When a Spouse Obeys Not the Word

And we thank you for bringing our spouses to us, Lord, who are with us, heirs together of the grace of life. Lord, thank you for life, even life is itself a gift, the grace of God. And, Lord, we pray that you would help us to learn from your word, help me to say the things that would be helpful to your people and would strengthen them and strengthen their families and strengthen their relationships with their husbands, with their wives as we continue in our August Family Focus.

Lord, we need your help. We ask for your help, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now as we continue in our August Family Focus, I want to, just take a little bit of time to talk to talk on one particular subject of marriage that is actually very, very applicable. Something very, that is common to a marriage relationship. And and it’s not just so, don’t tune me out if you’re not married or you’re you don’t plan to be married, whatever. Don’t just don’t tune me out because this can be by extension applied to all kinds of different relationships.

But it is so vital, so absolutely vital to our relationships. And and that’s found primarily in verse number one of chapter three. And it says, it starts with the word likewise. Likewise you wives be in subjection unto your own husbands. And and and the word likewise, this this verse, the the very fact of the word likewise indicates to us that there’s more to this story, there’s more to this circumstances context than verse number one. And this is where the chapter divisions in our Bible, though very helpful when you’re trying to look for verse, can sometimes get in the way of seeing the broader picture.

Because remember, when these were written, you know, the best we know, best we understand, they were just one big long letter just like we would write. And so, the chapters were added later to help us find scriptures and we’re glad for that, but sometimes we have to look beyond them, of blur our eyes to them and see the greater picture. And in this case, we see the word likewise, and actually we see the word this concept of submission, subjection if you will, in at least two part Two two verses other than verse number one of chapter three. If you would, look at verse number 13, the bible Chapter two, I’m sorry. Chapter two verse 13, the bible says this, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well. So the first submission we see here that this being brought up is the submission of all believers to civil leaders, and that’s a that’s a biblical doctrine. So you have this this dynamic of you have someone in leadership or authority, and then you have someone in follow ship or or someone who is a, I say an inferior, but but in the context of of of leadership, you have someone who’s a follower, and what their duty and responsibility before God is to that leadership. In this case, it’s all Christians as we’ve used civil government. Okay? And that’s what you have in verse 13 and verse number 14.

And then you go down to verse number 18. Notice what it says. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. And so he brings it up again. He says, now it’s directed towards servants. And of course, we don’t And a lot of times when we read this and and we we think slavery and that’s Servitude is something that has always existed in world history up until Well, it still exists actually.

But sometimes when you see this, servitude or slavery is not exactly the same like we would understand it in an American, historical American context. It takes various forms, there’s indentured servitude and all these other things. A lot of times we read this and we think of an employer, an employee situation, that’s what’s most common to us. But here’s the point, you still have this leader and follower relationship.

You see this? And so the the responsibility is speaking directly not to the leader, although that’s that’s another question. Speaking to the follower, the the the thing to remember, the thing the lord says is submission, submission. And it is in that context that we get to chapter three verse one, because here we start likewise. So, in the same way as you have submission with civil government, in the same way you have submission in a servant master relationship, here he brings another relationship and he sets it before us because it is that same dynamic. Definitely, the relationship between a servant and a master and a husband and wife are not the same. But they are the same in as much as they there is a there is an authority dynamic, and there’s a leader, and then there’s a follower, and that is a clear scriptural principle. The details are different, but the fact of leadership is something that is clearly spelled out. Now in verse number one, he says, in that same way, just like we were talking about submission in these other two situations, likewise, ye wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands. Now, now we see the principle of submission of the wife to her husband in that relationship is actually exemplified in verse number six. It says, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well and are not afraid with any amazement. Now let me pause here and ask you a question. For those of you that are that are Bible readers, and I hope everybody is. Hope everybody’s a person who who makes you do your due diligence to be faithful at reading the Bible yourself. It’s a privilege that not all Christians have have always had like we have.

But if you’ve read your Bible in the book of Genesis, you’ve read the life of Abraham and Sarah, right? Now, so Abraham, obviously Sarah submitted to Abraham, like the scripture says, she’s an example of that. But was the leadership of Abraham always good? No. As faithful as Abraham was, you won’t find very many men in scripture who are more faithful to God than Abraham. So, gentlemen, you might be the greatest Christian ever.

I might be the most noteworthy Christian ever, But our leadership and our families is not going to be without fault. It’s gonna be problematic sometimes. We’re gonna mess up, and we’re not gonna provide the right example sometimes. That’s just a fact. It was true of Abraham, it will be true of us. And so, the the the example, the exemplar we might say of this sub of the submitted wife is is Sarah whose husband provided less than perfect leadership.

Right? Which makes perfect sense that Sarah is used because of verse one. Alright? Go back to verse one if you will. He says, likewise ye wise, be in subjection to your own husbands that if any obey not the word, they may also they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wife. So here you have the example of following what with the pattern of Sarah, you have an example of a wife who has a husband who does not obey the word.

He is in a position of leadership. He is her leader as the husband. But he is not obeying the word of God, like Abraham. Like Abraham. And in and this fact reminds us of a reality of living in a fallen world, which is this.

Family relationships that we have between husbands and wives are not and never will be ideal. And if we base what we do in our family relationships, and especially our relationship with our husband and our wife, if we base that on some fantasy of an ideal, we are going to going to be sorely mistaken. In other words, if we base what we do toward our spouse upon their performance or how upright they are, well we’re gonna have some problems. And it’s good that the Lord doesn’t often, the Lord doesn’t deal with us in in the ideal. He deals with us in the in the real world. That’s This is directly addressed to a real world situation because that’s life. If you live with a sinner, news flash, you are a sinner, you’re flesh, you live with flesh, and there’s bound to be problems.

And leadership and fellowship will not always be ideal. Sometimes we’re gonna mess up, and sometimes we’re not always gonna gonna obey the Lord. So, we can’t always think or appeal to this ideal. We have to deal with real life, and real life is not always ideal. I, as a husband, am not always an ideal husband, my wife is not always an ideal wife, and the same is true of you, not only in your your marriage relationship, but also in every other relationship that you have. So, principle, that’s why I say, you can you can extrapolate it out and apply it to a bunch of different situations.

But notice what I want you to see in verse number one. Once again, likewise you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands that if any obey not the word. Now, the most common way to look at verse number one and indeed this whole passage is to say, and and it it might be it might even be as a title in your in your bible, in your bible text. It might be a subtitle there. Which is being married to an unbeliever.

And would this apply to being married to an unbeliever? Absolutely, it would be applied It would apply to that. But we make a mistake, and we miss the whole point of the passage if we automatically categorize verse one, verse two and following.

We categorize the passage as simply a lady married to an unbeliever. Because when you do that and you categorize it that way, you set aside the truth that it does teach. In other words, A lady might read this and think, well, my husband’s safe, so I I don’t know how this applies to me. Or a man might look at this and say, because you’ll you’ll see I say a man. I know it’s speaking directly to wives, but it has application to men too, as we’ll see in a minute. But we look at it and we say, well, oh, my wife’s safe. So I mean, anyway, just keep reading. But don’t keep reading.

Don’t keep reading. Because there’s nothing in verse one that says that. Does it say he’s an unbeliever? It doesn’t. All it says is, he obeys not the word. So this could just as well apply to, and probably I would say, although I can’t prove this, I would say that it is mostly aiming toward even a believer who’s not living in a way that’s obedient to God’s word. And that you know, here and here we go back to an important point, which is God’s word. The role that God’s written word is supposed to have in our life. It’s supposed to be that we obey the Bible.

Right? In other words, what god says, we shouldn’t have to have a feeling or be stirred or have an emotional whatever. We should read the text of scripture, apply it in our lives, and do it, Right? That’s obey not the word. That was his problem. He is not obeying the word of God. He might be a believer. He might be a believer. And the reason the reason why we often say that this is referring to an unbeliever is because of the word one.

That they they also may without the word be one by the conversation of the wives. And usually it’s it’s it goes like this. Well, see, this is talking about unbelieving. You gotta win him to Christ because Proverbs eleven thirty says, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life but he that winneth souls is wise. That’s one of one of the often misused verses in the Bible because remember, there were no evangelists when Proverbs was written. Like, so when we read that, we think that’s talking about the great commission, it might have application to that, but that’s not that’s not what it’s directly referring to.

And in this case, this husband who is disobedient to God’s word, he might be a believer who’s just not living right. He’s not living uprightly and not doing the will of God. And you know what? If that’s true and it is, then this verse has far greater application than just if you were married to someone who wasn’t a believer. Now it has application to my life and I’m married to a believer.

And to your life. Whether you’re married or not, in some way. Because I wanna ask you this question. As a married person, has your, have, no, I’m not gonna get you to focus on the others, your spouse, I want you to focus instead on yourself. As a married person, as the spouse of another, have you ever disobeyed the Lord and his word?

Yeah, you have, I have too. And all of a sudden, in our relationship with our spouse, this verse applies to us. Right? And it applies to your spouse as well. There have been times that you haven’t been disobedient to and you know how you know how it works as if you’re married, you know how this works. Is you have some falling out, you have some issue, right, between your spouse, and there’s this like block of time that you’re out of sorts. It’s not just like one time, it’s like it’s like a period of time that you’re out of fellowship.

Disobedience to God’s word has happened, now you’re out of fellowship, and now she’s mad, or he’s mad, or she’s acting out, or he’s acting out, or whatever. And you’re out of He’s sleeping on the couch or she’s in a hotel room or whatever it might be.

You know how this works, it’s a block of time until you get right with God and right with one another, right? That’s how it works. Every single one of us can be in verse number one at some point or another, and indeed have. If you’ve been married for any length of time, you’ve been the disobedient spouse who is not obeying the word of God.

And so I want, that’s what I wanna point out to you. The Lord is equipping us in this verse to respond effectively to the reality of living with and being married to someone who does not always obey the Lord, and what to do in those cases when they are not obeying God’s word. It’s true of my spouse, it’s true of me toward my spouse, is real life.

Even as a believer. Let me stop and say, one of the greatest blessings in my marriage that I have is the fact that my wife has the spirit of God in her. Man, if not, I don’t know what to do. I wouldn’t know what to do. And I’m sure she feels the same about me. That I know that even if I don’t know what to say, even if whatever has happened, I know that I have a line to God and God because he is in her and he works in her heart. And I’ve seen him do it over and over and over and over, and I’m sure she’s seen it done in my life as well.

That it that’s why it’s it is so vital that you marry someone who is who is a saint of God, who is in Christ. Because even if even if that person is not exactly where they need to be or whatever, if God is in them, He is working on them. And He is going to do a work in their heart. He is going to continue what He has started.

Alright. So so again, this although it applies to an unbeliever, it is not solely talking about an unbeliever, this is might might very well indeed be talking about someone who is saved, a spouse who is not obeying the word of God. Now, notice it says that if any obey not the word. In our in our specific example in verse one, this is a disobedient husband. This is a husband who is not obeying the word of God.

He is living in a way that is sinful. He is living in a way that is harmful. He is living in a way, and remember, sin brings with it consequences, does it not?

We know the wages of sin is death, and there’s other verses we could look at, but do we think that this man’s disobedience to God’s word is not gonna have He’s gonna do it somehow independent of his wife? It’s not gonna be independent of his wife. In other words, when you’re married to somebody and you live that close to somebody, your disobedience is going to have a direct effect upon them and theirs on you. That’s the way it works.

We look at this verse and we think well, he’s just disobedient and this is the way we’ve made a mistake in just categorizing this as a lost person, a person who’s not saved. Because the reality is that when my spouse sins and does not live for God that hurts me. And when I sin and do not live for God and obey God’s word, that hurts her. And that’s true in all of our relationships.

The truth is that a husband’s disobedience to the will of God and to God’s word will spill over into the life of his wife. And the same is true of the wife toward her husband. If he doesn’t If if the man, like we see here, if this man doesn’t go to work as he should, his wife will absolutely be affected. If he is a selfish man, like Nabal, we read we read in in first Samuel, or maybe a second Samuel, think it’s second Samuel.

We read about Nabal, who is a self centered, manabilial. His wife will be affected, was affected. If a man drinks liquor, you think that’s not gonna affect, he is definitely going to affect his wife. And I could go on and on and on, just like we talked about on Sunday. So, it is not possible for a wife in this situation to escape the ill effects of her husband’s disobedience to God.

Now, do I say that? And remember, the reverse is true as well. Why do I say that? It’s because my sin and my disobedience to God is going to hurt my wife. And when a woman is hurt, just speaking, not just a woman, this is true of a man, this is true of human beings. When a person is hurt, sometimes that drives them to do things that are also not obedient to God.

And few relationships this applies to more than a husband and a wife. Because of the acute pain with someone who disobeys the Lord and how that affects you, that pain is acute with your spouse. Unlike all others, it is acute. And it hurts, and it cuts deep. And sometimes we react in that way, but our reaction to that pain of their disobedience is actually disobedience also.

And so we come to the point of verse number one. To the wife, because it’s what’s before us here, the Lord says, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. Notice, while they behold yours chaste conversation coupled with fear. So this man is not living according to God’s word. He is sinning, he’s living a sinful life and that is without doubt. It is impossible that that is not affecting her. It is affecting her, but God’s direction to her is what?

You still need to be obedient to God’s word. And not use his disobedience as an excuse to disobey the Lord yourself. And that, but that’s exactly what our tendency is. We use the disobedience of another as an excuse to disobey the Lord ourselves, especially when we have been hurt or negatively affected by by the the sin of our spouse. And listen, I have personally observed this. I have personally observed spouses that are, they’re in a place where they they truly are being harmed.

And I don’t mean harmed like they’re being beat to death, I’m not talking about physical abuse, I’m talking about they’re being sinned against. Okay, that’s a different question. But they’re being sinned against, their spouse is not living uprightly, not living it in a godly way, And they, I have observed with my own eyes, people make conscious decisions that they know are not the will of God, are not according to Scripture.

But they do so justifying it upon the basis of the disobedience of their spouse. So here’s the truth, the principle that this illustrates. We are responsible to obey the Lord regardless of what other people might do, including our spouse.

One person’s disobedience is not an excuse for my disobedience. My hurt is not an excuse for me to not obey God’s Word. That’s the principle that’s kind of at the foundation of this verse. Whether it be from the wife toward the husband, or from the husband toward the wife. No spouse, as we see in verse one, they may be won by the conversation of the wives, No spouse is ever won over for righteousness.

They’re never won over for the Lord to come back to him by the other spouse also disobeying God. That never works. Now, but here’s the problem. The world has taught us we are we are programmed by the world to react in certain ways to certain situations. It’s all over media, it’s on TV, it’s Internet, it’s social media, it’s everywhere. We are programmed. It goes back to the soap opera days, it goes back to magazines and all kind, I mean it goes, this is pervasive.

And so when someone does something to you and they’ll say, well, honey, I just wouldn’t stand for that, know, and you hear that kind of, I’m using kind of as a character, but you know what I’m talking about.

And for men it’s different thing, it comes out in a different form, but the same is true. But the Lord says to the lady in this particular case, he says, you’re not gonna win, you’re gonna win your husband over not by disobedience, not by following worldly wisdom to give him tough love and and put it to him and manipulate the situation, but by obeying the Lord.

And here’s why, Proverbs twenty two eight, he that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity, and the rod of his anger shall fail. Romans eight thirteen, For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. You see, if if if I am If I have been hurt by the sin of my wife, of my spouse, and I react in a way that is carnal and fleshly, it’s only going to produce death.

For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life life everlasting. There is no good outcome of sin. I don’t care if if if you’ve been hurt or not.

Take a peek real quick at James chapter three. Just to the left, you’re almost you’re almost right there. James three verse number 13. James three thirteen, Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descended not from above. So here’s the thing, even in a marriage, if there’s bitter envying and strife, if that exists between a husband and a wife, you know that did not come from God.

And we have to respond to that, right? Remember, we’re dealing with a less than ideal situation. This wisdom descended not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit, notice what it says, the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. There’s this connection, this sowing and reaping connection between fruit and peace.

Right? The fruit of evil, carnality, strife and anger never produces peace, never produces good, even if we feel justified. And so what are we what are we going here as we as we get to the end of this verse? Think about what the Lord is saying when he directs his words to the wife. Don’t get me wrong, he’s directing this toward the wife, because that follows the pattern of the three leadership dynamics that you saw earlier.

And we’ll see that it doesn’t just apply to the wife. But to this, it’s directed to the wife. And it says, what should she then be focusing on? If her husband is not living right, he’s not obeying the Lord and he’s living a sinful life, he’s not obeying the word of God, the Lord tells this wife to put her focus on herself. Her own conduct.

And here’s why that’s important. In so many marriage problems, when there is a problem, one or both are not living for living for God, here’s what happens. Our entire focus gets set on the other person. How that person can be fixed and the truth is that person might need to be fixed.

But the truth is this, and you know this as well as I, outside of prayer, we have little power over what other people do. Isn’t it so frustrating? We have such a little power over what other people do. Say, I’m the man. Shut up.

You you might be the man, but what are you gonna do if you have a wife who doesn’t do what you say? Are you gonna tell her to do it? She don’t have to do it. Are you gonna beat her? You can’t you can’t do that. Ultimately, you have very little power.

You do have power to take that matter to god but you have, as a husband and as a wife, we have almost no power over what other people do whether they obey the word of God or whether they don’t obey the word of God.

And this is often the reason why spouses resort to unbiblical and sinful tactics to manipulate the behavior of their spouse. They focus on that person, I gotta fix I gotta fix him, I gotta fix her. But the Lord says, fix you. Even if you’re not you’re not in the wrong. Even if you’re living by the word of God, the Lord says, you can’t fix him. You need to pay attention to your conversation, to your life.

He said, I don’t like that. That’s not fair. They’re doing wrong. You think the Lord doesn’t know that? He knows they’re doing wrong. And you better believe He’s gonna deal with that. But if you start paying attention to that person, you’ll find yourself sinning and disobeying the Lord also in your pursuit of fixing them. And the Lord, the principle is the Lord wants us to see that our relationship with Him has to be supreme.

We cannot be willing to sin against God because of anything happening in our marriage. The cold truth in this verse is that the Lord tells us that the only way that we have to affect our disobedient spouse is to look at ourselves, concentrate on what we are doing, how we are living, and how we are treating our spouse. Now again, that’s not to say that my spouse sins against God and it’s my fault because I wasn’t treating him right. That’s not what this is saying at all. It’s assuming that’s already true.

How do you respond? You respond by saying, alright, I’m gonna obey the Lord toward my spouse. Well they’re not living right, I’m still gonna obey the Lord. I’m gonna do right by my spouse. If my wife doesn’t treat me right, if she doesn’t act right, does that mean I don’t pay the bills? Does that mean I start mistreating her? Well no, but the same is true with a woman toward her husband.

If it’s true of him, it’s true of her. And so it goes both ways, is the last thing I want you to see. From this principle in this passage, we can apply just as well to men toward their wives who are living disobedience to God’s word as wives toward their husbands like we read here. Notice what the Lord says to the wife. He says, he tells the wife essentially to do what the wife already knows she is supposed to do toward her husband if everything was ideal, right? Like Ephesians five twenty two, wives, submit yourselves under your own husbands, ask them to the Lord. And we know there’s other things that go along with that. That’s just, that’s like wife one zero one.

Love your husbands, love your children, submit to your husband, you know, seek good for your husband, all of those things that make for a good wife. It’s no different. That hasn’t changed. The Lord is saying go back to the godly being a godly wife. That’s the only chance you got. That’s the only chance you got. You pray for him, you be godly, and you beg God to change the man’s heart so that he repents of his disobedience.

Same is true the other way around. And so it is with the husband. If my wife is not living for God, what’s my responsibility? Well, what are your responsibility, what are my responsibilities as a husband and if she was living for God? That’s what I have to do. I have to continue to act toward my wife in a way that is godly, and obedient to God and doing his will and treating her right and loving her as Christ loved the church. Well, but she’s not living for God. So, ultimately, is about me and the Lord.

Be the husband I must be before God for my wife whether she’s obedient or whether she’s not. You see, so really it doesn’t change a lot. In our world, the principle we live by is situational ethics. If he does A, I do B. If he does B, I do A. Our ethics change. But what you see in scripture over and over is what the Lord says is stable and solid and firm, whether she is doing right or not, whether he is doing right or not.

And this is the way the Lord tells us to deal with a spouse that’s not always obedient. And the truth is, if you meditate a little bit and live a little bit, I think you’ll find that these principles have a lot more application on a more regular basis than we would like to admit in our relationships with our spouse. Let’s pray together.