Hear the Voice of the Bridegroom Concerning Holy Matrimony by Bill & Roberta Taylor
FAMILY 1028 – 04282023 – Sound Bite Marriage – COMPARING MARRIAGE AND SALVATION – THE NATURAL USE OF WOMEN … and led in the destruction of the American justice system: – Masculine Christianity – Woman’s Sin Can Destroy a Great Nation – Feminism, Godly WomanhoodGod expects a man to love his wife as Christ loves His church: Ephesians 5:25-28 … and led in the destruction of the American justice system: – Masculine Christianity – Woman’s Sin Can Destroy a Great Nation – Feminism, Godly WomanhoodGod expects a man to love his wife as Christ loves His church: Ephesians 5:25-28
https://conta.cc/3NmSbnA
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2023
Hear the Voice of the Bridegroom Concerning Holy Matrimony
Feel free to use this material in any way that supports His cause! We’ve put books about marriage on our Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Bill-and-Roberta-Taylor/e/B09DTMSHT8/
Pastors Teaching God-Ordained Holy Matrimony
Christians must be taught how to bring about God-honoring marriages that give both parties a taste of the joys of Heaven as God intended. Marriage is simple – as shown on page 17, the Bible describes marriage in one verse. You can explain both marriage and salvation in one minute, see page 39. You can show how a joyful marriage operates in two words, see page 10.
The Bible tells us what to believe and what to do. God created marriage to bring men and women joy in this life (Gal. 5:22-23, Eph. 5:9), to show lost people the blessings of ordering our lives as He commands (Du. 4:6-8, Du. 30:9-10, 16), and so His servants could raise children to serve Him (Mal. 2:15).
Romans 7:4 uses the word “married” to describe the tie between a born-again Christian and Christ. Holy Matrimony is your most powerful testimony. We Christians show Christ to unbelievers (2 Cor. 5:20). The way Christian husbands nourish and cherish their wives shows the lost how Christ blesses His people. When lost people see that Christian marriages are no better than theirs, when we can’t handle this life any better than they can, we damage the picture of Christ’s care for us. Why should they hear what we say about the life to come? Christian divorce and unhappy Christian marriages wreck our testimony and dishonor Christ.
HEAR THE VOICE OF THE BRIDEGROOM
2 Cor. 11:2 teaches that the church is the bride of Christ. John the Baptist’s message to Jews was like a pastor’s message to a church. When John heard that Jesus’ disciples were baptizing and that “all men come to him (Jn. 3:26),” John could have been jealous, but he humbly explained his God-given role:
Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. 29He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. 30He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:28-30
God sent John before the Christ. The church is the bride and Jesus is the bridegroom in the “marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9).” John couldn’t preach our Gospel of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection because it hadn’t happened yet; his Gospel of Repentance proclaimed the Messiah. If Jews had accepted Christ as Messiah, they’d have been married to Him as Christians are today (Ro. 7:4). As the friend of the Bridegroom, John heard “the bridegroom’s voice (Jn. 3:29)” which filled him with joy.
As Abraham and Moses were friends of God (Ex. 33:11, 2 Chr. 20:7, Is. 41:8), pastors are called by God to be friends of the Bridegroom. As Christ’s friend, you rejoice as Christ speaks to you and to your people through your messages, Bible reading, and prayer. Christ must increase in us as we crucify the flesh in our lives (Eph. 4:22, Col. 3:9). Growth in Christ from hearing the Bridegroom continues the “good work” that begins when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and continues “until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6).”
This is how we “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you (Jam. 4:8).” We make the first move in asking Him to increase so that we can decrease. Increasing Him helps us enjoy the Fruit of the Spirit:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 24And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. Galatians 5:22-24
Christ increases in us as we crucify the flesh. All our relationships: marriage, church, and work, improve as we grow in love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths
. Proverbs 3:5-6
Trusting God’s leadership instead of trusting our own is another way to have Him increase as we decrease. A pastor hears the Bridegroom teach about marriage and passes it on! The material in this book is from https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com. Feel free to use it in any way that serves His cause. 4/28/2023
Contents
Pastors Teaching God-Ordained Holy Matrimony. 2
Hear the Voice of the Bridegroom.. 2
Welcome, my brothers in Christ! – short version. 5
Holy Matrimony until death is Vital to Society. 5
Marriage is Simple – the Bible Explains Marriage in One Verse. 6
Husband and Wife need Perfect Hearts. 11
Let’s Sum it up in a Few Words. 12
Welcome, my brothers and sisters in Christ – a longer message. 13
Review of God’s Simple Plan of Salvation. 13
Slain Before the Foundation of the World. 14
Love Drives the Christian Walk. 15
Holy Matrimony until death is Vital to Society. 16
Marriage is Simple – the Bible Explains Marriage in One Verse. 17
Husband and Wife need Perfect Hearts. 29
Let’s Sum it up in a Few Words. 30
God Explained what happened to Women after the fall 31
The Foundation of Your Life: Is God Really Good? Christians say God is Good; Do They Believe It?. 31
Think About Eve’s Life in the Garden. 32
What do Women Desire from Husbands?. 34
Men Don’t Know Why Wives Can’t Give Comfort 36
Thou Shalt Love the Lord Thy God. 38
Explaining Marriage in One Minute. 39
God Demonstrates His Love Through Women. 42
God tells us how to Build Joyful Marriages. 45
Why God Made Men and Women Think So Differently. 45
What Women Need from Husbands. 49
Subject Yourselves One to Another 1 Peter 5:5. 50
A Wife is a Mirror, She’s not a Light 50
When I asked for a date, she said, I’m looking for a husband, I want to get married. 51
On our 2nd date, she said she wanted to be a virgin on her wedding night. 51
She asked, Don’t Fuss at Me. 52
She belonged to God so she could let God give her to me. 52
She Chose to Serve God by serving me. 53
A wife is what her husband makes her 54
Comparing Marriage and Salvation. 55
Head Knowledge and Heart Knowledge – Logic and Emotion. 60
Logic is How We Use Facts to reach Conclusions. 61
We Live on Facts and Emotions. 61
I Gave her More Facts On Purpose. 63
Logic – Finding Facts and Drawing Conclusions. 64
Christianity is a Logical Faith. 64
There are two versions of this initial message. The first is 30 minutes; the longer version is about 90 minutes.
Welcome, my brothers in Christ! – short version
God gave us both salvation and marriage. If we try to get to Heaven our own way, we go to Hell when we die. If we try to do marriage our own way, we can make life Hell on earth. Our marriages show lost people how God cares for His people. Our churches can’t grow without being built on solid marriages.
Romans 7:4[1] uses the word “married” to describe the tie between a born-again Christian and Christ. Holy Matrimony is your most powerful testimony. We Christians show Christ to unbelievers (2 Cor. 5:20[2]). The way Christian husbands nourish and cherish their wives shows the lost how Christ blesses His people. When lost people see that Christian marriages are no better than theirs, when we can’t handle this life any better than they can, we damage the picture of Christ’s care for us. Why should they hear what we say about the life to come? Christian divorce and unhappy Christian marriages wreck our testimony and dishonor Christ.
When Christians pour the grace of salvation into marriages, lost people see us passing God’s love, forgiveness, and grace back and forth. They’ll see that we’re much better off in this life than they are. God has given us the privilege and honor of telling everyone how to get God’s grace for themselves.
There is no joy for a man this side of Heaven like having a woman like belonging to him. As her God-ordained leader, he must convince her that he loves her and that he’s glad to belong to her and glad to care for her. This shows her Christ’s love for her and for him. Seeing Christ’s love in action draws the lost.
If a Christian wife doesn’t like belonging to her husband, why should the lost want to belong to Christ?
Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1
Emotion is the cement God gave every woman to build her house and hold her family together. Women build the house of God. When a couple visits a church, if the wife sees that the women are nervous or not appreciated, she won’t want to return. If they’re loved and led gently, she’ll want her husband to learn how.
Marriage is simpler than we think. God gave us one Bible verse which tells us how to build a marriage that gives both parties a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
HOLY MATRIMONY UNTIL DEATH IS VITAL TO SOCIETY
Every stable culture helps men and women build safe homes where children can grow up to be productive adults. We have arranged marriages where husband and wife meet for the first time on their wedding day. In some places the bride’s family pays a dowry to set the new couple up in a new home. In some cultures the husband’s family pays a bride price to reimburse her family for the cost of raising and educating her.
Every culture must raise most kids to be productive adults. If that doesn’t happen, society collapses.
God’s purpose in bringing men and women together is for His servants to raise children to give Him more servants. When marriages fall apart, God doesn’t have to do anything to make society suffer. In his book “Sex and Culture” Dr. Unwin wrote “The sexual behavior of women before marriage is the decisive factor in cultural success. Men are mainly motivated by sex. If they can get it without marriage, they contribute less to society.”[3] He’s certainly right about that.
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her
. Genesis 29:21
Jacob worked 7 years to marry Rachel because he wanted her. Caring for a wife is a lot of work. Raising children is a lot of work. A man will marry if he wants a woman badly enough. If he can have her without marriage, marrying would bring him a lot of trouble without giving him anything he doesn’t have.
God expects older women to teach younger women about men (Titus 2:3-5[4]). God led my wife to explain that a husband’s goal is 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner and bed. God doesn’t often give him that much strength, but that’s a man’s plan. 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed.
Deu. 21:14, 22:9 and Eze. 22:10-11 say that a man “has humbled” a woman by taking her, that’s part of the cost of a man in her life. When they hear 5 times, a girl who hasn’t even dated understands that doing that will wipe out her independence and make her belong totally to her husband. They get upset until my wife reminds them that a woman wants her husband to open his heart to her in open talk at least that often. Girls know that having a man open his heart makes him belong to her. Giving his life for her life is OK.
Opening her body makes a wife belong to her husband. Opening his heart makes him belong to her.
MARRIAGE IS SIMPLE – THE BIBLE EXPLAINS MARRIAGE IN ONE VERSE
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Genesis 24:67
· Isaac supplied the tent. A man’s proposal to a woman that doesn’t include food, clothing, and shelter isn’t biblical. If a man can’t pay for her, all he can do is play with her. That never ends well for her.
· She became his wife, not his girlfriend – they had both made public marriage vows before he took her.
· Isaac loved Rebekah and then he was comforted. God gave every wife the ability to comfort her husband, but comforting him is emotionally exhausting. Being convinced and reminded that he loves her renews her emotional energy so she can keep comforting him, but this requires a lot of daily detailed praise and appreciation as taught in the Song of Solomon.
80-90% of how a marriage works out depends on how a man treats his wife after they marry, but 80% of that depends on how high she and he set her value by protecting her virtue before they marry (Pr. 31:10[5]).
Isaac Loved Rebekah
Older women must teach younger women how to love their husbands because men are very much alike – what comforts one man will make just about any man feel loved, and it’s simple enough that the Bible explains it in one verse (Song 8:2-3[6]). There is no simple formula for making a wife feel loved because women are so very different from each other, but the Bible describes the result. As Naomi told her daughters goodbye when sending them back to their families to find husbands, she prayed:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest
, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
Women aren’t strong enough to hunt or farm without modern machinery. In a muscle-powered society with no welfare system, wives depend on husbands for food. Naomi wanted her daughters to have food, clothing, and shelter, of course, but she also wanted them to find comfort, rest, contentment, and security in knowing that their husbands valued and appreciated them as taught in the Song of Solomon.
Watching any couple shows whether she’s resting in her husband. Many women experience this instead:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he
: Eat and drink
, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee
. Proverbs 23:7
A man can say he loves a woman and provide for her without giving his heart. God has the same problem:
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. Matthew 15:8
Naomi wanted each daughter to find a husband who poured his heart into nourishing and cherishing her. God isn’t the only one who appreciates a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7[7]) – wives also appreciate cheerful giving.
Women share their hearts all the time in helping other women bear the burdens of husbands, children, and guiding houses (1 Tim. 5:14[8]). They must be taught that it’s as frightening for a man to open his heart as for a woman to open her body. A man’s emotions are as powerful as a woman’s. Japanese say “One hair of a woman’s head pulls more strongly than ten yoke of oxen” and Chinese say that a man in love rides a wild horse. Many men are afraid to open their hearts for fear of being hurt or vexed:
And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death
; Judges 16:16
Emotions scare a man. Although he may declare his love, he may not admit his love to himself.
Don’t be like the Apostle Peter
Peter saw Jesus weep and grieve over the cities of Israel (Mt. 11:23, 23:37, Lk. 10:15, 13:34). Peter did not want the sorrow of loving people and seeing them fall away (Jn. 11:35) so he hid his emotions from himself.
John 21:15-19 tells how Jesus asked three times whether Peter loved him. Peter finally admitted to filios, brotherly love. Did Jesus’ questions make Peter love Him? No, Peter loved Jesus – he wept bitterly when he betrayed Jesus (Mt. 26:75[9]) – but knowing how love can lead to sorrow, he didn’t want to feel his love.
If a man won’t admit to himself that he loves his wife, he can’t convince her he loves her. She’ll worry that he’ll run off with someone else and won’t be able to comfort him as he expects. Opening herself makes her more sensitive to his feelings about her. If he values her skills, feelings, thoughts, and everything else about her, feeling loved more strongly makes her happy. She won’t mind being humbled and will be glad to see his delight in her. If she isn’t secure in his valuing her, she won’t want to feel his negative feelings more strongly.
A woman has a thousand thousand ways to deflect her husband’s desire, but the fault is often his. She can’t make him any happier than he makes her. A man finds happiness in marriage by convincing his wife that he loves her and that he’s truly happy to care for her. Words are cheap; love requires action.
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth
. I John 3:18
Serving your wife as Jesus commands (Mk. 9:35[10], 10:42-45[11]) shows love. That makes her happy which makes him happy. The Song of Songs starts with the wife praising her husband for being physical with her:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Song 7:10
Women are made for men (Gen. 2:18[12], 1 Cor. 11:8-9[13]), so a wife generally cares more about pleasing her husband than he cares about pleasing her. The Bible warns 5 times (Pr. 19:13b[14], 21:9[15], 19[16], 25:24[17], 27:15[18]) that an unhappy wife is a hardship; some say, “If mamma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones
. Proverbs 17:22
Men, don’t dry your wife’s bones. Can you assume that she wants to please you? She can’t please you if she doesn’t know what you want. The only way she can be confident of pleasing you is for you to open your heart often enough and in enough detail for her to learn your ways and your wants in detail.
When a woman can’t please her husband no matter how she tries, we often see death in her eyes, even in photos. Men, if you want to be happy in marriage, be happy with your wife. That makes her happy. There is no joy this side of Heaven that compares with having your wife be glad to belong to you.
Isaac Loved Rebekah and then He was Comforted
Rebekah was able to comfort Isaac after he convinced her that he loved her.
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me
. Song of Solomon 7:10
His physical desire seems strange to her, so the wife asks her mother for advice about her husband:
I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me
: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song of Solomon 8:2-3
Her mother tells her to welcome her husband into her body whenever he wants her. Giving herself when she’d rather do something else is what submission means. She has far more sexual capacity than he; she can drain off all of his sexual energy. That makes it hard for other women to get his attention. If she sends him off to work loaded, on the other hand, he’ll be tempted by other women (Pr. 6:28[19]).
A man can’t praise his wife in such detail without paying close attention to her. Marriages are based on communication; a woman communicates heart-to-heart, a man communicates belly-to-belly.
How many marriages would fail if husband and wife never, not ever, criticized each other and constantly looked for things to appreciate instead? That is the essence of the Song. Jesus premised us rest:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
A bride takes on the yoke of pleasing her husband. He must live with her according to knowledge of her (1 Pe. 3:7[20]). He gets this knowledge by hours and hours of daily open-hearted talk. This opens his heart to her, makes his yoke easy and his burden light, and convinces her that he belongs to her as taught in the Song.
SO WHAT SHOULD YOU TEACH?
A pastor must be “apt to teach (1 Tim. 3:2[21], 2 Tim. 2:24[22]).” Older women must teach younger women, but many older women say they don’t know what to say. Teach your wives to teach about 5 times and about a wife’s need for her husband to open his heart often enough to belong to her. A woman must know her needs so she can test a man to see if he’ll overcome his fears enough to belong to her. Women must quote this:
The heart
of her husband doth safely trust in her
, Proverbs 31:11a
A man can trust his heart to a virtuous woman. If she replies “Yes, sir” as the spirit moves her, he’ll be confident that she’ll respect him in spite of his mistakes. If she gives herself whenever he wants her, he’ll be convinced that she belongs to him. God made men possessive. Being his helps him trust her and also makes him want to take care of her as men take care of whatever they value – car, fishing pole, tools, wife….
When I first asked my future wife for a date, she said, “Before you spend money on me, you should know that I’m looking for a husband. I’m not looking for fun; I want to get married. I’m not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out, but I want you to agree that the purpose of being together is to decide whether you and I should get married. God made me to be a treasure for some man. If you aren’t that man, fine, we can part friends, but I’m not a toy. I don’t want a man to play with me; I want a man to stay with me.”
Putting marriage on the table was part of guarding her heart. When a woman lets herself fall in love with a man who won’t marry her, she’s crusin’ for a brusin’, she’s in for a world of hurt.
Every man knows in his heart that a woman can give him the joys of Heaven, that’s why men pursue women. I liked her, and she tells me she plans to be God’s treasure for her husband! She had no idea what being my treasure would mean, but I knew exactly what it would be like to have her be God’s treasure for me. If she meant that, I’d be a fool not to marry her, so I said, “Sure.” We married 5 months later.
Teach that a virtuous wife “openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness (Pr. 31:26[23]).” A man who’s emotionally involved with a woman can be hurt terribly by her words even if he won’t admit it. Why would she do anything that will make it harder for him to admit to himself that he loves her?
Remind women to keep themselves “pure and unspotted (Jas. 1:27).” When women commit fornication or leave their homes for work, there’s less reason for men to be sexually pure or to work hard to provide for their families. Their incentive is weakened. Nothing straightens a man like having a woman lean on him.
A wife who wants her husband to convince her that he loves her should strive to make it easy for him to love her by belonging to him and by watching her tongue, but he must appreciate, value, and act on her talk. God gave us an example of woman-type talk:
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Matthew 27:19
Pilate’s wife expected him to pay attention to her dream. He should have paid attention to her feelings.
WHAT ABOUT MEN?
We’ve talked about what you need to teach your wives to teach other women; here’s what you need to teach men. Women are made for men (1 Cor. 11:8-9[24]) and a wife wants to please her husband (1 Cor. 7:34[25]). Around 90% of the success in a marriage is based on how a man treats his wife.
God gave your wife sensitive emotions so that she wants you to be pleased with her and so that she can tell whether you’re pleased or not. Her emotions make her a mirror; she’s not a light. Give her anger, criticism, unhappiness, she’ll be tempted to use her power to vex your soul to death (Jud. 16:16[26]), multiply your unhappiness, and give all your unhappiness back to you. If you give her praise, appreciation, honor, and love, she’ll multiply the happiness you give her and fill your house with the light of your joy in her. Men and their sons reap what they sow to the woman guiding the house, very quickly. A man must teach his sons to honor and appreciate their mother and sisters. If a meal turns into a kitchen disaster, for example, they must appreciate it, help clean up, and eat it, if only for the sake of the effort she put into it.
Most of the book of Proverbs is a father’s advice to his son. Chapters 2 and 5 warn men about non-virtuous women. Chapter 31 is King Lemuel’s words, “the wisdom his mother taught him (Pr. 31:1).”
Proverbs 31 wasn’t written to women, it was written to men. It tells a man what to expect of a virtuous woman. It’s easy to see if a woman is like that while courting. Mrs. Lemuel gave one command to men:
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her
. [saying] 29Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:28-29
Mrs. Lemuel taught that her son should praise his wife and teach his children to follow his example of praising her and appreciating her. Praise is partly to encourage his wife and partly to teach her children to respect her. She can teach daughters how to be treasures for their future husbands instead of being toys. She can teach sons how to be blessed by their future wives as Mrs. Lemuel taught her son.
Teach that nowhere in the Bible does a man criticize his wife. Not once. Really? What about this?
Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. Job 2:9
He said she spoke “as a foolish woman.” That meant she wasn’t usually foolish, it was halfway a compliment. He criticized what she did; he didn’t criticize her. Every wife knows the difference. Ever hear “love the sinner, hate the sin?”
But speaking the truth in love
, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: Ephesians 4:15
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword
: but the tongue of the wise is health. Pro. 12:18
I want my words to be health to my wife so she’ll want to hear what I tell her. I say, “That didn’t work as well as we planned. What went wrong? Let’s learn to do better next time.” I say “we” because my wife tries to please me by doing everything the way I want it done. That involves me in everything she does.
Today’s young people want Sound Bites
You can teach salvation in two words: “Only believe.” Marriage is two words: “Only praise.” What if husband and wife never criticized and looked every day for things to praise and appreciate as taught in the Song?
· Only praise. If a woman’s personality irritates him and makes it hard for him to keep his temper, should he marry her? We teach kids not to hurl angry words by age 2 or 3. Are you adult or child?
· When something goes wrong, take responsibility instead of blaming your wife as Adam blamed Eve.
· Open his heart. If he doesn’t trust her enough to open his heart, should he marry her? One of the rewards of opening his heart is that she will learn about him and figure out ways to please him.
· Listen to her advice. God made her to help him (Gen. 2:18, 20[27]); if he won’t listen to her and take her thoughts into account, she will be very unhappy and he will make more mistakes.
The Bible tells us twice that God values multiple sources of advice:
Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. Pro. 11:14
Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established. Proverbs 15:22
The benefits of knowledge sharing are great. Giving men wives is one of the ways God wants us to edify one another (1 Thess. 5:11[28]) and provoke one another to good works (Heb. 10:24[29]).
HUSBAND AND WIFE NEED PERFECT HEARTS
Salvation and marriage are alike. Salvation means that you die to your former sinful life to be born again into marriage to Christ (Ro. 7:4[30]). You then belong to Christ and serve Him out of love for Him. The only way husband and wife can become one as God expects is for each of them to die to their former individual lives in favor of their new family. They then belong to each other and belong to God and serve each other out of love.
David’s heart was perfect with the Lord his God. He sinned, but he never worshipped anyone or anything else. All Israel came with one perfect heart to make David king (1 Chron. 12:38[31]). Husband and wife must enter Holy Matrimony with one perfect heart. Christians must be careful not to value anyone or anything more than we value God or spouse. Couples must keep their hearts perfect with each other all their days by never paying attention to anyone else as man or woman.
Unmarried love is different from married love. The Bible tells men how to talk outside marriage:
The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity
. I Timothy 5:2
Men have to be careful not to let talk slide toward the emotional and physical connections God saves for marriage. Women must stop talking to a man who’s heading toward violating her emotional or physical purity. It’s OK for men and women to talk as long as they talk as persons and not as men and women.
A person-to-person conversation can stray toward man-woman. This is wrong if either party is married. If they’re single, the woman must decide whether they could marry and insist that he agree that the goal of being together is to decide whether they will marry. If he won’t agree, she should cut him off.
There is no God-honoring reason for man-woman talk between people who are neither married to each other nor considering marriage. Men and women can converse as people by avoiding man-woman thoughts or emotions. Your spouse is the only person in the world whose gender should matter to you.
Man-woman talk is dangerous at work. You must please the boss to keep a job. It’s common for a woman to please a man boss or a man to please a woman boss just a little too much. This can lead to adultery or divorce, but it starts with talk that does not meet God’s standards of purity.
God warns that men shouldn’t get physical with women outside marriage even if they don’t have sex:
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman
. 2Nevertheless, to avoid fornication
, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. I Corinthians 7:1-2
The Greek word translated “touch” includes arousing passion or starting a fire. Would a man take his mother’s arm in a slippery place to keep her from falling or help his sister put on her coat? Of course. Would he try to get his mother or sister sexually aroused? Of course not.
Anything or anyone a Christian loves or follows more than God is an idol and God calls it spiritual adultery. If a husband lets his love for anything – job, hobby, sports, hunting – be stronger than his love for his wife, she thinks he’s committing emotional adultery. There has to be a balance between job, family, and other matters.
LET’S SUM IT UP IN A FEW WORDS
God’s rules are simple. Salvation is two words, “only believe.” Getting married is 4 words, “No sex until marriage.” Staying married is “only praise.” We must praise our spouses as much as God expects us to praise Him; that keeps us focused on what God has given so that we don’t worry about what He hasn’t given.
A man should be able to look his wife in the eye and say from the bottom of his heart, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman. For God so loved me that He gave me you.”
When God looks on you, He sees the purity and perfection of His son, our Lord and Savior. We’re commanded to follow God (Eph. 5:1-2[32]), so when you look on your spouse, you are commanded to see the purity and perfection of His son, your spouse’s Lord and Savior.
God expects bride and groom to enter Holy Matrimony with one perfect heart. Keep your hearts perfect with the Lord your God and with each other.
God gave us one plan for both salvation and marriage, and He gave us one love-based way to relate to Him, to our spouses, and to our fellow church members. We praise God in the same way we praise our spouses; we give ourselves to our spouses in the same way we give ourselves to God. When lost people see Christian couples sharing God’s love and God’s forgiveness, they’ll want some for themselves. Showing and spreading the love of God is how we turn the world upside down (Acts 17:1-6[33]). It really is that simple.
Welcome, my brothers and sisters in Christ – a longer message
God gave us both salvation and marriage. If we try to get to Heaven in our own way, we go to Hell when we die. If we try to do marriage our own way, we can make life Hell on earth. Our marriages show lost people how God cares for His people. Our churches can’t grow without being built on solid marriages.
Romans 7:4 uses the word “married” to describe the tie between a born-again Christian and Christ. Holy Matrimony is your most powerful testimony. We Christians show Christ to unbelievers (2 Cor. 5:20[34]). The way Christian husbands nourish and cherish their wives shows the lost how Christ blesses His people. When lost people see that Christian marriages are no better than theirs, when we can’t handle this life any better than they can, we damage the picture of Christ’s care for us. Why should they hear what we say about the life to come? Christian divorce and unhappy Christian marriages wreck our testimony and dishonor Christ.
When Christians pour the grace of salvation into marriages, lost people see us passing God’s love, forgiveness, and grace back and forth. They’ll see that we’re much better off in this life than they are. God has given us the privilege and honor of telling everyone how to get God’s grace for themselves.
There is no joy for a man this side of Heaven like having a woman like belonging to him. As her God-ordained leader, he must convince her that he loves her and that he’s glad to belong to her and glad to care for her. This shows her Christ’s love for her and for him. Seeing Christ’s love in action draws the lost.
If a Christian wife doesn’t like belonging to her husband, why should the lost want to belong to Christ?
Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1
Emotion is the cement God gave every woman to build her house and hold her family together. Women build the house of God. When a couple visits a church, if the wife sees that the women are nervous or not appreciated, she won’t want to return. If they’re loved and led gently, she’ll want her husband to learn how.
Marriage is simpler than we think. God gave us one Bible verse which tells us how to build a marriage that gives both parties a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
REVIEW OF GOD’S SIMPLE PLAN OF SALVATION
God knew that we would have trouble with His plan of salvation. He knew that we could never handle two plans, one for marriage and one for salvation, so He made one plan work for both. He knew we would have a hard time relating properly to Him. We couldn’t handle two ways to relate, one for relating to God and another for relating to our spouses, so He gave us just one way to relate.
Salvation and marriage use the same plan. We relate to God and to other Christians in the same way.
We serve the Lord God Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth, who sent His only Son Jesus to be born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus was equal to God the Father, but He took on the form of a servant and was born in the likeness of a man (Phil. 2:6-8[35]). He was called “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us (Mt. 1:23[36]).” In dying on the cross as a man, Jesus obeyed God His Father unto death. In dying as God, He took on Himself the richly-deserved punishment for all of my sins, your sins, and all the sins of everyone past, present, and future.
The blood He shed in dying on the cross washes away our sins, but only if we humble ourselves, admit that we cannot overcome our sins without His help, and call on Him to save us and take us to Heaven when we die.
My mother taught me the reality of my sins in punishing me for disobeying her. She gave me the Good News that Jesus died to take the punishment for my sins. She taught me that His blood would wash me clean of my sins if I would believe Him and ask Him to do that. She taught that Jesus rose from the dead to show His power over death so that I would know that he would take me to heaven to be with Him when I die.
She taught me about Adam’s sin and God’s promise that one of Eve’s children would conquer Satan (Gen. 3:15[37]). I didn’t realize that Jesus loved me far more than “just” being willing to take on the evil of all my sins and lose His fellowship with His Father (Ps. 22:1[38], Mt. 27:46[39], Mk. 15:34[40]). I thought that when Adam soiled himself by his sin and our perfect God could no longer have fellowship with polluted Adam, Jesus agreed that He would become sin for us so that we could be washed clean and spend eternity with God in Heaven.
SLAIN BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD
Years later, I understood that Jesus knew Adam would sin before He said “let there be light” to start creating the world. Rev. 13:8 speaks of “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Jesus knew He would have to die before He created Adam, yet He loved all of us enough and wanted us enough to create us anyway!
God knew it would be hard for us to understand Jesus loving us enough to die for us even before He created Adam. To remind us and to help us understand love, God created mothers who willingly risk death to give their babies life. Before modern medicine, a woman had roughly 98.5% chance of surviving a pregnancy. Without birth control, married women had so many pregnancies that 1 woman in 8 died in childbirth.
Every girl knew someone who had died in childbirth (Ge. 35:18[41], 1 Sam. 4:20[42]). Every girl knew that she would walk the valley of the shadow of death for each child, yet women wanted to marry and bear children (Ge.30:1[43], Lk. 1:25[44]) anyway. Women want children badly enough to risk death; Jesus wanted the pleasure and glory of creating us so badly (Rev. 4:11[45]) that He chose certain death before creating everything!
I was born before antibiotics could fight infections. My mother risked her life to give me life and did it again and again for my two brothers. Being glad to give her life is a woman’s part of Ge. 5:1-2 “in the likeness of God made he him,” and “he [that is, God] called their name Adam” to include Eve in the likeness of God.
If someone gave you a birthday gift, would you hand over money to pay for it? That would refuse the gift. Trying to get to Heaven by being good, being religious, going to church, tithing, doing good deeds, is not only impossible (Ro. 3:11[46]), trying to earn your way into Heaven blocks you from accepting Jesus’ free offer of salvation (Gal. 5:4[47]). You’re trying to pay for a free gift whose price is far more than you can ever pay.
What did you do to earn your mother’s risking her life to give you life and then pouring her life into keeping you alive and teaching you how to behave as an adult? Nothing. She risked her life before she knew anything about you. She risked her life freely based on the emotional drives God put into her and looked forward eagerly to your birth as she felt God forming you within her womb (Is. 49:5[48]). Have you thanked her?
God ordained both salvation and marriage. If we try to do salvation our own way, if we try to get to heaven on our own strength, we go to Hell when we die. If we try to do marriage our own way, we can make life Hell on earth, but if we do it God’s way, we can give each other a taste of Heaven, right here on earth.
Jesus told Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again (John 3:7[49]).” You must die to your former life of sin in order to be born again into the family of Christ (Acts 17:30[50], 20:21[51]).
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead
to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another
, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
Note the phrase “married to another.” Jesus required you to die to your former life and be born again into marriage with Him so you can bring forth fruit to God. Revelation 19:9 speaks of “the marriage supper of the Lamb” where His bride, the church, is united in marriage with Jesus in Heaven forever.
God uses the word “marriage” to describe the relationship between God and His people because we become one with God through calling on His name to be saved, and husband and wife become “one flesh” when they enter into Holy Matrimony. The command “love the Lord thy God” appears 14 times! Once we accept Christ’s offer of salvation, He becomes “our God” and we’re commanded to love Him. Why?
LOVE DRIVES THE CHRISTIAN WALK
The 2nd time Jesus meet with His disciples after His resurrection, He told them to start the church:
Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. 22And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: John 20:21-22
Jesus sent them as God had sent Him and gave them the Holy Ghost. That should have been enough, but John 21 tells us that Peter went fishing instead of starting the church. Jesus went after Peter again. Having created Peter, Jesus knew that men are afraid to admit their feelings for fear of being hurt.
Jesus wept (Jn. 11:35) at Lazarus’ tomb. Peter saw Him mourn for Jerusalem (Mt. 23:37[52], Lk. 13:34[53]) and Capernaum (Mt. 11:23[54], Lk. 10:15[55]). Peter knew that if he obeyed Jesus as Jesus had obeyed God, he would be hurt when people he loved refused the gospel. He wanted no part of Jesus’ sorrow or grief (Is. 53:3-4[56]).
Peter was right. I sorrowed when my friend who was best man at my wedding would not ask Jesus to save him. I urged him again after a bad heart attack. He finally said, “I get it. God lets me choose to go to Hell if I want to.” His 2nd attack killed him a week later, 35 years to the day after my wedding. I think he’s in Hell.
Jesus pushed Peter to admit that Peter loved Him. That didn’t make Peter love Jesus – he already did – but Peter wouldn’t recognize or admit his love for Jesus until Jesus pushed him.
Once he admitted to himself that he loved Jesus, Peter had to spread the word – it’s our love of Christ that makes us serve Him (2 Cor. 5:14[57])! That’s why Jesus wants us to know and accept His love for us and ours for Him – we can’t do His work without loving Him and we won’t even want to do His work unless we love Him.
Peter’s love was weak in John 21, but even weak love made him willing to serve by spreading the Gospel.
For if there be first
a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. II Corinthians 8:12
Peter was willing to plant and water in his Pentecost sermon (1 Cor. 3:6[58]). God accepted what little Peter had and gave increase to the church of about 3,000.
Similarly, a man must admit to himself that he loves his wife and he must convince her that he loves her. If he doesn’t do that, telling lost people that God loves them won’t work because lost people will see that his wife doesn’t think he loves her. If he does love her, he will be driven to serve her and to care for her.
How can anyone believe what we tell them about God’s Love for them if they see that we don’t love each other or that we don’t love them? When lost people see husband and wife forgiving one another and passing God’s love and grace back and forth between them, however, they want God’s love for themselves. God gave us the privilege and the honor of telling them how to get it. Do all of your people know how to tell them?
If someone’s love is strong enough that to want to serve Him but they don’t know how to serve Him, just have them help you! God will give them more to do as they grow as Peter did. As with Peter, Jesus has begun a good work in your church members and He will perform it until the day He returns (Phi. 1:6[59]).
Have you taught your people that they must admit to themselves that they love God in their hearts?
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth
, and honoureth me with their lips
; but their heart is far from me. Matthew 15:8
Lip service doesn’t spread the Gospel. God expects us to love Him with all our hearts. So do our wives!
HOLY MATRIMONY UNTIL DEATH IS VITAL TO SOCIETY
Every stable culture helps men and women build safe homes where children can grow up to be productive adults. We have arranged marriages where husband and wife meet for the first time on their wedding day. In some places the bride’s family pays a dowry to set the new couple up in a new home. In some cultures the husband’s family pays a bride price to reimburse her family for the cost of raising and educating her.
Every culture must raise most kids to be productive adults. If that doesn’t happen, society collapses.
My illustrations are drawn from the American dating culture which may or may not apply to your culture. There’s no point in my visiting you to talk about marriage. God’s principles of marriage are the same everywhere; details are very different. You must adapt God’s principles to your people’s needs.
Most American women act like it’s OK to have sex without marriage, and many men are glad to do it. If a woman doesn’t insist that a man grow up, get a job, and marry her before having sex, there’s no reason for him to grow up, get a job, or to commit himself to taking care of her. Why did God ordain marriage?
And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. 14Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. 15And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed
. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. Malachi 2:13-15
God wasn’t receiving their offerings or blessing their society. Why not? Because men were divorcing their wives. God’s purpose in bringing men and women together is for His servants to raise children so He has more servants. When marriages fall apart, God doesn’t have to do anything to make society suffer. In his book “Sex and Culture” Dr. Unwin wrote in 1914, “The sexual behavior of women before marriage is the decisive factor in cultural success. Men are mainly motivated by sex. If they can get it without marriage, they contribute less to society.” [60] He’s certainly right about that. Jacob work 7 years to marry Rachel because he wanted her.
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her
. Genesis 29:21
Caring for a wife is a lot of work. Raising children is a lot of work. A man will marry if he wants a woman badly enough. If he can have her without marriage, however, marrying would bring him a lot of trouble without giving him anything he doesn’t have. The American welfare system pays an unmarried woman more money for each fatherless child, but stops all her benefits if she gets married. You may have read of fatherless mobs rioting in America, killing many and causing billions of dollars worth of damage.
Sexual passion within marriage makes men work to improve their homes to make their wives happy, mothers find it hard to invest their lives in their children without a husband’s help. Dr. Unwin has studied more than eighty former civilizations; all societies which became sexually permissive collapsed.[61]
Older women are commanded to teach younger women about men (Titus 2:3-5[62]). God led my wife to explain that a husband’s goal is 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner and bed. God doesn’t often give him that much strength, but that’s a man’s marriage plan. 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed.
Deu. 21:14, 22:9 and Eze. 22:10-11 say that a man “has humbled” a woman by taking her, that’s part of the cost of a man in her life. When they hear 5 times, a girl who hasn’t even dated understands that doing that will wipe out her independence and make her belong totally to her husband. They get upset until my wife reminds them that a woman wants her husband to open his heart to her in open talk at least that often. Girls know that having a man open his heart makes him belong to her. Giving his life for her life is OK.
Opening her body makes a wife belong to her husband. Opening his heart makes him belong to his wife.
MARRIAGE IS SIMPLE – THE BIBLE EXPLAINS MARRIAGE IN ONE VERSE
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Genesis 24:67
· Isaac supplied the tent. A man’s proposal to a woman that doesn’t include food, clothing, and shelter isn’t biblical. If a man can’t pay for her, all he can do is play with her. That never ends well for her.
· She became his wife, not his girlfriend – they had both made public marriage vows before he took her.
· Isaac loved Rebekah and then he was comforted. God gave every wife the ability to comfort her husband, but comforting him emotionally exhausting. Being convinced that he loves her renews her emotional energy so she can keep comforting him, but this requires a lot of daily detailed praise and appreciation as taught in the Song of Solomon.
80-90% of how a marriage works out depends on how a man treats his wife after they marry, but 80% of that depends on how high she and he set her value by protecting her virtue before they marry (Pr. 31:10[63]).
Isaac Supplied the Tent
Most women delight in a man’s attention. A woman can easily become emotionally involved with a man who says he loves her. Playing boy-girl games when you aren’t ready for marriage is like playing with matches and gasoline when you don’t want to start a fire. People aren’t toys. Playing with each other before you’re mature enough to think of a permanent marriage can lead to serious emotional damage.
There are only three ways it can turn out, all of them are bad:
1) You can break up. This hurts, but shows you can survive breaking up. This prepares you for divorce later.
2) You can marry before you’re mature enough or have enough income. Mature adults have troubles with the duties and responsibilities of marriage, and marriage is far harder on younger people.
3) You can get involved physically without commitment to each other, which adds to the emotional damage.
It’s OK to date to learn about the opposite sex before you’re ready to marry, but there’s a very important rule about dating: Never ever date the same person twice in a row. If a couple starts to “go steady” before they’re mature enough and financially well off enough to marry, their emotions can easily become aroused. Those emotions must be reserved for marriage. They’re committing emotional fornication. Emotional fornication often leads to physical fornication, which damages their ability to form loving marriages later.
The teen years and early twenties are a time for striving to learn what you must know to join the ranks of productive, responsible adults; it’s not a time to wish you were already grown up. Isaac was 40 years old (Gen. 5:20) and had enough money to support Rebecca when he married her. That is a husband’s duty.
Jesus spoke of His servants being obliged to do their duty to Him:
So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. Luke 17:10
When God gives a woman to a man to be his wife, God expects him to fulfill his God-given duty to nourish her and cherish her (Eph 5:29) as long as they both shall live.
Isaac Supplied the Tent, then He Took Rebekah
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her
. Genesis 29:21
A man will marry if he wants a woman badly enough and marriage is the only way he can have her. Marriage is wonderful enough to be worth the burden and responsibilities of marriage:
Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe: let her breasts satisfy thee at all times, and be thou ravished always with her love. Pro. 5:18
Blessing her husband’s fountain whenever he’s ravished with her love is part of the marriage burden.
There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: 19The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. Proverbs 30:18-19
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. Psalm 19:5
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Song of Solomon 7:10
But if they cannot contain, let them marry: I Corinthians 7:9a
Some wedding vows say “to have and to hold.” The man marries to have her; she marries him so he’ll hold her. Naomi gave Ruth the best advice on getting marriage you’ll ever hear:
Then said she, Sit still, my daughter
, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day. Ruth 3:18
Boaz wasn’t thinking of marriage, but when Ruth brought it up, he thought it was such a good idea he ran out the very next morning and married her. Why? Because he wanted her. What if a woman gives a man rest outside marriage? Her value falls (Pr. 31:10). What would marriage give him that he doesn’t have? If she gives herself to him without marriage, how can he trust her not to give herself to someone else? A woman shouldn’t play hard to get, she should be hard to get. It’s him giving his life for her life or not at all.
He Took Her to Wife
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication
: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour
; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter
: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit. I Thessalonians 4:3-8
Some say that this refers to a man possessing his own body, but “vessel” in “as unto the weaker vessel (1 Pe. 3:7)” is something that receives. In marriage, the man’s body gives and the woman’s body receives. Jesus said that a man and wife were “no more twain, but one flesh.” There’s only one body in a Christian marriage.
A man sanctifies a woman, that is, sets her apart from all other women, by entering into Holy Matrimony with her before taking her. How often do we hear of a man persuading a woman to fulfill his lusts by claiming to love her? Without the sanctification of marriage, taking a woman is sinful lust which God calls “fraud.” This despises God and God will avenge this by denying the man most of the joy which God intended for marriage.
We know from news about dates gone wrong that being defrauded by being taken outside marriage can harm a woman badly and make her bitter. God gives a man the desire of his heart when he takes a woman through lying to her, but defrauding her and taking advantage of her brings leanness into his soul (Psalm 106:15). Fraud followed by bitterness isn’t a good foundation for marriage. The situation can’t improve unless the man takes responsibility for defrauding her and confesses his sin to her and to their parents.
The Bible uses “took to wife (Gen. 26:34, 1 Ki. 16:31, 1 Chr. 7:15)” to indicate that the man married the woman before taking her. The Bible warns four times that opening herself to a man humbles a woman (Deu. 21:14, 22:29, Eze. 22:10-11). The chemicals a man injects into her body make her brain produce hormones that affect her thinking. She becomes much more relaxed. She’ll lose her sense of independence and feel a desire to cling to him and to belong to him. This makes her feel vulnerable and dependent. This can be very frightening even if he’s made her feel secure, appreciated, and valued by marrying her before taking her and by opening his heart to her enough that she’s confident that he belongs to her.
If a man takes a woman outside marriage, she knows he failed to protect her from his passions as Adam failed to protect Eve from the serpent. It is very difficult for a woman to follow a man whom she can’t trust.
Isaac Loved Rebekah
Older women are told to teach younger women how to love their husbands (Titus 2:4) because men are very much alike – what comforts one man will make pretty much any man feel loved, and it’s simple enough that the Bible explains it in one verse. There is no simple formula for making a wife feel loved because women are so very different from each other, but the Bible describes the result. As Naomi told her daughters goodbye when sending them back to their families to find husbands, she prayed:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest
, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
Women aren’t strong enough to hunt or farm without modern machinery. In a muscle-powered society with no welfare system, wives depend on husbands for food. Naomi wanted her daughters to have food, clothing, and shelter, of course, but she also wanted them to find comfort, rest, contentment, and security in knowing that their husbands valued and appreciated by them as taught in the Song of Solomon.
Watching any couple shows whether she’s resting in her husband. Many women experience this instead:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he
: Eat and drink
, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee
. Proverbs 23:7
A man can say he loves a woman and provide for her without giving his heart. God has the same problem:
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. Matthew 15:8
Naomi wanted each daughter to find a husband who poured his heart into nourishing and cherishing her. God isn’t the only one who appreciates a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7[64]) – wives also appreciate cheerful giving. What was Delilah’s complaint against Samson?
And she said unto him, How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me
? Judges 16:15a
The woman in the Song is confident that her husband has opened his heart enough to belong to her:
My beloved is mine
, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song 2:16
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine
: he feedeth among the lilies. Song 6:3
Delilah was upset that Samson wouldn’t open his heart to her and wouldn’t belong to her. He said he loved her, she gave herself to him, but she could see that he wasn’t hers. What good was he to her (Song 2:16[65])? Why not get some cash by selling him to the Philistines? She knew that what’s in a man’s heart defines him. It’s the sports hero and the cheerleader, a story that happens over and over again in colleges and high schools. What she did wasn’t nice, but who betrayed whom first?
Women share their hearts all the time in helping other women bear the burdens of husbands, children, and guiding houses (1 Tim. 5:14[66]). They must be taught that it’s as frightening for a man to open his heart as for a woman to open her body. A man’s emotions are as powerful as a woman’s. Japanese say “One hair of a woman’s head pulls more strongly than ten yoke of oxen” and Chinese say that a man in love rides a wild horse. Many men are afraid to open their hearts for fear of being hurt or vexed
And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death
; Judges 16:16
Emotions scare a man. Although he may declare his love to her, he may not admit his love to himself.
Having created Peter, Jesus knew how Peter felt. Peter saw Jesus weep and grieve over the cities of Israel (Mt. 11:23[67], 23:37[68], Lk. 10:15[69], 13:34[70]). Peter did not want the sorrow of loving people and seeing them fall away so he hid his emotions from himself.
John 21:15-19 tells how Jesus asked three times whether Peter loved him. Peter finally admitted to filios, brotherly love. Did Jesus’ questions make Peter love Him? No, Peter already loved Jesus – he wept bitterly when he betrayed Jesus (Mt. 26:75[71]) – but he didn’t want to feel love, knowing how love can lead to sorrow.
If a man won’t admit to himself that he loves his wife enough to be hurt by her, he can’t convince her he loves her and she won’t be able to comfort him as he expects. Opening herself to him makes her more sensitive to his feelings about her. If he values her skills, feelings, thoughts, and everything else about her, feeling loved more strongly makes her happy. She won’t mind being humbled and will be glad to see his delight in her. If she doesn’t think he’s pleased with her, she won’t want to be more sensitive to his feelings.
A woman has a thousand thousand ways to deflect her husband’s desire, but the fault is often his. She can’t make him any happier than he makes her. A man finds happiness in marriage by convincing his wife that he loves her and that he’s truly happy to care for her. Words are cheap; love requires action.
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth
. I John 3:18
Serving your wife as Jesus commands (Mk. 9:35[72], 10:42-45[73]) shows love. That makes her happy which makes him happy. The Song of Songs starts with the wife praising her husband for getting physical with her:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Song 7:10
She likes getting physical because he appreciates her. Husbands and wives want to please each other:
But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife
. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband
. I Corinthians 7:32-34 *
For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man
. I Corinthians 11:8-9
Women are made for men (Gen. 2:18[74]), so a wife generally cares more about pleasing her husband than he cares about pleasing her. The Book of Proverbs warns 5 times (Pr. 19:13 b[75], 21:9[76], 19[77], 25:24[78], 27:15[79]) that an unhappy wife is a hardship; some say, “If mamma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones
. Proverbs 17:22
Men, don’t dry your wife’s bones. Can you give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she wants to please you? She can’t please you if she doesn’t know what you want. The only way she can be confident of pleasing you is for you to open your heart often enough for her to learn your ways in detail.
When a woman finds she can’t please her husband no matter how she tries, we often see death in her eyes, even in photos. Men, if you want to be happy in marriage, be happy with your wife. That makes her happy. There is no joy this side of Heaven that compares with having your wife be glad to belong to you.
Isaac Loved Rebekah and then He was Comforted
Rebekah was able to comfort Isaac after he convinced her that he loved her.
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Song of Solomon 7:10
His physical desire seems strange to her, so the wife asks her mother for advice about her husband:
I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me
: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song of Solomon 8:2-3
Her mother tells her to welcome her husband into her body whenever he wants her. Giving herself when she’d rather do something else is what submission means. She has far more sexual capacity than he; she is able to drain off all of his sexual energy. That makes it hard for other women to get his attention. If she sends him off to work loaded, on the other hand, he’ll be tempted by other women (Pr. 6:28[80]).
A man can’t praise his wife in such detail without paying close attention to her. Marriages are based on communication; a woman communicates heart-to-heart, a man communicates belly-to-belly.
How many marriages would fail if husband and wife never, not ever, criticized each other and constantly looked for things to appreciate instead? That is the essence of the Song. Jesus promised us rest:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
A bride takes on the yoke of pleasing her husband. He must live with her according to knowledge of her (1 Pe. 3:7[81]). He gets this knowledge by hours and hours of daily open-hearted talk. This opens his heart to her, makes his yoke easy and his burden light, and convinces her that he belongs to her as taught in the Song.
Courtship shows whether he trusts her (Pr. 31:11[82]) enough to truly open his heart and he finds out whether she respects him and honors him (Eph. 5:33[83], 1 Pe. 3:6[84]) in spite of his mistakes. Marriage prospers when a man treats his wife as his precious gift from God and she acts like his precious gift from God.
Don’t be like Peter
We talked about Jesus having to work to get Peter to admit that Peter loved Jesus. This is a common problem.
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. Matthew 15:8
My mother did not believe that my father loved her. He said he did with his mouth, he honored her with his lips, but he didn’t convince her. My mother played hymns for church and taught all three sons how to play the piano. Her people skills were strong enough that her missionary letters got our family to 300% support. My dad never let her know he appreciated her gifts even though her gifts were very useful to his ministry. He didn’t spend the time he should have invested in opening his heart and making sure she felt loved.
We were missionaries to Japan, and the Japanese language is extremely difficult. My dad was grateful to Japanese colleagues who helped him arrange tickets and travel schedules. This would have been nearly impossible for either him or for my mother because of the language.
He was right to appreciate their help, but he never told my mother he appreciated her efforts to “guide our house” in a strange culture when her Japanese wasn’t good enough to have women friends who could help her with all the strange foods. Not feeling appreciated by the man she loved dried my mother’s bones.
My mother never understood why my wife, whose gifts were so similar to hers, was loved and appreciated while her gifts were not valued. Even though she was convinced that her wedding vows had been said to God as well as to my dad (Mal. 2:14[85]), she was coming to the conclusion that she would have to leave my dad. The pain of not being loved rotted her bones and was more than she could bear.
Instead of leaving her when she was diagnosed with cancer, my dad took early retirement and nursed her for the rest of her life. The pain of feeling unloved for all those decades had gone so deep that it took years of dad cleaning up her messes when chemotherapy made her throw up before she felt loved.
When she died at 62, mom was convinced that he cared deeply about her. Her mother lived to 95. Given the choice of living 30 more years feeling unloved or dying in confidence she was valued, she’d have chosen early death. For my mother, the certainly of being loved and appreciated was more precious than life itself.
Jesus pushing Peter didn’t make Peter love Jesus, he already did, but he hadn’t admitted it to himself. My dad did love my mother, but he hadn’t realized it. She was the axle on which the wheel of his life turned, and when she was gone, he started to die. It really isn’t good for a man to be alone, that’s why God generally arranges that men die before their wives.
So men, if you want to receive the joys you expected to receive from Holy Matrimony, you must convince your wife that she’s loved, valued, and appreciated. That’s hard to do, but appreciation is vital:
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus
, giving thanks to God and the Father by him
. Colossians 3:17
Everything you do with your wife must be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must give thanks to God for giving you salvation, for giving marriage in general, and for giving you your wife in particular.
Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness
, and with gladness of heart
, for the abundance of all things
; 48Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things
: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee
. Deuteronomy 28:47-48
Moses warned the Jews to give thanks for everything God gave. They weren’t thankful so He took everything away. They were in want of “all things.” We often take His gifts for granted. “We never miss the water ‘til the well runs dry.” Adopt an Attitude of Gratitude! If you don’t convince your wife that you’re grateful for her and to her, she’ll be unhappy. You’ll lose most of the blessing God intended her to give you.
Many men complain that women are too emotional and too talkative. If it weren’t for the emotional mating drive God put into women, they wouldn’t want to get together with men at all. Would you want to be married to you? Would you want to do all the things she does to keep your family working smoothly?
I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. I Timothy 5:14
Women are driven to talk about caring for husbands, children, and homes. This is a good thing.
Women complain that men are too possessive. God made men possessive so men would take care of women. If a wife encourages her husband’s possessiveness, he’ll be more inclined to take care of her and their children as God desires. If she belongs to him, her happiness belongs to him too. He’ll find that spending money on the house makes her happy, and making her happy makes him far happier than anything he can do for himself. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 2 that everything he did was vanity and chasing after wind. This was because he did it for himself: “I gat me, I builded me….” If a man dedicates his work and his life to nourishing and cherishing his wife, children, and church, his work won’t be vain. God gives one source of joy:Live joyfully
with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life
, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
A man’s life consists of his work and his wife, that’s his portion, that’s all there is. A wife, like life, is a gift of God. She can’t make him any happier than he makes her. How happy does he want to be?
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing
, and obtaineth favor
of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
Complaining about God’s gifts instead of being grateful cost the Jews God’s blessing. Complaining instead of thanking and praising makes your spouse unhappy and costs you the blessing God intended for marriage.
If you are truly grateful to God for giving you life, salvation, and marriage, if you truly believe that God is good, you will see that the way He made men and women was designed to bless both of you. If you can’t see how something about your spouse blesses you, that’s your problem, not God’s.
Women particularly appreciate appreciation. The Song of Solomon shows how to do it – notice small things about your wife and appreciate them in detail. When my wife’s hairbrush gets full of hair, I spend 30 seconds with a comb to clean it so it works again. It saves her a bit of time, but what’s more important, it shows her that I pay attention to her things. Long hair is a lot of work, so I help her brush it up before she goes to bed and help her brush it down when she gets up. That’s a Biblical command:
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
Women are generally smaller than men and weaker than men. My wife expects me to protect her. Seeing me pay attention to small things gives her confidence that I’m looking out for her safety and her welfare.
SO WHAT SHOULD YOU TEACH?
A pastor must be “apt to teach (1 Tim. 3:2[86], 2 Tim. 2:24[87]).” Older women must teach younger women, but many older women say they don’t know what to say. Teach your wives to teach about 5 times and about a wife’s need for her husband to open his heart often enough to belong to her. A woman must know her needs so she can test a man to see if he’ll overcome his fears enough to belong to her. Women must quote this:
The heart
of her husband doth safely trust in her
, Proverbs 31:11a
A man can trust his heart to a virtuous woman. If she replies “Yes, sir” as the spirit moves her, he’ll be confident that she’ll respect him in spite of his mistakes. If she gives herself whenever he wants her, he’ll be convinced that she belongs to him. God made men possessive. Being his helps him trust her and also makes him want to take care of her as men take care of whatever they value – car, fishing pole, tools, wife….
When I first asked my future wife for a date, she said, “Before you spend money on me, you should know that I’m looking for a husband. I’m not looking for fun; I want to get married. I’m not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out, but I want you to agree that the purpose of being together is to decide whether you and I should get married. God made me to be a treasure for some man. If you aren’t that man, fine, we can part friends, but I’m not a toy. I don’t want a man to play with me; I want a man to stay with me.”
Putting marriage on the table was part of guarding her heart. When a woman lets herself fall in love with a man who won’t marry her, she’s crusin’ for a brusin’, she’s in for a world of hurt.
When she spoke of my spending money on her, she signaled that she expected me to support her. In the past, a woman wouldn’t give herself to a man without marriage and she wouldn’t marry unless he’d grown up enough to have a job. Many modern girls live with men without marriage and even pay “their share” of the rent. She was letting me know that she wasn’t going to do that.
Every man knows in his heart that a woman can give him the joys of Heaven, that’s why men pursue women. I liked her, and she tells me she plans to be God’s treasure for her husband! She had no idea what being my treasure would mean, but I knew exactly what it would be like to have her be God’s treasure for me. If she meant that, I’d be a fool not to marry her, so I said, “Sure.” We married 5 months later.
She didn’t tell me until years later, but she had been planning to marry her college boyfriend even though he’d never said anything about marriage. Something drove her to ask God if she should marry him, and God told her firmly “No.” It was very difficult, but she broke up with him. She had failed to guard her heart.Keep thy heart
with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
She fell in love with him before she asked God if he would be a good husband for her. A woman should never, ever, let herself fall in love with a man until after he has married her. In her sorrow, she told God, “You didn’t like the man I chose, so you find me a husband.” We talked for an hour or so the day we met. When she had to leave, I told her I was going to date her. I didn’t ask her, I told her. The wheels turned behind her eyes for 15 or 20 seconds, she gulped, and said “OK.”
During that time, she felt God saying, “Who’s going to choose, you or Me?” I was not at all what she would have chosen, but with God telling her He wanted to give her to me, she was OK with it. That’s why she got marriage on the table before our first date. She trusted God, but in her woman’s heart, she wanted to be sure I was OK with the idea of marrying her.
My wife tells young ladies that if a man won’t agree to marry if she decides that she wants to be his treasure, there’s something wrong with him and she should have nothing to do with him.
She also asked that I never fuss at her. “I want to love you very much,” she said. “The more I love you, the more disapproval hurts me. I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you hurt me.”
That made sense – the Bible speaks of women as “tender and delicate.” I don’t want to keep her from loving me, so I watch what I say. God said the same thing:
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health. Pro. 12:18
I need this too. A man can be hurt as badly by a woman he loves as a woman can be hurt by a man. We’ve tried always to be sure our tongues are health to each other. She tries to speak so that the 10-foot area near her is the best place in all the world for me to be, that’s why I like hanging around her.
Teach that a virtuous wife “openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness (Pr. 31:26).” A man who’s emotionally involved with a woman can be hurt terribly by her words even if he won’t admit it. Why would she do anything that will make it harder for him to admit to himself that he loves her?
Remind women to keep themselves “pure and unspotted (Jas. 1:27[88]).” When women commit fornication or leave their homes for the workforce, there is no reason why men need to be sexually pure and work hard to provide for their families. Their incentive is gone.
A wife who wants her husband to convince her that he loves her should strive to make it easy for him to love her by belonging to him and by watching her tongue, but he must appreciate, value, and act on her talk. God gave us an example of woman-type talk:
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Matthew 27:19
Pilate’s wife expected him to pay attention to her dream. He should have relied on her feelings. On the other hand, a wife must let her husband punish their children when necessary no matter how she feels:
Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. Proverbs 19:18
Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell
. Proverbs 23:13-14
Women expect men to protect them, but they need to know that a man can’t protect her unless she obeys. Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” shows that a man can’t protect his family without cooperation or incarceration. Juliet’s father tried to keep her away from Romeo and appointed the family nurse to keep her at home. Juliet fooled the nurse, snuck off, and got together with Romeo. It didn’t turn out well – they died.
Peter Pan told Wendy to stay in the clearing. Captain Hook kidnapped her when she disobeyed and went walking in the woods. Peter had to risk his life in a sword fight to get her back. If he’d known he wouldn’t get Wendy’s cooperation, should he have used incarceration by locking her in the house?
Fathers aren’t infallible. Jacob let his daughter Dina go out to “see the daughters of the land;” Shechem raped her (Gen. 34). David told his daughter Tamar to go see Amnon and didn’t make Amnon marry Tamar after Amnon raped her (II Samuel 13). Did David or Jacob ask their wives’ advice before doing these things?
WHAT ABOUT MEN?
We’ve talked about what you need to teach your wives to teach other women; here’s what you need to teach men. Women are made for men (1 Cor. 11:8-9[89]) and a wife wants to please her husband (1 Cor. 7:34[90]). Around 90% of the success in a marriage is based on how a man treats his wife.
God gave your wife sensitive emotions so that she wants you to be pleased with her (1 Cor. 7:34) and so that she’ll know whether you’re pleased or not. Her emotions make her a mirror; she’s not a light. Give her anger, criticism, unhappiness, she’ll be tempted to use her power to vex your soul to death (Jud. 16:16[91]), multiply your unhappiness, and give all your unhappiness back to you. If you give her praise, appreciation, honor, and love, she’ll multiply the happiness you give her and fill your house with the light of your joy in her. Men and their sons reap what they sow to the woman guiding the house, very quickly. A man must teach his sons to honor and appreciate their mother and sisters. If a meal turns into a kitchen disaster, for example, they must appreciate it, help clean up, and eat it, if only for the sake of the effort she put into it.
Most of the book of Proverbs is a father’s advice to his son. Chapters 2 and 5 warn men about non-virtuous women. Chapter 31 is King Lemuel’s words, “the wisdom his mother taught him.”
Proverbs 31 wasn’t written to women, it was written to men. It tells a man what to expect of a virtuous woman. It’s easy to see if a woman is like that while courting. Mrs. Lemuel gave one command to men:
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her
. [saying] 29Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:28-29
Mrs. Lemuel taught that her son should praise his wife and teach his children to follow his example of praising her and appreciating her. This teaches them the “attitude of gratitude” which will bless them all their lives. Praise is partly to encourage his wife and partly to teach her children to respect her. If her daughters respect her, she can teach them how to be treasures for their future husbands instead of being toys. If her sons respect her, she can teach them how to be blessed by their future wives as Mrs. Lemuel taught her son.
Teach that nowhere in the Bible does a man criticize his wife. Not once. Really? What about this?
Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. Job 2:9
Job’s wife lost her seven sons who were her only hope of being fed after her husband died – no pensions. Her husband lost his money and was speaking of dying – she’d had a tough week. He said she spoke “like a foolish woman.” That implied she wasn’t usually foolish, it was halfway a compliment. He criticized what she did; he didn’t criticize her. Every wife knows the difference. Ever hear “love the sinner, hate the sin?”
But speaking the truth in love
, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: Ephesians 4:15
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword
: but the tongue of the wise is health. Pro. 12:18
I want my words to be health to my wife so she’ll want to hear what I tell her. I say, “That didn’t work as well as we planned. What went wrong? Let’s learn to do better next time.” I say “we” because my wife tries to please me by doing everything the way I want it done. That involves me in everything she does.
Men, criticizing wives is unbiblical, period, end of story. 1 Samuel 25 tells how Abigail criticized her husband Nabal to David. In 1 Samuel 25:34, David thanked her for talking him out of murdering Nabal. When Nabal died, David married Abigail immediately. God gives 2 rules for wives criticizing husbands: 1) Only to prevent murder or some other serious sin 2) Criticize him so sweetly that any man who hears you criticize your husband will want to marry you. If you can’t do it in the Bible manner, don’t criticize your husband.
Today’s Young People like Short Sound Bites
We’re in a sound-bite generation – kids want everything to be short. You can teach salvation in two words: “Only believe.” You can teach marriage in two words: “Only praise.” What if husband and wife never criticized and looked every day for things to praise and appreciate as taught in the Song? Would that work?
I was making a doctor’s appointment for my wife. The young lady figured out that I treasured my wife and asked how long we’d been married. When I told her 51 years, she wanted to know how we did it. I gave her the 2 words – “Only praise.”
Her eyes bugged out. “That’s hard!” she complained. “What do I do if I’m really upset at him?”
“Are you an adult, or are you a child?” I asked. “We teach little kids not to lose their temper, not to throw angry words at each other by the time they’re 2, age 3 at the latest. If you aren’t grown up enough to keep your temper, are you mature enough to marry?” The Bible agrees that we must control our feelings:
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. Pro. 25:28
Teach the men:
· Only praise. If a woman’s personality irritates him and makes it hard for him to keep his temper, should he marry her? We teach kids not to hurl angry words by age 2 or 3. Are you adult or child?
· When something goes wrong, take responsibility instead of blaming your wife as Adam blamed Eve.
· Open his heart. If he doesn’t trust her enough to open his heart, should he marry her? One of the rewards of opening his heart is that she will learn about him and figure out ways to please him.
· Listen to her advice. God made her to help him (Gen. 2:18, 20[92]); if he won’t listen to her and take her thoughts into account, she will be very unhappy and he will make more mistakes.
The Bible tells us twice that God values multiple sources of advice:
Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. Pro. 11:14
Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established. Proverbs 15:22
A wife often knows things her husband doesn’t, particularly about children. It’s foolish for a man to ignore his wife’s knowledge and counsel when making decisions. Even if her ideas aren’t practical, her thoughts may stimulate his thoughts and help make better decisions. In our decades of deciding, it’s been rare that the first idea from either of us stands the test of the other’s knowledge. It can take hours of discussion to get all the facts, but the decision is usually obvious once everyone’s concerns are understood.
The benefits of knowledge sharing are great. That’s one of the ways God wants us to edify one another (1 Thess. 5:11[93]) and provoke one another to good works (Heb. 10:24[94]).
The hardest part about parenting is persuading children that your ways are right. They may obey while living with you, but when they leave, they’ll do what they think is right. Unless you convince them that your ways are best before they leave home, they’ll do something else, to your sorrow, and a wife’s input helps.
Money
God planned that husband and wife should be each other’s main source of contentment so they don’t need to spend money on toys. If they meet each other’s needs, they’ll have fewer financial problems.
“Only praise” means keeping emotion out of disagreements and sticking to facts. Money is the very best place for fact-based discussion. I grew up in Japan where heating oil cost $1 per quart; I kept my apartment in Boston, Mass. at 50 F, that’s 10C. Before we married, my wife lived in a YWCA in a room over the main boiler. Her room was between 70 and 80 all winter, that’s 26C. We had a lot of expenses when we bought a house.
I listed monthly income and expenses when we got the November heating bill. I showed what we got after taxes. I showed all our expenses including mortgage, cars, phone, etc. I explained that the winter heating bills for December through February would be at double or triple the November bill. We’d barely make it.
I reminded her that she wanted to buy a freezer. She didn’t want to pay interest, so we had to save the up to buy it. “If you set the thermostat at 50,” I told her, “we can afford to buy your freezer this spring. If, however, we set it at 70, we won’t be able to save the money until fall.”
She knew that a dollar spent on heat was a dollar we couldn’t spend on her freezer. She wore very heavy quilted men’s underwear, drank a lot of hot tea, and we set our thermostat at “way cool.” We bought the freezer; it served us 30 years. We found a way to give her a choice as God gives us free will.
3 years later, we scraped together airfare so I could take her with me on a business trip. She found a crystal vase she really wanted. We’d been eating in cheaper restaurants than my colleagues so I could pay for her food and mine from my daily meal allowance. This was before computers. It wasn’t worth the effort to add up all the meal receipts, so the company gave us a fixed sum for each day.
She knew that paying her air fare had left us in a bad position, but she wanted the vase. “If you buy groceries so we can eat in our room,” I told her, “we can save enough out of my meal allowance for your vase.” We ate a lot of tuna and the bread sometimes went stale, but we bought the vase. She still has it.
“Only praise” means keeping emotion out of discussions and sticking to facts. There is no topic better suited to fact-based discussion than money. You know what you’ve spent, you know what came in. What’s more, you know most of the coming bills and most of what you expect to come in. Facts take a lot of the sting out of talking about money. Everybody has spread sheets; there’s no excuse not to have factual discussions. Once all the facts are on the table, the answer is usually obvious – “No, you can’t have it yet.”
Gifts and Talents
The Bible tells of a Master who gave His servants money to invest while He was away.
And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Matthew 25:15
When He came back, He wanted to know what His servants had done with what He gave. Two of them had done well and were rewarded. One did nothing with the gift and was punished. God’s gifts such as preaching, teaching, or music are His gifts to you. What you do with them are your gifts back to Him.
Gifts are always conditional. You’ve heard a parent say, “You left your toy in the rain; you can’t play with it for a week.” The child abused the gift and lost the blessing. Second only to salvation, a wife is the greatest gift a man can receive from God. That makes her husband accountable to God for learning about her skills and helping her develop them. If you don’t, you’ll lose your part of God’s reward for using her gifts for Him.
Shortly after we married, I found that my wife had a fine singing voice. This was a surprise – I had paid attention to other matters while we were courting. One reason we were short of money after buying a house was that I had bought her a piano so she could practice singing. She had to do the work of developing her God-given singing gift, but I had to make it possible, encourage her, and make sure she had time.
A man is accountable to God for helping his wife use her gifts to glorify Him.
HUSBAND AND WIFE NEED PERFECT HEARTS
Salvation and marriage are alike. Salvation means that you die to your former sinful life to be born again into a relationship to Christ. You then belong to Christ and serve Him out of love for Him. The only way husband and wife can become one as God expects is for each of them to die to their former individual lives in favor of their new family. They then belong to each other and belong to God and serve each other out of love.
David’s heart was perfect with the Lord his God. He sinned, but he never worshipped anyone or anything else. All Israel came with one perfect heart to make David king (1 Chron. 12:38[95]). Husband and wife must enter into Holy Matrimony with one perfect heart. Couples must keep their hearts perfect with each other all their days by never paying attention to anyone else as a man or woman.
Unmarried love is different from married love. The Bible tells men how to talk outside marriage:
The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity
. I Timothy 5:2
Men have to be careful not to let talk slide toward the emotional and physical connections God reserves for marriage. Women must stop talking to a man who’s heading toward violating her emotional or physical purity. It’s OK for men and women to talk as long as they talk as persons and not as men and women.
A person-to-person conversation can stray toward man-woman. This is wrong if either party is married. If they’re single, the woman must decide whether they might marry and insist that he agree that the goal of being together is to decide whether they will marry. If he won’t agree, she should cut him off.
There is no God-honoring reason for man-woman talk between people who are neither married to each other nor considering marriage. Men and women can converse as people by avoiding man-woman thoughts or emotions. Your spouse is the only person in the world whose gender should matter to you.
Man-woman talk is dangerous in work situations. You must please the boss to keep a job. It’s common for a woman to please a man boss or a man to please a woman boss just a little too much. This can lead to adultery or divorce, but it starts with talk that does not meet God’s standards of purity.
God warns that men shouldn’t get physical with women outside marriage even if they don’t have sex:
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman
. 2Nevertheless, to avoid fornication
, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. I Corinthians 7:1-2
The Greek word translated “touch” includes arousing passion or starting a fire. Would a man take his mother’s arm in a slippery place to keep her from falling or help his sister put on her coat? Of course. Would he try to get his mother or sister sexually aroused? Of course not.
Anything or anyone which a Christian loves or follows more than God is an idol and God thinks of this as idolatry, or spiritual adultery. If a husband allows his love for anything – job, hobby, sports, hunting – to be stronger than his love for his wife, she thinks he’s committing emotional adultery.
LET’S SUM IT UP IN A FEW WORDS
God’s rules are simple. Salvation is two words, “only believe.” Getting married is 4 words, “No sex until marriage.” Staying married is “only praise.” We must praise our spouses as much as God expects us to praise Him; that keeps us focused on what God has given so that we don’t worry about what He hasn’t given.
A man should be able to look his wife in the eye and say from the bottom of his heart, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman. For God so loved me that He gave me you.”
When God looks on you, He sees the purity and perfection of His son, your Lord and Savior. We are commanded to follow God (Eph. 5:1-2[96]), so when you look on your spouse, you are commanded to see the purity and perfection of His son, your spouse’s Lord and Savior.
God expects bride and groom to enter Holy Matrimony with one perfect heart. Keep your hearts perfect with the Lord your God, and with each other.
God gave us one plan for both salvation and marriage, and He gave us one love-based way to relate to Him, to our spouses, and to our fellow church members. We praise God in the same way we praise our spouses; we give ourselves to our spouses in the same way we give ourselves to God. When lost people see Christian couples sharing God’s love and God’s forgiveness, they’ll want some for themselves. Showing and spreading the love of God is how we turn the world upside down (Acts 17:1-6[97]). It really is that simple.
God Explained what happened to Women after the fall
God made both salvation and marriage. If we try to go to Heaven in our own way, we go to Hell when we die. If we try to do marriage our own way, we can make life Hell on earth, but if we do it God’s way, we can give each other a taste of Heaven, right here on earth. When lost people see Christian couples sharing God’s love, forgiveness, and grace, they’ll want some for themselves, and we can tell them how to ask God for it.
Our marriages are our most powerful testimony about the goodness of God. When lost people see that our marriages are no better than theirs, they know we can’t handle this life any better than they do. Why should they care what we say about the next life? Difficult Christian marriages and Christian divorce wreck our testimony and dishonor Christ. Pastors must teach how to build marriages.
It’s simple to keep a man happy. My wife teaches that a husband expects to have his wife 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bed. He seldom has that much strength, but that’s his plan (Ge. 29:21[98]). “Simple” may not be “easy.” It’s simple to walk from Cairo to Cape Town – put one foot in front of the other, repeat until you get there – but not easy. Marriage is a lifetime journey, not just a stroll across a continent.
There is no joy this side of Heaven for a man like having a woman enjoy belonging to him or for a woman like having a man delight in nourishing, cherishing, and appreciating her. That’s what God expects of us.
THE FOUNDATION OF YOUR LIFE: IS GOD REALLY GOOD? CHRISTIANS SAY GOD IS GOOD; DO THEY BELIEVE IT?
Your entire life is based on your belief in God. Are you convinced that following God’s rules blesses you and leads you to something perfect? Or will His rules block your freedom to find happiness in your own way? People say that God is good, they praise Him, but do they really believe that He is good?
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me
. Matthew 15:8 see also Mark 7:6[99], Isaiah 29:13[100]
Delilah asked Samson, “How canst thou say, I love thee, when thine heart is not with me (Jud. 16:15)? Same thing![101] How many men honor their wives with their lips without opening their hearts to them?
Head knowledge is what we know (2 Tim. 3:7[102]); heart knowledge is what we feel or what we are (Pr. 23:7[103]). Christians say God is good, but the way they act shows that their head knowledge hasn’t made it down to their hearts. God’s creation “was very good (Ge. 1:31).” Gen. 2 and 3 expand on the creation of mankind. The only thing that was not good was the man being alone (Ge. 2:18[104]). Forming Eve completed God’s very good creation.
Men complain about women instead of thanking God for marriage. Men say wives are too emotional and talk too much. The Bible says that a wife is a favor from God (Pr. 18:22[105]) and that God gives good and perfect gifts (Jas. 1:17[106]). A wife is a good and perfect gift from God to her husband. Do you believe that? If a man can’t see that the way God made his wife blesses him, that’s his problem, not God’s. Pray for wisdom!
Christians who truly believe that God is good know that God made men and women to give each other great joy. Others say God is good with their lips. They don’t believe it in their hearts so they complain about differences between men and women instead of being grateful for the differences that make marriage work.
The bride and groom want their marriage to overflow with joy. God is party to their marriage vows (Mal. 2:14[107]), He wants Christian marriages to be so wonderful that we shine a bright light to the lost.
Few Christian marriages work out as well as God planned. Given that all parties want it to be good, when a marriage isn’t good, something went wrong and something must change. It’s insane to keep doing the same things you’re doing and expect marriage to get better. The man is the leader, so fixing it is on him.
A man may have head knowledge about pregnancy, but deep in his heart, a man doesn’t believe he has anything to do with making babies. A baby belongs to the mother, of course – she had it last – but what has her baby to do with him? Remember the old saying: “The time my father got me, his mind was not on me.” What was your father thinking when you happened? Was he thinking at all?
Men have head knowledge that Adam caused the fall,[108] but instead of accepting responsibility for leading, men follow Adam and blame their wives when things go wrong. Instead of serving wives as Jesus commanded (Mk. 9:35[109], 10:42-45[110]), many husbands command without discussion. Moses warned that the Jews would lose everything unless they loved God with grateful hearts and gave thanks for everything He gave them:
Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness
, and with gladness of heart
, for the abundance of all things
; 48Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things
: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee
. Deuteronomy 28:47-48
The Jews didn’t thank God so He took the blessings away. A wife can’t comfort her husband and bless him as God planned unless she fees appreciated and loved as much as he loves God, page 38. Your wife can’t bless you fully unless you love her with everything you have. God told us about women to make marriage easier.
THINK ABOUT EVE’S LIFE IN THE GARDEN
She didn’t need a house – it never rained (Ge. 2:6[111]). They were naked; she didn’t need clothes (Ge. 2:25[112]). She could always find fruit to eat (Ge. 3:2[113]). After the fall, God explained what would happen to women:
Unto the woman he [God] said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16
Greatly Multiply thy Sorrow Through Sensitive Emotions
Most women have more sensitive emotions than men. Being sensitive helps women learn how to please husbands, but God multiplies sorrow to women because their feelings are easily hurt. The Bible says:
Every wise woman buildeth her house: Proverbs 14:1a
A woman’s emotions are the cement that builds her house. There’s no logical reason for a wife to pour her life into serving her family and building her house, women do this on emotion. Men, would you like to be married to you? Could you do what your wife does in your home? Think: how can women do what they do? Women build homes and churches through love and emotion, but they can’t build home or church unless they’re free to express their emotions and are appreciated when they do
God punished Eve by giving women a strong emotional desire to please men (1 Cor. 7:34[114]). Husbands rule though praise: women do more of what’s praised if they aren’t criticized. If all they get is criticism, they’ll do more of what’s criticized the most. God put strong emotions in women on purpose, it was not an accident:
a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
“Prudence” means thinking ahead; the way a woman’s mind works, that is, her prudence, is of the Lord. God made women think the way they do on purpose. The mixture of logic and emotion God gives a woman makes her want to serve her family and build her home while showing us how God’s love works, page 42.
Be wise. Keep your words to your wife healthful for her. Just before our wedding, my wife asked that I never fuss at her. “I want to love you very much,” she said. “The more I love you, the more criticism hurts. I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you hurt me.” That made sense – the Bible speaks of women as “tender and delicate.” I don’t want to make it hard for her to love me, so I watch what I say.
Thy Desire shall be to thy Husband
A woman desires to belong to a man whom she can please by making him happy with her mating instinct toward him (Song 1:2[115], 8:2-3[116],) just as a man desires to have a woman belong to him (Song 7:10). Men should treat their wives as precious, undeserved gifts from God who made women want to hang around with men.
He Shall Rule Over Thee
Belonging to a man and following him should bring a wife joy (Ecc. 9:9[117], Song 8:2-3[118]). She can’t make him any happier than he makes her. How happy does he want to be?
You’ve heard my wife’s simple “5 times” rule for keeping husbands happy. There’s no simple way for a man to keep his wife happy because women differ much more from each other than men do. Men and women have the same need for belonging, but they express it differently. Men know what they want.
You want your wife to open her body to you. She wants you to open your heart to her. You want to put yourself into her body. She wants to put herself, that is, her words, her thoughts, her feelings, into your heart.
You leave your seed inside her body where it affects her mood and can give her a baby. She wants to leave her essence, her being, in your heart where it affects your thinking about her, how you treat her, and how you relate to everyone else. People can see if you belong to each other by looking at you or hearing you.
Husband and wife should be “one flesh” as Adam and Eve were before God separated Eve from Adam’s body (Mk. 10:8[119]). A woman at work tried to attract me. “I was angry when you didn’t even notice,” she told me. “Then I realized, ‘Oh, he belongs to his wife’ and went after someone else.” I’m always careful to have women in my office meet Roberta so they’ll know that I’m hers. Another woman read some of our material. “I was angry how much you knew about me,” she said. “Then I realized you’re clueless, your wife told you how women think.” I had to understand what my wife said in my heart so I could write about it. You need hours and days of back-and-forth talk or you can’t be one as Jesus expects (Mt. 19:5-6[120]).
A wife wants her husband to open his heart to her as often as he takes her and more. That’s how he gets knowledge of her as God expects (1 Pe. 3:7[121]). If he opens his heart as sincerely, as deeply, as patiently, as often, and as gladly as he expects her to open herself to him, she’ll know he belongs to her. Belonging to each other as taught in the Song (2:16[122], 6:3[123]) gives them both a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
Women open their hearts to each other all the time and don’t understand how scary it is for a man. 1 Cor. 11:9[124] says that women are made for men. Men aren’t taught how scary it is for women to belong to men.
WHAT DO WOMEN DESIRE FROM HUSBANDS?
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread (Ge. 3:19[125]).” God gave no way for Eve to eat. As Naomi told her daughters goodbye when sending them back to their families to find husbands, she prayed:
The LORD grant you that ye may find rest
, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
Women aren’t strong enough to hunt or farm without machinery. In a muscle-powered society with no welfare system, wives depend on husbands for food. Knowing that her relationship to her husband is strong is important to a wife – she and her children could starve if he leaves her.
A friend told me how his dog growled when a puppy tried to eat from his dish. “Kids are OK,” he said, “if they don’t eat from my dish.”
When I told my wife, she said, “No! I want to eat off your plate and our children to eat off your plate.”
People see her eat off my plate. Women have said, “I wish my husband would let me eat off his plate.”
Father her Children
Pr. 30:16 states that an empty womb is never satisfied. A woman desires children. Having been given children, she desires that their father want to stick with her and enjoy helping her raise them (Eph. 6:4[126]).
Naomi wanted Ruth and Orpha to have food, clothing, and shelter, of course, but she also wanted them to find comfort, rest, contentment, and security in constant reminders that their husbands valued and appreciated them as taught in the Song. A woman desires that her husband like feeding, clothing, and housing her and her children and that he like opening his heart to her and praising her (Pr. 31:31[127]).
Watching any couple shows whether she’s resting in her husband. Many women get this instead:
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he
: Eat and drink
, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee
. Proverbs 23:7
A man can say he loves a woman and feed her without giving his heart. God has the same problem:
This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me
. Matthew 15:8 see also Isaiah 29:13[128], Mark 7:6[129]
Naomi wanted each daughter to find a husband who poured his heart into nourishing and cherishing. God isn’t the only one who appreciates a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7[130]) – wives appreciate cheerful giving.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me
; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30
Your wife took on the yoke of pleasing you when you took her to wife. Do you make it easy for her to learn of you? That’s a major reason she wants you to open your heart – learning of you lightens her yoke.
She Wants to Learn of You
Our church had a split; we needed new leadership. I was pondering my qualifications for church office.
Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. I Timothy 3:12
“Wife,” I asked, “do I qualify, I don’t rule you, I hardly ever tell you what to do?”
“Yes,” she said, “you rule me utterly. Your ways aren’t natural to me, but we’ve talked enough that I know how you want things done. Just about everything I do, I know how you want it done and I do it your way.”
She served me out of love as Christ died for sinners out of love. Learning of me so she had confidence that I’d be pleased made my yoke easier and my burden lighter as learning what Christ expects of us makes His yoke easy and His burden light. I’d talked with her enough that she could follow me but not enough to realize how my ways ruled her. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was any other way than my way.
We found cases where my way was a lot harder and the difference wasn’t worth her extra work. Changing back to her ways lightened my yoke as she learned more of me. She’d always accepted my rule, but because I didn’t realize how much I was ruling her, my yoke wasn’t as light as it should have been.
EMOTIONS SCARE MEN
Women share their hearts all the time in helping other women bear the burdens of husbands, children, and guiding houses (1 Tim. 5:14[131]). They must be taught that it’s as frightening for a man to open his heart as for a woman to open her body. A man’s emotions are as powerful as a woman’s. Japanese say “One hair of a woman’s head pulls more strongly than ten yoke of oxen” and Chinese say that a man in love rides a wild horse. Many men are afraid to open their hearts for fear of being hurt or vexed:
And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death
; Judges 16:16
Emotions scare men. He may declare his love, but may not admit his love to himself. God says he can:
The heart
of her husband doth safely trust in her
, Proverbs 31:11a
John 21:15-17 tells us that after His disciples went fishing instead of starting the church[132], Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” three times. Having created Peter, Jesus knew Peter wouldn’t want to admit his love because Peter had seen Jesus’ sorrow when the Jews refused Him and went to Hell (Mt. 23:37[133]). Jesus didn’t make Peter love Jesus – he already did – but admitting it to himself made him willing to spread the gospel.
For if there be first
a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. II Corinthians 8:12
If a man isn’t willing to admit his love for his wife to himself, he can’t convince her. Being willing to love her and willing to learn how to nourish her will make her happy in finding rest in him.
Ge. 24:67 “Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent…” A woman desires a place to live and much else. Few men understand their wives many needs; few women have the words to explain. Discuss these Bible verses about a woman’s many needs on page 45 to see what she thinks.
Women see the Bible differently from men; her view helps open the mind of God. My wife saw David and Goliath as a story in human relations! She saw David’s older brother criticize him for coming to the battle before asking why. He didn’t know David’s father had sent him. He’d seen Samuel anoint David to be King and trashed him anyway! He trashed his future king! How dumb can you get? I hadn’t seen that. She helped me see Ruth as a romance story: poverty-stricken widow goes to a strange land to find God, works hard, shows virtue, marries a rich man, and is in Jesus’ line. Her 6 rules for finding rest in marriage[134] still work.
MEN DON’T KNOW WHY WIVES CAN’T GIVE COMFORT
Few men know that the Bible says four times De. 21:14, 22:9 and Ez. 22:10-11 that a man “has humbled” a woman by taking her. We now know that opening herself triggers hormones that change her brain.
God wants children to have fathers. God arranged that a woman wants to cling to the man who takes her. Humbling herself by clinging to her husband and serving him gladly helps her children have a father. The hormones of being humbled make her more sensitive to how he feels about her. If he’s pleased with her, feeling that more strongly comforts her as she sees how much he delights in her. If she has doubts about his love or feels criticized, being more sensitive to negative feelings will make her not to want to give him his 5 times. A woman has a thousand ways to avoid her husband’s desire, but it’s generally because she doubts his love for her. She won’t want to feel dependent on a man who refuses to belong to her.
Opening herself to her husband takes a great deal of emotional energy, and opening his heart to his wife takes a lot of emotional energy. The Marriage Arch[135] shows how to recharge each other’s emotional batteries. A man wants his wife to yearn to receive his seed; she wants him to yearn to receive her speech.
Seed and Speech are a Man’s and Woman’s Form of Communication
Women communicate heart to heart; men communicate belly to belly. It’s a sacrifice for a man to talk as much as his wife desires. She thinks he wants to do the same old thing over and over. He thinks that she wants to talk about the same old thing over and over, but God expects a man to open his heart to his wife enough to know her needs and take them into account:
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge
, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered
. I Peter 3:7
If a man fails to honor his wife by listening to her enough to know how best to nourish and cherish her, his prayers bounce off the ceiling. This can take a lot of talk. Just before our wedding, my fiancé told me she was really looking forward to being married. I was too. I thought we were on the same page, but she went on. “I like talking to you. Once we’re married, we can talk more in a day than we can talk in a week of dating.”
We weren’t on the same page. We weren’t in the same chapter. We were in totally different volumes!
That’s more talk than a man can imagine, she was expecting hours per day! We’d talked a lot while dating because we couldn’t do anything else. I thought once we were married, it would be a done deal and we wouldn’t have to talk about it any more. The Holy Spirit led her to tell me that talking to her a lot more than I could imagine was an important part of our marriage covenant from her point of view.
I had no idea how vital this was. A woman can’t follow or obey her husband unless she knows what he wants. She can’t do what he wants unless he opens his heart to her so that she knows him well enough to know what he wants. Then she can be sure he’ll be happy with her, which makes her happy.
God made women so that they think very differently from men (Pr. 19:14b[136]). It takes hours and hours of talk before a man can understand what a woman is saying. If I hadn’t promised to talk to her, I’d probably have been too impatient to communicate with her enough for her to feel that I valued her mind. A happy wife makes her husband as happy as he made her, so making my wife feel appreciated benefits me greatly.
Opening my heart was scary, but Pr. 31:11 says “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.” God wanted me to know that it was OK to open myself to her. The Bible teaches women to call their husbands “Lord.” It helped that she’d call me “Sir” as the spirit moved her. That gave me confidence that she respected me even when I made mistakes. That made it easier for me to open my heart and show my love for her.
If you want to be happy in marriage, be happy enough to convince your wife that you’re happy with her.
Marriage in Two Words
Marriage can be explained in one minute, see page 39. This section explains marriage in two words.
Salvation is two words, “only believe (Lk. 7:50[137]).” God’s rule for a man and woman coming together is three words, “only in marriage.” Staying married is as simple as salvation, its two words, “only praise.” This can be difficult for people who weren’t taught how to receive the love, joy, and peace which come from believing in Christ, but people can learn to be better at this as they grow in Christ.
Nowhere in the Bible does a man criticize his wife. I want my words to be health to my wife so she’ll want to hear me. I say, “That didn’t work as well as we planned. What went wrong? Let’s learn to do better next time.” I say “we” because she tries to do everything the way I want it done. That puts me in all she does.
When you die, people will remember the very last thing you said. Any words which wouldn’t please you as a last memory of you shouldn’t be said. You can apologize, but you can’t un-say anything, not ever.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, / Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit / Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, / Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.” ― Omar Khayyám
I was making an appointment. The young lady saw that I treasured my wife and asked how long we’d been married. When I told her 52 years, she wanted to know how we did it. I gave her “only praise.”
Her eyes bugged out. “That’s hard!” she complained. “What do I do if I’m really upset at him?”
“Are you an adult or a child?” I asked. “We teach kids not to lose their temper, not to throw angry words at each other by the time they’re 2, age 3 at the latest. If you aren’t grown up enough to keep your temper, are you grown up enough to marry?” Following Christ leads you to grow in grace so that you can do this.
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. 1Be ye therefore followers of God
, as dear children; Ephesians 4:32-5:1
Jesus expects us to follow after God. When God looks on your wife, He sees the purity and perfection of His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because His blood has washed away her sins. To follow God, you must look on your wife as God sees her as she reflects the perfection and purity of Christ.
Christ is our example for how we treat each other. He answers prayers even before we ask. A husband should know his the wife’s needs, and meet them, “before she asks.”
Marriage is simple: Believe in your heart that God is good and that He made men and women so that we can work together to build joyful marriages. “Only praise,” and follow God by seeing each other, treating each other, and talking about each other as perfect (Song 4:7[138]). That’s God’s Simple Plan of Marriage.
THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD
God expects His people to love Him. The New Testament uses the Greek word agapaō to describe God’s love for the world, to describe the love God expects Christians to have for each other, and to describe the love men should have for their wives. The Greek word phileō describes brotherly love which is weaker than agapaō.
Eph. 5:25 commands “Husbands, love (agapaō) your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” but, like the command to love God, this goes beyond agapaō. Christ gave His life for the church; a husband is expected to give his life day by day to nourish and cherish his wife in heart and mind. As with salvation, married love starts with feelings of attraction (ludus, eros), should deepen to a conscious decision to serve the other (agapaō) before marriage, and should mature beyond agapaō over time.
The command “love the Lord thy God” appears 14 times! You should read them all:
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Deuteronomy 6:5
Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway. Deuteronomy 11:1
And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. Deuteronomy 11:13-14
For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; Deuteronomy 11:22
Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 13:3
If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to love the LORD thy God, and to walk ever in his ways; then shalt thou add three cities more for thee, beside these three: Deuteronomy 19:9
And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. Deuteronomy 30:6
In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it. Deuteronomy 30:16
That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. Deuteronomy 30:20
But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. Joshua 22:5
Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God. Joshua 23:11
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Matthew 22:37
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. Mark 12:30
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. Luke 10:27
These verses command us to offer God agapaō and much more. Loving God with your soul is mentioned 8 times, mind 3 times, strength twice, might once, but heart always comes first! We’re to decide in our minds to go beyond agapaō and love God and our wives with everything we have!
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. Proverbs 25:28
We must be careful not to let our emotions go where they shouldn’t. We guard our hearts to avoid involvement in anything that becomes more important than God or with someone who takes too much away from our spouse, but salvation starts as an emotional experience – “What a friend (phileō) we have in Jesus.” It takes time for our reason to accept the joy of salvation (Job 7:17, 15:14, Ps. 8:4, 144:3, He. 2:6) so our mind (agapaō) comes along with the rest of our being. Is your all on the altar of worship and of marriage?
You don’t need Greek or Hebrew to learn what God expects you to learn from His Word, but it helps.
EXPLAINING MARRIAGE IN ONE MINUTE
You can explain both marriage and salvation in 30 seconds. Parents spend years getting kids into good colleges but not much time, talent, toil, or treasure teaching them how to have good marriages. These verses deserve a lot of study. We don’t expect anyone to drive without being taught, how can we expect good marriages without teaching? This is a study exercise. Look up the verses and think on them.
Nobody deserves salvation; every person is a sinner who deserves to go to Hell (Rom. 3:23[139], 5:12[140], 6:23[141]). If you accept salvation, God gives you the gift of eternal life (Rom. 6:23b). God doesn’t see your sins, He sees the righteousness and purity of His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Ps. 103:12[142], I Cor. 6:11[143]).
Accepting God’s offer of grace means that He and His Son see you as perfect (Eph. 5:25-27[144], Rom. 8:1[145], 1 Ki. 8:61[146], 15:14[147], 2 Ki. 20:3[148]).
Salvation makes us servants of Jesus Christ (Ps. 100:2[149], Rom. 1:1[150], Tit. 1:1[151]). We belong permanently to Jesus (Jn. 10:29[152], 1 Cor. 6:19[153]), serve Him out of love (2 Cor. 5:14-15[154]), and strive to walk in good works as Jesus taught (Eph. 2:10[155]).
God expects us to serve Him by serving spouses, families, and churches (Rom. 12:10, Eph. 4:12, 5:21, 1 Pet. 5:5). Focus on God through Christ. What God does is perfect; serving Him by serving your spouse is a perfect calling (Mk. 9:35[156], 10:42-45[157]). Focus your eyes on your perfect God, not on fallible people (Phil. 2:1-8).
That’s God’s Simple Plan of Marriage in a Half-Minute. If they’re still listening, you can go on:
Eph. 4:31-32[158] tells us to forgive each other as God forgives. God forgives completely; He forgets our sins (Ps. 103:10-12[159], Is. 43:25[160], Heb. 10:17[161]). When God washes away our sins (Heb. 9:14[162], 10:19-22[163]), what’s left is perfect and without condemnation (Rom. 8:1[164], 15:13[165]). Eph. 5:1 commands, “Be ye therefore followers of God.” God sees us as perfect, so we must follow God and see our spouses as perfect.
That’s the key to marriage. Treat your spouse as perfect, praise your spouse as perfect, say your spouse is perfect for you, and thank God for putting you in a perfect marriage (Ps. 68:6[166]). Marriage prospers if the husband treats his wife as God’s perfect gift to him and she acts as God’s perfect gift to him (Jas. 1:17[167]). He’s to love, nourish, cherish, honor, and sanctify her (Eph. 5:29[168], Song 4:7[169], 6:9[170]) as perfect, she’s to obey him and submit to him in reverence (Eph. 5:22, 33[171], Col. 3:18[172]) even though neither of them deserves the other!
That’s God’s Simple Plan of Marriage in One Minute. If they’re still listening, you can go on:
We must love God with perfect hearts. “Love the Lord thy God” is in the Bible 14 times (Deu. 6:5, 11:1, 11:13, 11:22, 13:3, 19:9,30:6, 30:16, 30:20, Joshua 22:5, 23:11, Mt. 22:37, Mk. 12:30, Lk. 10:27)! 1 Kings 11:4 and 15:3 speak of David having a perfect heart with the Lord his God. David sinned, but he never turned from worshiping God to worshiping anything else. Faithfulness and repentance kept his heart perfect with God.
God expects us to keep our hearts perfect with Him and with each other. We must not let our hearts stray toward anyone else or anything else (Job 31:1[173], Song of Solomon).
As David was perfectly confident in God and rested in what God gave him, we must learn to rest content in each other and in what God gives us (Ruth 1:9a[174], Mt. 11:28[175], Phi. 4:11[176], 1 Tim. 6:6[177], Heb. 13:5[178]).
Love God by loving your spouse; serve God by serving your spouse, praise God by praising your spouse is simple, but “simple” isn’t “easy.” It’s simple to walk from Maine to California – put one foot in front of the other, repeat ‘til you get there – but not easy. Marriage is a lifetime journey, not a stroll across a continent.
Groups of God’s people in a local church should act with hearts as perfect as David’s:
All these men of war, that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart
to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel: and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart
to make David king. I Chronicles 12:38 *
The people agreed with one perfect heart that they wanted David as their king. God gave us one way to relate to Him, that is, with perfect hearts and never go after other gods. Husband and wife must both have perfect hearts with God. Both must have perfect hearts with each other and never go after anyone else.
As God graciously gives His salvation to those who earnestly seek Him (De. 4:29[179]), He graciously gives the blessings of marriage to couples who seek Him and enter into Holy Matrimony with one perfect heart. “Holy” means “set apart to the Lord for His purposes.” Holy Matrimony belongs to God, not to us.
We’re not talking about gluten-free, no calorie diet matrimony as lost people do, we’re taking the real deal, we’re discussing Holy Matrimony which bride and groom should enter with one perfect heart. There is no vow in salvation; your marriage vows are the most solemn, binding vows any human can ever utter.
As we work out God’s salvation in fear and trembling (Phi. 2:12b[180]), we work out God’s gift of marriage as we mature, grow, and learn. David never lost his salvation, but his sins took away his joy:
Restore unto me the joy
of thy salvation
; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Psalm 51:12
Salvation belonged to God and not to David. He knew that God would faithfully restore his joy in God’s salvation once he restored his relationship with God through repentance and confession (1 Jn. 1:9[181]). Be prepared to confess to one another and forgive one another to restore your joy in marriage (Jas. 5:16[182]).
THE LOVE OF GOD
My parents convinced (2 Cor. 5:11a[183]) me to accept Christ as my Savior when I was in 2nd grade. I loved Jesus because He loved me enough (Ro. 5:8[184]) to accept the punishment for my sins – taking the punishment for my brothers’ sins was hard for me to think about.
Rev. 13:8 speaks of “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Jesus knew Adam would sin before He said “let there be light” to start creation. Jesus knew He would have to die before He created Adam, yet He loved all of us enough to create us anyway! What does His love say about the way He ordained marriage?
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: Isaiah 1:18
Be logical. Jesus loved us enough to create us even though He knew He’d have to die to save us from our sins. Would a God who loved us that much create men and women so that we couldn’t build joyous marriages? Or did a God who loved us enough to die to save us design us so that men and women can find joy in working together to create safe spaces where their children can grow? Did God put powerful drives into men and women to draw us into marriages which will bless us if we follow His plan? Of course!
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
God gives good things if we ask. A wife is a good thing. We must follow the salvation instructions God put in His Word to go to Heaven. We must follow His instructions in His Word to have joy in marriage.
GOD DEMONSTRATES HIS LOVE THROUGH WOMEN
It’s hard to understand how a Holy, perfect God can love wretched sinners like you and me (Ps. 8:4, Heb. 2:6). God knew that, so He gave us mothers to show every one of us how His love works.
Mom and Dad taught me what I needed to know to accept Christ as my Savior when I was in 2nd grade. I loved Jesus because He loved me enough (Ro. 5:8) to accept the punishment for my sins – taking the punishment for my brothers’ sins was hard for me to think about.
I was 14 when I saw the difference between how true Christians behave and how fake Christians behave. I then had to choose a side as Joshua and Elijah chose (Jos 24:15, 1 Ki. 18:21). I remember deciding that I really did love Jesus, so I couldn’t be friends with some of the people in the school. Every Christian must decide whether to follow the crowd or to stand for Christ (Eze. 22:30).
Rev. 13:8 speaks of “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Jesus knew He would have to die before He created Adam, yet He loved all of us enough to create us anyway!
It’s hard to understand loving us enough to die for us long before we were even born so God shows us by having mothers want to risk death to give their children life. Before modern medicine, a woman had about a 98.5% chance of surviving a pregnancy. That sounds like death in childbirth was unlikely, but without birth control, women had so many pregnancies that 1 woman in 8 died in childbirth.
Every girl knew someone who had died in childbirth. Every girl knew that she would walk the valley of the shadow of death for each child (Ge. 35:18[185], 1 Sam. 4:20[186]), yet women wanted to marry and bear children (Ge.30:1[187], Lk. 1:25[188]) anyway. Women want children badly enough to risk death; Jesus wanted the pleasure and glory of creating us so badly (Rev. 4:11[189]) that He chose certain death before creating everything!
Jesus knew He would weep when people He loved wouldn’t accept His offer of salvation (Is. 53:3[190], Mt. 23:37[191], Lk. 13:34[192]) and that He would have to die to save us from our sins, yet He created the world which led to my birth anyway. I was born before antibiotics could fight childbed infections. My mother gladly risked her life to give me life and did it again and again for my brothers. That’s the woman’s part of Ge. 5:1-2 “in the likeness of God made he him,” when “he [that is, God] called their name Adam” to include Eve.
Let your mother know you appreciate her wanting you in spite of the peril and pain she’d bear giving birth to you (Pr. 31:28-29[193]) and thank your wife for wanting your children. Then thank Jesus for creating you in spite of knowing that He would have to die to take the punishment for your sins (Jn. 15:3[194]).
Your mother risked her life to give you life, shed her blood in painful labor to birth you, then labored to keep you alive; Jesus died to give you more abundant life (Jn. 10:10b[195]) followed by life eternal (Mt 25:46, Jn. 4:36, 12:25, 17:3). Thank them both.
What did you do to earn Jesus’ giving His life and His blood (He. 9:12, 9:22) to pay the penalty for your sins and my sins? Nothing. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation (Is. 64:6, Ro. 3:10), it is an undeserved gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9) He died to give us because He loves us (Ez. 33:11, Ro. 5:8).
If someone gave you a gift, would you hand over money to pay for it? That would refuse the gift. Trying to get to heaven by being good, being religious, going to church, tithing, doing good deeds, is not only impossible (Ro. 3:11), trying to earn your way into heaven blocks you from accepting Jesus’ offer of salvation from your sins (Gal. 5:4). You’re trying to pay for a freely-offered gift whose price is far more than you could ever pay.
What did you do to earn your mother’s risking her life to give you life and then pouring her life into keeping you alive and teaching you how to behave as an adult? Nothing. She risked her life before she knew anything about you. She gave her life freely based on the emotional drives God put into her and looked forward eagerly to your birth as she felt God forming you within her womb (Is. 49:5).
We know that some mothers harm their children. Is that what God wanted? Of course not, this is because of the sin which came into the world when Adam refused to confess his sin and would not ask God to forgive him. God asked Adam, “Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat (Ge. 3:11)?” We Christians know that God has promised to forgive our sins if we confess:If we confess our sins
, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9
God doesn’t change (Mal. 3:6). God would have forgiven Adam if he’d confessed. Instead of admitting his sin, Adam blamed Eve for giving him the fruit and blamed God for giving him Eve!
And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Genesis 3:12
God told Adam to keep the garden (Gen. 2:15), which meant to protect it. Gen. 3:6 says “she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Note two important words “with her!” “Adam was not deceived (1 Ti. 2:14),” so we know that he heard what the serpent said. People forget that Adam was there with her the entire time! Why did he let the serpent deceive his wife? Why didn’t he protect his wife whom God had trusted to his care?
Be realistic, men, blaming your wives when things go wrong won’t help you any more than it helped Adam, you are the leader, so it’s on you. God designed women’s minds and hearts carefully so that for the most part, a mother’s love for her children illustrates His love for us, His children. Adam’s sin brought so much sin into the world that a few mothers fail to love their children as God planned.
We’ve seen mothers reject children when men reject mothers after getting them pregnant without marriage. Women blame the father even though they wanted children and stopped taking birth control pills without telling him. Such mothers often reject a child who looks or acts enough like the father to remind her that the child’s father sinned against her by taking her without marriage even though she wanted his baby.
Even if the father stays with the woman, he may resent the child because in his mind, the mother got herself pregnant by stopping her pills without his agreement. The mother got a baby, but at what cost?
And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul
. Psalm 106:15
In several cases we know, the father accepted later children when he had agreed to be a father. His resentment of his oldest and his acceptance of his younger children are evident to anyone who knows the family even years later. What could we say when relatives asked why kids were treated differently?
God loves fathers, mothers, and children in such cases, but the parents’ violation of His holiness by breaking His rules about sex brings leanness into their souls. These situations are caused by the birth control pill. Before the pill, a man knew that if he came together with a woman, he’d be a father within a year. Couples “play house” instead and pretend that God doesn’t care that they’re breaking His laws.
If a woman’s on the pill, a man feels she expects to have sex, so why not with him? If she isn’t on the pill, she can say “No, I’ll get pregnant. Not unless we’re married, and I won’t marry you unless you grow up and get a job.” That’s taught in Ge. 24:67. If a man’s offer to a woman doesn’t include food, clothing, and shelter, it’s not Biblical. If he can’t pay for her, all he can do is play with her and discard her. God hates that!
God made men possessive to help give children fathers. If a man has a strong emotional, financial, logical, and psychological connection to a woman, she chooses to belong to him, and encourages and establishes his possessiveness of her as taught in the Song of Solomon before she becomes pregnant, her children also belong to him. If she’s not his, the kids are hers, and she can look after them herself.
God’s love and God’s salvation are undeserved gifts of God. Most mothers show how His love works. We should love Him because He first loved us (Ro. 5:8). His love should drive us to serve Him as He requires of us (2 Cor. 5:14). God never bullies us into obedience; He always lets us choose (Joshua 24:25) whether to obey His commands or not. He yearns for obedience (De. 5:29, 30:10), but He never forces us. The choice is ours.
Have you thanked your mother today for risking her life to give you life and then pouring her life into you? And thanked Jesus for dying to save you?
The Apostle Paul wrote that we work to spread the Gospel because our love for Christ “constraineth us,” that is, makes us do it. We serve Him because our love for Him makes us want to please Him.
For the love of Christ constraineth us; II Corinthians 5:14a
In the same way, our love for our spouses should constrain us to do whatever we can to please him or her. If lost people see married Christians working to please each other out of love, they’ll often ask how we handle problems the other person causes. That gives us a chance to talk about God’s love and God’s forgiveness. God forgives us, so God expects us to forgive other people in the same way He forgave us.
GOD TELLS US HOW TO BUILD JOYFUL MARRIAGES
A bridge built on wrong ideas about steel and concrete will fall. Like steel and concrete, women and men have different strengths and weaknesses. You can push hard on concrete, but it breaks if you pull on it. You can pull on steel, but pushing makes it bend. As steel and concrete become one in a reinforced slab which has the strengths of both, the forces God created to hold couples together form a one-flesh unit that stands strong against the pressures of life. When men and women use God’s forces wrong, their union is weakened. A marriage based on wrong ideas about men and women will suffer or fall. Here are some facts:
· A woman wants babies. It doesn’t matter what she says, her basic nature comes out if she’s happy with her husband. If women didn’t want babies, there wouldn’t be any babies given birth control.
· A man wants to throw a woman on his horse, ride off, take her, and possess her. He may try to hide his possessiveness, but his basic nature comes out in the end, particularly after they’re married.
Women are smaller than men and weaker than men. The Japanese character for “man” combines the characters for “field” and “strength” because a man provides strength in the field. Japanese “strength” means to “press down and control, to get the upper hand.” God made men strong enough to feed and defend them so women don’t have to be as large or as strong. Women can stay home instead of going out hunting or farming. Using less food to feed muscles gives women more energy to make babies and take care of babies.
WHY GOD MADE MEN AND WOMEN THINK SO DIFFERENTLY
God made males and females think differently to help us be fruitful and multiply. Instead of trusting that a loving God He created us to bless each other, many complain that God made their spouses wrong. Women complain that men are too possessive, too controlling, and can’t find anything in a refrigerator. Men complain that women are too emotional and talk too much.
Very few people can explain their thought processes. This short paper[196] discusses the different ways male and female brains work to help couples talk about how they think. Understanding draws them closer.
DISCUSSION POINTS
These Bible verses explain what women desire from their husbands. Discuss them with your wife. This will help you dwell according to knowledge of her as God commands (I Pe. 3:7). In drawing closer to God by discussing His Word, you’ll draw closer to each other.
Present – a woman expects him to treat her as a gift from God (Pr. 18:22, Ec. 9:9[197], I Col. 11:9, Ge. 2:18)
Prayer – she expects him to lead in prayer; prayer brings wisdom (I Thess. 5:17-18, Psalm 127:1, James 1:5)
Provision – she expects him to provide food, clothing, and shelter for her and for her children (I Tim 5:8)
Protection – she expects protection from his passions, her emotions, and from all external threats (Heb. 13:6)
Procreation – she expects him to appreciate her children as her finest gift to him (Ps 128:3)
Paternity – she expects him to be emotionally, financially, and logically involved in helping her raise her children (Gal. 4:1-2, Pr. 19:18, Pr. 23:13, Eph. 6:4, Heb. 12:7-9)
Pleasure – she desires physical pleasure from him (Song 1:2[198], 8:2-3[199],, Gen. 18:22) She expects him to enjoy talking with her and to take pleasure in opening his heart to her (Jud. 16:15, Pr. 31:11, I Cor. 7:3)
Praise – she desires that he appreciate and praise (Pr. 18:22, Pr. 31:28-29) all of her efforts on behalf of her family and she expects him to praise her and appreciate her for helping him
Partnership – she expects him to share the responsibility of educating, cleaning, raising, and guiding her children (Gal 4:2, Ep 6:4). She expects him to draw on her help to advance his career (Mt. 27:19).
Participation – she wants to know everything he does, to be involved in all decisions, and to use her gifts to bless him (I Cor. 7:34).
Patience – she expects him to spend as much time as it takes to talk to her enough to know her (I Pe. 3:7)
Peculiarity – he should know and rejoice in her unique, feminine peculiarities, to delight in how God made her different from all the other women in the world (Pr. 19:14b, 31:28-29, Song 6:9)
Perception – she expects him to understand and appreciate her gifts and to enjoy her unique way of thinking and expressing herself (Pr. 18:22, James 1:17)
Pleased – she cares deeply that he be pleased with her (I Cor. 7:34)
Plan – he must explain where he’s going clearly so that she can follow him in confidence that she’ll please him (Pr. 29:18). She can’t follow if she doesn’t know where he’s going; she can’t obey if she doesn’t understand
Persuasion – she wants him to persuade her (Ro. 14:5b, 14:23b, II Cor. 5:11, Phi. 1:9a) instead of commanding
Part – she expects to be a vital part of his life, to be the axle on which his wheel of his life turns, to be the tail on his kite, holding him steady as they soar together (I Cor. 11:3, 8-9, Mt. 19:6, Mark 10:8)
Place – she expects a place to live, a place in his life, and a place in his heart (Gen. 24:67, Ruth 4:12a)
Peer – she isn’t his peer, she needs him to appreciate the ways she and he are different. The world says that men and women are the same; the Bible says they are not (Gen 1:27, Matt 19:4, Mark 10:6)
Peace – she expects him to rule her gently (De. 28:56a) so that her heart can find peaceful rest in belonging to him (Ruth 1:9)
Potential – she expects him to fulfil his potential, better himself throughout their married life, and help her better herself to fulfil her potential (II Tim. 2:15)
Purity – she expects him to value (Pr. 31:10) and guard her purity both before and after marriage (Heb. 13:4)
Privacy – she expects him to value her thoughts and to keep the secret thoughts of her heart to himself (Pr. 11:13, 20:19)
Perfection – she expects him to treat her as a perfect wife (Son 4:7, James 1:17, Pr. 31:28-29)
Passion – his desire should be towards her and towards her alone (Song 7:10) and she expects to delight in it (Song 1:2[200], 8:2-3[201], Pr. 5:18-19)
Possession – she expects him to belong to her and she to him (Song 2:16, 6:3, 7:10). We know how a woman shows that she belongs to her husband. How does a man convince his wife that he belongs to her?
A man expects the “three warms,” a warm heart, a warm bed, and warm meals (Ge. 29:21).
What Women Need from Husbands
It’s hard to build a successful bridge without a deep understanding of concrete and steel. It’s hard to build a successful marriage without a deep understanding of the fundamental needs of men and women. Pastors must be “apt to teach (1 Tim. 3:2[202], 2 Tim. 2:24[203])” and it’s important to teach marriage. You must teach men how to appreciate their wives and your wives must teach women how to explain their needs to men.
Marriage is simple: Believe in your heart that God is so good that He made men and women to work well together to build joyful marriages if we do it His way. “Only praise,” and follow God by thinking, treating, and talking about each other as perfect (Song 4:7[204]). That’s God’s Simple Plan of Marriage.
The Bible puts men in charge of families so making marriages better is the husband’s duty. There’s no disgrace in not understanding women. King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, was bitterly confused and frustrated in marriage. We have more of the Word of God than he had so we can do better.
Solomon owned 1,000 women (I Ki. 11:3[205]). They were his property. There was no “I’m not in the mood” or “I have a headache.” That sounds like a man’s paradise, but how did it work for Solomon?
Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account: which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not
: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found. Ecclesiastes 7:27-28
Solomon owned a thousand women, yet his soul was empty. Why? He could command whatever he wished, but he couldn’t make them like it. Having made women to be smaller and weaker than men, God protected women by making sure that a wife’s unhappiness spreads throughout the house even if she tries to keep it to herself. This gives men a reason to make their wives happy. They need to know how to do it.
Just before our wedding, my fiancé told me why she was eager to marry. “I like talking to you” she said. Once we’re married, we can talk more in a day than we can talk in a week of dating.” Her reason for marrying was to talk to me. That was not why I wanted to marry her (Ge. 29:21[206]). Did you marry to talk?
The Book of Esther tells how harems work. King Ahasuerus had an empire-wide beauty contest for a new queen. Esther pleased him and became queen. When Haman conspired to have all the Jews murdered, Esther’s uncle Mordecai asked her to talk to her husband to try to stop the slaughter. Esther replied:
All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or women
, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days. Esther 4:11
Ahasuerus “loved Esther above all the women (Esther 2:17)” but he ignored her for a month. How did she feel about that? What was he doing all that time? The king had guards; if a man wanted to come in without permission, the guards would stop him. Women can’t move freely in the Middle East. The king’s wives lived in the palace and were the only women who could get there easily, but it was forbidden.
Wives really want to talk to their husbands. Suppose the king told them not to come. When a king’s wife tried to come talk to him, would a guard get physical with her to keep her out? Not if he valued his head.
The only way to keep a wife from trying to talk to him when he hadn’t called her was to threaten her with death! That is how badly wives yearn to talk to husbands. Proverbs 17:22 teaches, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Not being able to talk to her husband dries her bones.
There’s a saying, “If a man loves a woman’s soul, one woman is all he needs, but if he sees only her face or figure, all the women in the world won’t satisfy him.” That was Solomon’s mistake. Opening his heart enough to love a woman’s soul takes so many hours and days of talk that a man can’t belong to more than one at a time. The Bible warns 5 times that an unhappy woman is a hardship. Instead of having one woman enjoy belonging to him, he had 1,000 frustrated, unhappy women under his roof. No wonder his soul was empty.
Why did David want Bathsheba when he had so many wives? Because he hadn’t taken the time to open his heart to any wife enough to love her soul. He wasn’t satisfied, so he lusted after Bathsheba.
SUBJECT YOURSELVES ONE TO ANOTHER 1 PETER 5:5
The more a man takes his wife, the more she wants to talk. The more a man talks to her, the more he wants to take her. They must “be subject one to another (1 Pe. 5:5[207])” to make it work. The Bible tells how:
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5Defraud ye not one the other
, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. I Corinthians 7:4-5
The wife not having power of her body means she should always open herself to her husband to keep him from temptation. The man not having power of his body means that he must meet her needs by opening his heart to her. It’s fraud if a man doesn’t open his heart as his wife expected when she married. If he doesn’t meet her emotional needs, she’ll be tempted to seek emotional connections and talk elsewhere. This emotional infidelity often leads to physical infidelity.
One of the problems of women having jobs is that you must please your boss to keep a job. I’ve seen women pleasing men bosses and men pleasing women bosses just a little too much and end up destroying two families. Meeting the wife’s emotional needs and the husband’s physical needs helps avoid temptation.
A WIFE IS A MIRROR, SHE’S NOT A LIGHT
God made women to multiply what men give them and give it back. Consider babies. You give her one tiny cell. She gathers your life force unto herself, nourishes and multiplies your seed within her, and gives you a baby with billions of cells. Every cell of her baby has the mark of your DNA (Gen. 5:3[208]).
If you give her joy, love, appreciation, praise, and sanctification (Song 6:9[209]), she’ll multiply what you give her and fill your home with love and light to the Glory of God. If you give her anger, criticism, or harshness, Satan will tempt her to multiply that and your house will fill with anger and pain.
YOUR OPEN HEART
Men know that a happy woman is heavenly and that an unhappy woman can give him a taste of the punishments of Hell. A man’s emotions are as powerful as a woman’s, but men engage their emotions more slowly. A man will try not to let himself love a woman unless he’s confident of making her happy.
Few women can explain their needs to men, and no man can figure it out. I was blessed that my wife had asked God to choose her husband. God couldn’t give her to me without teaching me about her. The Holy Spirit led her to ask that I treat her as a treasure before dating and led her to explain herself to me.[210]
What she said made me confident that I could meet her needs and take care of her. That made me feel safe opening my heart to her and made me very much want to marry her. We found that what she said works for many women so we wrote it down for our granddaughter. She used it and it worked for her.
WHEN I ASKED FOR A DATE, SHE SAID, I’M LOOKING FOR A HUSBAND, I WANT TO GET MARRIED.
God made me to be a treasure for my husband. If that’s not you, we can part friends. I’m not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out at all, but I want you to agree that the reason to be together is to decide whether you and I will marry. I’m not a toy. I don’t want a man to play with me; I want a man to stay with me. If you aren’t willing to consider marriage, don’t waste my time.
I was attracted to her and I liked talking to her. I knew that God made all women to be treasures for their husbands. If she decided she wanted to be my treasure, I’d be a fool not to marry her, so I said “Yes.”
On the way to the restaurant, I did something from Japanese culture which hurt her and upset her emotionally. Her father had recognized the value of her God-given emotions, but he carefully taught her to think about her feelings. He insisted that she think about what she felt before acting on an emotion.
She could have walked back to her car and left, but she thought, “This guy’s thinking of marrying me. He didn’t offer to buy me food to make me upset. But I am upset. Must have been an accident. I’ll ask him.”
When I told her why, she liked it. Women she tells say, “Why’d you marry him after that” but decide I was a man to keep when told why. She asked and I answered as the Bible commands (Mt. 18:15). She thought, “This guy is strange, but if he’ll explain, I can help him” and she has. Many wives are afraid to ask because their husbands haven’t learned to explain their thoughts. Explaining is part of opening your heart.
I was attracted to her enough to think of marrying her. If she’d left, I’d have been badly hurt and we would have been very unlikely to marry. Stopping and thinking about her feelings got her a husband.
ON OUR 2ND DATE, SHE SAID SHE WANTED TO BE A VIRGIN ON HER WEDDING NIGHT.
My friends and the culture were very casual about sex, but I knew that God forbids sex outside marriage so I agreed. She had asked God to protect her; now the Holy Spirit led her to ask me to protect her.
We later learned that taking a woman without marriage damages her badly. The hormones of sex make her want to be his. This can be frightening, and it’s worse if he hasn’t committed himself to her. She’ll think he’s a thief for taking her when he shouldn’t, and she’ll try to wall off her feeling of belonging to him. If she let him have her without marriage, how can he trust her not to give herself to someone else?
Having her wall off her feelings and him not trusting her is a bad start. Men are always interested so men must control their desires (1 Th. 4:3-6[211]). Women are seldom interested and don’t know how to handle such strong desires when they come. The man will say she wanted it at the time. So what? He’s the leader; the sin is on him as it was on Adam. He must confess to God, to her, and to her parents to start healing (1 Jn. 1:9[212]).
SHE SHOWED RESPECT FOR ME
From early in our courtship, she’d occasionally say “Yes, sir” when I spoke to her. Not every time, but as the spirit moved her. I liked that a lot, but we had no idea how important it was.
Women should show respect for husbands (I Pe. 3:6[213]) and reverence them (Eph. 5:33[214]). Respecting you is difficult if you don’t act respectable. Ladies should wait for a man they want to call “Sir.”
“Sir” meant she’d respect me in spite of my mistakes. We’re told to confess our faults one to another (Jas. 5:16[215]). Men don’t like doing that and they really don’t like telling wives things they’re afraid will cost them respect. Many men ignore Pr. 31:11 which promises that a husband can trust his heart to his wife and won’t open their hearts. Calling me “Sir” helped me open my heart to her when I realized that God wanted me to belong to her; we’re glad that she could honor me in that way.
SHE ASKED, DON’T FUSS AT ME
Weeks later, she asked that I never fuss at her. “I want to love you very much,” she said. “The more I love you, the more disapproval hurts me. I won’t be able to love you as much as I want to love you if you hurt me.”
That made sense – the Bible speaks of women as “tender and delicate.” I didn’t want to keep her from loving me, so I watch what I say. We didn’t know it then, but God said the same thing:
There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health. Proverbs 12:18
I need this too. A man can be hurt as badly by a woman he loves as a woman can be hurt by a man whom she loves. We’ve tried always to be sure our tongues are health to each other. She tries to speak so that the 10-foot area near her is the best place in all the world for me to be, that’s why I like hanging around her.
SHE BELONGED TO GOD SO SHE COULD LET GOD GIVE HER TO ME
When we came together on our wedding night, she was terrified because her hormones gave her a deep, frightening desire to belong to me and to serve me. Nobody had warned her of this, but she’d prayed for years that God would work on her heart to prepare her for marriage; this feeing had to be from God. She clung to her faith that God was good and prayed, “Lord, You must want me to belong to him. That doesn’t make sense, but if that’s what You want, I’ll do my best to submit to him and to belong to him.”
When she chose to let God give her to me, her happiness became my happiness. Proverbs warns 5 times that an unhappy woman is a hardship (19:13b[216], 21:9[217], 19[218], 25:24[219], 27:15[220]), but the opposite is true, too. When she was happy, life was good. When she was happy with me, life was very good. When she was happy in being mine and wanted me to take her, I got the taste of the joys of Heaven that I’d expected when she told me God had made her to be His treasure. I liked this, so wanted to learn how to make her happy.
I had another reason to learn about her (1 Pe. 3:7[221]). I’d heard men complain about women, and they complained about the same things. When I told her, she told me her friends had said, “He may love you, but he won’t like you once you’re married” and they named the same things my classmates didn’t like.
This disagreed with my theology. I was convinced that God was good and had told her “For God so loved me that He gave me you.” She had told me she was a gift from God, and the Bible proved it (Pr. 18:22[222], 19:14b[223]). I knew that God gives good and perfect gifts (Mt. 7:11[224], Jas. 1:17[225]). Therefore, and this was an important insight, all men who dislike characteristics like emotion and talking which are common to women are wrong. Those are not defects; God made women that way on purpose to bless men.
SHE CHOSE TO SERVE GOD BY SERVING ME
24 hours after our wedding, she said, “I’ve been thinking about being married to you.” I thought, “We’re married, what’s to talk about,” but she had told me talking was important to her, so we talked. “The Bible says God wants me to belong to you, obey you, and submit to you,” she said. I thought, “Neat! We agree!” but she wasn’t done. “I’ll do my best to do that,” she said, “but I’m not doing it just for you. I’m doing it for God because He told me to. I’m serving God by serving you because God wants me to serve you.”
I thought about that for a long time and I still think about it. The next day, I told her, “I’m thinking about what you said. God wants me to lead you and take care of you. The Bible says that any man who desires to be first must be last of all and servant of all (Mk. 9:35[226], 10:42-45[227]). If I’m to lead you God’s way, I must lead by serving you. You said it well – I’ll serve God by serving you because God wants me to serve you.”
Marriage, like salvation, is an undeserved gift of God. The only way to be saved is to die to your former life and be married to Christ (Ro. 7:4[228]). You don’t deserve her submission, she doesn’t deserve your giving your life to nourish her; those are undeserved gifts of God’s grace. God expects married people to die to their individual lives and serve Him by serving each other, their children, and their church.
Jesus said that husband and wife are no more twain, but one flesh (Mt. 19:5-6[229], Mk 10:8[230]). Each must die to themselves in favor of their new family in order to become one. You must give your wife the same love and grace God gave in saving you (1 Pe. 4:10[231]). As Christ chose to love you regardless of your failures and sins, you and your wife must choose to love and serve each other regardless of failure ‘til death do you part.
As God sees you as perfect, you must treat each other as perfect (II Co. 5:14[232]) by the Grace of God. Watching your wife love you in spite of your failures increases your love for Christ and for her, and vice-versa. When lost people see you give God’s grace to each other, they’ll want God’s grace.
Salvation is about God giving – for God so loved that He gave. My wife so loved God that she let God give her to me. I so love God that I let God give me to her. Our love for each other comes from our love for God.
Just before our wedding, I wrote a letter, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman, for God so loved me that He gave me you.” Could you say that to your wife? And live by it? It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t belong to me. I know many wives who don’t belong to their husbands, but it’s often because he won’t open his heart. Beg God to increase your trust in Christ and in your wife so you can be hers.
This means involving her in all decisions and including your children as they get old enough. They can’t follow you unless they know where you’re going and they can’t obey unless they understand.
A WIFE IS WHAT HER HUSBAND MAKES HER
You’ve heard and preached that God expects a man to love his wife as Christ loves His church:
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27That he might present it to himself a glorious church
, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish
. 28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. Ephesians 5:25-28
Jesus presents us to Himself a “glorious church” in verse 27. Every man wants to present to himself a “glorious wife,” and there’s a simple way to do it – convince her he’s convinced that she is a glorious wife.
A woman heard that Johnny Lingo had paid 8 cows for his wife[233] when the going price was 3 or 4. When she went to his house to ask why, she could see that his wife liked belonging to him. Johnny explained that every wife knew what her husband had paid. His wife wasn’t thought to be very attractive so he might have gotten her for 1 or 2, but he paid 8 cows “Because I wanted an 8-cow wife.”
A friend of mine paid 5 cows for his wife. I suggested that he brag to his wife about outsmarting her family to get a 10-cow wife for only 5, but she might have to see the cows in order to believe he meant it.
Remember the 3 rules: God is good, only praise, and treat each other as perfect. Remember Johnny Lingo! A wife is what you make her. You make her a glorious wife by opening your heart to her so that she knows you’re convinced that she’s a glorious wife.
Sound Bite Marriage
The Internet generation has limited attention span. Everything must be short:
· Accepting salvation is two words: “only believe (Ro. 10:9[234]).”
· Sexual morality, that is, when a man and woman may come together physically, is 50% more complicated than salvation, it’s 3 words, “Only in marriage (1 Cor. 7:1-2[235]).”
· Entering Holy Matrimony is three words, “vowing, paying, taking” (Gen. 24:67[236], Ru. 4:13a[237]).” These men made public marriage vows before taking the women. Isaac supplied the tent and Boaz had wealth.
· Staying married is two words, “only praise.” Nowhere in Scripture does a man criticize his wife. The Song shows a couple appreciating every little detail. We must rule our tongues (Pr. 25:28[238], Jas. 1:26[239]).
· Marriage is held together by “seed and speech (1 Cor. 7:3-4[240], 1 Pe. 3:7[241]).” A husband’s goal is 5 times before breakfast, lunch, dinner and bed. God doesn’t often give him that much strength, but that’s a man’s plan (Ge.29:21[242]). She wants him to open his heart to her at least that often. He puts himself into her body. She puts herself, that is, her words, her thoughts, her feelings, her nature, into his heart.
He leaves his seed inside her body where it affects her mood and can give her a baby. She leaves her essence, her being, in his heart where it affects his thinking about her, how he treats her, and how they relate to everyone else. People know whether a couple belongs to each other by looking at them or hearing them.
She wants to hear him thanking God for creating marriage and for giving her to him. He should tell her she’s important to him and that he’s becoming more and more involved with her.
He wants her to say, “That was wonderful, I like belonging to you. Let’s do that again as soon as you can.” This encourages him to stay awake and talk to her for a while.
She wants him to say how much hearing her ideas and thoughts helps him make better decisions. She should point out that they could it more often if he was in better shape. Giving him a motive for exercise helps him live longer and shortens her time of being a widow.
A couple is “one flesh” as Adam and Eve were before God separated Eve from Adam’s body (Mk. 10:8[243]).
COMPARING MARRIAGE AND SALVATION
This section also has many brief comparisons between marriage and salvation. Genesis 1 tells us:
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Genesis 1:3
The Bible teaches that God created everything including you, your spouse, and me. We also find “and God said, … and it was so,” over and over. The Bible teaches that if God said it’s so, it is so.
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth
. John 17:17
God’s word is truth. God gave us His Word so that we’d know what He expects us to believe concerning Him and what we’re supposed to do. Some say, “the Bible is authoritative for faith and practice.” God tells us what to believe and He tells us what to do. Let’s consider what God says about what He’s done:
The works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein
. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever. Psalm 111:2, 10
God’s people should take pleasure in God’s works. We should enjoy watching what He does for us and we should enjoy learning as much as we can about how He does His works. Having a proper awe and respect for God is the beginning of wisdom. If we have good understanding, we’ll do what He commands, but it works the other way, too. If we do what God commands, we’ll get a good understanding when we look back and see how obeying His commands blessed us. Let’s look at how we’re told to approach God’s Word:
Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the LORD. Psalm 107:43
God says that if you’re wise, if you’ll observe “these things,” then you’ll understand just how kind God is and how well He takes care of us. Psalm 107 says three times
Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! Psalm 107:8, 15, 21
If you are wise, if you praise the Lord for His goodness, then you will understand His kindness to you.
God’s most wonderful work to the children of men, of course, is salvation. Salvation requires that we confess our sins, repent of our sins, ask Jesus to forgive our sins, and be born again. Being saved requires that we die to our former lives so that we can be married to Christ:
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another
, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
In order to be born again into Christ, we must die to ourselves and be married to Christ. That is the first of God’s wonderful works. Marriage is another of God’s wonderful works. Jesus explained it:
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:6
Dying to our former lives of sin makes us one with Christ. As with salvation; we must die to ourselves in order to be “one flesh” in marriage. God knew we’d have trouble following His plan of salvation. We couldn’t handle two plans so He made the same plan work for marriage and for salvation.
When we find people whose lives are being destroyed by sin, we give the gospel so that they can be saved and show the grace of God in their new walk with Christ. When we find marriages being destroyed by sin, we’re supposed to “give an answer” so that these marriages can show the grace of God to the lost. There are many short ways to explain marriage so that you can help your friends build their marriages.
· Salvation and marriage are both undeserved gifts of God’s grace. Nobody deserves salvation; nobody deserves the blessings of marriage. A man is not worthy of his wife’s submission, obedience, or her calling him “Lord,” that’s an undeserved gift of God’s grace to him. A woman is not worthy of her husband’s giving his life to nourish and cherish her, that’s God’s undeserved gift to her.
· Salvation and marriage both show the grace of God to the lost. We’re required to “give an answer” (I Pe. 3:15[244]) when people ask why we live as we do. Our marriages are our greatest opportunity to show we’re different from the lost. When the lost see a wife giving her husband undeserved grace or a husband giving his wife undeserved grace, they’ll want God’s grace for themselves, and we get to tell them how to find it.
· Salvation is based on a personal relationship with Christ Jesus. Marriage is based on a personal relationship between husband and wife. If your relationship with Christ is messed up, you can’t have a proper relationship with your spouse. If your relationship with Christ is based on true, saving faith, you can choose to base your relationship with your spouse on God’s formula.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
· John 3:16-17[245] gives all you must know to be saved. Genesis 24:67[246] gives all you must know for a successful marriage, but teaching helps. We labor to prepare children for Good Colleges but don’t teach godly marriage. Not teaching marriage is like giving them keys without training and expecting them to drive without getting hurt. As with salvation, “discipleship” is essential for successful marriage.
· Salvation prepares us for the joys of living forever with Jesus and serving Him in Heaven. God planned marriage to give both husband and wife a foretaste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.
· Once saved, we become one with Christ. Once married, husband and wife should become one flesh (Mt. 19:5-6[247], Mk. 10:8[248]). We can’t be one in Christ without dying to our former life. Husband and wife can’t become one in each other without dying to their former individual selves in favor of serving the family.
· Saved people should glorify God in all that they do; glorifying God helps us become his ambassadors (II Cor. 5:20[249]). Married people should glorify God and glorify each other together in all that they do.
· Some people give money to the church to pay God for favors. A “cheerful giver” gives to God out of love and not to get from Him. The Song of Solomon shows a husband and wife giving to each other out of love and not in hope of getting from the other. Works-based salvation is idolatry; works-based marriage is whoredom. Works-based “salvation” takes you to Hell; works-based marriage makes life Hell on earth.
· Salvation supports marriage; knowing we belong to Christ (I Co. 6:19[250]) makes it easier to belong to a spouse. If a woman belongs to Christ, it’s easier to accept God giving her to her husband (Lk. 17:27[251]). If a man knows that Christ gave His life for him, it’s easier for him to give his life for his wife (Eph. 5:25[252]).
· Marriage supports salvation. As husband and wife appreciate and praise one another, and share God’s grace by forgiving each other, their marriage reminds them both to praise and appreciate God (Ps. 100).
· Rejoicing in the Lord reminds us to rejoice in marriage and vice versa (Phi 4:4[253]). Ecc. 9:9 says, “Rejoice with the wife whom thou lovest…” Joy in marriage must be shared.
· Salvation is two words, “only believe.” Satan confuses people into thinking it’s belief plus works or church so people miss salvation and go to Hell. Marriage is two words, “only praise,” but many people think they should change their spouses instead of letting the Holy Spirit bring change. When people usurp the Holy Spirit’s role in their marriage, they usually miss the joys of marriage and may create Hell on earth.
· Salvation doesn’t just take us to Heaven; we have duties to do for Christ in this life (2 Cor. 5:14[254]). For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:10[255]).
· Marriage doesn’t just give us companionship; we have duties to our spouses which God commands us to fulfill. Husbands must show agapao to wives (Eph. 5:25-26[256]), wives must reverence husbands (Eph. 5:33[257]). Agapao and reverence are not products of emotion; they are acts of will which we decide to do.
· When Jesus’ blood washes away our sins, God sees us as perfect (I Cor. 6:11[258]). Christians must follow after God (Eph. 5:1-2[259]) and see each other as perfect. Marriage prospers when a man appreciates and honors his wife as God’s good and perfect gift to him and she acts as God’s good and perfect gift to him.
· The only way a man can see his sinful wife as perfect is for him to see her through the grace God gave him in saving him. The only way a wife can see her sinful husband as perfect is for her to see him through the grace God gave her. When lost people see couples giving God’s grace to each other, they want God’s grace for themselves, and we tell them how to get it. That’s how our lights shine before men (Mt. 5:16).
· When we give the gospel, we may hear, “God can’t save me, my sins are too great.” When we give the plan of marriage, we may hear, “God can’t save my marriage, it’s too far gone.” These thoughts are based on pride – how can anyone think their sin is more powerful than the God who created the universe?
· People who reject God’s Simple Plan of Salvation spend eternity in Hell. People who reject God’s Simple Plan of Marriage can create their very own Hell right here on earth. Marriage can either give a foretaste of the joys of Heaven or it can give a foretaste of the punishment of the damned in Hell.
· Once we’re saved, our love for Christ constrains us to serve Him (II Cor. 5:14[260], Eph. 2:10[261], Phi. 2:4[262]). Once we’re married, our love for each other should constrain us to serve each other. God wants us to serve our spouses; we serve God by serving each other.
· Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;” (Mt 11:29). A bride woman takes upon herself the yoke of pleasing her husband (Ge. 3:16[263]). The only way to rest (Ruth. 1:9a[264]) in being sure she’ll please him is to spend time talking to him and learning of him so she knows he’ll be pleased with what she does.
· Jesus said, “for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Mt. 11:29) A man must be meek towards his wife; must lead her by serving her (Mk. 10:42-45[265], see also Mk. 9:35[266]). He must talk to her a great deal in order to understand her needs well enough to lead her for her benefit.
· Jesus said, He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it (Mt. 10:39). When we accept salvation, we lose our former lives and gain a new life in Christ. When we marry, we lose our former individual selves and gain a new life as a one-flesh married couple.
· God’s salvation covenant is forever; once saved, always saved (John 10:28[267]). God’s marriage covenant ends at death (Rom. 7:1-3[268], the book of Ruth).
If you’re truly saved, if you relate to God as He desires, your marriage relationship works because you’ll both serve God by serving each other. The relationship between husband and wife is based on their relationships to God.
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; II Corinthians 5:18
Having been reconciled to God, we should be able to minister reconciliation to each other. If husband and wife each reconcile themselves to God and relate to God by honoring, praising, loving, and obeying Him, they’ll relate properly to each other by honoring, praising, loving and appreciating each other. Their marriage prospers, and they show the grace of salvation to the lost.
And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them
, and rose again. II Corinthians 5:15
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body
. II Corinthians 4:10
As lost people see Christians giving God’s grace to each other, they’ll want God’s grace for themselves. If either party messes up their relationship with God, on the other hand, their testimony is damaged and the marriage seldom works well even if they both have been taught how marriage should work.
This book explores what God says about marriage so that you can help heal the broken marriages you’ll encounter. God ordains marriage; a damaged marriage means that someone isn’t following God.
Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: Psalm 127:1
No matter how hopeless the situation seems, God promises a way out, but we have to ask:
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape
, that ye may be able to bear it. I Corinthians 10:13
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God
, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. James 1:5
Head Knowledge and Heart Knowledge – Logic and Emotion
Head knowledge is what we know (2 Tim. 3:7[269]); heart knowledge is what we feel or what we are (Pr. 23:7[270]). “Emotion” describes feelings that come from our hearts. Feelings and emotions can’t always be explained, but we should try to understand logical reasons for our feelings before acting on them.
“Logic” is facts in our heads. If a car has no gasoline, it’s a fact that the car won’t go. No matter how you feel about it, no matter how angry or frustrated you get, the car won’t go unless you get some gasoline. There shouldn’t be any emotion about a fact. The fact that a car needs gasoline shouldn’t make you angry, or sad, or happy, it’s just something you must know to use a car. God tells us to use knowledge to rule our feelings:
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. Proverbs 25:28
When your car runs out of gasoline, your mind should know that getting angry won’t help. We must rule our spirits so that we don’t lose our temper or say angry words. Christianity is based on logic:
Come now, and let us reason together
, saith the LORD: Isaiah 1:18
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade
men; II Corinthians 5:11a
Even with Heaven and Hell in the balance, we persuade. God appeals to our minds and to our hearts. The Lord our God is a God of purpose and plan (Isaiah 14:26-27[271], 23:9, 43:13, 46:11, Jer. 4:28[272], Rom. 8:28[273]), there is logic in all that He does. We’re told to labor and reason together with God to find out His rules.
For we are labourers together with God
: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. I Corinthians 3:9
What an honor! When we meet together, we labor with God. “Husbandry[274]” is taking care of a farm. A church is God’s farm where God grows us and builds us. Right now, we’re growing and building marriages.
OBEDIENCE REQUIRES LOGIC
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply
, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1:28
We need knowledge to build Godly marriages. We also need logic to understand how God created the earth so we can subdue it, take care of the earth, and work in gold, silver, stone, and brass like Bezaleel:
And I have filled him with the spirit of God
, in wisdom
, and in understanding
, and in knowledge
, and in all manner of workmanship
, 4To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, 5And in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship. Exodus 31:3-5
Figuring out what to do needs: 1) the Holy Spirit, 2) wisdom, 3) understanding, 4) knowledge 5) practice.
LOGIC IS HOW WE USE FACTS TO REACH CONCLUSIONS
Although the emotions God put into men and women to hold families together are very strong, the Bible says we should use wisdom and logic in guiding our relationships with other people:
Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: 12To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things; 13Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; 14Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; 15Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: 16To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; 17Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. Proverbs 2:11-17
Logic, that is, collecting facts and drawing conclusions to deliver us from evil men and women is part of wisdom that starts with God. Wisdom starts in Bible reading, prayer, and studying the Works of God.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning
of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Proverbs 9:10
My wife and I had read the Bible for years. We were both sure in our hearts that God is good. I knew that all the strange things God put in women were for my good! When she asked God if she should marry her boyfriend, He told her “No,” so she asked God to choose her husband – He knew the man better than she did (Je. 17:9[275]). God led her to tell me facts about herself that logically convinced me I could make her happy.
WE LIVE ON FACTS AND EMOTIONS
Our marriage runs on a mixture of fact and emotion. My wife reasoned years ago that it would be simpler to maintain the husband she had than to find another one. She’s studied nutrition to help me stay healthy so I’ll live longer. That’s a logical reason to stay with her, but I’ve also come to be very much in love with her.
Reasoning starts with facts we know and works to conclusions as my wife reasoned that studying nutrition would keep me alive longer and shorten her time of widowhood.
Our marriage didn’t start with logic or reason. I was attracted to a woman in the pew in front of me. When she opened her book for the first hymn, I saw that her left hand was bare. She was unattached, so I looked harder. There was no logic at all. To this day, I can’t say why I was attracted, only that I was.
We talked after the service. When I gave her facts about Japan, she used what she knew about America to draw sensible conclusions about Japan from what I told her. After about 90 minutes, I had enough facts about her intelligence to decide that she was worth my time, so I told her I was going to date her. I didn’t ask her, I told her. The wheels turned behind her eyes 20 or 30 seconds, she gulped, and said, “OK.”
That’s Biblical. Did Adam ask Eve if she wanted to be called “woman,” or did he just name her?
When it was time for our first date, she said, “Before you spend money on me, you should know that I’m looking for a husband. I want to get married. I’m not saying you have to agree to marry me before we go out, but I want you to agree that the purpose of being together is to decide whether you and I should get married. God made me to be a treasure for some man. If you aren’t that man, fine, we can part friends, but I’m not a toy. I don’t want a man to play with me; I want a man to stay with me.”
Putting marriage on the table was part of guarding her heart. When a woman lets herself fall in love with a man who isn’t ready to marry anyone, she’s in for a world of hurt. It was Biblical for her to put marriage on the table – who mentioned marriage first, Boaz or Ruth? It didn’t occur to Boaz to marry Ruth, but when she gave him the idea (Ru. 3:9[276]), he thought it was such a good idea that he rushed out the very next morning and married her. Why was he eager? The Bible doesn’t say Ruth was beautiful, but Boaz had facts about her. He knew that a hard-working (Ru. 2:7[277]), God-fearing (Ru. 2:11-12[278]) woman who wasn’t dating around (Ru. 3:10) and wanted to marry him would make a good wife.
Every man knows in his heart that a woman can give him a taste of the joys of Heaven, that’s why men look for women. I was attracted to her, I liked taking to her, and she told me she planned to be God’s treasure for her husband! I didn’t know she had no idea what being my treasure meant, God didn’t tell her my plans to have her 20 times per day until later. I knew the joy I’d get if she decided to be God’s treasure for me. If she decided that, I’d be a fool not to marry her, so I said, “Sure.” When I had enough facts to conclude that she wanted to be my treasure and that I could make her happy, I married her as soon as we could get a dress.
FACT-BASED MARRIAGE
Like Boaz, out first talk gave me facts to support the idea of marrying her. She had facts when she agreed to date me when I commanded her. She’d planned to marry her college boyfriend. He looked good. He attended church and led the youth group. Over time, she let herself fall in love with him.
Something drove her to ask God if she should marry him. God told her “No” and sent a friend of his family to tell her why she shouldn’t. It was hard, but she stopped being with him. She hadn’t guarded her heart; she had let her feelings become strong without having enough facts to be sure he would be good for her.Keep thy heart
with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
Having been hurt, she told God, “You didn’t like the man I chose, You find me a husband or make me content to be single.” A woman should never let herself fall in love with a man until after he marries her. A woman should decide to marry based on facts about him and on how he treats her. She’ll fall in love later.
Knowing how badly she wanted to marry, God let her know that her husband would have something to do with Japan. Feeling a call to the ministry, she asked about being a missionary to Japan. The board told her that sending single women to Japan didn’t work because of the culture. She had taken action based on the partial knowledge God gave her when she prayed.
While we talked, she could see that her pastor, who had not liked her boyfriend, was glad to see me pursuing her. As she thought about what to say when I told her I was going to date her, she felt God say, “Are you going to choose or am I?” It was a fact that I met the description God had given in answer to her prayer. It took her 30 seconds to decide because I was not at all what she would have chosen, but she said “OK.”
SHE ASKED ME “WHY?”
On the way to the restaurant for the first date, I did something from Japanese culture which hurt her feelings. Her father had recognized the value of her God-given emotions, but he carefully taught her to think about her feelings. He insisted that she think about what she felt before acting on an emotion.
She could have walked back to her car and left, but she thought, “This guy’s thinking of marrying me. He didn’t offer to buy me food to make me upset. But I am upset. Must have been an accident. I’ll ask him.”
When I told her why, she liked it. Women she tells say, “Why’d you marry him after that” but decide I was a man to keep when told why. She asked and I answered as the Bible commands (Mt. 18:15[279]). She thought, “This guy is strange, but if he’ll explain, I can help him” and she has. Many wives are afraid to ask because their husbands haven’t learned to explain their thoughts. Explaining is part of opening your heart.
I was attracted to her enough to think of marrying. If she’d left, I’d have been badly hurt and we’d have been unlikely to marry. Stopping, thinking about her feelings, and asking “Why?” got her a husband.
HOW WOULD I RULE HER?
The facts which God and I had given her by our 3rd date were enough to go on dating, but she needed more facts before deciding whether to marry. She saw I could rule her when I commanded her to date me, but she wanted to know how I’d rule. We were at my apartment with my roommate. She did something unacceptable. I told her not to do that. She said, “You can’t do anything about it.” She held up her little finger and touched the tip with her thumb. “I’ve got you right here!” She was testing me and we both knew it. I picked her up, carried her to the shower, and let her know she was asking for a soaking. “But,” she said, “I don’t have any other clothes.” I told her it was summer; she’d dry in a few hours.
She said, “I’ll behave,” and I let her out of the shower. I didn’t yell; I didn’t hit her. She knew I’d rule gently so it would be safe to promise to obey me. She decided to follow me and started saying “Yes, sir” as the spirit moved her. Resting in me changed her body language so much that at our first visit to her parents the next week, her mother thought, “She feels safe with him. I’m sure they’ll get married soon.”
A man should give his wife rest, ease, and calm in belonging to him. When she told Ruth and Orpah to go back to their parents to find husbands, Naomi prayed, “The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband (Ru. 1:9a).” Naomi wanted food, clothing, and shelter for them, but she also wanted them to be sure their husbands valued and appreciated them enough to like caring for them.
I GAVE HER MORE FACTS ON PURPOSE
When I met her, I knew that engineers’ marriages often fell apart. I also knew that my Japanese background wouldn’t help. I took her to an office party so she could see that my colleagues weren’t happy with me. We watched a Japanese film series that showed many striking aspects of Japanese culture.
I didn’t know that she’d had a lifetime of technical table talk because her dad was an engineer, and I didn’t know that her mission-minded family had hosted many missionaries as she grew up. I was pleased to note that she was OK with my technical thought process and that the culture didn’t turn her off.
She saw me trying to be open about my background. This gave her confidence that I’d open my heart to her, but the Holy Spirit had her put talk into our wedding vows. Just before our wedding, she told me she was really looking forward to being married. I like talking to you. Once we’re married, we can talk more in a day than we can talk in a week of dating.” I was surprised and put off by the idea of that much talk, but by that time I very much wanted to marry her and went ahead (1 Cor. 7:9[280]).
The fundamental reason I decided to spend the rest of my life taking care of her was that I was convinced that God is good. I’d seen the bride’s father give her to the groom at several weddings so I knew that a wife is a gift from God (Pr. 18:22[281]). I knew that God gives good gifts (Mt. 7:11[282], Jas. 1:17[283]) so I knew she would be good for me if she decided to let God give her to me.
She’d prayed to God to work on her heart to make her a wife and mother He wanted her to be. Belonging to me after we married was the most frightening experience of her life, but she trusted God and decided to be mine. It helped that I’d written, “For God so loved man that He gave him woman. For God so loved me that He gave me you.” She’d said God made her to be a treasure. If I treated her that way, it would work.
LOGIC – FINDING FACTS AND DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
Having been taught to think about her feelings by her engineer father and learning how painful it could be let her feelings become strong without getting facts first, my wife used logic before emotion in marrying me.
Aristotle explained logic ~ 300 BC, about the time Euclid defined “Euclidian geometry.” When Rome conquered Greece 100 years later, they learned Logic and Geometry which let them build ~ 250,000 miles of roads, some of which are used today. The Apostles couldn’t have spread the Gospel as fast as they did without Roman roads. Did God help the Romans build roads to help them serve Him?
Logic and geometry are the foundation of our high-tech civilization. The Greeks didn’t discover them – Hezekiah used logic and geometry to dig a tunnel to bring water into Jerusalem (2 Ki. 20:20[284]) – but he didn’t write down how he did it for our learning! The Greeks wrote it down so they get the credit.
When Rome fell around 480 AD, logic and geometry were forgotten for centuries. It’s not clear when they were found again, but they were needed for the Industrial Revolution which began in the early 1800s, ~ 250 years ago. We can’t have automobiles, or electricity, or water systems, or paved roads, or computers or the Internet without understanding logic throughout society. How many well-trained, logical people are needed to maintain the Internet? To climb poles to fix wires to keep the lights on?
Logic is so important to our society that there’s a free online courses[285] which explains how to use logic with facts to reach conclusions and gives a number of problems. There are other logic exercises in this online folder[286] which can be printed and shared.
CHRISTIANITY IS A LOGICAL FAITH
Scripture has many verses to help you decide whether something you want to do falls within the will of God.[287] Whether your decisions come from logic or emotion, working through these questions will help you measure your decision against Biblical principles. This takes a lot of Bible reading and practice. The logic training in the links above will not only help with figuring out how to glorify God by what you do, it will make it easier for your people to learn how to manage the technology required by our civilization and get a good job.
Cling to these facts:
God is good. The things about your spouse that irritate you the most are of God to bless you. Ask God to give you wisdom to see how your spouse blesses you.
Use logic to control you r emotions. When you’re tempted to be upset, ask the other person why they did what they did (Mt. 18:15[288]). What was the goal? What were they trying to accomplish? What did you know that showed that it wasn’t a good idea? Should you have explained that earlier?
Salvation is logical. Scripture is logical. Learning about God works on our hearts so that we love Him. That leads us to obey Him so that He will be pleased us. That, of course, is how we relate to our spouses.
[1] Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
[2] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. II Corinthians 5:20
[3] Unwin, J. D. (1927). “Monogamy as a Condition of Social Energy,” The Hibbert Journal, Vol. XXV, p. 662
[4] The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; 4That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Titus 2:3-5
[5] Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. Proverbs 31:10
[6] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[7] Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:7
[8] I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. I Timothy 5:14
[9] And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly. Matthew 26:75
[10] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[11] But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:42-45
[12] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18
[13] For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
[14] the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13b
[15] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[16] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[17] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[18] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[19] Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? Proverbs 6:28
[20] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[21] A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; I Timothy 3:2
[22] And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, II Timothy 2:24
[23] She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Proverbs 31:26
[24] For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
[25] There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:34
[26] And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; Judges 16:16
[27] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18, 20
[28] Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. I Thessalonians 5:11
[29] And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Hebrews 10:24
[30] Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
[31] All these men of war, that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel: and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king. I Chronicles 12:38
[32] Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. Ephesians 5:1-2
[33] Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: 2And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, 3Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. 4And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. 5But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; Acts 17:1-6
[34] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. II Corinthians 5:20
[35]Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Philippians 2:6-8
[36] Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Matthew 1:23
[37] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15
[38] My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? Psalm 22:1
[39] And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Matthew 27:46
[40] And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Mark 15:34
[41] And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. Genesis 35:18
[42] And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast born a son. But she answered not, neither did she regard it. I Samuel 4:20
[43] And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. Genesis 30:1
[44] Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men. Luke 1:25
[45] Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelation 4:11
[46] There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. Romans 3:11
[47] Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. Galatians 5:4
[48] And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength. Isaiah 49:5
[49] Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. John 3:7
[50] And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Acts 17:30
[51] Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 20:21
[52] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Matthew 23:37
[53] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Luke 13:34
[54] And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. Matthew 11:23
[55] And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell. Luke 10:15
[56] He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:3-4
[57] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: II Corinthians 5:14
[58] I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. I Corinthians 3:6
[59] Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Philippians 1:6
[60] Unwin, J. D. (1927). “Monogamy as a Condition of Social Energy,” The Hibbert Journal, Vol. XXV, p. 662
1 Sexual Relations and Cultural Behavior, by J. D. Unwin (Frank M. Darrow 1969)
[62] The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; 4That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. Titus 2:3-5
[63] Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. Proverbs 31:10
[64] Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:7
[65] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
[66] I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. I Timothy 5:14
[67] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Luke 13:34
[68] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Matthew 23:37
[69] And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell. Luke 10:15
[70] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Luke 13:34
[71] And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly. Matthew 26:75
[72] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[73] But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:42-45
[74] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18
[75] the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13b
[76] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[77] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[78] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[79] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[80] Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? Proverbs 6:28
[81] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[82] The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. Proverbs 31:11
[83] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33
[84] Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. I Peter 3:6
[85] Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. Malachi 2:14
[86] A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; I Timothy 3:2
[87] And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, II Timothy 2:24
[88] Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27
[89] For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9
[90] There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:34
[91] And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; Judges 16:16
[92] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18, 20
[93] Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do. I Thessalonians 5:11
[94] And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Hebrews 10:24
[95] All these men of war, that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel: and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king. I Chronicles 12:38
[96] Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour. Ephesians 5:1-2
[97] Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: 2And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, 3Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. 4And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. 5But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; Acts 17:1-6
[98] And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
[99] He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Mark 7:6
[100] Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: Isaiah 29:13
[101] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2021/06/dont-step-in-holes.html#samsonTemptation
[102] Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. II Timothy 3:7
[103] For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Proverbs 23:7a
[104] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2:18
[105] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
[106] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
[107] Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. Malachi 2:14
[108] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2021/06/wedding-wisdom-simplicity-of-marriage.html#fallFault
[109] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[110] But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:42-45
[111] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. Genesis 2:6
[112] And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Genesis 2:25
[113] And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: Genesis 3:2
[114] There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I Corinthians 7:34
[115] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
[116] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[117] Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
[118] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[119] And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Mark 10:8
[120]And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:5-6
[121] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[122] My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 2:16
[123] I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies. Song of Solomon 6:3
[124] Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:9
[125] In Gen. 3:14, God cursed Satan “above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.” In 3:17 God said, “cursed is the ground for thy sake” before telling Adam that he would eat by the sweat of his face. Although Satan, cattle, beasts, and the ground were cursed, Adam and Eve were not cursed. By placing Adam’s struggle to find or grow food at the mercy of weather and much else which man can’t control, God reminds us that all lives depend on God (Ecc. 5:9). Before men could pump water out of the ground, farmers needed rain to fill reservoirs or water their crops. Farmers know their dependence on God.
[126]And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4
[127] Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates. Proverbs 31:31
[128] Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: Isaiah 29:13
[129] He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Mark 7:6
[130] Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:7
[131] I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. I Timothy 5:14
[132] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2021/06/dont-step-in-holes.html#greekHard
[133] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Matthew 23:37
[134] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2018/12/what-drove-jesus-11-nobodies-to-turn.html#ruthsRules
[135] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2021/06/wedding-wisdom-simplicity-of-marriage.html#marriageArch
[136] a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
[137] And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. Luke 7:50
[138] Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. Song of Solomon 4:7
[139] For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23
[140] Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: Romans 5:12
[141] For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23
[142] As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12
[143] And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. I Corinthians 6:11
[144] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. Ephesians 5:25-27
[145] There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Romans 8:1
[146] Let your heart therefore be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day. I Kings 8:61
[147] But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa’s heart was perfect with the LORD all his days. I Kings 15:14
[148] I beseech thee, O LORD, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore. II Kings 20:3
[149] Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Psalm 100:2
[150] Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, Romans 1:1
[151] Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; Titus 1:1
[152] My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. John 10:29
[153] What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? I Corinthians 6:19
[154] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. II Corinthians 5:14-15
[155] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
[156] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[157] But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:42-45
[158] Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: 32And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:31-32
[159] He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. 11For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. 12As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:10-12
[160] I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Isaiah 43:25
[161] And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Hebrews 10:17
[162] How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrews 9:14
[163] Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21And having an high priest over the house of God; 22Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:19-22
[164] There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Romans 8:1
[165] Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Romans 15:13
[166] God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. Psalm 68:6
[167] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
[168] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: Ephesians 5:29
[169] Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. Song of Solomon 4:7
[170] My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. Song of Solomon 6:9
[171] Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 33Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:22, 33
[172] Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Colossians 3:18
[173] I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid? Job 31:1
[174] The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9
[175] Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28
[176] Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. Philippians 4:11
[177] But godliness with contentment is great gain. I Timothy 6:6
[178] Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Hebrews 13:5
[179] But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Deuteronomy 4:29
[180] work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Philippians 2:12b
[181] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9
[182] Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James 5:16
[183] Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; II Corinthians 5:11a
[184] But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
[185] And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. Genesis 35:18
[186] And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast born a son. But she answered not, neither did she regard it. I Samuel 4:20
[187] And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. Genesis 30:1
[188] Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men. Luke 1:25
[189] Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelation 4:11
[190] He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Isaiah 53:3
[191] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Matthew 23:37
[192] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Luke 13:34
[193] Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. 29Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Proverbs 31:28-29
[194] Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. John 15:3
[195] I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10b
[196] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2018/12/what-drove-jesus-11-nobodies-to-turn.html#thinkDifferent
[197] Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:9
[198] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
[199] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[200] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Song of Solomon 1:2
[201] I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. 3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. Song 8:2-3
[202] A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; I Timothy 3:2
[203] And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, II Timothy 2:24
[204] Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee. Song of Solomon 4:7
[205] And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. I Kings 11:3
[206] And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
[207] Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. I Peter 5:5
[208] And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth: Genesis 5:3
[209] My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. Song of Solomon 6:9
[210] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2018/12/what-drove-jesus-11-nobodies-to-turn.html#ToldMeBefore
[211] For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: 4That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; 5Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: 6That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. I Thessalonians 4:3-6
[212] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I John 1:9
[213] Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. I Peter 3:6
[214] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33
[215] Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James 5:16
[216] the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping. Proverbs 19:13b
[217] It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. Proverbs 21:9
[218] It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman. Proverbs 21:19
[219] It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house. Proverbs 25:24
[220] A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Proverbs 27:15
[221] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[222] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
[223] a prudent wife is from the LORD. Proverbs 19:14b
[224] If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
[225] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
[226] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[227] But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:42-45
[228] Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Romans 7:4
[229]And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:5-6
[230] And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Mark 10:8
[231] As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. I Peter 4:10
[232] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: II Corinthians 5:14
[233] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-johnny-lingo-paid-eight-cows-for.html
[234] That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:9
[235] Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. I Corinthians 7:1-2
[236] And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Genesis 24:67
[237] So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: Ruth 4:13a
[238] He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. Proverbs 25:28
[239] If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. James 1:26
[240] Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. I Corinthians 7:3-4
[241] Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. I Peter 3:7
[242] And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. Genesis 29:21
[243] And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Mark 10:8
[244] But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: I Peter 3:15
[245] For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:16-17
[246] And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Genesis 24:67
[247]And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:5-6
[248] And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. Mark 10:8
[249] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. II Corinthians 5:20
[250] What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? I Corinthians 6:19
[251] They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Luke 17:27
[252] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; Ephesians 5:25
[253] Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Philippians 4:4
[254] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: II Corinthians 5:14
[255] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
[256] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2021/06/dont-step-in-holes.html#greekHard
[257] Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33
[258] And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. I Corinthians 6:11
[259] Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; 2And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Ephesians 5:1-2
[260] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: II Corinthians 5:14
[261] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
[262] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4
[263] Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. Genesis 3:16
[264] The LORD grant you that ye may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband. Ruth 1:9a
[265] But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:42-45
[266] And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all. Mark 9:35
[267] And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. John 10:28
[268] Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Romans 7:1-3
[269] Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. II Timothy 3:7
[270] For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Proverbs 23:7a
[271] This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. 27For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? Isaiah 14:26-27
[272] For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it. Jeremiah 4:28
[273] And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
[274] The business of a farmer, comprehending agriculture or tillage of the ground, the raising, managing and fattening of cattle and other domestic animals, the management of the dairy and whatever the land produces.
[275] The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 10I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17:9-10
[276] And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman. 10And he said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my daughter: for thou hast shewed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich. Ruth 3:9-10
[277] And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now, that she tarried a little in the house. Ruth 2:7
[278] And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore. 12The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust. Ruth 2:11-12
[279] Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. Matthew 18:15
[280] But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. I Corinthians 7:9
[281] Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
[282] If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11
[283] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
[284] And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit [tunnel], and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? II Kings 20:20
[285] https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/lsat/lsat-lessons/logical-reasoning/a/logical-reasoning–article–getting-started
[286] https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10EfwNuJ5CQ1ostJk7TVqQoy1HIqZBb5Y?usp=sharing
[287] https://successful-marriage.blogspot.com/2021/06/is-what-i-want-to-do-will-of-god_30.html
[288] Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. Matthew 18:15
POSTED BY BILL TAYLOR AT 7:58 AM
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