money, they don't know how to tithe, they haven't learned what the message is, they haven't been instructed in the word about modesty and holiness and courtship and a relationship with Christ. I'm not loving them. I'm just creating people that are dependent on me that need in order to function. This isn't love, it's evil. Right. So love has to be ordered properly for it to actually be love. So if we don't love God first, above all else, every other love is going to be disordered. Eros misdirected is evil. So if if I if if a man has eros love for his neighbor's wife and commits adultery, that's not love, it's evil. If if I have felio love and I have a great friendship with my neighbor's wife, this isn't Philio, this this is filio, but this isn't true love. This is disordered. If I have storge love towards an unbeliever who is manipulating me and using me, well, these things happen. You love them anyways, agape love them anyways. But if I'm allowing that affection I have towards that person to manipulate me away from Christ, that's not true love. So this is why there's a need for love to be ordered properly. This is why there's a need for boundaries and ordering of love. Many times Christians become manipulated because they read in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 about giving unto others and turning the other cheek, and all those things are absolutely the truth that we need to live by. But it's also written, it's also written, if I if I if I give constantly give all my money away to the point where I'm my family doesn't eat, doesn't have clothes, doesn't have a place to live, am I operating in agape love? Are my priorities correct? No. No, I'm not loving my family. My first responsibility is to provide for my own. If I don't provide for my own, then I've denied the faith and I'm worse than an infidel. I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, but I'm trying to bring out this point. Many times we feel like self-sacrificing love is, and people will use that against us and manipulate us and force us to give beyond measure. And what ends up happening is we don't have the energy or strength to love our wife. We don't have the energy or strength to love our children, to focus on them, and we can't do the ministry that God has called us to do because everybody's asking for money here, asking for this here, asking for this here. Instead of ordering ourselves according to the word, we let everybody walk all over us. And we feel like we have to do that because we can't say no. If we say no, then we're not loving. See, it has to be ordered correctly. If it's not ordered correctly, if we don't realize that the Lord Jesus Himself had boundaries, God Himself has boundaries, God Himself says, tells people no, and that we can do the same in order to order ourselves according to the word. So love is not a feeling, love is an action, love is a supernatural power, love takes works. Love has within it the purpose of spiritual growth. So we can be see a big part of the adoption walk that we're entering into is perfect love. Now, the Lamb took the book, the mighty angel came down with an open book, but it wasn't just for us to listen to the book's revelation, but it's for us to eat it and become it and speak it. And so this is a big part of understanding what love is. If we're coming to perfect love, we have to know what that looks like. So 2 Corinthians 6, 14 through 18, be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols, for ye are the temple of the living God, as God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Amen. Oh my, I thought we were supposed to love the unbelievers. We're supposed to love them and do good to them, but if you yoke yourself equally with them, you aren't loving them, and then you're not loving God anymore. So again, this shows we have to have boundaries. God asks us to have boundaries with unbelievers. We're not to be under their influence, we're not to be yoked with them together. We're not to be married to them, you don't get married to an unbeliever. That's unscriptural. You don't get, you don't go into a business partnership with an unbeliever. You're yoking yourself together. You don't become best friends with an unbeliever. Why? Because what ends up happening is they're gonna pull you into unbelief. You can be friends with them, you can as long as you have correct boundaries. But if you don't have correct boundaries, break the friendship off. Proverbs 22, 24. Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man, thou shalt not go. So someone who is always perpetually angry, perpetually has a chip on his shoulder, is always getting mad at people, is always ready to fight. Don't be friends with him. Break your relationship with that person. Psalms 106, 35, uh, 35 through 37. But were mingled among the heathen and learned their works, and they served their idols, which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils. So where did the problem start with these people? Poor boundaries. What did they do? Mingled among the heathen. So first they mingled among their heat heathen, and because they mingled among the heathen, they learned their works. So they mingled among the heathen, learned their works, served their idols, sacrifice their sons and daughters. Now, if if they would have come right away and said, Hey, sacrifice your sons and daughters to the idols, they would have said, No, I'm not doing that. What was it? It was a slow cascading effect. First, I'm gonna mingle amongst the bl the heathen. Next, I'm gonna learn their works. Next, I'll serve their idols. Now, now you're in a place where your behavior will be impacted. What does it do? You learned, you served their idols. Next, you're gonna sacrifice your sons and daughters. And many, many, many believers have done this. They've for for the sake of friendships, for the sake of family relationships. What do they do? They sacrifice their children to the world for the sake of friendships and family relationships instead of keeping proper boundaries. When we keep proper boundaries in our life, it helps our children understand and grow in Christ. Psalm 1, verse 1 is the opposite. Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel, the advice, the opinion of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. To scorn is to contempt or disdain because of belief in your own superiority. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. So if you walk in the counsel of the ungodly, then you become what? Ungodly. If you stand in the way of sinners, you become what? A sinner. If you sit in the seat of the scornful, you become what? Scornful. Proverbs 9 6, forsake the foolish and live and go in the way of understanding. So there comes a point in various situations in your life where foolish people are doing their utmost to control your life and force you into a course of action that is wrong. You have to make a decision to forsake them, to distance yourself from them. It could be a parent, it could be a relative. It could be a friend. You have to let them know I love you. But for example, I'm not going to be involved in the business you want me to be in, or I'm not going to be under your control financially. You're trying to help me, I understand that, but your help is controlling trying to control my behavior. And of course, when you when you when you set the boundary and say, no, you can't do this. I don't accept this. You can't yell at me. You you can't shout at me. You can't control me through using finances or whatever it might be anymore. They're going to get upset. They're going to be angry with you. They might throw a fit. But you have to stand your ground and you have to say, No, I love you. But that part of my life is my life, and you cannot have control over it. Amen. So once you forsake the foolish, you can live and go in the way of understanding. But until you for are willing to forsake them, then you're stuck. Again, that's the place they want to keep you in their life by using control. And you have to say, look, I want to be in your life. I want you're my dad or you're my uncle or you're my brother or you're my sister. I want you in my life, but if you're going to behave in this way, this what this way of behavior is wrong, and this is why I see it's wrong. And I won't allow you to behave towards me this way anymore. And if you want to continue in a relationship, you're going to have to stop doing that. Now, if you won't, if you refuse to stop doing that, then I have to separate myself from you. And we have to be willing to go to that end. Most of the time, of course, the person they'll be upset or hurt or just not know that we felt that way. But we have to be willing to separate ourselves. That's what the Bible says. Galatians 6, 2 says, Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Then verse 5 says, For every man shall bear his own burden. Now the first one is the word in Greek baros, and it means weight. And so bear ye one another's weight, load, abundance, etc. Then the next one, for every man shall bear his own burden, an invoice or a task. So we're we're supposed to bear our own task, right? The Lord calls us to carry the burden or tasks assigned to us. He doesn't want us offloading the tasks, task he's assigned to us over to someone else. Many people will try to do that. They want everyone else to take to bear their own task. God doesn't want us to do that. He wants to take our own responsibility. Each man has a task assigned to him, basic responsibilities of life and work. The Lord doesn't want us to give that to somebody else. It would be laziness and evil for me to give my assigned task to someone else. He told me to raise my children in the way that they should go. He told me as a father to raise my children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. If I offloaded that merely to the church and to the Sunday school teacher, that would be evil of me. I'm putting my task assigned to me onto the Sunday school teacher, onto the pastor. No, that's wrong. However, there are burdens which are abundant and weigh people down that should definitely, we should definitely help them carry. But the problem is when people feel that their daily tasks are boulders and someone else has to hold help them deal with them. When this happens, it puts the person into a place of irresponsibility. Love has proper discernment to know the difference between our tasks and our heavy loads, our burdens. Many times we feel the pressure of doing something for someone else and we do it because we think we should do it. If we don't do it, then it's not loving. If I say no no to this person, they'll be mad at me or they'll back away from me. This isn't love in the first place. If you cannot say no to it, it isn't love. Because love is only love when it's freely given. If it's out of compulsion, it isn't love, it's guilt. And so God requires us scripturally to put limits on evil. Proverbs 22, verse 3 a prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished. If someone is hindering spiritual growth, if someone is controlling you with emotions or with fear, it's important to at least say no to that person and possibly even to remove yourself physically from that person in order to maintain boundaries. And so this would be a good situation. Now God doesn't, God doesn't condone divorce, but if a woman is being beaten and abused, she has to tell her husband no and physically remove herself from that and get the elders and the pastor involved in the situation. She can't hide and cover up the sin of her husband for the fear of the image that will be broken of her and her family, but she has to flee from that false image that's being put forward and leave that husband behind in order to get help. God's desire is to heal that. If the husband will repent, otherwise, she has to maintain her boundaries. And we as the church cannot give license to sin to men that may be physically abusing their wife. Now, the man has authority over his wife and his family, but he doesn't have authority to abuse his wife, and that and therefore in that situation, the the wife should flee to the elders of the church for help. And as elders, please don't turn her away. Don't just merely take the man's side. Now, on the other hand, you know, there can be circumstances where the wife is using the elders as a as a stick or the pastor as a stick to beat the husband over the head, and she's the abusive one. That certainly happens, and it probably happens in our culture and society more than a man abusing his wife, unfortunately. So hear both as a as a pastor or as an elder, hear both sides. You know, hear her side, but then then go and hear his side. Or in fact, better yet, bring some of the deacons or some of the elders in the church and put them in the same room and hear both sides of the story. Let him speak after you, if you've determined that she's not in danger and you want to hear the whole story. Protect the wife, but also protect the husband. You know, in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. Listen to what he says, listen to what she says. Protect the wife, but also hear this hear the story, hear both sides of the story. And don't, if if there's signs of physical abuse, don't take the man's side in it. It's never okay for him to turn himself into a weakling and to abuse her. But it's also not for her to be a reviling and evil wife and make false claims about a man without any proof in order to control him just because she won't do everything that he wants him to do. The Bible condemns a reviling wife, and the Bible condemns an abusive husband, and that's why separation and wisdom from a pastor and a deacon needs to be applied. Don't cover things up, keep it in the open. Nothing good comes from covering up sin. And so there are many situations, not just physical abuse, where emotional abuse, manipulation and control, using fear, sometimes separation needs to take place in order for healing to happen. Ecclesiastes 3:1, to everything, there's a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Verse 5: a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. So there's a time to draw near in relationships, and there's to a time to create distance in relationships. There's a time in relationships with others that creating distance can be the most loving thing that you can do. Disordered people will always disorder their love. They'll create distance at the wrong time and they'll create closeness when it will damage them. You'll often hear stories of parents seeking to control their adult and married children through finances. It's important to say no and back away from those instances. Though the pain may be difficult, but them responding with ignoring you or cutting you off is their problem, not yours. You'll have to suffer with it, but it's their sin, not your sin. You're not responsible for the action of your parents. When you as an adult create clear boundaries to say, no, I won't do that. You're telling you I won't do what you're telling me anymore because I have my own family to make decisions for, and they respond by emotional manipulation. It's our duty, it's not our duty to fight them or get angry with them or get even with them. It's our duty to honor them and step back and allow for there to be distance for a season, trusting that the distance for a season will bring correction and healing. More often than not, you find the distance allows for spiritual growth in the parents. They relent and repent and come back, but with the proper boundaries having been put in place. If not, and they try a new tactic of manipulation, you then say no and step back again. So what's the point of all this and this discussion? Disordered love is not love at all. If my daughter gets married, but I create a financial dependency between her and I, outside of her husband, that would be evil for me to do. If I want to help Avery, I need to go through her husband. This is love ordered properly. First Timothy 5 8. But if any provide not for his own, especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worth worse than an infidel. So we have his own and especially of those his own house. So here Paul gives a clear order of provision. His own household, one, and his own people, two. So our first responsibility of provision is love, and love is to our own household. Our family that lives under our roof, number one, secondarily to our own extended family, in particular widows. It would be speaking for his mother and mother-in-law, of course. So proper boundaries and proper love would first be given to God, then to your household, own household, then to your extended family, then to those of like precious faith. Right? So we as we look at ordering our love, if we do not first love God, we cannot love anyone else properly. Even Paul in his instruction says the order of the family comes before the church. It isn't the church that's responsible for widows first, it's the family. And then the reverse is true. It is God's way for us to put our family before the church. It doesn't put the obligation on us that if a man does not provide for his church, he's worse than an infidel, but that if a man does not provide for his own household and his own people, he's worse than an infidel. So disordered love without boundaries isn't love at all. It's actually an advanced form of hatred. Disordered love creates dependence in order to maintain control. Spiritual growth leads you to the place where you can think and act with maturity and with love towards others, not with outside compulsion or force. Right? The Bible says to give to that we are to give without compulsion, to that we're to give joyfully. God loves a cheerful giver. Give not out of compulsion, not out of a false sense of guilt, but out of joy, the joy of giving, the joy of loving others, the joy of receiving the love of others, right? And so love sets us free to find our completion in Christ and our the order of our life according to the scriptures. Our own household, our extended family, to those of like precious faith, the church. That's how the Bible orders this properly. And so for me to take and sacrifice my family on the altar of the church or on the altar of a ministry, that's not love at all. That's an advanced form, a very spiritualized form of hatred. And God doesn't isn't pleased with that. God doesn't want us to sacrifice our children on the altar of a ministry, on the altar of our external image. He wants us to do whatever it takes, just as he did whatever it takes for his own family, as he wants us as fathers, as mothers, to do whatever it takes for our own family. God first, family next, the church third. And so love points us to finding our ultimate satisfaction, not in the control we have over others, or not in the fact that we're under the control of someone else, but in the relationship we have with Christ and the properly ordered love that gives evil no place in our lives. And so that brings this part of it to the close. As I said before, we want to speak on love, family inheritance, and redemption. And so we're gonna go a little bit more into the family and the household faith and the application of the token to the household. That's what we'll talk about next time, and then look for further into the laws of inheritance and redemption within that inheritance and how that applies to us even in our day-to-day. You know, some some things I hope that I hope some things were enlightening to you on this podcast and how to look at things with maybe a little bit different perspective. You know, if we could see God's aim for us is spiritual growth, and so for us to aim for spiritual growth and our children and those around us, we have that responsibility to point our children in the way they should go. And when they would get old, they'll not depart from it. And this isn't just this isn't just you know a thing where you've pointed them to do devote personal devotions in the morning and the evening and listen to listen to tapes, but it's that you've taught them how to live as a young man and a man and or a young woman and a woman and a wife and a mother, you know, to function in life according to the calling that they specifically have. So that's our job and our duty. And then when we do our part, you see that the God comes in and does the unexpected, the things that we could never do and never accomplish, because it's only Him that can give the baptism of the Holy Ghost. We can't give it. We can't change the nature of our children, but it's our job to create the atmosphere, keep them in a right atmosphere, an atmosphere of love, an atmosphere of joy, and an atmosphere of spiritual growth. That's our duty as parents, you know, and as young people, maybe you don't have parents. You're listening to this, and you say, My parents aren't doing this, my parents aren't doing that, I'm being controlled this way, controlled that way. How do I navigate myself where I'm I'm not married, I'm a young person, and my parents aren't doing what I feel like they need to do. Well, pray for them. Share these podcasts with them. Ask them to pray about it, consider it. You don't have to try to fix your parents, but your prayers and your heart can bring a change and can bring strength. And ultimately, God can use you as a young person as a tool of redemption within your family. You know, there's examples of this in the scripture. Think about the maid who was taken as a slave, Jewish Israeli girl, Israelite girl, taken to Syria as a slave, and God used her as a tool of redemption for Naaman and Naaman's household. And so God can use a young person just as a testimony. I know that there's a prophet in the land, I know that the word the word speaks this, and then put your prayers behind that, and God can use you to bring redemption in a broken family and in a broken situation. So thank you for listening to the podcast. So appreciative of that. Please, please share this with others. If you know, if you know people that would be interested in it, send it to them, share it on whatever social media you're on. Greatly appreciate that. And uh would also love your feedback, whether that be by email, you can find me at jasondemars.com and you can send me an email on the website. Or if if you already have contact with me, I would love to hear from you. Or just wherever you're listening to this on social media, whether it be on YouTube or on Facebook, wherever you're listening in, would really love to get your your feedback and help us with the algorithms by liking it or hardying it or whatever you're doing. Giving me a thumbs up and some comments would be greatly appreciated. God bless you. Hope you have a wonderful week as you worship the Lord.