It would seem quite unusual for this, this
time, possibly, but I just, I feel as
though if I don't, I'll be disobedient to
the Lord.
So, I need to do that.
I want us to go to the book
of Romans, chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8, verse 28.
And we know that for those who love
God, all things work together for good.
For those who are called according to His
purpose.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, I come before you in the name
of your Son.
And Lord, I know that I could be
the one, as much as anyone in need
of the things that I believe I'm going
to say.
Help us, Lord, to be Christian in the
places where it is most difficult to be
Christian.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Let's read this text again.
And we know that for those who love
God, all things work together for good.
For those who are called according to His
purpose.
In all aspects of life, one of the
most important things, if not the most important
thing, is to understand certain things about God.
One of those is that God is all
sovereign.
There's not a maverick molecule in the universe.
There is nothing that has happened that has
not been ordained by God.
If my wife and children are going to
church tonight, and they run off the road,
and supernaturally they're somehow put back on the
road and saved, it is ordained of God.
If they run off the road and are
all three killed, it is ordained of God.
It is not an accident.
It is not something that just happened because
we live in a fallen world, and God
was doing the best He could.
No, I couldn't live in a world like
that.
It's because all things that occur are ordained
of God.
There is not a maverick molecule in the
universe.
He's Lord over all, and He does as
He pleases in the heavens and in the
earth and under the earth.
Now, why am I sharing this?
Because this truth that we have here is
not only foundational to theology or foundational to
ministry, but it's foundational to something I'm going
to talk about tonight, and that's your marriage.
I know it seems kind of unusual to
come to a group of meetings, and all
of a sudden the man pops up and
says, you're going to speak on marriage, but
I feel like it's what I'm supposed to
do.
It's what I will do, as long as
you grant me the grace to do it.
God is sovereign.
Another thing, God is loving and good.
If He was only sovereign, then we might
have a case to be bitter against Him
when bad things happen or things seem to
go wrong.
We might say, well, He's sovereign, but He's
not good.
Or He's sovereign, but He does not love
me.
And that would produce bitterness in our heart,
but that's not true.
God is sovereign, and God loves you with
a love you cannot even comprehend.
As a matter of fact, a love so
great that you will spend all of eternity
trying to track out and trace out how
great that love is, and you'll never be
able to do it.
So not only is He sovereign, He's loving,
and He's good.
But not only is He sovereign, loving, and
good, but He is all wise.
He is not just someone up there that
has all power and really loves you, but
is not sure about what's best for your
life, because that too would produce bitterness and
depression when things don't go as you think
they ought to go.
It would take away all contentment.
A believer cannot have contentment in their life,
not a sure, strong, biblical contentment, unless they
believe everything that has happened to me has
been the sovereignty of God, and that God
is loving and good and all wise.
You put those things together, and you have
a rock-solid foundation for absolutely anything.
Now, what does that have to do with
marriage?
Absolutely everything.
Now, I want us to look.
We read this passage in verse 28.
I want us to go down.
It says, For those whom He foreknew, He
also predestined to be conformed to the image
of His Son, in order that He might
be the firstborn among many brethren.
And those whom He predestined, He also called.
And those whom He called, He also justified.
And those whom He justified, He also glorified.
Now, we look at this passage, we see
different things that the Lord is working in
our lives.
Sometimes we take this passage too theologically.
We think that it's only dealing with soteriology.
It's only dealing with salvation, the way God
saves a man.
No, God is using all these words to
encompass the entire Christian life.
Everything in the Christian life, God has laid
out, He has purposed, and He has planned.
Absolutely everything.
He made the way for our justification.
His Son dying on that tree under the
wrath of God and rising from the dead.
Heaven paid the penalty of sin against God's
people.
Not only that, but in time, He called
you forth.
He regenerated you and granted you the grace
of repentance and faith.
And with that repentance and faith, you believed
and you were justified.
Declared to be legally right before Him.
Those whom He justified, He is constantly working
a work of sanctification.
And He will do the work.
He will finish the work He began.
And not only that, one day every child
of God will stand before Him glorified in
His presence.
So every aspect of your Christian life is
under the sovereign direction of God.
And you say, yes, my Christian life, but
I did a lot of terrible things before
my Christian life that messed up a lot
of stuff.
Well, it probably messed up a lot of
stuff, but it did not mess up God's
plan.
God could have intervened if He had chosen
to, to save you from many of the
sins you committed in your early life.
And in His wisdom, He decreed not to.
What I want you to see is that
there is no way around it.
God is in control of every aspect of
your life.
He will be in control of every aspect
of your life.
And He has been before the foundation of
the earth was laid in control of your
life.
And what is the purpose of all this
controlling?
What is it?
What is the good?
Look in verse 28.
He says, for we know that all, we
know that for those who love God, all
things work together for good to those who
are called according to His purpose.
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined
to what?
Be conformed to the image of His Son.
Now, everything that God has ever ordained and
done in your life, the purpose of that,
one great purpose, that you be conformed to
the image of Jesus Christ.
Absolutely everything that God does and has done
and will do in your life has one
great end, to make you like Jesus.
Everything else, everything else orbits around that.
If God grants me health, it is for
what reason?
That through that health, I might somehow be
conformed to the image of Christ.
If God takes away my health, which He
has, if God takes away my health, it
is for what purpose?
To conform me to the image of Christ.
If God prospers you economically, it is only
for one reason, to conform you to the
image of His Son.
If He takes away absolutely everything you have,
it is to conform you to the image
of His Son.
Everything, including and especially your marriage, has one
great purpose, to conform you to the image
of His Son.
But you would rather have something else, wouldn't
you?
You prove it by the way you live
and the way you act, and the way
you respond to adversity.
What is it that you really want?
Do you want what God wants?
Because if you wanted what God wanted, you'd
always be content.
You want to be conformed to the image
of Jesus Christ.
Are you willing to suffer poverty for that
if necessary?
Are you willing to die martyrdom for that
if necessary?
Are you willing to embrace the loss of
those dearest to you if it is necessary
for you to be conformed to the image
of Christ?
Are you willing to be the off-scouring
of all men, hated, despised?
Are you willing to go places you don't
want to go, to be carried where you
don't want to be carried?
We often say that we are so wanting
to be made like Jesus Christ.
But you know, I tell young men this,
the most terrifyingly dangerous prayer you could ever
pray in your entire life is, God, make
me like Your Son.
I remember one time when I was in
Peru, and I had seen the devastation of
an entire ministry.
A group had entered in when I wasn't
there, tore apart a church.
I was also suffering from chronic pain.
I've had both my hips replaced since then,
but at that time they were not, I
could barely walk.
I walked out on this balcony out in
the city of Lima, and I was crying,
and I said, God, why?
Everything I've worked for has been destroyed.
I hurt so bad I want to put
a bullet to my head.
Why?
And I did not hear a voice.
But things began to come back to me
of the times when I was a young
Christian of praying with other friends of mine
in the night, crying out to God, God,
make me like Jesus.
Make me like Jesus.
It's almost as though the Lord was saying,
Paul, I'm giving you exactly what you asked
me for, to be made like Jesus.
There is nothing in your life, nothing that
does not have the purpose, primary purpose of
making you like Jesus.
And that, my friend, is the purpose of
your marriage.
I do not like most books written on
marriage today.
I do not.
Because they seem to want to put before
the people of God that the purpose of
marriage is to have a little bit of
heaven on earth.
That the purpose of marriage is to have
bliss.
That the purpose of marriage is to have
your needs met.
The purpose of marriage is for both of
you to come into perfect unity and just
live a life of bliss.
No, it is not.
As a matter of fact, God will purposely
take some of those things away from your
marriage.
Because He is using your marriage not to
satisfy all your temporal lusts.
He wants to use your marriage to conform
you to the image of Jesus Christ.
And many people of God walk around distraught
because their marriage, their relationship with their wife
and their husband doesn't seem to add up
to all the Christian books that they've read.
And they think something's terribly wrong with their
life.
And they do not recognize that if they
knew the truth, it would set them free.
And hopefully you'll understand that tonight.
Now, first of all, I'm going to go
back.
This will help a little bit for the
single, the young single people here tonight also.
You know, I'm in my office, let's say,
and some young man comes in my office.
Looks like he's been smacked with a two
before.
And he says, I'm going to get married.
I say, really?
Does the woman know about that?
Yes, I'm going to marry her.
Okay, sit down.
Why?
Well, because I love her.
What does that mean?
How do you know you love her?
Well, I just, I like being around her.
I just feel wonderful when we're together.
I think she's beautiful.
And we can talk and we can share
and we get along and we share so
many of the same ideas and desires.
And we're just so compatible.
And I just want to be with her.
It's okay.
Let me see if I've got this straight.
You want to marry this girl because she
meets, fulfills all your temporal, self-centered, selfish
desires.
Is that what you're telling me?
No, that's not what I mean.
That's exactly what you said, young man.
That's exactly what you said.
You want to be with her because you
like to be with her.
What's going to happen when you don't like
to be with her or when you see
someone else that you would like to be
with more because that's going to happen?
You say that you get along.
What's going to happen when you don't get
along, young man?
Or when you meet someone that you get
along with a lot better?
You say you can talk.
What's going to happen when you can't talk?
And then Satan sends someone else with whom
you can talk all the time.
You see, young man, you don't even know
what you're talking about.
You don't know anything about marriage.
You're not ready to be married.
She meets your needs.
She fulfills your desires.
That is not the purpose of marriage.
What is the purpose of marriage?
First of all, marriage is a calling.
It really is.
It's a calling.
The basis of my marriage is not that
I'm physically attracted to my wife, Charo.
The basis of my marriage is not that
we share some emotional unity.
The basis of my marriage is not that
I like her.
The basis of my marriage is the same
basis of my ministry and of everything else
in my life.
I believe that God has called me
to marry her.
That would be too simple.
Let me put it this way.
I believe that God has called me to
lay down my life for a specific daughter
of His who goes by the name of
Charo Casado de Washer.
I have been called to do what?
To obey God.
You say, well, this is sounding kind of
cold.
No, I'm not portraying all of marriage to
you.
I'm putting down the foundation.
God has called Paul Washer to lay down
his life.
Now, I'm not just talking poetry here.
I'm talking about die as Christ gave Himself
for the church.
He has called Paul Washer to die for
one of his daughters in a relationship that
will last as long as he is alive
or she is alive.
Now, what's important about that?
Let's say that God has called me.
Where do I find my pleasure in life?
Where do I find my contentment in life?
In my marriage?
Well, my marriage ought to bring some of
that, but that should not be the source
of my contentment, my joy, my security, anything.
Because if it is, it's idolatry and God
will destroy it.
The source of my joy, my contentment, my
peace, my stability, everything is God and His
will for my life.
And it is His will that I lay
down my life for this woman.
Now, look what happens.
If she's absolutely gorgeous, praise God.
If she's not, I'm not going anywhere because
I am called to lay down my life
for this woman.
So it doesn't matter if through the years
she grows older, gets a little rounder.
It doesn't matter if through the years Satan,
and I use him purposely because this is
what he does.
It doesn't matter if Satan brings another person
near my life, more attractive.
None of that matters.
Why?
I have been called to lay down my
life for this daughter of God.
My marriage, the foundation of it, is not
that my aesthetic desires have been fulfilled.
Do you see that?
So if she's absolutely gorgeous, praise the Lord.
If she's deformed in an auto accident, it
doesn't matter because my marriage has never been
about me being with a beautifully gorgeous, physical,
gorgeous woman.
It's always been about doing the will of
the Father.
So no matter what happens to this woman,
I am there and I am blind to
everyone else.
It doesn't matter if someone else comes along
with whom I can speak.
It doesn't matter if I have trouble having
conversations with my wife.
It doesn't matter if my wife and I
have different hobbies, different personalities, different makeup.
None of that matters anymore.
My joy does not come from there.
From where does it come?
God has called me to lay down my
life for this woman.
Now, something else that you need to understand.
Many men who are godly, who desire to
truly serve Christ, and young men listen to
this, they hope to have a mate that
will follow them in that service to Christ.
Kind of a Batman and Robin team.
You know, we're both working together for the
cause of Christ.
For the most part, men who desire a
woman like that never get a woman like
that.
God doesn't allow it.
He won't.
Why?
Because there's something bigger going on here.
Something much bigger.
What does God need?
Absolutely nothing.
What does God desire?
Your conformity to the image of Christ.
So what is God going to do?
Now listen to me, men.
This is what God has done if you're
married.
This is what He will do if you're
not married.
God is going to give you a woman
who is strong in all the areas where
she must be strong so that you are
not tempted beyond what you can bear.
But God is also going to give you
a woman.
He is going to orchestrate it so that
she lacks many of the qualities and things
that you most have dreamt about when you
were single.
He is going to do that and He's
going to do it on purpose.
You say, man, He hates me.
No, He doesn't.
He's going to give you a woman that
is blessed and gifted in so many areas
that you cannot recognize because you're blind looking
for other things that you want.
But He's going to give you a woman
who does not meet all the unrealistic and
unbiblical qualifications that you have desired.
Now why is He going to do that?
This is the reason He's going to do
that.
God wants you to be like Jesus.
When we talk about Christ, the main thing
we speak of with the most frequency is
the love of Jesus Christ.
And the most thing that we speak about
regarding the love of Jesus Christ is that
it is what?
Unconditional.
If you are ever going to start looking
and being like Jesus Christ, then you must
learn to love unconditionally.
You must have an object of love that
does not meet all the conditions that you've
laid out.
Now, I've been talking men, but this flips
over and it's the same way for women.
It's the same way for women.
I have been amazed at how many spiritual,
just driven men are given wives that aren't
that driven.
And I am amazed at how many very
driven spiritual women are given men that aren't
that driven.
The thing they most want.
Why?
Take away the conditions that you feel are
most important to you and then you'll learn
to love.
You will learn to love.
The point that I'm trying to make is
this.
You are married to a person, whether you're
a man or a woman, you're married to
a person who hasn't met all the conditions.
You're trying to change them.
You're trying to manipulate them, maneuver them.
You've been doing it for years.
You really have.
You want them to meet the conditions because
these things are so important.
You know, cast aside the other things.
I really don't care that much about those.
I just want these.
I really want these.
But God wants you to learn to love
as Jesus Christ loves.
And that is giving yourself to someone who
does not meet all the conditions.
That's what marriage is about.
It really is.
Learning to love as Jesus Christ loved.
You say, well, what's wonderful about that?
Absolutely nothing if you're not a Christian.
But if you're a Christian, it is a
joy.
Now, let me share something with you.
So many times, speaking about conditions, I'll have
men come up to me and they'll go,
maybe even men who want to get a
divorce.
And they'll say things like this, well, I
just don't love her anymore.
I just don't love her anymore.
And I'm sure that most of you would
not say that tonight, hopefully, most of you
men.
But you may say or think something like
this, the love that I had or the
passion that I had for her is not
what it used to be.
Now, in a lot of ways you'll say
it's deeper, it's better, but it's just not
what it used to be.
And what happens in most conditions like that?
This is what men will do.
They'll start, well, since these needs are not
being met in my life, then they slack
off on meeting the needs of their wife.
And everything just kind of becomes conditional, doesn't
it?
Well, when she does this, I'll do that.
Well, when he does this, I'll do that.
And what happens usually?
Misery.
Oh, they're good Christians, so they'll never get
divorced.
But they've been divorced for a long time.
They're divorced at home.
And don't think your children can't see it.
There's just no love.
What's the cure for that?
Exactly the opposite of what the world would
tell you.
Let me ask you a question.
Now, here I'm going to talk about emotional
love for a moment.
Men, emotional love, romantic love, the kind of
love that just kind of makes you feel
like you've been hit between the eyes with
the two before.
Is that good or bad?
Well, man, you guys have got some serious
problems.
That is good stuff.
I just hate it.
You know, you get around a bunch of
super spiritual people.
Well, that's not important.
Well, it's important to me.
Is that important?
And is it good?
Yeah.
It is.
I mean, you come home from work.
Wife's in there doing the dishes.
Man, you grab her and do a jig
right through the house.
You're so happy.
When was the last time you did that?
And you really need to grow in the
Lord if you haven't.
But all that emotion and all that love
and all that romance and all those things
that seem to have died, they're good.
How do you get them back?
Well, you can pull yourself up by your
bootstraps and do what a lot of people
tell you to do, but that doesn't work
either.
Here's how you do it.
You recognize that every good and perfect thing
comes down from the Father of Lights, whom
there is no shifting a shadow, there is
no turning.
So if it's a good thing, it comes
from Him.
And if it's no longer coming from Him,
there's only one thing that can cut you
off from the blessings of God and that's
sin in your own life.
And so when I have men come to
me and say, look, our marriage just really
isn't a whole lot there anymore.
I mean, we're dedicated and we're obedient and
we're not going to get a divorce.
We homeschool and everything else, but our marriage
just really doesn't blossom much.
It just isn't a whole lot there.
I always tell them, sir, you have sin
in your life.
Here's what I admonish you to do.
Go home and serve your wife.
Go home and serve her.
Go home and lay down your life for
her.
Serve her.
Find out what she desires.
Find out what she wants.
If it's biblical, if it's right, do it.
No matter what you have to do, if
you have to cut out time and everything
else, including the ministry, go home and serve
your wife.
And what will happen?
Well, then it kind of opens up that
channel again between you and the Father of
lights.
And blessing comes down.
You see, we have a conditional mindset.
And it's this.
Well, you know, if I have all these
feelings and if I really feel this towards
her, then boy, I'm going...
You remember when you first met her?
Do you remember that, men?
I mean, you acted like an idiot.
Your heart was pounding, blood all up.
I mean, you were just totally out of
your mind.
And then gradually, what happens?
Just gradually less, less.
And when you first met her, you treated
her so special.
I mean, so special.
And she knew it.
There's nothing worse than commonality.
There's nothing worse than when things become common.
It's demonic.
It's like the first time I went through
the Andes Mountains.
My jaw dropped open.
I couldn't believe how beautiful it was.
And the old missionary that was there with
me on the train slept through the whole
thing.
I just couldn't believe it.
And a few years later, I took a
group of young guys across the Andes and
slept the whole way.
And we think, well, you know, the reason
why we did that at first is because
we felt these things.
And it demonstrated how immature and selfish our
love was, how unlike Christ our love truly
was because we felt those things.
And we were basically paying her back for
all the special feelings she was giving to
us.
But when those special feelings start waning, then
what happens?
I'll tell you what happens.
She stops becoming special or at least treated
that way.
And you've fallen into the realm of conditions,
of conditions, of conditions.
Now, I want us to go for a
moment to the book of Ephesians.
Chapter 5.
Verse 22 says, Wives, submit to your own
husbands as to the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the
wife, even as Christ is the head of
the church.
His body and is Himself its Savior.
Now, I think it's quite interesting that I
always hear men talking about how they are
the head of their wife, which is true.
It is true.
How come I never hear men talking about
that they're also the Savior of their wife?
Look what it says.
For the husband is the head of the
wife, even as Christ is the head of
the church, His body and is Himself its
Savior.
Now, we all know that the husband does
not redeem the wife, is not the cause
of her salvation.
But the whole idea, if you follow the
parallel, if you properly look at this text,
that we are to be the head of
our wives in the same way that Christ
is the head of the church, we are
also to be, in a sense, the Savior
of our wives as Christ is the Savior
of the church.
I'm always talking to men who talk about
being the head of their wives, but never
the Savior.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, just look a little bit further.
I want you to look in verse 25.
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the
church and gave Himself up for her, that
He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by
the washing of water with the Word.
And what's the reason?
So that He might present the church to
Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, that she might be holy
and without blemish.
So what is Christ doing?
Christ has saved the church, but look at
this, He's constantly working to sanctify the church.
And why is He working to sanctify the
church?
Because one day, Christ is going to present
the church to Himself and there's not going
to be one thing on His bride that
He does not approve of.
Now, let me submit this to you, men.
If you've been married for 10 years or
15 years and you don't like your wife,
it's your fault.
What have you been doing to sanctify her?
To be her Savior?
To lead her to greater Christlikeness?
And be careful here, because a lot of
men do not find their wives acceptable to
them, but it's not because the woman is
not godly.
It is not because the woman does not
have virtue.
It's because the men have some sensual desire
that Christ does not want them to have
in the first place.
What I'm talking about here is with regard
to virtue and character and spirituality, the personality
of the woman, how much has your life
been an influence to make her what you
desire her to be?
Now, when I teach on this, I'm very,
very afraid unless I have several hours to
do it.
Why?
Because a lot of guys hear that and
they go, that's right, I've got to get
my wife home and get her in a
Bible study.
I need to straighten her out.
I need to start working on this.
And they're so blind.
Blind guides.
And it would be better that they never
even heard me say these things.
Because that's not what we're talking about, getting
your wife home and getting her in a
Bible study and just teaching her all the
things that she's failing you on.
That's not...
You see, listen to me, men.
When it talks about wives submitting to the
husband, it is in the context of a
Christ-like husband.
Sure, it's easy for the church, or it
should be easy, there's no problem, should be
no problem with the church submitting to Jesus
Christ.
Why?
He's all loving.
He's good.
He's wise.
He's holy.
Well, wives need to submit to me.
But what about the part over here?
Where are you being Christ-like?
Let me tell you something, men, and I
believe this with all my heart.
We are so wrong about everything in Christianity.
I think the only thing that's going to
save Christianity in America is persecution.
Blow this whole thing totally to pieces.
Destroy every one of our buildings and everything.
Because we are so far off.
I don't think we could find a biblical
lifestyle if we had a road map, because
we do and we can't find it.
This is not about ministry.
This is not about pastoring.
This is not about being an itinerant preacher
or the director of a mission society.
It's not about going outside the home and
doing all these great things because all that
stuff is just so easy.
It's unbelievable.
It's about...
I am never told to lay down my
life for the church.
Do you realize that?
There's not one command in the Bible that
commands me to lay down my life for
my church.
But I am commanded to lay down my
life for my wife.
Do you know there's nowhere in the Bible
that says lay down my life for my
children?
As a matter of fact, let me share
with you something, men.
I really didn't prepare a message tonight, so
we're kind of flying all over the place.
Let me just share with you something.
It's a grotesque illustration, but it's a good
one.
If I'm in a boat with my wife
and my two boys and I'm the only
one that swims, and that boat begins to
sink and I can only save one person,
it's my wife I am to save.
You ever hear someone say there's nothing like
a mother's love?
That's demonic.
There's nothing like a father's love, the Bible
says.
You know why most mothers love their children
so much?
They don't really love their children that much.
It's just they're drawing all the emotional needs
from their children that they should be getting
from their husband.
They're more attached to their children than they
are their husband because they get nothing from
their husband.
And so they end up almost like a
parasite sucking things out of their children that
they should never be taking from them.
Now you understand why I preach in a
lot of places only once.
It's true.
Nothing like a mother's love.
It should be there's nothing like a spouse's
love.
You know the best thing I can do
for my boys is to love their mother
more than any human being on the face
of the earth.
I love their mother more than any human
being on the face of the earth and
those boys are going to be going, that
ain't going nowhere.
This family is a rock.
I mean, this is not some peripheral thing
that we really need to have intact so
that we can go out there and win
the world.
This might be the way that we're supposed
to win the world.
Bring people into our churches and because our
families are so messed up, we make them
two full sons of hell.
And the church has taken over the responsibility.
The church is a lot like social government.
We've taken over a lot of the responsibilities
that belong to the families and particularly belong
to Dad.
And so the church is so burdened down
it can't do what it's supposed to do
because it's doing what the fathers are supposed
to do.
You know, I have served the Lord in
the middle of a war, stepped over dead
people, had a gun to my head.
You have no idea how easy that is.
Loving a wife as Christ loves the church
is beyond me.
If anything requires prayer, it's that.
Bring a thousand men possessed with devils.
That won't bother me.
Open up Ephesians 5 and tell me how
I'm supposed to love my wife and you're
going to scare me to death.
Now let's just look at this.
I want to look for a moment.
Wives, submit to your own husbands as to
the Lord.
Now, some of you might disagree with me
on this, but I believe that's saying exactly
what it's saying.
But I also do not believe that that
means that a woman whose life is in
danger and all sorts of things is supposed
to be doing this because if she's a
Christian woman, the church ought to be involved.
And if that husband's acting like an idiot,
the church ought to step in and discipline
the guy and do whatever is necessary, even
take him to jail.
Because if churches are going to require that
women really submit to their husbands, then they're
going to have to protect these women.
But in the context where everything is pretty
much just alright, a normal context, not that
you're married to a serial killer or something
like that, it's just like young people.
I always tell young people, submit to their
parents, and they always go, well, what if
my dad asked me to blow up the
White House?
I always ask them, when was the last
time your dad asked you to do that?
I'm talking in the context of just the
general family.
No serial killer, no terrorist, just family.
Although my little boy might qualify as a
terrorist, I don't know.
Wives, let me share with you something.
It's something I learned in Europe a few
years ago.
It's really quite amazing.
I like castles.
I don't know why, I guess because maybe
one day I'll live in one or something.
But I just like castles.
But there's something really strange about castles.
No matter how many castles you see, even
a type of castle that's in South America
in a place called Quailup, it does the
same thing.
The front door of this thing is huge.
It is gigantic.
I mean, 30 people wide could walk through
that thing.
It's huge.
But what's amazing is when you go into
the castle and you go up to the
second floor, the stairwell is about this wide.
And there's only one door at the top
and it's about this wide.
And you sit there and go, well, why?
You've got this big door where all kinds
of people can come in and then all
of a sudden to go up to the
second floor you've got this little stairwell where
only one person can go up at a
time and it's just one tiny door.
Why is that?
I'll tell you why it is.
When that castle is under siege and that
front door breaks in, the people in that
castle, they run to the second floor.
Now, there can be 300,000 men down
there on that first floor, but only one
of them at a time can go up
that stairwell.
And one man standing there with a lance
can guard that entire castle.
That's why they do that.
Pretty smart, aren't they?
Alright.
Now, I want you to listen to something.
Like I said, I apologize.
I'm just glad my preaching professor isn't here
because I'm just jumping all over.
I could blame it on the Lord, but
I'm afraid to do that.
Now, women, listen to me.
Just listen.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to
the wrath of God.
Literally, give place to the wrath of God.
For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I
will repay, says the Lord.
You say, well, what does that have to
do with submitting to your husbands?
Absolutely everything.
He says, don't avenge yourself.
Give place to God.
Now, give room to God.
Okay?
What does that mean?
You've tore down the front door of your
husband's castle.
Okay?
And he's run upstairs.
Like a wise man, he's run up to
the second floor.
And you're wanting to show him everywhere he's
wrong, all the things he lacks, all the
ways he needs to be straightened out, and
you're up there, boy, you went up that
little narrow stairwell, and you're just doing all
kinds of battling with him and fighting with
him.
And you know what?
When a man gets into a battle with
a woman, and it's a battle, a verbal
battle, usually the woman's going to win every
time.
And the husband's going to withdraw more and
more and more, or he's going to become
more and more violent and aggressive.
But you're praying, oh God, fix my husband,
fix my husband while you're doing battle.
Let me win this battle with him and
change him.
God, help me.
Why aren't you helping me?
And God's standing back there, give me room.
Get out of the way.
Give place to my work.
Give place to my wrath.
Now, dear, I want you to know something.
That God can stretch out His arm, knock
you totally off that stairwell if He wants,
and go ahead and take your husband on.
But He's not because of judgment.
Not upon your husband, upon you.
You're sitting there fighting with your husband, bickering
with your husband, not respecting your husband, all
sorts of things, and all the while you're
praying, oh God, make this man spiritual.
And God's saying, get out of the way.
Get out of the way.
You see, what God is basically saying is
a terrifying thing for husbands once wives learn
this.
I have a sermon on different ways in
which you can get God to kill your
husband.
One of them is just get out of
the way.
And husband, if your wife ever begins to
submit to you and be respectable to you,
even though you're not really deserving of it,
be careful.
You're probably about to die.
What I'm saying is this.
Sister, do you believe God?
Now again, I'm not talking about being in
some abusive relationship.
I'm just talking about normal marriage.
All the things that are wrong with your
husband that you try to, like him, you
try to manipulate him, you try to say
things, you drop little one-liners, little innuendos,
all sorts of things.
You bulk up against his leadership, everything.
You fight him tooth and nail.
Okay.
Maybe the problems you see in him are
real problems.
You're never going to fix them.
And God is going to do just the
opposite.
In judgment, He's not going to allow them
to be fixed.
But if you will do what God said
to do, submit and honor Him, then what
happens is a terrifying thing.
God says, okay, thank you.
Now, sir, you have to deal with Me.
You will not battle with Me.
You see, if a man worked in my
corporation, let's say, if I had a corporation
and a man worked there, and he was
the greatest salesman, I mean, 75% of
all our revenue came from him and everything
else.
But if he was married to my daughter
and was being hurtful to her, I wouldn't
care if 99% of the revenue came
from him.
I mean, that's my daughter.
Do you fear God, sir?
This is God's daughter.
And maybe the only reason God hasn't come
after you is because she's not acting right
either.
But if she ever starts doing that, you're
going to be in a whole lot of
trouble.
You see, sister, do you really believe God?
Do you believe Him?
Because it's not going to be on Day
of Judgment, look, He didn't do what He
was supposed to do.
And God's going to say that's His story.
That's something I'll deal with Him on.
The problem here is you didn't do what
I told you to do.
Same way with the man.
You'll not be able to use a rebellious
wife as an excuse for not leading your
home, not unconditionally loving her.
You will not.
You will stand and fall on your own
response to God's commands, not your response to
someone else's disobedience.
Our homes are so concealed.
You would never act in public the way
you do in your home.
You know how I know that?
Not because I'm a prophet, but because I
can say the same thing about myself at
times and it disgusts me.
It honestly disgusts me.
You see, sometimes we're like a guy who
literally walks around with this big bloody mass
on his forehead and you say, man, what's
going on?
What's that from?
I don't know.
So you follow him around one day and
you see that every time he has a
watch that goes off every hour and every
time the watch goes off every hour he
walks over to a brick wall and bangs
his head the number of the hour it
is of the day.
Ten o'clock ten times.
You walk over to him and say, sir,
look, your head's bleeding because you're doing this.
No.
We walk around with our marriages and our
Christian life and everything.
Our heads are bleeding.
There's not one wholesome whole part on our
entire body.
And God comes up and goes, look, this.
And we can't believe it.
No, it's got to be some big mystery.
God's got to move.
Got to bring revival.
Got to do all this stuff.
No, maybe he just really ought to take
seriously what he's saying here.
You know, there are some things I suppose,
my dear brother and sister, that we can
look over.
Maybe they're not that big a deal.
This is like the big deal.
It's bigger than you being a deacon in
this church.
I can tell you that.
It's bigger than you being a pastor of
this church.
It's bigger than me traveling and preaching.
I can tell you that.
Now, here's something that's very, very important.
He says, wives, submit to your husbands as
to the Lord.
But does the husband look like the Lord?
Now, woman, I'm not giving you an excuse.
I'm talking to the husband now.
We ask them to do something and they
should do it.
But we ought to be striving and working
to be worthy of that.
Now, she ought to do it whether we're
worthy or not.
But the thing is, we ought to be
striving consciously.
Are you striving to be a Christ-like
head of your wife and your family?
Are you striving to do that?
Is that an issue with you or something
you hardly ever think about?
You've got bigger fish to fry.
No, you don't.
This is the big fish.
And if you don't have it, you can't
do anything else.
You see, that's what's so frightening about it.
You disqualify yourself in every other thing in
Christianity.
It goes on, as the husband is the
head of the wife, even as Christ is
the head of the church, His body, and
is Himself its Savior.
Now, I said that there's a sense in
which we ought to be the Savior of
the wife.
First of all, in talking about this, it's
very dangerous, husband, because you may want things
from your wife that God does not want
from your wife.
Okay?
So when we talk about your wife being
transformed, it's transformed into what Christ has declared
to be His plan.
It's hell to be a woman.
I am so glad I am not a
woman.
It is terrifying.
Do you realize a woman today, in order
to really just be sought after, she has
to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
She has to be able to cook really
well.
She has to be 5'10 and weigh
6 pounds.
And that's a whole other issue.
Your wife...
I'm going to sound like a psychologist, but
this is not psychology.
This is truth.
Your wife is so insecure about what she
really is, because when she looks at all
the people that are supposed to be the
beautiful people, and she's not that.
And then, sir, if you're sitting there, which
you should not be, watching television and watching
people that are the beautiful people, you're not
making your house any better.
You're not making your wife feel any more
secure or any more loved.
Just compared to unrealistic expectations, it just goes
farther down in the slough.
You see, there's so much...
I mean, you could teach for three weeks
on all this stuff.
We're to be her Savior.
She's to know that there is one place
on this earth she can go, and she's
okay.
She's okay.
She's just loved, period.
Just loved.
That's it.
We're to provide a haven not only for
our children.
I'm always hearing men, homeschooling men, family-oriented
men, talk about preparing a haven for their
children.
I almost never hear them talk about preparing
a haven for their wife.
And then men will say, well, what about
us?
You're a man.
Stop crying or I'm going to hit you.
You get no haven except a home of
peace.
Are you consciously working to be the Savior
of your wife?
Are you?
Now, just think about that.
Now, I want to go on for a
moment.
It says, let's go on into 25.
Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her.
You know, I hear these guys will be
telling their wives, you know, honey, for you,
I'd fight an entire army.
Honey, for you, I would cross the Andes
Mountains in my underwear.
Honey, for you, I'd backstroke through the Atlantic
Ocean.
And she's going, I just want you to
do the dishes every once in a while.
Let me tell you something, young men.
Some of you young men probably shouldn't get
married, at least not for a while.
I'll tell you why.
When you get married, all your good buddies
and good friends and hunting pals and everything
else, they're gone.
Your best friend becomes your wife.
You give yourself away.
You see, when you come to Christ as
a single man, there is a sense in
which you die your first death.
Okay?
It is dying a first death.
You give your life to Christ.
You've died to self.
You're to follow His rule, His regiment.
Alright?
You know what marriage is?
A second death.
A deeper death.
In what way?
When you're a single guy following Christ, you
know, you can still run out to wherever
you want to go, you know.
You've got free time.
It's your own money.
It's your own apartment.
You don't have to put up any paintings
or flowers.
Change the sheets once a year.
It doesn't matter.
Got all your friends.
Do whatever you would like.
The day you say, I do, you walk
into a deeper death.
Now it's not just giving my life away
to the Lord, but I'm giving my life
away to an imperfect person who's going to
not only demand right things from me, but
demand things that aren't even right from me.
And I'm going to have to say goodbye
to all my good old boys.
Maybe get one...
You know, like I tell guys, I go,
look, I love to hunt.
I love to fish.
But in taking care of my wife and
taking care of my children, if I work
very, very hard, every once in a while
I'll get to go out and put a
stalk on a turkey or something.
But it's not like before.
And it shouldn't be.
Men, this is the plight of a man
to lay down your life.
You say, well, that's sad.
No, it's not because Jesus is not a
liar.
The one who lays down his life will
find it.
I have more joy serving my wife when
I do do that and serving my children
when I do do that than I could
in any other thing I have ever done.
It's dying to self.
Most men get married because they want a
mother.
Just someone else to take care of them.
Because their mother's probably taken care of them
in an unbiblical way, doing so many things
for them she should have never done.
He wants to get married because, man, mom's
not here anymore.
I need somebody to do this stuff, take
care of me, because the world revolves around
me.
I'm the breadwinner.
I'm this.
I'm that.
Sir, that's what you're supposed to do.
You don't get rewarded for it.
It's to lay down your life.
Here's your life, gentlemen.
Let's say you have two boys at home.
Okay, what does that mean?
That means if you can, you get to
work as early as possible.
Not so that you can put in more
hours and make more money so that you
can get a new car.
No, you get into work, you put in
as many hours as possible, as early as
possible, so you can get home.
And I learned this rule from Michael Pearl.
Up until the boys can walk, they belong
to mom.
After they can walk, they belong to dad.
Why do I have to get home?
I have to get home because it's my
time with the boys.
Yeah, you're tired.
Yeah, you've had to put up with all
kinds of stuff, but now it's your time
to do what?
To take over those children.
To take them over.
You say, but I got things I want
to do.
Like what?
Watch football?
No, you come home.
Children.
You play with them.
You build a relationship with them.
You teach them.
You pour your life into your children.
And it's not just all work and discipleship.
As a matter of fact, it's very little
structured discipleship and work.
It is all about just being with them,
doing things with them, and building a binding
between you and them.
And what is your wife supposed to do?
Oh, she's still got work.
Dinner's got to get ready.
Maybe she needs to sew some things or
maybe she just needs to go to Walmart
and stand there for three hours thinking, I'm
alone.
Wow!
Did you ever realize that, man?
You know, three different missionary couples while I
was in Peru for 11 years had to
leave the missionary field.
In all three cases, the women had emotional
mental breakdowns.
And you want to know why?
Because the father went out every day and
did the ministry for 12 and 16 hours
out of the home.
And mom was in the home, homeschooling, doing
everything, and never left and never had any
friends and never had anything and just totally
went bonkers.
And you fellas that want to be really,
really biblical and have like 47 children, which
is fine, you better get yourself home from
work as quick as you can and help
that woman or she's going to become a
serial killer.
You say, well, she's spiritual.
No, if you were spiritual, you would get
home.
I know some of you are probably really
disappointed in what's happening here tonight, but I
want you to know, I believe God wanted
me to share this.
You get home, the children are yours.
You get those children to bed and the
wife is yours.
Listen, sir, you are completely different than your
wife, really.
In this way, you can be like, okay,
look, you're going to take this aspect.
I'm going to do this.
You know, we'll meet here in bed to
go to bed, you know, 10 o'clock.
She didn't marry you to do that.
She married you to be with you.
It's not just, oh, man, you've got yours
done, I've got my list done, okay, then
we can go to bed.
No.
You see this thing?
Listen, I want to tell you something.
When I was a pastor, I sent people
home from church many times.
I did.
I'd have women come to our church, you
know, through the week and want to do
extra jobs and all kinds of stuff.
And after really investigating with the other elders
and stuff, we sent them home.
I sent men home who just wanted to
serve and do evangelism and all kinds of
things.
I said, no, sir, you do not belong
here.
Go home.
Why?
I want to tell you something.
If you dedicate your life to raising a
family, providing for them, and everything else, and
doing what you're supposed to do in the
context of your family, you have so very
little time for hobbies and this and that
and everything else.
And you say, but boy, this is difficult.
No, it's not.
Because as you lay down your life, God
begins to fill it in ways that all
your hobbies and all your extracurricular activities cannot.
I mean, between your family and carrying out
the responsibilities you have to preach the Gospel
through your local church, there isn't a whole
lot of time left over.
And if you've got a whole lot of
time, I can tell you something, you're either
dropping the ball with your family or you're
dropping the ball with your local church.
Because when it's all said and done, there's
hardly anything left over.
That's why you have Sabbaths.
That's when you can rest.
Now, I'm so sorry.
I've just gone all over the place tonight.
And I'd like to keep going for three
more hours because literally I just felt tonight
like I know that a lot of you
work very hard to have good families and
I applaud you for that.
But men, our wives are not workhorses.
We are.
We are workhorses.
They are a weaker vessel.
When I used to travel up during the
war and I knew I was going into
a place that was really hot, a red
zone that the Communists controlled or that the
military was controlling, I knew something very important.
My wife could never go with me.
Why?
Well, if I'm on a bus and a
bunch of military guys pull that bus over
and they yank me out of the bus
and start throwing me around, throw me down
on the ground, push me around, say a
whole bunch of things about me, no problem.
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
But if one of those guys laid a
hand on my wife, I'd end up getting
killed.
What?
She's...
Go ahead, punch me, push me, work me
to death, whatever you want to do.
That's what I'm supposed to do.
My wife is something different.
She's the one thing in my life, in
my life of bows and arrows and shotguns
and old fences made out of locust posts,
in my life of hardwood floors and beat
up knuckles and building fences, in my life
of wrangling cattle and wrestling with my boys,
my wife is supposed to be that one
thing of porcelain in the house that no
one else goes near lest they feel my
wrath.
And I am to treat her that way.
She's the one jewel that we have.
The greatest gift I can give my boys
is to say, alright, that's the jewel.
You want to know what daddy's treasure is?
It's right there.
I had a friend of mine that when
his sons got old enough, he sat them
both down and he said, now listen to
me.
You boys know I love you.
Yes, daddy, we know.
I want you to know this.
The closest I will ever come to murdering
another human being will be the day you
lay a hand adversely on your mother.
I just want you to know that before
we ever even get started.
One day, the boy was playing with a
toy and his mom says, give it.
He goes, no mom.
And he hit her wrist.
When he did that, he said, mom, mom,
call dad.
And my friend Randy came home, went in
the house and said, where is he?
He's in there.
And he walked in and the boy was
sitting there on the bed with their paddle
like this.
And he said, dad, crying, you know what
you have to do.
And you can't teach a boy that if
you do not treat mom that way.
If you do not treat her as a
weaker vessel.
You know, when we used to feed our
quarter horses, I was raised on a Charlotte
cattle and quarter horse ranch.
In the winter, it doesn't matter, you fill
those buckets up with water in each stall,
but I mean, they'll be this thick with
ice.
You use these big rubber black buckets and
you take them, you got handles on them,
they're really heavy and you don't sit there
just, you know, warming them up with a
blow dryer to get the ice out.
You take them like this and you just
get them going really hard and bash them
against a tree or against the stall side
or throw them up in the air and
let them bust.
It's rubber.
Big ugly rubber bucket.
It's thick.
It's ugly.
Nothing fine about it.
Beat it around and kick it.
But then in your house, maybe you have
one piece of fine porcelain.
Is it weaker than that black bucket?
Yep.
So what do you do?
Do you keep it in a special place?
And here's something very important, Dad.
You keep it in a special place even
away from the children.
What do I mean by that?
Those children ought to know that the highly
prized and honored one in that home is
Mom.
Now there is a patriarchal reverence for Dad.
If we had time, we'd teach on that,
but I'm talking about Mom tonight.
And they even need to know.
You watch, you know how kids will watch
their P's and Q's when Dad gets home?
It should be just almost reversed.
They should know that the closest they're ever
going to come to tasting the wrath of
Dad is doing anything against Mom.
It will not be tolerated.
Why?
Because she is your treasure.
You don't pick her up with old work
gloves.
She's breakable.
Pick her up easy.
Clean around there.
Dust it off.
Put it back.
Very careful.
Now some of you probably think that a
lot of things I've said tonight are rather
soupy.
They're not.
They're real.
And it's an admonition I feel like that
I know that visitors have come and everything
like that, but I just feel like God
wanted this spoken to at least some of
the men or one of the men here
tonight.
Maybe me.
This is what it's about.
Your Christianity has no value really or no
authority if these things are not at least
in part evident in your life.
Very important.
Let's pray.
Father, I come before You in the name
of Your Son.
Lord, what a standard You've given us.
And Lord, I tremble at it.
My failures, my weaknesses, my sin, my rebellion,
my selfishness, everything that just seems to come
out.
Oh God, I pray for myself and the
men in this church that we would truly,
truly, truly strive to fear You in our
families.
In Jesus' name, Amen.