The Christian Man With His Wife

The Foundational Presupposition: The Christian Man

0:09 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.

1:25 When our brother Leslie stood, his fundamental presupposition is that our deaf brethren understand America. That's 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.

2:04 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.

2:46 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,

4:05 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, Paul did not forget what he taught 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 and 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, with Jesus Christ. And then he goes on to delineate many of those blessings,

5:32 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, you are 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.

6:58 But he assumes that what he had written in chapters 1 and 2 and 3, the earlier parts, 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.

7:27 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 has 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.

Why Salvation is Essential for Obedience

8:02 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.

9:25 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.

10:01 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 purpose. 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.

10:38 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.

11:03 Or only those who have experienced God's salvation. Is it true of what, 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

12:32 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 take 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.

12:57 I don't have four or five neat little suggestions that will 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.

The Call to Sincere Obedience for Believers

14:08 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 Word, 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,

15:37 applied experience of the positions 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.

16:19 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're not yet able to say with Paul, I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. Or perhaps there's 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.

17:00 Or 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.

17:39 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 Two Core Commands for Husbands

17:51 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.

19:19 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.

19:49 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 stain 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.

Command 1: Love Your Wife as Christ Loved the Church and as Your Own Body

20:33 Let's turn together, then, to the first of these directives to husbands in Ephesians, 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.

20:58 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.

21:12 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, the 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.

22:29 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?

22:54 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.

23:15 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.

23:38 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.

24:00 He gave the ultimate sacrifice and squeezed into those words, gave himself up for it. Up for it is all the detailed narrative of Gethsemane, seeing 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.

24:36 He rose. He fell. He rose. He burst blood vessels in his brow and sweat as it were, great drops of blood.

24:46 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, warranted trauma.

25:10 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.

25:55 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.

26:40 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.

27:35 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.

28:09 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.

28:33 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, which is one with him.

29:07 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.

30:12 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 harks back to Genesis chapter 2.

30:48 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!

31:14 She is myself, 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 loves us. And secondly,

Application 1: Pursue Her Spiritual Health and Growth

32:34 to love our wives as our own mothers. 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.

32:54 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.

34:19 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 interests you.

34:49 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, 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.

36:13 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 her.

36:52 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? Men, we're not loving our wives as Christ loved sacrificially and purposefully. He envisions what He's going to make us.

37:17 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 Christly, just like 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?

37:51 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, men? Are you living at that level? I beg you, cut the smoke in the bologna and get on this sitting there tonight.

38:10 I fear all too many of you and you're 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 a sacrificial, purposeful love.

38:44 As Christ loved the church, your concern 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.

Application 2: Wisely Instruct and Guide Her in Biblical Womanhood

39:02 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.

39:42 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.

40:14 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.

40:32 Submit to your own husbands as unto the Lord. However, 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 we read was opened up very powerfully some months ago by Pastor McBearman in our ladies' retreat. Listen to the explicit directives. Titus 2, 3.

41:45 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?

42:25 Is she one who governs her tongue, a reputation for speaking clearly, 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.

42:58 Instead of using food as a means to nourish and strengthen herself, it's 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's the job of pastors. Well, yes, they're to expound the Word and preach the Word.

43:20 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.

43:46 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.

44:18 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.

44:48 Up until five years ago, visitors who would come among us who'd 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.

45:21 And they bare 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?

45:46 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!

46:12 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.

46:36 Dear, you can't wear, even in the hottest time of the summer, those dresses with too big an armhole. You go and reach for the hymn book in the pew and someone without balking at you can see through and see your bra and that's a turban! Men, where are you? Where are you?

47:00 ...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.

Application 3: Pursue Her Emotional and Physical Well-being

47:26 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.

47:58 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, and peace. Longsuffering is not so much an emotion but a response to things that would otherwise irritate and get us crotchety and ticked off. Gentleness.

48:31 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.

49:04 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.

49:56 Sit down as her loving nurturer. You love her 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?

51:16 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.

51:39 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 there unto.

52:04 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 there unto. 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.

53:11 They're draping. Rather than wearing them, they're draped on her. You see her skipping meals. You came into the bathroom once or twice and found her with her finger down her throat, forced vomiting her food.

53:26 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.

53:48 When she comes to church, everyone sees it. What would people have a right to think of you if you did nothing about it? And they come to you and say, John, what's wrong with your wife? Well, I don't know.

54:10 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 regular and I've seen her do a few funny things. But, you know, she answers to the Lord and, come on, men, 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?

54:34 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.

54:52 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?

55:08 You make an appointment to come to a pastor. He then says, I suggest you've got to get her to a doctor and we've got to deal with this and this, et cetera. 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.

55:32 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 has 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.

55:58 With it, possibly she's pre-diabetic now, maybe 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.

56:28 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.

56:48 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.

57:11 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.

57:47 I cannot with a good conscience allow this to go on. Ah, but you say pastor, it's the medicine she's on. Folks, I've had to take a lot of medicines over the year and the whole bottle full of the pills doesn't weigh two ounces. It ain't the medicine she's taking.

58:10 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 out stays on.

58:27 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.

58:45 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?

59:29 I'm mocking God in my prayers. And how can I pray oh 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 then 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.

60:14 Oh 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.

60:38 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 thirty-two thirty-three 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 be you've got to start exercising regularly. And at age seventy-three come Tuesday Thursday Saturday this week it was Wednesday and Friday I take myself by the back of the neck the seat of 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 for 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 a hundred and thirty-five hundred and forty beats it's resting at fifty-eight.

61:56 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'm to love you with a nourishing and cherishing love and I cannot sit idly by.

Command 2: Dwell with Your Wife According to Knowledge

62:34 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 alright I've been given to quarter after nine I assure you by the time the clock hits there I'll be done alright 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 excuse me be not hindered here's the second command

64:03 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 women to 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

65:30 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 first Timothy chapter two 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

67:00 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 accompaniment what's the result your prayers will be hindered Peter really hangs this sword

68:29 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 mold her 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's enough to make you say Lord knock this bull-headed insensitive boorish junk out of my soul and help me to live and help me to be determined to dwell with my wife in an understanding way now let me quote

Applications of Dwelling According to Knowledge

69:58 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

71:25 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 go out of the two of you starting together can crowd out the togetherness and your 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 foolish 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

72:53 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

73:19 no you think it'd be a lot 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 creatures than men are Lord help me 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 she gets inside the soul of what a woman is by God's creative activity 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 want to give

74:48 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

76:17 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 a 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 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 well see God wants us to that in our marriages now dwell with your wife in an understanding way accept the challenge men 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

77:46 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 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 at 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 case is 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

Concluding Exhortation and Prayer

79:16 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 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

80:44 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 oh God thank you for what you did with that woman 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 you single men Lord so deal with me that there will be a woman somewhere that will 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 word we pray that you will take that word in its application and may it bear fruit in all of our

82:13 lives to the praise of your glory in Jesus name Amen