Ep. 71 - Kicking the Enemies of Your Marriage OUT of Your Marriage

In this episode, experience a war cry not often hear. A war cry for you to take back your marriage from the enemies that have set up camp in YOUR promised land. If you're going to lead yourself and your wife into the marriage that you both have dreamed of, but that feels a bit far away at the moment, you're going to have to learn how to kick out 3 particular enemies:

• Doubt
• Passivity
• Niceness

Until you rise up and overcome these, you'll continue feeling the pain of a marriage that is suffering from your lack of identity, strength, confidence, and leadership.

If you haven't yet, be sure to grab The DNA of a Man.

Watch for the release on February 14th.

Creators & Guests

Host

Matt Hallock

Founder of Man Warrior King and author of The DNA of a Man

What is The Man Warrior King Podcast?

You want to live a life on fire and on mission.

You want to be filled with such conviction and drive that you stop caring about what ANYone thinks.

You want to face each day alive, authentic, and fully present in every moment: with your wife, kids, on the street, at the gym, at work.

You want to bring yourSELF to the table, and to stop bringing the watered-down, nice, what everyone wants version of you.

You want that self to be a man who is burning in passion for Jesus, unafraid to bring his kingdom to anyone in your path, no matter the cost.

You want to love the one in front of you without fear, without needing love back, and without reserve.

You want to experience God for real, to not just believe, but to KNOW that he’s got you and that he’ll show up on your behalf. That he’ll show up THROUGH you.

You want to get to the end of your race and say, “Yep…I gave it everything. Jesus, you know I’m all in.”

...And you want to know just how to get there.

Welcome to Man Warrior King. Congratulations. You are among the violent taking the kingdom by force. You are among the chosen, answering the call to rise above your self. You are in the forge being stripped down and strengthened—and you WILL rise stronger, solid, unshakeable.

You are a man. You are a warrior. You are a king.

00:05 Good morning, welcome to another episode of the Man, Warrior, King podcast. I'm your host Matt Halleck I'm the founder of the Man, Warrior, King movement, and I'm the author of the book The DNA of a Man and I am excited to come to you today with a pretty, a pretty needed message for married men today
00:28 . I've been, I've been in communication with a good number of men who've read my book and been receiving emails from them, been receiving messages in various kinds from them and the, there's a very widespread, gosh, epidemic.
00:48 Among men in the church and their marriages. And there are many who are hurting, many who feel like their marriage is if not falling apart, it's it's staying together but it's it's almost dead.
01:10 There's very little life in it. It's like it's staying together because we have to. It's staying together because we both know that we should.
01:18 But it's it's not enjoyable. Many men are feeling like they've given up their identity. Many men feel like they've given up their masculinity.
01:32 Many are feeling like they they don't know how to find it again and they don't know whether or not they're ever going to get their wife's respect and admiration and affection again.
01:47 And I don't mean to be a negative Nancy. But very often the church doesn't offer the kind of teaching, the kind of leadership in this area that a lot of these men need.
02:08 Church just doesn't have the grid for it, doesn't have the language for it at the moment, at least not yet.
02:13 And when, when there are hurting marriages, the, the typical Christian solution. Is to do more of the Christian stuff. Are you praying together?
02:33 Are you reading the Bible together? Are you, are you serving her? It's not about you anyway mister, it's about you being selfless and loving like Jesus.
02:48 And maybe, maybe you listening to this, you, you're familiar with that type of thinking. You're familiar with that advice. You're familiar.
02:56 You're familiar the feeling that happens on the inside of you when you have things that are really hurting and yet you feel like you're wrong because it hurts.
03:12 Like you're wrong because you want things to change. Because you have this idea that says, I, if I could just be more selfless, then I'd be happier and it would solve the problem.
03:28 Problems. Because all of this pain and all of this fighting and all this strife is from my own selfishness and having desires and if I could just get rid of them and be like Jesus, then man, what would that do for our marriage?
03:47 Now there's a flip side to that kind of thinking and there's this, there's this little fear in the back of my, back of your mind that says, but if, if I give up all those things, if I give up those desires.
04:01 And I just become ultra selfless so that I'm more like Jesus, what if those desires just stay gone? What if they stay dead?
04:14 What if they never see them come to pass? And so there can be that fear in the picture as well.
04:23 So the question gentlemen is what do we do? How do we fix this? God does not have in mind for you to just live a life of white-knuckling, gritting your teeth, doing your darndest to get by in your marriage with without imploding and having a mental breakdown because you want your wife so badly and it
04:55 seems like she's over it. That is not marriage in the kingdom. So, the Christian teachings emphasize how your marriage is a reflection of Jesus and the church, which it is.
05:21 But, if I'm in your shoes, I'm asking the question, how does that help me practically? The Christian teachings that that God wants your marriage to make you holy and he doesn't really care as much about your happiness.
05:39 If I'm in your shoes, I'm thinking, okay, that sounds good, I guess. I mean, that sounds like, like a Christian thing, but it kind of sucks.
05:48 If that's really the point of marriage. I'd love to have a little bit of happiness in there as well. If I'm in your shoes, I'm thinking that, you know, serving her more, I've already been trying.
06:06 And it's not working. If I'm in your shoes, I'm thinking, pray with her and read the Bible. I mean, we've done that and it doesn't really do anything or I don't even know where to begin to start that conversation for us to do that.
06:21 This is not, I don't know how. It's just a landmine, a field, a minefield waiting for me if I try to venture into that territory with my wife.
06:40 All of these Christian approaches to fixing a marriage, they might sound all holy and good, but they have very little power to them.
06:54 Because there are other chess pieces at play. And I'm excited this week. This is February 12th, Valentine's Day week. We have Valentine's Day coming in two days.
07:14 And it can be a painful week for men who feel like their wife is drifting, who feel like they they don't get to have her be attracted to them.
07:25 It feels like they hardly ever have sex. Feels like she doesn't even want sex anymore. It can be very difficult and painful.
07:36 And I would like to invite you to make this your last Valentine's Day like that. I would like to invite you on a journey.
07:47 A personal transformation journey to where you never have to feel this same way about Valentine's Day again. And at the end of our episode today, I'm going to tell you about a program I'm opening up on Valentine's Day.
08:08 That's going to give a group of men the opportunity to bring back their back hunger, desire, and heat in their bedrooms.
08:20 That's going to give them the opportunity to bring back their own confidence, their own enjoyment of themselves. It's going to give them the opportunity to begin leading in their marriage like they really want to and they feel ashamed because they're not and they don't know how to begin.
08:40 It's going to give men the opportunity to create the best possible atmosphere in which their wife will possibly give them those hungry eyes once again and it's going to allow for men to get stuck because in when your marriage is stuck you might be able to go out and produce in the workplace you might
09:14 be able to go out and and bring value to the market you might be able to bring in an income you might be able to do all these things but there is a there is a limit to how much you can thrive when it feels like your marriage is just it's just like a knife sticking in your gut there's only so much you
09:37 can do until that is solved and God wants you to thrive completely and he's not into a religious marriage where you're doing all the right things out of duty and there's zero passion.
09:57 That's not what he wants. There is a place for duty. There's a place for honor and obligation to serve. There's a place for that.
10:07 We're not doing marriage in a religious way, so I'm going to tell you about this towards the end of the episode today, but for right now, I want to read to you out of Deuteronomy chapter 7, a few verses there, and then we're going to talk about some things that you need to conquer.
10:24 That you need to kick out of your marriage because it's an ill- these things are illegitimate squatters. Are you with me?
10:34 So Deuteronomy chapter 7, first verse, says when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering, entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
10:52 Seven nations, more numerous and minor. And when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.
11:08 You shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy. To them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons.
11:18 For they would turn away your sons from following me to serve other gods. And the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.
11:27 But thus shall you deal with them. You shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and chop down their ashram, and burn their carved images with fire.
11:43 You I'm a firm believer in your promised land. The promised land was not just for the Old Testament Jews, who got brought out of Egypt into this land of Canaan.
11:59 Over there on the Mediterranean, by the Jordan River, the mountains of Jerusalem all of that. The promised land is for you as well.
12:10 It says in the New Testament that all those things in the Old were written for us, as examples for us.
12:16 And so, that promised land represents for you something else. Your promised land is a type of life that reflects heaven here on earth.
12:41 This is what the promised land was for them. They had been in slavery. God brought them out of slavery. Then they had been in the wilderness, wondering, you know, how are we going to make it from day to day?
12:54 They had the manna being provided to them from day in and day out, but they never accumulated anything. And they were always, nomadic.
13:04 They didn't have a home. They didn't have a place to truly put down roots and to thrive. They were not established.
13:14 And so the promised land was this place that would be abundant, flowing with milk. It was this place where God, it says over and over in the Old Testament, I want to establish you.
13:26 I want to give you prosperity and security. I want to give you success everywhere you go. In that promised land, I will put no diseases on you.
13:38 Health will be what you have. It says that you will be the head and not the tail. It says that you will be blessed when you go out and when you come back in.
13:48 It says that your barns will overflow, your bread bowls will overflow, your wine vats will overflow. This promised land is a place of abundance where there is more than enough and it's more than enough in all of life.
14:04 And it is not marked by elements of the curse. Disease, toil, strife, where the woman's desire will be for the man and the man will rule over her, all that stuff.
14:20 It's not marked by that. It's marked by the the characteristics, the qualities of heaven. This is the promised land and this is your promised land.
14:30 So think about that. What does that look like for you? And I know that we're talking about marriage in this episode, but this promised land analogy is meant to be all-encompassing.
14:42 And Jesus prayed. He said, I want you to pray like this. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.
14:49 Your kingdom come and your will be done. Done on earth as it is in heaven. Your kingdom come is equivalent to God's will happening on this earth.
15:04 Just as though this earth were heaven. Where his will, it happens without Resistance or hesitation Jesus said that's how you should pray because that's what I want to do.
15:19 I want your life to look like heaven Side note that means that you should not have sickness and I mean me too and my body does but I have a faith that says I'm gonna get to a point where sickness disappears because this is my promise side note that means is that you should not be living in poverty always
15:48 hand to mouth toiling and laboring and trying to burn the candle at both ends just so you can make it this is not the promised land type of living that God offers and that's a whole other topic but marriage on earth as it is in heaven how would marriage be in heaven without sin?
16:15 In you without sin in your wife? How would marriage be in heaven without you two carrying into your marriage past dysfunction, bad parenting by your parents?
16:30 How would your marriage be if the two of you were like it says in Genesis that Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed?
16:42 Nothing holding them back from being completely exposed? Naked, sexual with each other? What would that be like? And so if you've bought the lie that says says that that's unrealistic and you shouldn't be shooting for that, I'm sorry but you've been deceived.
17:09 If you've bought the, that bill of goods that says no, you that's selfish thinking, this is not the point of your marriage right now, that all that's for heaven someday, but for right now, you're gonna suffer and it's gonna be good for you and you're gonna like it, I'm sorry you've bought a lie if that's
17:34 how you've been thinking. God's intention from the beginning was always that marriage would be blissful and fulfilling and joyful and create more power in the two of you than you could have alone to kick out darkness from this place.
17:53 So I wanna ask you then, what's keeping you from having that kind of a marriage? Because in this verse there are seven nations that have set up camp in your promised land.
18:10 Do you hear that? This land of a fulfilling marriage is yours. It belongs to you and someone else is squatting in it.
18:23 How does that feel? What are you gonna do about that? If you're like many men, myself included, one of the things you've already tried is self-pity.
18:37 Sitting there and saying, oh my me, why does this have to be me? Why hasn't God helped me yet? I've been praying and praying and praying and God why aren't you doing anything?
18:52 What's so bad about me that God won't answer my prayers? We'll see in the We'll see you Oh, I've I'm trying as hard as I can to be a good husband that she's the problem Believe it or not that's self pity and I know that's hard to hear because I know how tempting it can be to think that way but thinking
19:24 that way doesn't kick the enemy is out. It lets them stay. Imagine this is how the Israelites talked when the spies scoped out their promised land.
19:37 They were like oh we can't possibly do it. They're giants there. They're too great. Great for us. God why have you done this to us?
19:47 Why didn't we just stay in Egypt? What that kind of thinking get? Did it, did it make God be like oh yeah you're right I let you down.
19:58 On a second while I go and send a sonic boom shock wave through the whole land of Canaan and it just annihilates all those people.
20:06 Now okay, now you can go in. Did it do that? No it didn't. That kind of thinking. Invited 40 more years in the wilderness so that those people never saw it.
20:19 The promised land that is. Only the two, Joshua and Caleb, who consistently said we can do this. They saw it.
20:33 So yourself pity is not actually going to get you anything. It's not going to prove to God that you've been unjustly treated, that you've been wronged.
20:43 And it's not, it's not some kind of right Bye! It's just indignance. It's a boyish wound licking that won't get you the promised land.
20:55 And at this point you should be asking yourself, how do I get that land? Now I'll do whatever it takes.
21:02 Thanks for watching! And I'll shed off whatever it takes. Cause it's good on the other side. I want to present to you three the enemies in your promised land right now.
21:22 And they're more but these ones are massive. Absolutely massive. First one is doubt. Doubt riddled the people of Israel when those spies came back.
21:45 And they were like man there are giants there and all of a sudden the nation of Israel followed the testimony of the ten doubtful spies and said well we can't do this.
21:57 There was zero faith in operation among those people then it kept them out. So what does doubt look like for you about your Mayor. It looks, it looks like some stuff I've already mentioned.
22:13 Doubting the heart of God. Doubting the goodness of God. Doubting the generosity of God. Doubting the purpose of God for your marriage and instead Dead.
22:22 Accepting the traditions and doctrines of men. As though they are true and God's word is not. And I don't have time to go into all of the Scriptures.
22:38 And show you that God's desire for your marriage is not simply to just make you holy while you suffer. That God's desire for your marriage is that it be better than you could ever imagine.
22:51 . But just as a little snippet song of Solomon. As a little snippet Proverbs chapter 5. You If you doubt what God wants in your marriage and you start thinking well maybe this is God's plan for me.
23:18 Maybe it's selfish of me to try to create change and and and reverse these patterns that cause so much pain.
23:27 If you begin thinking that way then that doubt is going to drill a hole in your ship. And no matter how hard you try to sail you're gonna keep on sinking.
23:39 Because in order to get from where you are right now and the wilderness into your promised land you have got to walk in faith.
23:50 You have got to step into a new type of living that most men don't understand how to live. Mm. By.
23:59 Live in. Whatever it is. They don't understand how to live in that kind of a faith. We end up living according to our feelings.
24:07 And even if we don't in some areas many times in the marriage we do. And it looks sissy, it looks Thanks watching! It's wussy to your wife.
24:20 And so because you don't believe that God wants good for your marriage you end up feeling feeling like an orphan, like you're all by yourself to get this thing to be fit.
24:30 Fixed. Because you can't escape the fact that even if you think God wants your marriage to cause you pain and to make you suffer so you can grow your character and become holy there's a battle inside of you between what you think you should be.
24:46 Should do in just putting up and shutting up so you can get holy in what you cannot quench inside of you which is that desire for true deep connection physical emotional spiritual all of it.
25:02 To the point where you are intoxicated you can't escape that that's what you want even if you think you shouldn't so you will continue to try to get that but without the confidence without the assurance without the self validated security that is required for you to be able to navigate your marriage
25:28 for you to be able to communicate with your wife and lead her and love her. And that leads me leads to you whining, bitterly arguing, complaining, getting needy, putting pressure on her, all of that.
25:45 Second enemy that's set up camp. Thank you for in your marriage, is passivity. And this passivity has many roots and many fruits did not mean to rhyme, it just does.
26:12 But one of the primary roots of your passivity is the belief that God's in control, and that might get me labeled as a heretic.
26:24 It might get me kicked out of some churches. That's okay. I'd rather help men stop dying on the inside. Then keep on being welcome at church.
26:38 Churches. Because your belief that God is in control is killing you. From the inside out. Because then whenever anything in your life is out of whack, whenever it's going wrong, whenever you your body gets sick, whatever you can't pay your mortgage, whenever your kids wander, whenever your marriage is
27:02 on the verge of breakup, whenever you're at each other's throats. That narrative that says that God is in control. Control. We'll tell you, it's okay God knows what he's doing.
27:16 Just sit tight, hang on, let God do what he needs to do. Just learn how to submit to his will.
27:23 I know it's hard, but learn how to submit to his will. Meanwhile, you have all these things happening in your life that according to scripture are not his will.
27:40 And so you've been believing that his will will is for your life to fall apart. When if you just dug into his word and you stopped listening to the traditions of men, you'd realize, oh my gosh these things are not his will at all.
27:54 And if that's the case then why am I agreeing with them? Why am I allowing them to continue? Why have I not picked up my sword and my shield and fought?
28:07 Because you look at scripture and there is passage after passage that urges you to fight. The armor of God. Right?
28:24 But we have a bunch of passive men because we've been told that God's in control. Thanks for watching! The third enemy, this one, is the big one.
28:41 This is the mother load. Load. This is the goliath towering over the other Philistines. It's niceness. Niceness is an insidious, toxic You Death-producing character trait.
29:06 And it will kill you. I know that's extreme, but it will. Because niceness says I know I need to put up and shut up and do what I'm told.
29:21 I need to not rock the boat. I need to be polite. And if my pastor tells me, hey, you know what?
29:27 Just learn how to be more selfless with your wife. That'll solve it. That'll do wonders. And you'll see that she'll come around.
29:38 Niceness says, oh okay, I guess he must know what he's talking about. I've tried that before but he's probably right.
29:45 I don't want to be polite and I want to submit. Thank you to that. Niceness says, I want to make my wife happy at all costs and if she's not happy then I can't be happy.
30:02 Niceness says my thoughts and my desires and my dream dreams don't matter, only other peoples. And niceness manifests in very bitter wives.
30:18 And very angry wives. Critical wives. Who are just criticizing you all day long every day it feels like. That's not always just her fault.
30:31 Niceness will get you there. Here. niceness can also look like a man who rises up in a false confidence that's actually arrogance and it and it shoves his family members down because he's trying to get to assert that he's the one who's leaving.
31:01 That's also niceness believe it or not I know that might be a head scratcher but it is you're gonna have to trust me I'm not gonna explain it all right now but that is that is a a the flip side of the same coin of niceness one side is passivity I don't have any desires or opinions or anything like that
31:24 I exist to make you happy the other side of that same coin is steamrolling jerk because both sides of that coin a man is operating in order to try I to get approval and affirmation from someone else he's trying to get somebody to like him so he can feel . good about himself that right there we could
32:07 even we could even put passivity and doubt on the shelf niceness all by itself We'll time. We'll destroy you. And these guys doubt passivity niceness it's not like they're all individual entities that only that work independently of each other but they all add up to you know a bad situation.
32:29 Situation. They're intertwined and sometimes it's hard to untangle that whole mess. And that's not even to mention victim thinking. The victim mindset is another Thank you Thanks for watching.
32:45 Thank you for watching. What do you do about it? You, I, I am taking men through a process where we systematically dismantle these enemy strongholds that have set up camp in your promised land.
33:21 We are going to over the course of three months together meeting weekly and then some. We are going to dis mantle your doubt your passivity and your niceness and plant the kingdom seeds inside of you of boldness, confidence, honor, joy, love, sexiness, attractiveness, irresistible.
33:46 Resistibility. You're going to be able to feel the freedom that comes when you see the world through a different lens.
33:58 Right now it's difficult to imagine that you could ever have a productive confrontational conversation with your wife. It would just go horribly and she would get so mad and you'd get all bitter and butt hurt and there would be no sex for however long and it would just be horrible.
34:15 You're going to experience the freedom of seeing things through a new lens to where your eyes get open to. Oh my goodness, I never considered that I could have a conversation in that manner.
34:27 I never thought that I'd be able to show up in confrontation in that type of masculine energy. I've always felt like a boy and I have never been proud of who I am as I show up to the table.
34:41 And you're gonna watch while it seems like you're looking at the world all of a sudden through a lens of color and you've been looking at it in black and white all this time.
34:59 In the next episode, later this week, I'm gonna take you a little bit deeper into how do we go out and get these enemies.
35:08 How do we conquer it? But, I'm gonna invite you right now to begin asking the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. Is working with Matt and this group of men gonna be for me?
35:31 Is this something that you want me to do? Is this a thing that's been missing from my approach to healing my marriage?
35:41 Is it possible Holy Spirit that if I say yes to this that that you Lord will meet me? Not just Matt, but you.
35:52 Is it possible that you will work transformation . . . . . into me and that you're going to do mighty miracles in my marriage as I say yes.
36:07 I want you to ask him that and I don't, I want you to hear me. I don't want anybody signing up.
36:13 Because they feel forced. Because they feel like, like some element of FOMO. Because they feel like I put on a fake countdown timer.
36:29 Thank you for watching! And if they don't jump in now, they'll never ever have their life ever put back together.
36:36 I don't want anybody signing up for that. I want people signing up. Who've asked the Lord. And if you feel like ah, he's moving me into this thing and I can't deny it.
36:54 And if you are not familiar with me at all, I would encourage you to pick up my book The DNA of a Man.
37:00 That's gonna give you. Thank you. A great foundation and a really good idea of where I'm coming from and the way I do things.
37:13 So I want you to be on the lookout. Valentine's Day 2024. That's two days from right now as of this recording and release date.
37:25 I want you to watch for the release of this groundbreaking life changing. Marriage, Altering, Group Program. God bless these men.
37:41 Fill them to overflowing with your spirit. Reviving them a faith to believe for more than what they've had. Let them hear your voice and encounter your presence.
38:00 Thank you gentlemen. Love you. Peace.