Husbands and Wives Before God #4

Introduction: Shifting from Didactic to Practical Helps

0:01 The following message was delivered at the 1992 New England Reformed Baptist Family Conference.

0:09 Now as we come to this, our final study in the subject assigned to me, namely, Husbands and Wives Before God, let me simply remind you where we have been in our three previous studies. Determining to focus primarily on Ephesians 5, 22 to 33, our opening message was an attempt to equip us to handle this pivotal passage in a responsible, accurate, and balanced manner. That was my primary goal, and from the encouraging feedback from not a few of you, I have reason to believe, at least in some measure, that goal has been realized. Then, in our next two messages, we sought to expound the fundamental content of that passage under a similar outline. I sought in the second message to identify the primary duty of wives, and in the third, the primary duty of husbands, and then in both messages to examine the qualifying aspects of the primary duty of the wife and of the husband, and then to make some concluding observations and applications. Now, obviously, I was prioritizing, primarily didactic as opposed to hortatory in my ministry.

1:34 I was teaching more than I was preaching insofar as the Bible makes that distinction. Now, in this last session, I will switch to the role of spiritual physician, exhorter, and preacher as we take up this subject of practical helps and common hindrances to the implementation, of two duties of husbands and wives as set before us in Ephesians 5.22-33. In other words, if I have fulfilled the purpose of Scripture in 2 Timothy 3.16a, in the previous messages, all Scripture is God-breathed then profitable for teaching having sought to lay out the teaching of the passage, Having sought to lay out the teaching of the passage, I now want to concentrate more upon reproof, correction, and training in righteousness with reference to the duties established by a more heavily didactic or instructive ministry. And I shall attempt to do so within the time slot under three headings. First of all, hindrances and practical helps common to husbands and wives.

2:57 Secondly, hindrances and practical helps peculiar to wives. And thirdly, hindrances and practical helps common to husbands. And I think it's the second and third point that's reversed. I'm going to take on the matter of the husbands first and then the wives if I didn't state it in that way.

Hindrances and Helps Common to Husbands and Wives

3:19 First of all then, hindrances and practical helps common to husbands and wives. And I'm very confident...

3:27 I'm very conscious as I take up this subject that my perspectives are shaped by my own experience as a husband. My own experience is shaped by some 40 years of varying degrees of pastoral and spiritual responsibility and leadership and interaction with people. And I know that some of you are sitting there hoping that at last a preacher will scratch where you itch. And I realize...

3:57 I may send you away disappointed. As disappointed as when you're saying to your wife, Honey, honey, please scratch me between the shoulder blades. No, no, up a little, down a little, east a little. No, you still don't have it.

4:08 Ah, you finally got it. And that sense of relief when you're giving verbal directions to that one spot you can't reach and you don't have one of those grotesque looking...

4:19 They look like a shrunken hand, a bamboo back scratcher. Well, I know some of you may go away and...

4:27 They feel that I never nailed the scratch right on the money. I'm sorry. I really mean that. I don't say that tongue-in-cheek.

4:34 I don't say it as a matter of humor. I say it conscious that some of you are going to go away pained. But what can I do? I'm neither omniscient nor ubiquitous to be where you are when you leave this place to try to address your concern.

4:52 But I do trust that many of you will find that these four... hindrances and practical helps common to husbands and wives do indeed at least scratch you in some of the places where you itch.

Hindrance 1: Single or Joint Spiritually Dead Condition

5:07 So let's dive right into them then. Number one, the hindrances arising from a single or joint spiritually dead condition. There are great hindrances in pursuing Ephesians 5, 22 to 33 in any practical viable...

5:27 manner in many a marriage because the hindrances arise from a single or joint spiritually dead condition. We have seen throughout our entire study of Ephesians chapter 5 that it drips with the realities of new covenant salvation. And I have sought to emphasize in the exposition that Paul assumes...

5:57 that all of his readers are within the orbit of gospel dynamics. They have experienced quickening grace, chapter 2. They have experienced the sealing of the spirit, chapter 1 and chapter 4. They have been risen to raise to newness of life in Christ.

6:20 He assumes that their hearts feel the pressure of gospel motives. When he exhorts them...

6:27 with reference to the death of Christ, the love of Christ, the gift of the spirit, the sealing of the spirit, he assumes that they are excessively vulnerable to feel the pressure of gospel motives. Furthermore, he assumes that their minds, their categories of thought are under a constant and radical impression of gospel truth. So when he says, as Christ loved, he doesn't stop to expand upon the doctrine of Christ's love. He assumes it is a truth both known, understood insofar as we can understand the unfathomable and known by his listeners. Now, that being so, when we seek to implement Ephesians 5, 22 to 33, if either one of the partners is spiritually dead, if either one of the partners is spiritually dead, if either one of the partners is spiritually dead, if either one of the partners is spiritually dead, if either one of the partners is spiritually dead, you're going to have big, bad problems. If both are spiritually dead, you're going to have bigger, badder problems, if you may excuse my poor English. And so this is one of the great hindrances to the implementation of the directives of Ephesians 5, the hindrance arising from a single or joint spiritually dead condition.

7:54 But the Bible is a realistic book, and it recognizes that the Bible is a realistic book, and it recognizes in a fundamental parallel passage that even where one member of the marriage partnership is spiritually dead, the basic canons of directive to the wives are the same. And I refer, of course, to 1 Peter 3, verses 1 through 6. And for those of you who have unconverted spouses, you ought to soak your souls continually, in at least three portions of the Word of God. 1 Corinthians 7, 12 to 24, written explicitly for you.

8:37 1 Peter 3, verses 1 to 6, written explicitly for you. And 2 Corinthians 12, 8 to 10, written inferentially for anyone who must live with a constant stake in his or her flesh, which seems to make the marriage a sin. And 3 Corinthians 7, verses 1 to 10, written explicitly for you. And into every such situation, God says, as He said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for you.

9:11 My strength is made perfect in weakness. Now listen to me. Most gladly, therefore, will I moan and complain and spend hours on the telephone about my foreign flesh. I.e., my spiritually dead spouse.

9:32 That's the way some of you read it, and that's why you make no progress in Ephesians 5. Paul said, Most gladly, therefore, I glory in firmity that the power of Christ may rest upon me, for when I am weak, then am I strong. And there are living monuments in this building of women. I don't know personally of any men, but of women, I do know, who have taken this stake, in their flesh, of the burden of a spiritually dead spouse, and instead of groaning and complaining and burning up the telephone wires of Christ's power, may weakness go thou and do likewise. Stop this incessant...

10:29 As though that situation caught God by surprise. It's a denigration of the power of Christ. It casts the Christians upon the grace of Christ. Now am I saying, you should have no unusually intimate confidants who can bear your burden and fulfill the law of Christ?

10:52 No. And don't go out saying, Pastor Martin was insensitive. What the...

10:57 My friend, don't do that. That just proves that I've nailed you where you needed to be nailed. That's not what I said. I said this incessant calling on the phone every time someone's with you complaining of how hard you have it, what a burden it is to live with that unconverted wretch of a woman or a man.

11:18 And I said, that is not what God tells you in 1 Corinthians 7 or in 1 Peter 3.

11:27 That's what I'm addressing.

11:31 And I would never want to cut you off from the wonderful means of grace of that inner circle of confidants who, when the pressure becomes so great, even our Lord Jesus felt the need of human companionship in the face of impending, crushing burden and said to three of his creatures, will you not watch with me this one hour?

11:59 That's a great hindrance. A single or a joint, spiritually dead condition. I've addressed the single. What about the joint?

12:08 Now hear me carefully. And this is where in recent days I've crossed a line with our own people in Trinity Church.

12:16 We have couples who have gone through three, four regimens, of pastoral counseling, have received the different emphases and perspectives of the different elders and their marriages, like that woman with the issue of blood are not one whit better. And instead of saying they have spent all their money on the physicians, we have spent all our time on the patients. And it's evident that they lack either the will or the birth to change. And according to my Bible, the man or the woman who lacks either the will or the power to change into biblical norms is lost and unconverted.

13:04 For my Bible says he works for his good pleasure. And if you do not have a funk to take it as a husband or wife and say, oh God, though it seems galaxies away from my experience with increasing efficiency and whole-souled engagement of my redeemed humanity, what? What you have said is true. I...

13:42 And if you don't have a fundamental set of the will to do the will of God,

13:50 if you say you have the will but there's no power to perform, my Bible says he works in his own not only to will, but to... for his good pleasure.

14:03 We and shit created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works. And could it be that I'm speaking to some couples today, the real problem with...

14:16 or marriage is not that you haven't yet found the right book, gone to the right conference, heard the right speaker, listened to the right series of tapes, you're strangers to the blessings of the salvation expounded throughout this week, and it's high time you faced it. And just like the man who can blether about his love of Jesus and his knowledge of Jesus and all his Christian experience and attends church regularly, but is chained, into his bottle, we know from scripture he's unconverted, for no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven. The signal of converted is that before all the light of Ephesians 5 that some of you've had for years, your marriage is no closer to it now than it was 10 years ago. In fact, it's further away. You better face the fact that it's probably an indication you're unconverted. Jesus Christ does not have perpetual disappointment with reference to the thing he died to have.

15:23 His intercession is not perpetually ineffectual. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not perpetually ineffectual. I know there are varying degrees of intensity in the set of the will to pursue the will of God. I know that from scripture and living with my own heart and living with others.

15:45 I know that there are differing measures of power. There is no will. There is no life. Face up to it and seek the Lord while he may be found.

16:00 Call upon him while he may be found and say, Oh God, my rotten, stinking, non-Ephesians 5, 22 to 33 marriage is the living monument that there's no grace in my home. That's the hindrance and the practical help. Number one, applying to husbands and wives. Hindrance and practical help number two, applying to husbands and wives.

Hindrance 2: Single or Joint Spiritually Dull Condition

16:27 And wives jointly is the hindrance arising from a single or a joint spiritually dull condition. It's one thing to be spiritually dead. It's another thing to be spiritually dull. And the word of God teaches that people who are alive in Christ can become spiritually dumb in their walk with Christ.

16:52 Remember Hebrews chapter five, you have become dull of hearing. You know anything of what the scripture speaks about about a dulled and the seared and the bloodied conscience of dulled or a hardened heart, a partial hardening of heart among the believers. Psalm 51 is a commentary on a man entered a state of spiritual dullness because of specific and aggravated sins. However, dullness can come in perceptibly as it did with the Ephesians.

17:31 Revelation 2, there was a gradual, almost imperceptible waning of their first love. Ephesians, Revelation 2, 4, I have this against thee. Thou has left thy first love. There can be the dullness of Revelation 3, one spoken up to the church at Sardis.

17:51 I have found none of thy works complete, full before God. There was the dullness of half-hearted performance of Christ mandated. There was the dullness of half-hearted performance of Christ manually and immodestly. A man entered through the door of the house of the Lord.

18:08 This is the sign that the God of God is the God of the world. And here was the dullness of God. He stepped up and shouted, the devil of God. The devil of God has said, you're going to play you down.

18:25 And he said to him, the devil said to me, where am I going to play you down? He said you're going to play your down. bible reading daily prayer alone if you neglect to pray together i'm amazed i used to take for granted christian couples especially with problems would be praying together about them i don't assume it anymore and the first question one of the first questions i ask when a couple comes in who've got problems is do you pray together and 99 times out of 100 they don't pray together and if they just get on their knees and the old buzzard would humble himself enough to let his wife hear him say oh god i'm a stinking rotten husband and the woman kneeling next to me she'd think she'd died and gone to heaven to hear anything like that come out of the lips of some of you or for a man to hear his wife say oh god i've been an insubmissive headstrong fear i've not rendered to my husband that reverence due to him i've had my you words and my flashy eyes and my demeanor and bearing that's been that of a wild

19:40 filly with her head thrown back saying no bit will touch my mouth oh god forgive me that might be the beginning just the simple means of grace of praying together it's one of the things over the years that has been precious in my own relationship with my wife we have a funny little ritual where i kneel next to her and she sits on the couch when we pray you say why did she sit and you kneel well that's a long story but it's part of our ritual and i hold her hand and i tell you if there's the slightest burr in our relationship i feel filthy even to take her hand let alone to come into the presence of god so it means we have a daily judgment seat taking her hand and coming into the presence of god and her letting me take her hand if i find her hand fishy toward me i say what's troubling you dear that's her signal and we get it sorted out and then with one heart we come into the presence of god you see you expected something magical and something exotic didn't you and you'll go running around to all the christian bookstores saying oh what's the latest book what's swindoll saying what's macarthur saying what's up no no you don't need some new light friend you need dealings with god at the throne of grace you're spiritually dull because you've left off the means of grace of individual and joint prayer you've left off just reading

21:07 this pasage together and was judgment they almost the same time that says that i was where do you see me loving you as price love the church we're do you see not level and being mad enough to keep the mouth shut the students using in justifying and rationalizing when she leaves it on the truth fully and vice versa there was a white sheep hit you work needing to deal as the church is connected to dr where do yunga up see me and then ask god to give you grace to hold back the floodgates because most men are still intimidated by a woman's tears and don't don't use your tears to wear them down women that's a powerful weapon save those for special times pray god to give you grace to speak firmly honestly straightforwardly use the means of grace the second great hindrance among couples single or jointly is spiritually dull a spiritually dull condition and i say by way of application become to each other a watchdog about your devotional life ask your wife honey where are you in your devotions you don't come around like sherlock holmes with a magnifying glass making

22:31 an inquisition every day you can do it sweetly and see her at supper time or some of us who have the privilege of seeing our wives throughout the day was there something that was particularly helpful to you in your devotions this morning dear i'm assuming she had them if she has and she says you know honey three phone calls came through i had to keep that appointment at 10. i've not had my time alone with god but i'm purposing to have it at such and such a time check up on me and make sure that i do you see couples really do that well i know at least one couple that does i can't speak for couples in the plural but i can speak truthfully in the presence of god i know a couple that does that and i know a wife who if she sneaks up into my study ostensibly of course to bring me another cup of coffee and she sees that i'm at my desk when i should be at my devotional chair you see i'm so carnal through the years i've had to have two different places one place is for dealings with god as a christian man people see me in different ways and i'm not just in a corner of my own time and i'm not and the other is my work as a Christian minister. And I've found through the years, if I go right instead of going left, my conscience says, can you really justify going that way instead of this way? Because that way is the chair where I read and pray as a Christian man. That way is my desk where I labor as a Christian minister.

23:53 And she subtly checks up on me to make sure that the chair is being frequented as it ought. You think I resent that? I thank God for it. I bless God for a wife concerned enough that I won't become spiritually dull under the guise of being a busy minister of the gospel.

Hindrance 3: Intellectual and Culturally Sterile Condition

24:16 Well, I must hasten to the third joint problem, keeping people from increasing conformity to Ephesians chapter 5. And it's what I'm calling the hindrances arising from intellectual and culturally, an intellectual and culturally sterile condition the hindrances arising from an intellectual and culturally sterile condition. Remember in Ephesians 5, we saw that the great emphasis falls upon the ground of this relationship is the nature of the union of a husband and a wife. The two shall be one flesh, and though that is culminated and most intensely and sacramentally expressed, small s, in the physical, emotional bond of God-blessed intimacy in sexual intercourse. The two-one flesh involves the totality of their redeemed humanity. And we are not just fleshy creatures. We are creatures with minds, with multi-leveled capacities.

25:29 And if we're to have true marital intimacy, there must be multi-leveled intimacy. Intimacy, not the least of which, is cultural and intellectual intimacy. I pity the couple where the wife is never reading things that she knows will be of interest to her husband, and she feeds the fruit of her reading into her husband, both to stimulate and enlarge his mind, and to bring them to discuss areas of intellectual concern together so that they are one in their relationship. In their mental alertness and in their growing intellectual store of understanding and knowledge. Culturally as well, you can bring within that orbit matters of innocent diversion and of recreational interest. All of the areas in which a couple can either be one or be distant must be areas nurtured in the pursuit of the oneness, which is to mirror the oneness of Christ with his church. There is nothing that touches his people that does not touch him.

26:43 And therefore, if we are pursuing that standard, beware of the hindrances arising from intellectual and culturally sterile states of mind and heart. And that means sensitivity on the part of the woman to cultivate at least the appearance of an interest in the difference between...

27:05 how you set the hook in the jaw of a bass who has a hard mouth, a large mouth bass, and how you set it in the mouth of a small mouth bass who has a relatively soft mouth. Now, naturally speaking, the whole idea of catching those slimy creatures grosses you out. But at least look interested. Deny yourself and look. That's important to him.

27:31 And vice versa. She's found something in the latest Family Circle magazine, some new development in some new area, of a perspective regarding something to do with homemaking. And I tell you, you could not have any less native interest. But you at least look interested.

27:50 And try to cultivate an interest. Why? Because you're saying, Dear, I want to be one with you in the things that are important to you. I want them to be important to me.

28:01 That's why my wife and I have the silly ritual when I'm away of saying, How was your day, dear? And she runs through from the morning till night. Three quarters of it. We'll never reach the United Nations.

28:11 We'll never be the occasion of even any family discussion. But it's the world in which she lived that day that was important to her. And I want her to know it's important to me. And vice versa.

Hindrance 4: Inexcusable Physically Sloppy Condition

28:25 And there is the fourth joint hindrance. The hindrances arising. And here I'm going to touch some raw nerves. But before God, if I'm going to be biblical, I must.

28:36 The hindrances arising from an inexcusable, physically sloppy condition. And I've labored at choosing my words carefully. The hindrances to the attainment of the standard of Ephesians 5, rooted in an inexcusable, physically sloppy condition. Ephesians 5, 29.

29:03 Remember we looked at it yesterday. It says, No man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes, and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church. No man who is in touch with reality, deliberately, knowingly, willfully, destroys his own flesh. No man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also the church.

29:41 Now what does that tell us? To be indifferent to my own physical condition is unnatural. To be indifferent about how my physical condition affects my spouse is to be selfish. For 1 Corinthians 7 says, The husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife.

30:05 And the wife hath not power over her body, but the husband. And it's talking about rendering to one another, our sexual due. So it's our bodies in specific relationship to sexual intimacy. Therefore to be indifferent about how I look is unnatural, it is selfish, and it is unspiritual.

30:30 1 Corinthians 6, What know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, which you have of God, and you are not your own? You have been bought with a price. Glorify God, therefore, in your body, which is his. Now when you can show me that that's a wrong use of those texts, I'll be prepared to say we all need to be so spiritual that if a woman's husband becomes the typical couch potato, having a spare tire big enough to float the Titanic, soft and flabby, that in a moment of danger she could no more trust him to protect her, she'd run to her three-year-old son thinking she'd get a better shrift. You tell me if that reflects Christ's loving, nourishing, cherishing headship over his church. Why do we run to him in danger? We know him to be strong deliverer.

31:34 And a woman wants to know that within the reasonable limits of genetic predisposition and a number of other factors outside of our control, that her husband cares enough about their life together, not only in their sexual intimacy, when they see each other in their nakedness, but in their general presentation before the public, for the Scripture says that a worthy woman is the crown of her husband, but he that she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness to his bones. And when a man must take about with him and introduce a wife who is sloppy in her physical appearance, either with the sloppiness of excessive weight, indifference to how she keeps her hair and her clothing and her makeup, or on the other end of the spectrum, she's become so obsessed with thinness that he's embarrassed and will have people wondering whether or not he gives her more than seven dollars a week for groceries. She looks like she came out of Dachau and is being starved, and he's embarrassed to introduce his wife. Now remember, I'm saying when there are conditions that can be altered by responsible personal care and activity,

32:59 I am not talking about such predispositions of genetic programming or certain chronic illnesses. How can I qualify it anymore? And why I qualify it is this is an area where few Christians are willing to get honest with God. But as I told a man yesterday who said, I'm determined to get my act together and be a Christian man from stem to stern.

33:24 I said, alright, let me tell you a good place to start. Start with those activities that can be measured by the clock and the scales because those are two things that won't lie and you can't rationalize when you're looking at them. I said, you want to be a man of God? Say, alright, I'm going to start having a half hour with God.

33:40 And I said, set your clock, look at it, if it's 6.30 in the morning, it may seem like four hours the first time, but you stay in that place reading your Bible and praying until the clock says 7. And then when you go to take your shower, get on your scale and really look at it. And then put down on a card what it says.

34:00 And do it every day. You take a shower every day? Yes, alright, it's just a small detour to the scales. You see, people that won't look at the clock and won't look at the scales, I have long since given up thinking they're serious.

34:13 You say, you know, you're hard, Pastor. No, I'm just experienced. That's all. Just experienced.

34:20 I really used to think and believe the people that said, well, I'm really trying, but, you know, water balance. And I said, I don't want to weigh myself every day because if I get it, what a bunch of baloney. What you're saying is I want to calm myself. Don't you agree with me that I can?

34:38 And stupid me, I used to. No more. No more! I say, if you don't mean enough business to stand on the scale, record what it says, and if over a period of a week it's gone up two pounds, then face the fact either it's part of your hormonal cycle as a woman, and you know then and can track it and say, all right, I know the two pounds will go after I've had my period, so I'm not going to get disturbed about it.

35:07 You find out what reality is because that body is part of the oneness with your husband. And when you have no care to make it as reasonably attractive to him as is possible given the other's full spectrum of biblical duties, what you're saying to your husband is you really don't matter that much to me. Then you want him to treat you as Christ treats the church when you've insulted him, when you've embarrassed him? No, it doesn't work that way, women.

35:41 And you men, the same. I've been amazed how many men want their wives to look like beauty queens. And they go around looking like you people that are too young to remember old Smiling Jack comic strip. It was this guy, Wimpy.

35:59 It was always, what was it? Wasn't it Wimpy? Fat stuff, yeah. Who was always eating the hamburgers and popping the buttons and little skinny chicken was catching them.

36:07 See, us old duffers remember this one. These guys go around with their big bay windows. And I've actually had to tell some of them. I just recently had a situation where there's been a wedding and there's been a waning of wholesome, healthy eroticism between a Christian couple.

36:29 And I have no reason to question the validity of their Christian faith. And when I got pressing, why? Well, there's a lot more of her now than there was when we were married. And I looked at him and said, huh, deja vu.

36:41 Look at you. That in there, bulging out your shirt above and below your belt buster. You say, you talk that way to him? Yeah, we've been friends for a long time and I can get away with it.

36:54 In the chemistry of his whole way of approaching things, others you'd have to be much more gracious and gentle than the rest in your terminology. But the bottom line is this. It's a hindrance to Ephesians 5 and it's inexcusable when your sloppy physical condition is the result of an unnatural indifference to diet and nutrition and intake and exercise. It is selfish.

37:22 Your body's not yours. In terms of the sexual intimacy, it belongs to your husband. His body is not his. It belongs to his wife.

37:31 What in the world are you giving her? What in the world are you giving him? If the Song of Solomon is anything, it is a divinely inspired erotic love poem. And the majority of the language does not celebrate the beauty of the soul.

37:49 If you doubt it, read it again. It celebrates the attractiveness of the body. And it is in that sense part of the analogy of the relationship of Christ in the church. But I've always snickered when some of the dear old writers wanted to think it was put there to be primarily sort of an extended allegory of the relationship of Christ in the church.

38:14 How selective they were in the text they chose to expound. And often they preached the first part of a text and then they had dot, dot, dot. End of quote. Because there was no way with a straight face they could have preached what followed.

38:30 No, the Song of Solomon couched in some of the strangest Middle Eastern imagery. Brethren, if you want to woo and win your wife, don't memorize the language of the Song of Solomon. She'll be throwing bottles of perfume at your skull. You start telling her some of the things he told his beloved.

38:52 You are like such and such. That imagery was peculiar, but behind it is a supra-cultural, timeless, relevant reality. And that is that married couples should continue to be attractive to one another in the nakedness of God honoring sexual intimacy. And some of you got some work to do.

39:17 Some of you men need to get a clock that works and scales that don't lie. You need to start doing what Paul said athletes do. They buffet their body and keep them under. And you need to start counting your calories.

39:34 And there's no shortcut to it. What do you know about Pastor Martin? You never had a problem with weight. I could balloon up to 250 pounds and rationalize it and say, well, that's just good football weight on my frame.

39:47 I could do that in six months time and not be a glutton. What do you know about my metabolism? Don't sit there and cop out from the Word of God and say, well, you don't know what, even if I didn't know what the struggle is, still the Word of God. But I do know what the struggle is.

40:03 I live with it every day. I spend a third of my waking hours consciously hungry and I'm only 10 steps from my kitchen, my studies in my home. No, I know what the struggle is. But I know what it is by the grace of God to have a good conscience.

40:26 And I know what it is to begin to have a bloodied conscience. And I say, if I bloody it there with 100, 200 calories there, could I not bloody it with the second look at flesh that I should not look at? Could I not bloody it then with a second look at a dollar sign I shouldn't look at? Where will it end?

Hindrances and Helps Peculiar to Husbands: Aversion to Assertive, Self-Giving, Servanthood Leadership

40:47 So few make it well to the end, dear people, and declension rarely starts in the big things. Well, that's the prescription I leave for husbands and wives together. Now, very quickly, because I do want to be done exactly at quarter past so that we don't encroach upon Pastor Nichols' time and the pressures of this last day. Hindrances and practical helps peculiar to husbands.

41:15 Now, you wives listen so you can help your husband. Don't listen to make a club to beat him with. Listen to be an echo insofar as what we say is scriptural and practical. Listen to be a help to him.

41:29 Here's hindrance number one, peculiar to husbands. The hindrance of an aversion to bearing the burden. It's a mouthful, but I didn't know how to shorten it up for you. I'll shut up and say what I wanted to say.

41:44 The hindrance of an aversion to bearing the burden of assertive, self-giving, servanthood, leadership. You say, if that isn't a bunch of contradictory terms, I never heard them. Well, they may seem to be self-contradictory on the surface, but it's only an apparent contradiction. I say the great hindrance with many men from being an Ephesians 5 husband is this, they have an aversion to bearing the burden of assertive leadership.

42:27 That is being willing to step out, make decisions, make risks, take risks, get egg on your face, and even rotten egg, and then be man enough to say I blew it. But I have far more respect for the man whose face is dripping with stinky egg who says I stepped out at the wrong time in the wrong way and blew it than the guy who is safely behind his screen of passivity and never gets a spot of egg on his face. And his poor family is all the while suffering because he won't be an assertive leader. If leadership is anything, it is assertiveness. It is willingness to step out and to take the risks, to make the hard decisions, to seek to guide the family to see the wisdom of the decisions made. That's what I mean by the burden of assertive leadership. But I said of assertive self-giving leadership.

43:37 Isn't that Ephesians 5? Husbands are head as Christ is head and Savior and as Savior he laid down his life, gave up himself for us. He ever lives to make intercession for us. He nourishes and he cherishes us.

43:56 That's self-giving. Self-giving. It means constantly seeking to open up the parameters of our peripheral vision of awareness. What's going on with my wife, with my kids, with the climate of the family and it costs.

44:15 To do it. Self-giving leadership. But then I've used the word servanthood leadership to try to capture Matthew 20 where Jesus said leadership among the people of my kingdom will not be like it is among the Gentiles. Among the Gentiles they that are counted the leaders

44:38 they lord it down upon their underlings. They pull rank and that's the only way they can get responses. But he said it's not so among you. He that would be great among you shall be table waiter.

44:52 He that would be first shall be bond slave. But it's in the context in which he said you call me master and lord and so I am. You see his servanthood does not negate his mastership and his lordship. It describes the manner in which he administers it.

45:12 You see that? It's not either be a wimpy servant or a macho. It's being master and lord in the sphere of God's appointment with the heart of the table waiter and the slave. And that's to be like Christ in our leadership.

45:33 That's Ephesians 5 head shift and the hindrance with many men is an aversion to bearing the burden of that kind of assertive self-giving servanthood in their leadership. I commend to you it's worth the price of the book. I first got the words assertive servanthood from Betty Elliot in her book The Mark of a Man. And the words so fascinated me when I saw them they leaped out at me and I said I wonder if this was a typo.

46:06 And then the more I contemplated them and saw the text that she was seeking to open up the more I felt comfortable with it. I've incorporated it into my pastoral theology lectures. It is assertive servanthood. Husband is the head assertiveness as Christ loved and gave self-giving.

46:31 Now this aversion may be manifested in several ways. Men spiritual laziness I mean this absence of this kind of assertiveness spiritual laziness. You've got a Bible you've got commentaries you can look up every passage that speaks to us to husbands to wives to children to families. You just got to take some time to do it.

46:56 If you showed the lack of initiative in trying to find out directly from the Bible with simple tools such as a concordance and Matthew Henry's commentary at your elbow if you showed the same lack of assertiveness in your business you'd have gotten your pink slip long ago. The world wouldn't tolerate it. But you give God and your wife and your kids less than you give your company. Shame on you.

47:22 You've got books that are available. Baxter's directory just look at page seven of the table of contents and all the things he deals with in terms of the responsibilities of husbands. You just work through one of those little paragraphs a day and pray it in and by the grace of God at the end of three months you'd have your act together many of you. But you're too lazy.

47:42 You're too lazy. Tapes are available books are available. There's never been so much written a lot of junk yes but there's good stuff. The two messages preached by Pastor Andy Hamilton at the Mid-America Conference this year on developing romance and unity in marriage excellent material.

48:01 He opened up with ten signs of a sick marriage. Marvelous material. But some of you are just too spiritually late so you've got to get off your duff and get with it. Don't sit there and say oh Lord help me to get off my duff.

48:17 No you say Lord I'm getting off my duff give me grace to stay off it. That's the kind of prayer God will honor. You waiting for some angel to come down and stick a pin in your behind he's not going to do it. God's working in you not outside of you but in you to willing to work for his good pleasure.

48:35 You work out with fear and trembling and don't wait for any extra impulses pins or pricks or boost bumps or anything else. Spiritual laziness. Another reason you won't be this kind of a leader won't pay the price is carnal pride. You're unwilling to stoop to serve the thought of some of you men serving your wife is so contrary to your whole twisted notion of headship that you're going to have to have dealings with God on your knees for more than ten minutes before that stuff gets purged out of you by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning.

49:10 I love that passage in Isaiah where God speaks of his work as that which will manifest itself in the purification of his people by the spirit of judgment and of burning let the word of God judge you and let the Holy Ghost burn through you and consume the dross of your carnal pride. The pride that will keep you from sitting down with your wife and kids and having a judgment day. I know a few things that have been more helpful throughout the years than periodic judgment days with my wife and kids from the time they were very young even up into their present adulthood. There's a period in our marriage every single year we had a judgment day in our break together when everything that she did not feel comfortable bringing up during the year she had carte blanche if you had the power dear to make me into exactly the husband that would please you at every point what would you change? And then we reversed if I had the power to change anything in her and then we tried to evaluate those desires in the light that were true to the word of God or they were not explicitly addressed in the word but were matters of preference and taste but did not contradict the word love seeks not its own love delights to please its object if my wife

50:39 were to say to me honey I know there's nothing in the Bible against it but for some reason steel or teal blue with ties that have semi-pagely print they just grind my socks. You'd never see another one around my neck you'd never see trousers of that color on me again not because it's sin but because there are lots of other colors available that wouldn't irritate my wife but some of you men too proud to engage in that kind of dialogue with your wife and then some of it's intellectual laziness you don't want to do what first Peter 3 7 says husbands dwell with your wives according to knowledge you've never read the most elementary non-technical readily available book on what happens in the cycle of a woman's emotional constitution in conjunction with her monthly cycle in her periods what happens to a woman generally what you can expect in menopause both emotionally psychologically physiologically you're too lazy that's intellectual laziness many facets of life practical home economics approaches to education and so on the current pressures upon your children men if you're going to lead you've got to know something about the spheres in which you lead you just can't come strutting in

Hindrances and Helps Peculiar to Husbands: Aversion to Unpleasant Confrontation

52:08 with your stripes on barking orders you better have some substance to the decisions you make and have a wife who at the end of 30-40 years can say you know honey one of the most wonderful things about being married to you is this though I know you're not God and you don't claim to be and though you've made your mistakes acknowledge them I felt so safe following your leadership because I know you have an inquiring mind and you do your homework before you make decisions it's worth it and I didn't read that in a book I thank God that that's come into my ear more than once by the grace of God there's the hindrance secondly men not only the hindrance of unwillingness to take that place of assertive leadership in the disposition of servanthood but the hindrance of an aversion to unpleasant confrontation with your wife when necessary some of you men will never become the head after the pattern of Ephesians 5 because you have such an aversion to unpleasant confrontation you say I'm not going to have that dripping wife I'm not going to have domestic Chinese torture and your wife knows it she knows so she just turns on the faucet

53:38 just enough to fulfill what it says in the book of Proverbs Proverbs 21 in verse 13 she knows this verse as well as you do not 21 13 have the wrong reference 27 15 is another one of them let's hope that's the right one yes a continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman or alike your wife knows she can become your built-in Chinese torture chamber drip drip drip drip drip and she knows you're not man enough to turn the faucet off and back her down and so her remaining sin turns the faucet on and yours backs away until you capitulate and you know what happens she loses respect for you I don't know a lot of Shakespeare in fact I know very little of Shakespeare but a little bit I do know either by way of some of the plots that have found their way into opera like Otello or what I've read portions of The Taming of the Shrew some of you men need to read that beautiful section where Kate gets conquered by her husband and she speaks of the bliss of now being servant at his feet and how her liberation came when there was a man determined to tame her and the hindrance to some of you men being Ephesians 5 leaders

55:05 is you have such an aversion to unpleasant confrontation you've backed up for so long and the pattern is so fixed you've utterly in principle abdicated your headship and all you know what you need you need a good dose on your knees of the Holy Ghost impregnating your spirit with 1st Corinthians 16 14 equip yourselves like men let all that you do be done in love how I love that juxtaposition of those two things equip yourself like a man be strong let all that you do be done in love there's no contradiction but it's love under the broader rubric of strength and when you reverse it it's wimpishness then there is the third area of great hindrance in men it's 10 15 it's the aversion to the constant mortification of self-centeredness to be a leader after the pattern of Ephesians 5 means as it does for our Lord I must live for another I must think first of the one upon whom I've set my love and whom I hope to present to the Lord and to myself increasingly the woman

Hindrances and Helps Peculiar to Wives (Briefly Mentioned)

56:33 God in grace intends her to be the hindrance is to you wives I'll just give you the heads that I'd hope to open up maybe sometime preach on them back home at Trinity the hindrance arising from defending and guarding your independence some of you women are not Ephesians 5 women because you defend and guard your independence some of you do it out of fear because you saw what happened when your mother gave up her independence and your father tyrannized her and you said never is that going to happen to me you've got a sister who gave up her independence and you've got a brother-in-law who tyrannizes her and you're afraid remember chapter 3 1 speaks of the proper fear of God but 3 6 says you're to be a daughter of Abraham who submits without fear some of you do it out of downright rebellion and arrogance God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble I'm smarter than he is well you may well be I've had more formal education well maybe you did I've got better judgment on many things maybe you do but my Bible still says wives be subject to your husbands in everything period of God then the second great hindrance for women is this of wives the hindrance arising from a misconception of biblical submission

58:00 and its implications you will never be in Ephesians 5 woman remember submission does not mean supporting your husband in his sins there's two great examples of women who did it one in the old and one in the new and they aren't very pretty Jezebel with her Ahab and Sapphira with her Ananias and God had mercy on the man that has the moral courage to take God's side against her husband God gives a woman to be a helper answering to my need and when I sin what do I need not a wife to stroke me and confirm me in my sin but appropriately and in keeping with the dignity of her position and her husbands to be an in-house in-house Nathaness to point out that sin Matthew 18 is not cancelled because the offending party is your husband or wife I am amazed how many church members have never come to grips with that if thy brother sinned against thee go tell him his fault if he hear thee thou hast gained him if not take two or three witnesses my wife from the time of our marriage has periodically she made the vow then and periodically renewed it if she sees anything in me that is a deviation from biblical norms addresses it either in the way of a personal offense or a pattern that is sub-biblical or a Christian man and a man of God and I do not correct it in a reasonable amount

Conclusion and Prayer

59:30 of time she has vowed to go right straight over my head to my fellow elders and those of you who know her know she would I thank God she's never had to and one of the reasons is because I know she would and she did not initiate the suggestion of that vow I did how about that for a practical suggestion you ready to go home and do that you wives God help you if you confirm your husband in his weakness and in his sins and coddle and stroke him Jesus doesn't do that with his church as many as I love I rebuke and I chase him take him the four minutes I apologize may God bless the truth of his word and help us more and more to overcome the hindrances and to pursue the will of God as revealed in the scriptures let's pray our Father we thank you your holy word we pray that as we've addressed some of these sore points these sensitive areas may there be no resistance to the counsel given we trust

60:58 in genuine pastoral brotherly concern and compassion Lord we pray that you'd help us all by your grace to be honest if we've seen ourselves in the mirror of the word not simply to gasp and then run away and forget what we saw deliver us from playing spiritual head games on ourselves deliver us Lord from stepping on the scales and then fantasizing about the numbers Lord help us to face reality may we be weighed in the scales of your word and do whatever must be done oh Lord seal your word and give us marriages that astound the world glorify Christ leave a legacy to our children and make an impact upon a lost society amen hear us we pray in Jesus name amen