Well, brethren, it's good to
be with you, and trust, as Dave led us in prayer, God will indeed
visit us and make it evident that he is present by the Holy
Spirit. Now, as we begin this brief but
crucial series of studies entitled, The Christian Man With His Wife,
With His Children, and With His Church, The foundation of the
whole series is comprised in the opening three words, the
Christian man. Now let me explain what I mean
by this assertion. In all the directives in the
New Testament regarding the specific responsibilities of men as husbands,
as fathers, and as churchmen, there is a clear, common, and
foundational Presupposition. Now you know what a presupposition
is. That's the thing on which you stand when you move to do
something. For example, standing up to speak. My fundamental presupposition
is that you men speak English and therefore I'm communicating
to you in English. When our brother Leslie stood,
his fundamental presupposition is that our deaf brethren understand
American Sign Language. He presupposes that and so he
makes all of those signs, assuming his brethren will interpret them
into words and phrases. I'm making vocables that frame
English words, presupposing that when they reach the outer vestibule
of your ear, and vibrations are transmitted through the ear into
the eighth nerve that goes to the brain, that you will interpret
those vocables in the English language in which I'm speaking. Well, what I'm saying is that
when we open our Bibles, and in particular the New Testament,
and we read specific directives given to husbands, given to fathers,
given to churchmen, there is a clear, common, and foundational
presupposition that lies behind, underneath, and supports all
of those specific directives. And what is that clear, common,
and foundational presupposition? Simply stated, it is this. that
the men who are addressed and are given distinct directives
as husbands, as fathers and churchmen, are men who have experienced
the transforming power of salvation from sin through Jesus Christ,
and that they sustain a saving union with the Lord Jesus. For example, In Paul's letter
to the Ephesians, it is in chapter 4 that specific directives are
given concerning a man's relationship to his church. Under the figure
of the church as a body, clear directives are given to men as
well as to women concerning their relationship to the church. In
chapter 5, as we shall see tonight, a husband's relationship to his
wife is specifically addressed. And then, as we shall see, God
willing, tomorrow morning, in chapter 6, a father's specific
relationship to his children. However, these directives of
chapters 4, 5, and 6 concerning a man's relationship to his church
to his wife, to his children, assume that each and every man
addressed in chapters 4, 5, and 6 has experienced and is living
within the reality of the salvation described in chapters 1 and 2. Paul did not forget what he taught
in chapters 1 and 2 when he came to give directives in chapters
4, 5, and 6. So when we turn to chapters 1
and 2 in the book of Ephesians, what is set before us is this
marvelous panorama of this great and glorious salvation in Jesus
Christ which Paul assumes every single man whom he addresses
in chapters 4, 5, and 6 has experienced. For example, chapter 1 in verse
3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in
Christ. He is speaking well of God. He
is praising God for the fact that he, along with all of the
members of the church at Ephesus, have experienced every spiritual
blessing in connection with Jesus Christ. And then he goes on to
delineate many of those blessings. God's electing grace in Christ
before the foundation of the world, redemption through the
blood of Jesus Christ, the indwelling and sealing of the Holy Spirit. Or in chapter 2, he writes, of
all of those envisioned in chapters 4, 5, and 6, you did he make
alive who were dead through your trespasses and sins wherein you
once walked according to the course of this world, etc. He
can say of these people, verse 8, for by grace you have been
saved. through faith, and that not of
yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, that no man should glory, for we are his workmanship, created
anew in Christ Jesus." So you see, Paul is presupposing when
he addresses men as churchmen in chapter 4, as husbands in
chapter 5, as fathers in chapter 6, that they have experienced
this glorious salvation described in chapters 1 and 2. In a similar
way, in a parallel passage in Colossians 3, verses 19 and 21,
Paul addresses men as husbands and as fathers, but he assumes
that what he had written in chapters 1 and 2 and 3 the earlier part
was true of each and every one of these men. He can speak of
them as those who have received Christ Jesus the Lord. He can speak of them as those
who are complete in Christ. He can speak of them as those
who have put off the old man and have put on the new. Likewise,
we will be coming later on in our message tonight to 1 Peter
chapter 3, where Peter addresses husbands. He tells them what
they are to do in relationship to their wives. but he is assuming
that every single one of them has experienced what he's already
described in chapters 1 and 2. In chapter 1, he speaks of them
partaking of a marvelous salvation rooted in the work of Christ,
particularly in his resurrection from the dead. He speaks of them
as those who, having not seen Christ, believing in Christ,
they love Christ, Later on in chapter 1, he speaks of them
as having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible. So all the way through, this
is my thesis. Whenever you find specific directives
to men as husbands, as fathers, and churchmen, the presupposition
is that they have experienced God's marvelous salvation in
Jesus Christ and that they sustain a vital relationship to Christ. Now, why is it important for
me to start here? For this very simple reason.
Without a saving experience of the grace of God in Jesus Christ,
you and I as husbands, as fathers, as churchmen, we will lack, first
of all, a prevailing disposition and motivation to obey those
directives. Without a saving relationship
to Christ, we will not have the motivation, a prevailing motivation,
to obey those directives. Because the Scripture says, by
nature, the prevailing disposition of our hearts is one of enmity
against God and antagonism to the will of God. Romans 8 and
verse 7, Paul says, the carnal mind, the disposition, the prevailing
disposition of our hearts by nature is enmity against God,
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
it be. Jesus said in John 14, 23, If
a man love me, he will keep my words. He that loves me not does
not keep my words. So you see, if there is no prevailing
motivation to obey the divine directives, they fall upon our
ears and they have no lasting effect upon us. Furthermore,
without a saving experience of the grace of God in Jesus Christ,
you and I will lack not only a prevailing motivation to obey,
but we will lack an enabling power to obey the divine directives. We need not only motivation,
but we need power. And Jesus said in John 15, 5b,
without me, you can do nothing. It is only of those who are savingly
joined to Christ that the Scripture says, God is at work in you,
both to will and to work for His good pleasure, Philippians
2.13. Or only those who have experienced God's salvation.
Is it true concerning what the prophet Ezekiel says in Ezekiel
36, 26, and 27, where God says, I will take out the heart of
stone, I will give them a heart of flesh, I will put my spirit
within them and I will cause them to keep my statutes and
my judgments. So it's critical that we start
where God starts. Sitting here tonight, every one
of you, unless you are a Christian man, a man whose guilt as a sinner
has been removed by faith in Jesus Christ, whose life, death,
and resurrection is the basis and the procuring cause of the
forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God? you will have neither
the motive nor the power to comply with the things that I will be
expounding as God's directives to you as a husband, as a father,
and possibly we may get to the third category as a churchman. Further, unless the reigning
power of sin has been broken in your life by being Indwelt
by the Holy Spirit and united to Jesus Christ in the power
of His death and resurrection, you will lack the ability to
comply with God's directives as a husband, as a father, and
as a churchman. So I want to speak briefly to
those of you here who make no profession of a saving relationship
to Christ. You may have come to the service
tonight hoping you'll get four or five nice, neat little suggestions
to make your marriage a happier experience. I've got news for
you. I don't have four or five neat little suggestions that'll
give you a happy marriage if you are yet in Adam and in your
sins and under the wrath of God. I have nothing for you, nothing,
except to tell you that God authorizes me to announce in Christ's name
and on His authority that there is a salvation in Jesus Christ
that can furnish you with the motive of love to Christ and
a desire to obey Christ. And there is, as a gift of God's
grace, the person and power of the Holy Spirit offered to you
in Christ to give you the enabling power to be the husband you ought
to be. So for you who make no profession,
my word to you is, even sitting here tonight, and should God
spare you and bring you back tomorrow, lay hold of Christ
as He is so freely and fully offered to you in the gospel.
But now to those of you who profess to be the people of God, you
profess to believe in Christ, you profess to be united to Christ. If so, you will demonstrate the
reality of that profession by a wholehearted and passionate
desire to comply with every biblical directive that you hear tonight
and tomorrow. Insofar as I accurately expound
God's directives, if you're the real deal, when you hear the
voice of your heavenly shepherd speaking through the words, He
says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. If you don't
hear and follow, you give up any right to say you're a sheep
of Christ. And frankly, brethren, my soul
is greatly agitated as I come to these sessions tonight and
tomorrow. I have had to cry to God like
I have not had to cry to God for a long time. that I feel
there is rising up within me something that is not Christ-like
and is not godly and is not honoring to the Lord, nor will it serve
the cause of His truth of just being deeply distressed that
there are men sitting here who have heard time after time, clear,
passionate, applied expositions of your duties as a husband,
as a father, as a churchman, and there's precious little evidence
that you are bending your neck to the yoke of Christ to fulfill
those directives. And it's time to fish or cut
bait, because Jesus said, if you're the real deal, you're
not only going to hear, but you're going to follow. And further,
1 John 2 says, Hereby do we know that we know him, if we are keeping
his commandments. If we say that we know him and
do not keep his commandments, we lie and we do not the truth. On the other hand, there may
be some of you that do have a heart to comply, but that compliance
is weak and that compliance is fragmented. It could be that
there is unbelief in the provision that is yours in Christ. You
are not yet able to say with Paul, I can do all things in
him who strengthens me. Or perhaps there is a lack of
abiding in Christ by the means that he has appointed by which
we draw strength and life and power from our living head, the
Lord Jesus, the teaching of John 15. You may be living with a
grieved Holy Spirit, and when the Spirit is grieved, Ephesians
4 30, then we are not constantly being filled by the Spirit or
with the Spirit. And I trust if that is so, during
these days, God will blow upon your unbelief, that God will
draw you into fresh communion with Christ. And wherever you
may be grieving the Spirit, that you may deal with those issues
and begin to know his enabling power in new dimensions. So, that's my introduction. I
said the most important words in the title as we begin tonight
are the first three words. The Christian man. Is that you? Is that you? The Christian man,
the one who sitting here tonight can say, I cast myself in the
abandonment of faith upon Christ Himself and Christ alone as the
ground of my acceptance with a holy and a righteous God. And I know that by faith in union
with Christ and by the indwelling of the Spirit, the dominion of
sin has been broken in me and there has been implanted in me
a passionate longing to please and honor the Savior whom I trust
and whom I love. Now, for the remainder of our
time tonight, we take up our subject in this first session,
the Christian man with his wife. And I want to begin addressing
this subject by asking each of you a question. According to
the Scriptures, what are the two commands which comprise the
heart of a Christian man's duty toward his wife. If we had one
of the deacons pass out a pad of paper and a pencil and said,
in the next couple of minutes, write down in one or two sentences
the fundamental duties of a Christian man toward his wife are, number
one. Number two, what would you do
to fill in the blanks? Let me give you a little hint.
One of them is found in Ephesians 5, and the other is found in
1 Peter chapter 3. And if you had thought and have
begun to think that, well, the two commands are, I am to love
my wife, and I am to dwell with my wife according to knowledge. Those are the two fundamental
commands that comprise the substance of the duty of a Christian man
towards his wife. Now, recognizing that there are
some of you that are not married, I'm going to assume that someday,
in the will of God, you may well be married, so I'm not going
to stop and concentrate. And for you who are not married,
The same is out there for you to absorb it, count the cost
and see if this is what you want to do, to have a ring on your
finger and throw one on hers. Because this is the job description
that you will be embracing if you make that commitment. Let's
turn together then to the first of these directives to husbands
in Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. In verse 22, the apostle addresses
wives, and then in verse 25, husbands, love your wives. It doesn't say make love to your
wife. It says love her, not make love
to her or with her. 1 Corinthians 7 tells you to
do that. Let the husband render to the
wife her due. And it's speaking of sexual obligations. But here, the passage is not
commanding you to make love to your wife or with your wife,
but to love your wife even as, and that Greek particle is like
an equal sign, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave
Himself up for it. that he might sanctify it, having
cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he
might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and
without blemish. Even so ought husbands also,"
now notice there's an additional thought being introduced, Even
so ought, and that word ought means obligation, even so husbands
are obligated also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loves his own wife loves
himself, for no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes
and cherishes it, even as Christ also the Church, because we are
members of His body. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall
become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I
speak in regard of Christ and of the Church. Nevertheless,
do you also severally love each one his own wife, even as himself. Now, what do we take out of this
passage? And I'm going to give just a
brief exposition of it. Well, here is the first command. You are to love your wife after
two distinct and clearly defined patterns. God does not simply
say, love your wife, and figure out what that means and what
it looks like. He says, husbands, love your
wives. And here are two distinct, clearly
defined patterns. Pattern number one, as Christ
loved the Church, husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved
the Church. And what was the mark or the
marks, the dominant marks of His love to His church? Number
one, it is a sacrificial love. Look at the text. Husbands, love
your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself
up for it. He gave the ultimate sacrifice
and squeezed into those words gave himself up for it is all
the detailed narrative of Gethsemane. Seen the cup of the wrath of
God that he would have to drink if you and I, as the church,
were to be redeemed, cleansed and pardoned, forgiven, accepted
with God. And in that garden, he shrank
before the cup He fell to the ground, he rose, he fell, he
rose, he wrestled. Burst blood vessels in his brow
and sweat as it were, great drops of blood. And in agony said,
Oh my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Gave
himself up to the horrors of Gethsemane and to the greater
horrors yet of Golgotha. Golgotha and what happened on
the cross is the validation that all the trauma of Gethsemane
was warranted trauma. The cup was not less than what
he viewed it in Gethsemane. The cup was far worse. And when
it was actually put to his lips and he drank it, As he drank
and drank and the billows of divine wrath swept over him toward
the end of the three hours when the heavens were shrouded in
darkness, he cried with a loud voice, My God, my God, why? Why have you abandoned me, forsaken
me, plunged me into the felt forsakenness of hell? He loved the church. gave himself
up for it. Pattern number one is loving
as Christ loved the church, a sacrificial love, but secondly, a purposeful
love. Look at verses 26 and 7. He did this in order that he
might sanctify it, that is, set it apart unto God, having cleansed
it by the washing of water with the Word, that he might present
the church to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle
or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. His love is a love that anticipated
what that love would accomplish. Based upon his substitutionary
death, he envisions the last day, the great eschaton, when
he would present his bride to himself without one spot, without
one wrinkle in its garment. That love was not only a sacrificial
love, but a purposeful love in which he would accomplish that
initial work of grace in us and the ongoing work that will continue
until he sees his bride spotless, without a wrinkle, and that bride,
his church, is presented to himself. Husbands, love your wives with
that kind of love. That's the biblical command.
Even as Christ loved the church. But then there's a second pattern.
Verse 28. Even so ought husbands also to
love their own wives as their own bodies. Pattern number two
is loving our wives as we naturally love ourselves, specifically
as we naturally love our own bodies. That's the standard.
And that theme is taken up and expanded through those remaining
verses and then summarized in verse 33. Nevertheless, do you
also severally love each one his own wife, even as himself? And you see, Paul has tied together
several realities in a close string of logic. He says, one
who loves his wife loves himself. And this is true because marriage
makes the two one. So the two are no longer two,
but one flesh. Well, if we are one flesh, then
in loving her, I love myself. And also, Christ is even the
great pattern of this pattern, since we are united to Him and
are one with Him, and He nourishes and cherishes us because we are
His body. The high standard of even loving
ourselves is Christ as He loves Himself in His Church, which
is one with Him. He nourishes and cherishes us
as part of His body, and in the same way we are commanded to
nourish and to cherish our wives as we love ourselves, as we love
our own bodies. O'Brien, in his helpful commentary
on Ephesians, writes, They, husbands, are to love them, their wives,
as their own bodies, a statement that is rather surprising and
has been regarded by some as, number one, a descent from the
lofty heights of Christ's love to the rather low standard of
self-love, others, too demeaning and degrading since the wife
is viewed simply as her husband's body, or others, at best, a commonplace
that is rather pragmatic in its self-centered approach. But the
issue, writes O'Brien, is more nuanced than these comments suggest. The statement applies to the
second great commandment. You shall love your neighbor
as yourself in a direct way to the love which the husband should
have for his nearest and dearest neighbor, namely, his wife. His nearest and dearest neighbor
is that one to whom he has been so joined that the two are one
flesh. So in loving her he loves himself. The expression as their own bodies
instead of as themselves He harks back to Genesis chapter 2. Husband and wife, then, are regarded
as one person, a single entity. Accordingly, the husband's obligation
to love his wife as his own body is not simply a matter of loving
someone else just like he loves himself. It is, in fact, to love
himself. In other words, we're not playing
head games and saying, well, I'm going to act like my wife
is myself and be as concerned for her well-being as I am for
my own. No. She is my self, for we too have
become one flesh. And so there is the second pattern
by which you and I are under solemn obligation to love our
wives. Now do you see why it's only
the truly Christian man who can comply with these directives? To love another with that pattern
of Christ's sacrificial love is not native to us. For 2 Corinthians
5.15 says, by nature we all live unto ourselves. I, me, mine, my desires, my interests,
my needs, my pleasures, my ambitions, everything is swallowed in the
sinkhole of self. But blessed be God, when we are
liberated from the tyranny of such selfhood, we are free, as
Paul says in Galatians 5, to put ourselves in the posture
of serving others, even serving in the selfless, purposeful,
sacrificial love with which Christ loves the Church, and secondly,
to love our wives as our own body. Now, before moving to the
second passage, the first Peter 3 passage, I want to make some
very specific applications of the teaching of this passage,
and I want you men to listen carefully. Here's the first.
If you are loving your wife with the sacrificial and purposeful
love with which Christ loves the Church, you will consciously
desire Pray for and responsibly pursue your wife's spiritual
health and growth in grace. If you are loving your wife with
the sacrificial, purposeful love with which Christ loves the Church,
You will consciously desire. It will be something that enters
your mind. It won't be subliminal. It won't
be something, oh yeah, that's what I, no. You will consciously
desire, and desiring it you'll pray for, and then responsibly
pursue your wife's spiritual health and growth in grace. And in doing that, you will sacrifice
personal interests and activities in order to make time to read
and pray together with your wife. I didn't say you'll find time.
You're never going to find a block of time sitting on the wall,
all dressed up in neon lights and blinking at you, saying,
Hey, hubby, here I am. Use me. to pray, to read the
Word of God or some edifying book with your wife. I'm just
waiting here for you to take me. No, no, it'll never be there. But if you are loving her, you
will be willing to do what you need to do, even in terms of
giving up some of your hobbies. some of your time surfing the
Internet for whatever interest you, I hope, that is noble and
upright, you'll give up some of your toys, some of your avocations,
some of your amusements, because there's a wife that God says,
love her like Christ loved the church. He gave Himself up for
her. He died for her. And if I say
I love her with a love that is prepared to die to protect her,
then surely that love will drive me away from some of my toys,
some of my trinkets, some of my legitimate avocations and
recreations to make time to say, Dear, I am responsible before
God as your loving head. to nurture you, to cherish you,
and to see you grow and develop spiritually. And I'm prepared
to do what I must do that we have such time. It may mean for
those of you with children still at home, for your wife to have
any devotional time at all, you'll have to say, all right, dear,
here's this time in the evening from 7 to 7.30. I'll take over,
do up the dishes, watch the kids. You go shut yourself in the bedroom
and have your own devotions. You'll sacrifice yourself for
her well-being and spiritual maturation. You will lead her
in cultivating a climate of honesty and total transparency in dealing
with each other's sins, each other's deepest thoughts. I'm
amazed how many men live at a surface level with their wives under
oath, and for a million bucks they couldn't tell you what are
the specific sins she's struggling with right now, because you've
not asked You've not made them the subject of your deep concern. You've not said, Dear, what can
I do to help you in your struggle with these sins, with these frustrations,
with these disappointments? Man, we're not loving our wives
as Christ loved. sacrificially and purposely. He envisions what He is going
to make us. You and I need to envision what,
with the blessing of God, we can be instruments to see our
wives become as spiritually mature, increasingly Christlike, godly
women. And there needs to be a climate
established by you as the loving head of the home in which it
is natural to obey James 5.16, confess your sins one to another,
and pray one for another. Do you confess your sins to your
wife? If I were to ask her tonight,
what are your hubby's three or four areas of peculiar struggle? Are you living at that level,
ma'am? Are you living at that level?
I beg you, cut the smoke in the bologna and get on with sitting
there tonight. I fear all too many of you are
not living at that level. Because in my pastoral interactions,
I don't see it coming out either with you or with your wives.
Now, you may keep it well-veiled, and I don't claim to be omniscient.
But I fear altogether too many know nothing of living at that
level. Why? Because you're really not
committed with all your heart to loving your wife with the
sacrificial, purposeful love. As Christ loved the church, you're
concerned for the nourishing and cherishing and health and
well-being of your own physical body. and maybe even for your
spiritual maturation, but what about her? She is your body. What are you doing that evidences
that you are committed with this kind of love? Second application,
if you are loving your wife with the sacrificial, purposeful love
with which Christ loves the Church, you will wisely instruct her
in and lovingly guide her to a cheerful compliance with the
explicit biblical directives to women, to wives, and to mothers. That's a mouthful, but I don't
know how to reduce it. You don't know how much stuff
I white out. You think you get a mouthful? I white out lots
of stuff. Let me give it to you again.
If you're loving your wife, with the sacrificial, purposeful love
with which Christ loves His Church, you will wisely instruct her
in, and lovingly guide her to a cheerful compliance with the
explicit directives of Scripture concerning her duties as a woman,
as a wife, and as a mother. Nowhere does the Bible command
you to rule your wife or to make your wife submit to you. There's
not a command in the Bible addressed to men saying, make your wives
submit to you, because you can't do it. It does command the wives,
submit to your own husbands as unto the Lord. As her appointed head and leader,
as God's appointed prophet to her, to open up the words of
God and to explain them and to lovingly guide her by God's grace
into a cheerful compliance, you have a peculiar responsibility
and privilege to be thoroughly familiar with all of the passages
that say, this is something for women, This is something for
wives. This is something for mothers.
And to monitor how your wife is flowing into the contours
of those explicit directives to women, to wives, and to mothers. For example, in Titus chapter
2, a passage which was opened up very powerfully some months
ago by Pastor McDearman in Our Lady's Retreat, Listen to the
explicit directives. Titus 2.3, that the older women
likewise be reverend in demeanor, not slanderers, not enslaved
to much wine, teachers of that which is good. If you fit that
category of a middle-aged man with a middle-aged to older wife,
here is a specific directive. and you ought to be monitoring
how your wife's conscience and thinking and conduct is forming
itself to the contours of this directive. Does she have the
bearing and demeanor of a mature, godly woman? Is she one who governs
her tongue, a reputation for speaking kindly, for speaking
truthfully, for speaking reservedly, not a slanderer. Does she have
the reputation that she's not enslaved to her physical appetites,
enslaved to much wine? God puts together both the glutton
and the drunkard. She may not be enslaved to wine,
but enslaved to food. Instead of using food as a means
to nourish and strengthen herself, it has become a means to rush
her to an early grave with all of the liabilities of excessive
weight gain. Who is responsible? Well, you
say, that is the job of pastors. Well, yes, they are to expound
the Word and preach the Word, but you as her husband have a
peculiar place in her affections. You have a peculiar intimacy
to observe the patterns of her conduct, and therefore you have
this responsibility, if you love her as yourself, to nourish and
to cherish her with respect to these explicit directives, or
take the directive of 1 Timothy chapter 2. And here again, I want to be
very explicit. Paul gives generic guidance to
the Church about the centrality of prayer in its corporate life,
the scope and basis of that prayer, verses 1 to 7 of chapter 2. Then in chapter 2, verse 8, that
men are to take the lead in that praying. But then verse 9, in
like manner that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel. And where is he talking about?
Well, generically, yes, but according to chapter 3, verses 14 and 15,
specifically behavior in the house of God. Husbands, are you
instructing your wives as to what modest dress is in conjunction
with the public worship? Some of you are dropping the
ball in Trinity Church. Up until five years ago, visitors
who would come among us who had been in a number of churches,
one of the things that would occasionally come up in unsought
compliments and comments was, your women dress so modestly,
not dowdily and frumpily, but modestly. It's no longer that way. We've
got young men whom God has saved out of the world and out of lives
of lechery, and who must live in a world soaked with sexual
innuendo. And they bear their heart to
us as pastors, being tortured with their eyeballs. Some of
the women are single women. And I plan to address a special
meeting of the women of our church in the not-too-distant future
and address the issue particularly for the sake of the single. But
men, men, men, have you forgotten what it is to be a man? What
happens and what's triggered in your mind when you see a woman
with slacks that hug her buns and come around her thighs and
come up in her cots and up with the cracks in her backside? What's
it do to you? And you're going to let your
wife go out of the house and do that to other men? Shame on
you! You're not loving her. You're not nurturing her into
modesty in the house of God. And when you don't tell her,
dear, that blouse Or that shirt comes down too much, you bend
over to pick up a kid in the church and you can see half of
what's there. Modesty. Dear, you can't wear,
even in the hottest time of the summer, those dresses with too
big an arm hole. You go and reach for the hymn
book in the pew and someone without gawking at you can see through
and see your bra and that's a turban. Men, where are you? Where are
you? Soak in these passages and then
sit down with your wife. And I said, lovingly and wisely,
guide her and instruct her and help her to embrace those passages
that specifically address what she is to be as a woman, as a
wife, and as a mother. Third application, if you are
nurturing and cherishing your wife as yourself, now notice
I've moved from nourishing and cherishing her as Christ loved
the church. If you're nourishing and cherishing
your wife as yourself, you will consciously desire, pray for,
and responsibly pursue her emotional and physical well-being. You
will pursue her emotional well-being. Have you ever thought how much
of the fruit of the Spirit is defined in what we may call sanctified
Christ-like emotions? The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace. Long-suffering is not so much
an emotion but a response to things that would otherwise irritate
and get us crotchety and ticked off. Gentleness, The kingdom of God is not eating
and drinking, Paul says, but righteousness, peace and joy
in the Holy Spirit. How much of the health of our
spiritual lives registers in our sanctified, balanced, wholesome,
emotional life? That's your wife. And God says
you are to nourish and cherish her in the totality of her humanity. Concern for her as you are for
yourself. And surely that will mean that
you will consciously desire, pray for, and responsibly pursue
her emotional well-being. If you begin to see a pattern
of a lack of joy, a lack of peace, a lack of gentleness, a lack
of joy in the Holy Spirit, you need to get inside your wife's
head, and by God's grace, inside her heart, and wisely and gently
and lovingly get to the root of what is choking holy emotions
in her. Don't say, Dear, you seem to
have been depressed for the last couple of months. You ought to
go to the doctor and get a bottle. No, no, don't send her to the
doctor for a pill. Sit down as her loving nurturer,
you lover as yourself, and seek to minister and find out what
is the disappointment, what is the frustration, what is the
irritation with you that may be eating at her soul. And because
you've not created a climate of openness and transparency,
it's building up and building up and building up and building
up. Again, I'm appalled at the degree
to which in our churches our women are running to the doctor
for a bottle, not a bottle of booze, but a bottle of pills
to dull the emotions rather than get in touch with the issues
that are grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit, whose fruit
is the holy emotion of joy, whose fruit is the holy emotion of
peace, And then what about her physical
well-being? And here, brethren, God knows everything in me would
like to avoid addressing this, but I've got to go home tonight
and pillow my head with a good conscience. What is the sixth
commandment? The sixth commandment is, you
shall do no murder. The old authorize you shall not
kill. Shorter Catechism. What is required
in the Sixth Commandment? The Sixth Commandment requires
all lawful endeavors to preserve our own life and the life of
others. That's what that commandment
requires. All lawful endeavors to preserve
our own life and the life of others. And what is forbidden
in the Sixth Commandment? The Sixth Commandment forbids
the taking away of our own life, or the life of our neighbor unjustly,
or whatsoever tends thereunto. Do you get the emphasis? The Sixth Commandment, the sanctity
of life, requires all lawful endeavors to preserve our life
and the life of others, and certainly our most significant other, our
wives. And what is forbidden is forbids
the taking away of our own life, suicide, or the life of our neighbor
unjustly. I may be a law officer who justly
can take the life of another, or whatsoever tends thereunto."
In other words, whatever contributes to an unnecessary debilitation
of life and health is forbidden by the Sixth Commandment. Now, let me ask a question. Suppose
you began to notice your wife dropping weight continually. One week, two weeks, three, four,
five, six weeks. Her clothes are hanging on her.
They're draping. Rather than wearing them, they're
draped on her. You see her skipping meals. She
came into the bathroom once or twice and found her with her
finger down her throat, forced vomiting her food. You notice
in the medicine chest extra boxes and bottles of laxatives. If
she's not menopausal, she's begun to skip her periods. You see all the signs that she's
anorexic. Not only do you see them, her
neighbors see them. When she comes to church, everyone
sees it. What would people have a right
to think of you if you did nothing about it? They come to you and say, John,
what's wrong with your wife? Well, I don't know. She just
seems to be losing weight, and doesn't look the best, and she
doesn't feel the best, and I know her periods are irregular, and
I've seen her do a few funny things, but you know, she answers
to the Lord, and come on, man, what would you think of John,
if that's the way he responds? He'd say, does he have an ounce
of love for that woman? Does he have any love for her?
If he did, would not his passion for her well-being cause him
to step in and say, dear, you are killing yourself. You are
breaking the sixth commandment. I am your husband. I'm to love
you as my own flesh. I can't let you do this to my
flesh. Dear, we're going to deal with
this. What is it that's creating this
desire of self-destruction and this pattern? And you seek to
get at the bottom of it. You make an appointment to come
to a pastor. He then suggests you've got to get her to a doctor
and we've got to deal with this and this, etc. But if you did
nothing, anyone would have every right to think you had no genuine
love for your wife. I think I've carried the conscience
of every single one of you. Now let's switch the scene. You
see your wife over a period of months or years, piling on, piling
on. Clothes no longer fit. She's
got to get new ones. And after a while, they no longer
fit. She can no longer find clothes
that drape the accumulation of the excess weight. With it, possibly
she's pre-diabetic now. may be begun to have some indications
of heart problems. The medical indications of the
debilitating influence of obesity are incontrovertible. And it's a national epidemic. And God says, Husbands, love
your wives as your own bodies. And what are you doing? about
it. I'm not talking about yourself. Some of you have business with
yourself. I'm talking about your wife,
about your wife. Knowing that this is something
that tends there unto, that is the destruction of life, can
you say you love her as yourself? And do not seek to lovingly,
wisely get into her conscience that something needs to be done
and that you're prepared to do whatever must be done in order
to get it done. If it means you go to a doctor
whose specialty is helping people with serious weight problems,
If it means that you fork out the money to get her enrolled
in Weight Watchers or some other accountability control group,
you say before God, dear, I love you too much to let you break
the Sixth Commandment. I love you too much. to see you
making yourself vulnerable to unnecessary physical problems,
diseases, and debilitating influences. I cannot, with a good conscience,
allow this to go on. Ah, but you see, Pastor, it's
the medicine she's on. Folks, I've had to take a lot
of medicines over the year, and a whole bottle full of the pills
doesn't weigh two ounces. It ain't the medicine she's taking.
Ah, but you say it affects her metabolism. Yes, it may, which
means she's just got to reckon with the formula. What goes in
minus what goes out minus what's burned up stays on. You can't argue with it. That's
a physiological reality. Now, for some people, the factory
or the furnace that burns works more efficiently than others.
I have a very inefficient burner factory. And my wife said, dear,
when you're touching this tonight, tell the men that she's amazed
that I eat at times less than that little woman eats. And at
times, very little more, because if I eat more, even in spite
of exercise, what goes in minus what goes out minus what's burned
out goes right on here. And all the medical indications
of belly fat is that it's the worst kind of fat. And how can
I say, Lord, I want to be used of you to an optimum length of
time, with optimum strength and health, and then be indifferent
to what goes on? I'm mocking God in my prayer. And how can I pray, O God, if
it please You, give my wife length of days that we may serve You
together, that we may minister to the younger ones in the family
of God, that we may minister to our grandchildren and our
great-grandchildren, and may not use the means ordained by
God to pursue length of days, which is a moderate, intelligent,
self-controlled, relationship to what goes in, what goes out,
and what's burned up. Simple. Ah, but with the menopause,
listen, people have gone through the menopause for millennia. So it means you've got to adjust
what goes in. I see some of these young bucks
we have over for a meal, and I watch what they can eat and
still stay in shape, and I have to fight breaking the Tenth Commandment. I do. One helping, two helpings,
three helpings. I say, it must be nice. And then
I think back. I remember when it was that way.
So I got to be about 32, 33. And then all the conditioning
of years as an athlete were burned up and used up. And then I had
to take myself by the back of the neck and the seat of the
pants and say, you've got to start exercising regularly. And at
age 73, come Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, this week it was Wednesday
and Friday, I take myself by the back of the neck to see to
the pants and put myself down on that treadmill. Why? Because what goes in minus
what goes out minus what's burned up stays on. And if I don't stoke
my burner with some good cardiovascular exercise, that's one of the reasons
we're doing it, to stoke my burner, as well as to condition my ticker,
so when I get worked up like this in preaching, I don't keel
over and have a heart attack and die in front of you. Push
that thing up to 135, 140 beats, it's resting at 58. That's not
too bad for an old man. But it didn't happen that way
by genetics alone. My brethren, am I getting inside
your conscience? If you're nurturing her and cherishing
her, then as difficult as it may be, as many times as she
may have taught you in this matter, you must say before God, I have
my commission from my Savior, that I am to love you with a
nourishing and cherishing love, and I cannot sit idly by. I can no longer listen to the
rationalizing. I can no longer listen to the
excuses, dear. We're going to see this dealt
with by the grace of God. Will you fight, my love, or will
you let me love you in this way? Brethren, if we're nourishing
and cherishing our wives, We will consciously desire, pray
for, and responsibly pursue not only her spiritual growth and
maturation, but her emotional and physical well-being. Then
very quickly, very quickly, let's turn to 1 Peter 3.7. All right? I've been giving from quarter
after nine. I assure you by the time the clock hits there, I'll
be done. All right? 1 Peter 3.7, much
more briefly, just one text of Scripture. Here's the second
of the major commands to husbands. You husbands, in like manner,
dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor to
the woman as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint heirs
of the grace of life, to the end that your prayers be not
hindered. Here's the second command, love
your wives, dwell with your wife according to knowledge. Let's
look at three aspects of this text. No, yes, three aspects. Number one, the duty demanded.
What is it? It's a present participle which
some Greek scholars say has the full force of an imperative.
So we can say it is a duty demanded. And what is it? Well, it may
well be paraphrased this way. Husbands, dwell with your wives
in an understanding way. That is, live with them in a
context of understanding who and what she is as a woman, generically,
and who and what she is as your woman, specifically and particularly. Dwell with her in an understanding
way. Live with her. Live with her
in a context of understanding who and what she is as a woman
generically and as your woman specifically. The accompaniment
of the duty, that's the second thing in the text. Look at it.
Giving honor unto her in two ways. giving honor to her as
unto the weaker vessel, and giving honor to her as a joint participant
of spiritual privileges in Christ. Giving honor to her as unto the
weaker vessel. The implication is we're all
weak. She's a bit weaker. We're all of the dust, and we're
going back to the dust. We're all weak, but she's the
weaker vessel. In what way? Well, obviously,
generally as a whole, physically. Possibly, from other passages
of Scripture, in her vulnerability to the devil's wiles. There's
a possibility that Paul is alluding to that in 1 Timothy chapter
2. But whatever the weaker state
is, it's not to provoke irritation and disgust or taking advantage,
but it's to produce honor and esteem for her, for who made
her the weaker vessel? God did. Give honor to God's
creation, the woman made as a helper to and for the man. vulnerable
in that she's commanded to be submissive to the man. We are
not to demean her, take advantage, run over her because she is the
weaker vessel, but dwelling with her according to knowledge, the
accompaniment of that duty is honor her as the weaker vessel,
and then secondly, honor her as a joint participant in spiritual
privileges. Look at the text. as being also,
not only the weaker vessel, but as being also joint heirs of
the grace of life. the privileges that are ours
because of God's grace in Jesus Christ, eternal life possessed
now, extending into the age to come, the gift of the Spirit,
the status of an adopted son and daughter, justified in the
court of heaven. All of these privileges, she
has them all in equal measure with me. I must honor her. Look
at the honor God put upon her. He's justified her with the same
justification with which He's justified me. He's adopted her
in the same manner He's adopted me. He's given her the Spirit
as He's given me the Spirit. He has pledged to keep her and
to bring her at last home to Himself. So the duty demanded
dwell with her in an understanding way, the accompaniment of the
duty, giving honor in two directions, as weaker vessel, as joint participant,
and then the result of failure to fulfill the duty with its
accompaniments? What's the result? Your prayers
will be hindered. Peter really hangs this sword
over these men. He said, look, some of you say,
I don't have time to really get inside her skin and understand
what she is as a woman in general and wherein she differs from
a man. And certainly I don't have time to get into her mind
and into her psyche and try to see what influence is shaped
and molded in her background, in her training, in her gene
pool and all the rest. I don't have time for that. Woman,
fix the meal and when I've read my paper and it's time to go
to bed, let's snuggle and snore. No, no. You get that attitude.
You know what God says? You get on your knees to try
to pray the next day and the heavens will be brass. Your prayers
will be hindered. And when your prayers are hindered,
you've got the nerve of spiritual life and power and vigor. And
if you're a true Christian, that will scare the wits out of you.
If God threatens me that the conduit to heaven by which I
embrace heaven and heaven comes down to me, that that will be
severed, that is enough to make you say, Lord, knock this bull-headed,
insensitive, boorish junk out of my soul and help me to be
determined to dwell with my wife in an understanding way. Let me quote one of the commentators
that I found helpful. I do have time to do it. So concerned
is God that Christian husbands live in an understanding and
loving way with their wives that he interrupts his relationship
with them when they're not doing it. No Christian husband should
presume to think that any spiritual good will be accomplished by
his life. without an effective ministry
of prayer. And no husband may expect an
effective prayer life unless he lives with his wife in an
understanding way, bestowing honor on her. To take the time
to develop and maintain a good marriage is God's will. It is
serving God. It is a spiritual activity pleasing
in His sight. Now then, let me close with two
applications growing out of this text. Number one, the duty demands
that we make time to be with our wives in order to establish
a context in which we can truly know our wives. You can't know
them unless you're with them. So the duty demands that you
and I, as husbands, since this is our duty, take the initiative
in cooperation with our wives to establish the times when the
two of us will be in a setting where we can get to know one
another and where especially I can increase my understanding
of my wife. You see, the whole deal started
with the two of you. And then the children came, and
then household cares, and provision, and all of these things that
grew out of the two of you starting together can crowd out the togetherness. And you're two strangers living
under the same roof, sleeping in the same bed, producing more
kids, but you don't know one another. You don't know one another. So if you men are committed to
this duty, you're going to say, go home tonight and say, dear
God, sock me between the eyeballs. I've been boorish, I've been
insensitive, and by God's grace, I'm starting to repent, and I
want you to know I mean business. And one of the things we've got
to do next week is sit down and get out of this rat race of activity
and family concerns that we have no time to be together in any
meaningful way. Secondly, the duty demands that
we make a conscious effort to understand wherein women are
different from men in general, and wherein your woman, in particular,
is different from other women. Now, I'm not a fan of the play
My Fair Lady, but I do know about a song in there in which Higgins
gets frustrated, and the song is, Why Can't a Woman Be Like
a Man? And he repeats it over and over,
Why can't a woman be like a man? Rex Harrison. Well, the simple
reason is God didn't make her that way. He didn't make her that way.
No, you'd think it'd be a lot simpler. I got news for you.
It'd be the most boring thing in the world if she was nothing
but the mirror image of you. Boring, boring, boring, boring. She answers to you but she's
not you. She is a woman. And if you're
to dwell with her in an understanding way, you're going to have to
search the Scriptures. Lord, teach me, where did you
intend women should be different preachers than men are? Lord, help me to understand.
It may be you need some guidance in some good books in which men
have wrestled with the Scriptures and out of the matrix of the
knowledge of the Word of God, they have helped to bring together
the biblical truths. For example, Betty Elliot's marvelous
two books, one the mark of a man and the other one, let me be
a woman, letters to her daughter. She gets inside the soul of what
a woman is by God's creative activity and as a result of the
fall as well and as a result of redemptive grace. And you
could do well to read that book, letters written to her own daughter
that will help you to understand who your wife is as a woman. as a woman created, a woman fallen,
a woman redeemed, a woman formed by her family and her life experience. I want to give a little bit of
personal testimony here. I take liberties in these retreats
that I wouldn't in the normal pulpit ministry. I hope they're
not offensive. If someone were to ask me what
were the things that attracted you to Dorothy, my second wife,
many things, but one of the things was this. I soon discovered in
courting her, very early, that along with Marilyn, there was
a baseline similarity. And that similarity was they
were both mature, godly, gracious ladies. Women of great stature. But I soon discovered that overlaid
upon that common denominator were two totally different women.
Any of you who knew Marilyn know that Dorothy is totally different
in her styles, in her taste in clothes, totally different in
her visible personality. And that was one of the things
that attracted me because I said, Lord, I don't want to coast.
I'm 72 years old, and I don't want to just put the floppy disk
in that has encoded on it all that I knew about Marilyn as
a woman, specifically and generically. and just say, oh good, I can
just apply all that. I wanted the challenge of having
to start all over again with dwelling with this woman according
to knowledge. And it's been a wonderful challenge.
It stretched me. It's driven me to my knees. It's brought me to great thanksgiving
to God. I'm not exempt. I started all
over. I'm just a pup in this new marriage.
We've been married year and a half, after 48 years with one woman,
still getting to know her, only beginning to plumb the depths.
Just a little aside, that's what makes interpersonal relationships
in heaven marvelous. You'd think after 48 years, I
knew everything about her. No, no, no. I had only begun
to plumb the depths of her soul. How much more, the infinite God,
He'll unfold more and more of Himself, eon upon eon, and never
exhaust it. And as we get to know one another,
we'll never exhaust, because God will be pouring in more and
more, expanding our minds and our capacities. We'll be perfect,
but not fully developed. And development will go on through
the ages. But see, God wants us to get
a little taste of that in our marriages now. Dwell with your
wife in an understanding way. Accept the challenge, man. I
want to get inside her soul, her mind, her psyche. I want
to know her that I may then relate to her in sacrificial, self-giving,
purposeful love to see her become all that by God's grace she can
become in this life while she awaits God's finishing touches
at her death or at the Lord's return. Well, brethren, when
we look at these two commands, love your wives as Christ, as
yourself. Dwell with your wives according
to knowledge, giving honor as weaker vessel, as joint participant
in spiritual gifts and graces. If you're thinking it all, the
words of Paul are coming to your mind. Who is sufficient for these
things? Well, I hope Paul's further words
come to your mind. We are not sufficient of ourselves
to think anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God
who has made us able. In Paul's case, it was able ministers
of the New Covenant. In our cases, husbands, able
husbands. because this entire passage was
introduced by the command, don't be drunk with wine, but be being
filled with the Spirit. And then he moves into wives
and husbands. The answer, my brethren, is not
in ourselves. It's not in going to a seminar
on how to have a happy, clappy marriage. It's taking these standards
and saying, Lord, this is beyond me and myself. But I am not only
who I am in myself, I'm in Christ. And in Christ you have blessed
me with every spiritual blessing, and I am complete in Him. And
of His fullness I may draw, by faith, in dependence upon your
grace and the power of your Holy Spirit. So that we can say with
Paul, I can do. He's bragging, but he says I
can do all things in Him who strengthens me. So that every
pointer to the duty points beyond the duty. to the grace of God
in Jesus Christ. God is not like the taskmasters
in Egypt, telling you, make bricks, but I won't give you any straw.
Ephesians 1, 2, and 3 is the pile of straw. God says, make
bricks with what I've given you. What you are and have in Christ
is the basis of what I call you to be and to do for Christ and
to the praise of Christ. Well, may God help us then, my
brothers, as we have come into contact afresh with God's holy
word, the Christian man with his wife. I trust there will
be many wives who, in the days to come, will find themselves
naturally praying, O God, thank you for what you did with that
klutz of a husband of mine during those days. of the ministry of
the Word of God. Will you give your wife fuel
for praise as a result? You single guys, will you give
your future brides grounds for praise? That if I'm still around
in this earth, that they'll come and say, Pastor Martin, thank
you for beating up on old Courtney. I got some good stuff out of
that. Yeah. Let that be your standard,
you single men. Lord, so deal with me. that there'll
be a woman somewhere that'll bless you, that she got a man
committed to love her as Christ loved the church and to dwell
with her in an understanding way. Let's pray. Father, we're so thankful that
we have your Word as a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. We thank you for the presence
of your grace and spirit as we've sought to wrestle together with
that word. We pray that you will take that
word in its application and may it bear fruit in all of our lives
to the praise of your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.