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The spirit of strife is destroying marriages and communication inside of marriages. There's a good possibility that the spirit of strife is destroying the communication with you and your spouse. If you and your spouse are always arguing, it's not just a communication problem. You are dealing with an unclean spirit of strife and contention. Many of you were raised in homes where strife was normal. It was normal to walk in silence. It was normal to avoid and recluse when you disagreed. It was normal for yelling and shouting to be a part of conversations or for passive aggression and verbal dominance to be the dynamic between your mother and your father, let alone the parents and the children. Your reward system, your punishment system, your validation, your understanding, your entire development that fashioned you was designed by contention and strife. It became normal. And if you remember anything about the established family approach to communication, everything that has a footprint inside of your communication not only has an actual cost, but it has a design cost. what should have been there if it was glorified. So instead of learning the fruit of the spirit, instead of learning conflict resolution, instead of learning righteousness and communication, you learn control, avoidance, emotional retaliation and things of this nature. So now as a husband or a wife, it is hard to recognize contention as the enemy. You just think this is how marriage with this spouse is going. How else do you think that a spirit of strife and contention stays hidden and in control? By distracting you with the accusation of your spouse when all that's happening is the manifestation of its character and fruit through you and your spouse. One of the number one signs of someone who hasn't been delivered, healed, or matured from contention and strife in their marriage is when they have the desire to constantly state their own thoughts and opinions without stopping to think. We can go straight to scripture. Proverbs 29:20 says, "Do you see a conceited man who speaks quickly, offering his opinions or answering without thinking? There is more hope for a thick-headed fool than for him." Proverbs 18:2 says, "A close-minded fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his personal opinions, unwittingly displaying his self-indulgence and his stupidity." That is the amplified version of both of those verses. Any emotion that leads to an action before it is glorified is your master. That is something I want you to pause for a second in your thinking to truly receive the truth of that personalized by the Holy Spirit to your specific marriage and situation. Think about this phrase. Meditate on this phrase. Any emotion that I have that leads to an action or a decision before it is glorified is my master. God designed all of your emotions. God designed and requires us to have action, work and deed, especially in our marriage, especially on behalf of our family. Yet any emotion that leads to an action before it is glorified is your master. Not the fear of God, not his direction, not his purpose, his mandate, his mission for you and your spouse. the emotion that is on the throne of the marriage in the hearts of both you and your spouse at any given moment in time. So I'm here to remind you that no, it's not just your spouse. No, it's not just you. We don't need to go into self accusation or accusation of our spouse. And no, you can't pretend like you didn't know you were operating in the spirit of strife. In fact, I break off that false ignorance in your life, in your mind, in your will, your emotions that thinks that you had no idea or you would have done something differently. Again, we can go straight to scripture to prove this. Proverbs 24:12 says, "If you claim ignorance and say, see, we did not know this, does he not consider it who weighs and examines the hearts and their motives? And does he not know who guards your life and keeps your soul? and will he not repay you and every man according to his works? So I say to you again, any emotion that leads to an action before it is glorified has become your master. And we cannot claim ignorance and say we did not know this. So I want to break this down into three categories for you. How it manifests in the marriage, how it typically manifests in the husband, and how it typically manifests inside of the wife. And then we're going to go and talk about the nine common lies that you see about communication and conflict inside of marriage. So how does strife manifest inside of the marriage? 1 Corinthians 3:3, "For you are still controlled by the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and strife and discord among you, are you not unspiritual? And are you not walking like ordinary men, unchanged by faith? Proverbs 10:12 says, "Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers and overwhelms all transgressions, forgiving and overlooking another's faults." In Galatians 5:19-20 says, "Now the practices of the sinful nature are clearly evident. They are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, total irresponsibility, and lack of self-control, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions that promote heresies, envy, drunkenness, riotous behavior, and other things like these. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So right now in the name of Jesus, I call the spirit of truth into the home of those who are listening to the sound of my voice that they would recognize they cannot operate in the spirit of falsehood and pretend to uphold a certain construct in public and around other relationships yet operate in the spirit of strife and dissension and jealousy and fits of anger and disputes in their own home. May the enemy not distract them from inheriting the kingdom of God by their character and conduct in their own home. So when it comes to the role of the husband, how does the spirit of strife manifest in the husband? Proverbs 26:21 says, "Like charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife." Proverbs 29:22 says, "Any angry man stirs up strife, and a hot-tempered man and undisiplined man commits many transgressions." Proverbs 15:18 says, "A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger and patient calms disputes." Proverbs 28:25 says, "An arrogant and greedy man stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the Lord will be blessed and prosper." How many of you are recognizing even as I read scripture that your prosperity and your blessings are attached to either the peace or the strife in your home? And finally, Proverbs 22:10 says, "Drive out the scoffer and contention will go away. Even strife and dishonor will cease." This is how strife and contention operates in the mind, the will, the emotions of the man with the title of husband. Let's go on to the wife. How does the spirit of strife and contention manifest in the wife? Proverbs 27:15-16 says, "A constant dripping on a day of steady rain, and a contentious woman are alike. Whoever attempts to restrain her by criticism, complaining, and nagging might as well try to stop the wind or grasp oil in his right hand." So, it's saying if you're trying to stop her criticism, if you're trying to stop her complaining and her nagging, you might as well try to stop the wind. Proverbs 9:13 says, "The foolish woman is restless and noisy. She is naive and easily misled, and she knows nothing at all of eternal value." Proverbs 21:9 says, "It is better to live in a corner of the housetop on the flat roof exposed to the weather than in a house shared with a quarrelome contentious woman. So if we had to culminate this into a biblical definition here, what we are looking at is the husband driven by strife operates in anger, arrogance, greed, foolish speech and scoffing. The wife who is driven by strife is quarrelome, nagging, rebellious and operates in a contentious spirit. So as you know the stages of marriage, the first stage of marital growth is recognizing the condition. So I want you to take a second and evaluate in your mind right now. Evaluate with the Holy Spirit in your heart at which level am I operating or not operating in the spirit of contention and strife. So let's create some arbitrary levels for you to just consider this and meditate on this idea. Level one being we talk openly even about hard things with peace and spiritual maturity. How many of you listening right now can say that is the truth for you? Regressing into level two. Most topics are smooth but one or two topics still trigger tension or shutdown. Level three of strife. We don't fight much, but we avoid depth to keep things calm. Level four, we can talk about life stuff, but anything marriage related causes conflict. And level five, everything turns into an argument. Big, small, or indifferent, it doesn't matter. So, if you were to evaluate the fruit inside of your marriage, which level are you operating in? The spirit of strife, the spirit of contention. Are you operating in full peace and spiritual maturity or are you all the way to the point to where strife has overtaken and it doesn't matter if it is big, if it is small, it's going to end in division. So, what I'd like to do here is go over nine lies about conflict and communication so you are equipped to confront these lies, each and every one of them, with a truth. So, lie number one, it's just a communication problem. That is a lie from the pit of hell. The truth is you're dealing with a spirit that trains you to live from chaos, not peace. This unclean spirit of strife and contention doesn't just influence how you talk. It's not just tone of voice. It retrains how you think, how you feel, and how you react to the atmosphere of your home and the engagement with your spouse. For some of you, it's gone on so long that it began forming a new normal in your literal nervous system. One that anticipates chaos before it happens. It expects friction and division with your spouse and interprets conflict through the lens of defensiveness instead of any spiritual discernment. We don't use the advocacy of the Holy Spirit. And over time, you stop resisting chaos. You stop coming against the lies that strife and contention bring and you begin partnering with them. You start justifying it. You even start defending it as a part of your personality or your upbringing. This is just our family. This is how we handled conflict. This is my culture. I'm this on the anagram. I'm this on disk. I'm this on MyersBrigg. This is one of my 16 personalities. But strife is not God's design. It is a demonic language that thrives in confusion, accusation, and the lack of repentance. And if you're not careful, it will quietly dismantle your covenant from the inside out. Lie number two. I've done my part. The rest is on them. The truth is that self-justification is rooted in accusation. When you are called to be an intercessor, you think that it's just arguing, but you already had a resolve of pride in your heart before the engagement began. Trained in unrighteousness, trained in contention, expecting it. I've done my part. Now it's their turn. But the Holy Spirit sees something much deeper. A spirit of strife is ruling and governing the marriage. It shows up in your language. It shows up in your reasoning. it shows up in your justifications that sound holy or for some of you that are loosely supported by scripture but taken out of context and defiled. So you might be saying statements like, "I'm willing and God knows that. I'm always the one who's initiating. I'm the only one doing the work. I've already done everything that I can. I'm the one taking the kids to church. I'm not perfect, but at least I'm trying. At this point, it's on them to make a decision. They don't even know what repentance looks like. We can't move forward because we can't even talk. We can't restore a marriage without two willing people. Why am I the only one who has to do the righteous thing while they're still running and they're still sinning and they're still hiding? What else am I supposed to do? The same spirit of strife, different manifestation, different expression, different chosen instrument. These are the phrases of a heart that feels justified, exhausted, and self-righteous. But if you are a son of God, if you are a daughter of God, when your effort becomes the standard, you stop walking in the new covenant of grace. You welcome the curse of the old law, one that reveals sin but does not remove it. Many of you are walking around with a spiritual hierarchy where you're the obedient one and your spouse is the problem. But God doesn't move through self-righteous positioning. Again, he moves through surrendered intercession. And yeah, some of what you're saying may be circumstantially true. It may be true to what actually happened factually on paper, but the enemy doesn't need a lie to destroy your marriage. He just needs you to weaponize your truth in the absence of the Holy Spirit. That is how strife will win inside of your marriage. Lie number three. This is just how I was raised. This is just how they were raised. The truth is that dysfunction fashioned you. But the truth is also that deliverance is available for both of you. Many of you were raised in homes where strife was the standard. It was normal. You learn that when you raise your voice, when you shut down, when you withhold affection, you win the argument by controlling the atmosphere. And here's the problem. What's familiar eventually starts to feel safe, even if it's destructive. You gravitate towards your comfort because that's what you know. So when strife shows up in your marriage now, you don't see it as a spirit that needs to be evicted. You see it as your pattern that you know how to manage. So it's a game that is being played. Who can manage the strife in this marriage better? Who can withstand the weight of strife and contention longer? And they are awarded the authority in the marriage. You didn't bring these patterns into your covenant because you wanted to. You brought them because they were familiar and they were never cast out. And that's why deliverance and inner healing are not optional if you want a truly godly marriage. Lie number four. I'm in control of how I react. The truth is what you are calling control may actually be emotional manipulation or emotional retaliation. Your internal governance system, how you react, how you withhold, how you shut down or explode was built long before the marriage began. And like we always say, marriage is just the vehicle of expression. This pattern of iniquity was formed in an atmosphere where your love was conditional. It was received and given conditionally. Peace was a performance. Peacekeepers, not peacemakers. emotion was a threat to be managed, not a space to be heard. So now as an adult, your reactions are not rooted in biblical truth. They're rooted in the memory of needing to survive. So what's happening when you're engaging with your spouse and there's a spirit of strife? You're not responding to your spouse. You're responding to a history that your soul still thinks it needs protection from. But here's the danger. What protected you in dysfunction in your family of origin, in your childhood, in your history, in your adolescence, in your young adult years, it is now attacking your covenant. So, it used to protect you like many hidden and deceptive things and mobilizations by the enemy. But now, those dormant spirits have been called to the front lines to attack your marriage. And if you don't confront that system, you're going to spiritualize strife with boundaries, with authority and boldness, with this is just how I am. You're going to excuse its presence. So when you walk into a room, you're not alone. Your spirits are coming with you, plural. Though you are one spirit, one soul, one body. Deliverance isn't just about casting out demons. It's about rebuilding your design from the inside out to respond from truth and not what the world refers to as trauma. Lie number five, we're just strong willed and we're stubborn. That's who we are. You see, the truth is you've confused a spiritual stronghold for your personality. And if you are not careful, you will fall into days, weeks, months, years, and even seasons of your life identifying with the classification that psychology and science has supported in the error of your own ways. The Bible is not confused about this. There will come a time when people walk away from sound doctrine, chasing what their itching ears want to hear, finding for themselves many books, many teachers. So at this point, you may not even recognize contention and strife as an enemy because it's blended itself into your personality. It has become a spirit of the chameleon. And remember, unclean spirits need your temple to express themselves. They are disembodied spirits. Personalities without bodies to express themselves. So what you think is passion or what you think is injustice is an unclean spirit operating through you, operating through your marriage. And so you're thinking, "This is just how I express myself at this point. I'm not just going to take it anymore like I used to." And there's nothing more dangerous than a demonic influence you've learned how to tolerate. When you stop confronting contention, you start identifying with it. And once you make it a part of your identity, you no longer see it as a threat. But I'm here to remind you that what you refuse to come out of agreement with, what you refuse to resist, what you refuse to cast out, your children will either normalize or have to come out of agreement with it themselves. And what you refuse to confront right now, your marriage will carry into its future. Strife is not your personality. Stubbornness is not your enog number. Contention is not your communication style. It is an assignment from hell sent to disrupt your marriage covenant, destroy your connection, and disciple your household in disorder, in chaos. And until it's broken, it will keep rebranding itself as you. You are the temple of expression. So I would get used to understanding that you yourself and the things that make up your marriage and your home are vehicles of expression. The home has an expression. The marriage has an expression. Each individual spouse has an expression. Each child has an expression. For those of you who have children, the family itself has an expression. And all of these expressions are either glorified and righteous or unglorified and unrighteous. Lie number six. this doesn't affect my kids or I'm doing this to protect my kids. Both lies. And the truth is is that if you don't confront it, your children will inherit it to the second, third, and fourth generation. So, let's be clear. They are being fashioned by everything in their mind, will, and emotions fashioned by constant contention, constant arguing, constant strife, constant grief. You're not hiding it like you think you are. You're not keeping it between just you two because you're walking out of the room. You're not considering what should be there that they were designed to receive and respond to and find safety and protection in. You forgot that your father designed them too to respond to certain things to need the nourishment of certain things in the environment and protection of a mother and a father. You have told yourself that we're just going through a rough patch. You've told yourself you're protecting the kids. You've told yourself we'll get through this part and it will be better for them. But rough patches don't last for years. Strongholds do. Things that you're in agreement with do. And every time that you just let it passively slide by, every time you just sum it up to its stress, its hormones, or we're just walking different, we're just wired different, we're on different paths, you're not just avoiding conflict, you're making a silent agreement with the spirit of strife to stay seated in your marriage, to stay seated in your soul. Deepseated willful ignorance and blindness. This is not a communication issue. This is a covenant issue because strife isn't just stealing your peace. It's shaping your covenant and discipling your children through you. What you model becomes their framework and their blueprint. Your silence is becoming their standard. Your cycles are becoming their inheritance. So if you do not come out of agreement and evict strife, your children will not grow up free from it. they will grow up formed by it. Lie number seven, we don't argue that much, so it's really not that big of a deal. Or we don't argue as much as we used to when things were bad. The truth is is that the spirit of strife doesn't need frequency, it just needs access. This was something that my wife and I did not account for while we were distracted by the chaos of our character, our conduct, and our home. We walked around thinking that it was okay as long as the frequency or the depth of chaos was not there. And what we failed to realize is the enemy does not need your permission of how he conducts himself after he already has access. Once the door is open, once the foothold is had, once the territory is given, he will personalize the attack to each one of your children and to your spouse. the hatred, the vengeance, the mocking, the torment. So, some of you listening, there's only an explosion a couple times a year. And so, you like to use the word, for the most part, we're good, or the typical phrase, this is what's happening, but deep down, she's a good woman. Deep down, he's a good man. And others of you are not even trying to deny it. You're arguing every day. There's contention every day. Some of you yelling, others of you going silent, some of you saying it just doesn't matter. This is not about frequency or intensity. I want you to think about that and say that out loud. This is not about frequency or intensity. If it is unclean, it needs to leave. If it is my spiritual captivity, if it is my spiritual bondage, it must lift and leave. The spirit of strife doesn't care how loud it gets in your home. It only cares that it has access. So whether it shows up in verbal attacks, emotional manipulation, cold detachment, the fruit is the same. It's disorder, it's accusation, it's division, and it is demonic. The atmosphere of your home isn't being shaped by the fear of the Lord, but it is being shaped by something. Lie number eight. I'm just being honest and I need to speak my mind. I need to speak my truth. The biblical truth, the spiritual foundation here is that a quick tongue is often the fruit of an undelivered heart. There are those of you who are being set free as I say that a quick tongue is often the fruit of an undelivered heart. Scales be lifted, blindness lift and leave. One of the clearest signs that someone hasn't been delivered and healed or matured from contention is they can't stop talking. They always need the last word. They fire off their opinions without thinking. They're in the comment section. They're in the DMs of every influencer. They confuse impulsive expression with honesty, with truth, with boldness. The loudest voice in a strife marriage is usually the least surrendered one. Strife doesn't just stir up conflict. It steals conversations of consecration. It is fed by the speed of its release, the emotion, the sarcasm, the self-defense, and it convinces you that speaking quickly means you're standing for truth when in reality you're just avoiding submission to the Holy Spirit. And we just read it earlier. A closed-minded fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his personal opinions unwittingly displaying his self-indulgence and his stupidity. We also read, "Do you see a conceited man who speaks quickly, offering his opinions or answering without thinking? There is more hope for a thick-headed fool than for him." Deliverance brings a pause in the spirit. It allows your reactions to slow down. It restores your spiritual discernment. It trains your senses to discern good from evil. It reclaims your mouth for righteousness. A tool of righteousness, not rage, not retaliation, righteousness. My friend, if strife still controls your tongue, it controls your marriage. And the last lie that I want to help confront here with you today is if I knew it was strife, I would have stopped. Remember we read earlier that we cannot claim we did not know. So false ignorance will not protect you. All it will do is expose your agreement. You have eyes to see. You have ears to hear. You have a heart to understand. It's not just a misunderstanding. When you see the patterns of strife, when you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit and still refuse to call it what it is, you are not innocent. You are in agreement. God does not overlook your rebellion just because you've overspiritualized it. He doesn't excuse your dysfunction simply because you were wounded or traumatized. He's not moved by false humility and he's not driven into moving by selective repentance. If you claim ignorance and say, "See, we did not know this." Does he not consider it who weighs and examines the hearts and their motives? So, when all of the lights are off, when it is time to lay your head to rest, when nobody else is around in the home, when you're driving in the car, when you're in your own thoughts, will he not consider it who weighs and examines your hearts and your motives? When there's no more influencer to give you language for your falsehood, will he not consider it who weighs and examines the hearts and their motives? When narcissistic doesn't explain the fruit after they're gone, will he not consider it who weighs and examines the hearts and their motives? So, this is the moment when the pretending needs to end. Strife is not something that God will tolerate in your marriage and still bless you with positioning, with abundance, with prosperity, with relational connections, with opportunity, with purpose, with assignment. He will not bless and tolerate the spirit of strife. It is self-sabotage, and it's not something that you can afford to ignore. So if you continue to justify it, it will continue to steal from your covenant, from your calling, and from the next generation that comes from you. But if you confront it, if you renounce it, and return to the fear of the Lord, restoration will begin.