Now women, I encourage you to be patient as I speak into this area, because if you get it right at the head, it comes right everywhere. I'm not in any way saying that women are not of value. What I'm trying to do is to get God's order into place, and the problems many of the women here have today, are because men fail to function properly, and continue to fail. God is wanting to address that, and alter the dynamics in marriages and families, and also alter the dynamics of how church operates, in order that the church can be a safer place, and that there be an increasing apostolic authority over the church. Does that make sense?
If the church is going to exercise authority, men who are appointed by God as heads of their home, must stand up and fulfil the responsibility God has given them. The women must encourage them, and stand behind them, and give a loud shout every time another one stands up. You understand that? Because the pressure will come off you. Let me say this: If the man fails in this area, the weight does come on the woman, and God has not designed you to take it. So what happens is, you are stressed and pressured, and taking pills and tablets and having nightmares, because men aren't doing what they ought to do. I believe God wants to bring a significant adjustment in the church, not only here but in other places, so that we can get this breakthrough. Now just before I get on to preaching the message, I want to share another thing.
Some years ago I gathered the church into spiritual warfare. We began to teach on how to address spirit powers, and what to do in the spirit. Now we had tremendous results. You could literally predict the kinds of miracles we would have on Sundays as a result of that, but an unusual thing happened. I found within the space of three months, I had major breakdowns in marriages and families occurring, and I asked the Lord about it. He told me a very simple thing. He said: Ephesians 5 comes before Ephesians 6. You think: well that's pretty simple, but it's very, very deep. Ephesians 5 has to do with right order in relationships, or as we see it, positioning yourself in battle array so you can win. Ephesians 6 has to do with the battle, but if we don't position ourself in a winning position, we can't win the battle. So the only way the church is going to be able to ever bring revival into a region, is if it takes seriously what Jesus says about order in relationships, that is: husband and wife, parents and children, bosses and workers, leaders and followers. God addresses each one specifically in Ephesians 5, and through into Ephesians 6, so that we can launch into spiritual warfare and be safe.
I get tired of having a lot of casualties, because casualties take a lot of time to repair. You don't need to be a casualty. You can be a victorious soldier. That is God's plan for us - but if you're going to do it, you've got to abide by the rules of engagement, so I want to go into the word of God again, and I want to push again on the husband's role. I'm going to start off by looking at why God says for a wife to be in submission to her husband. Now we're not going to go into all the hows of that. I know the men were starting to get excited by that teaching, but no, we're not going to go there. [Laughter] I just want to actually today address the area of understanding, and I want to call this message: Because of the Angels. I want to give you insight to the spirit realm, that I've learned after ministering in deliverance, that will help you see why it is important; whether you're a man, a woman or a child, that you get yourself under the covering God has ordained for your life, so you can be a winner in the spiritual conflict. That make sense? Okay then, well let's go to 1 Corinthians 11 and pick it up there.
Verse 3: I would have you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. So the head, the one person that is not designated head, is the woman. Did you notice that? God is the head of Christ, Christ is the head of the man, the man is the head of the woman, and the woman is not the head of anything. But yet many women are burdened, because they are occupying that role, and they're occupying that role because men fail to do what God said to do, so we've got to get this into perspective. Now of course, there'll be situations in single parent families, where the woman, because there is no man there, is the head of that family unit, the spiritual head of that family unit. However, if she's wise, she'll find a mature Christian man who can stand in agreement with her, and provide a measure of spiritual covering for her. If a woman is single, normally she's under the headship covering of her father. That is why the father takes his daughter down the aisle, because his daughter is under his covering.