Biblical Husbands (SDSU)
- David Fairchild
- Jan 21, 2007
- Series: SDSU
INTRODUCTION
This week we are going to discuss what a husband is and does according to the Scriptures.
For the single ladies, this study should help you to better define what you want out of a husband. For the single men, this should help you better understand what God calls you to as a husband. This may also help you understand why you have not been able to attract a godly woman. If you’re catching bottom fish, change your bait. I hear young men talk about their desire for a Proverbs 31 woman, when they don’t match the qualifications of Proverbs 31 men. Let me just ask you on the outset men, would a godly, Proverbs 31 woman have an interest in you?
For the married men, you may have already realized that your dream of creating your own private Eden was a little more difficult than you thought. You’re not naked, eating fruit and making love to your wife all day long as you hoped for. Your wife is dressed, your food is at the drive through, and you now are timing your lovemaking with the Olympics every four years. We hope to change some of that today.
STUDY
Proverbs chapter 30 is our theme; you can turn there to verse 21.
Proverbs 30:21-23: “Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: a servant who becomes king, a fool who is full of food, an unloved woman who is married (this is our theme), and a maidservant who displaces her mistress.”
Proverbs tells us that there are a few pillars that hold things together in this world. If those pillars cannot bear the weight of these fundamental things, the world will come down like a house of cards.
One of the fundamental things this proverb talks about is a husband loving his wife. If a husband doesn’t love his wife, the world begins to shake and it will come tumbling down in destruction.
This is where we are today in our society. Men are not loving their wives and the world is reeling because of it. This world is shaking because this fundamental thing is not being attended.
We have built an entire culture with workarounds to this truth. Women don’t trust that they will be loved for a lifetime, and because of that distrust the decisions that they make are in response to the man’s lack of love.
Because men haven’t loved their wives, we have created social programs to replace the love of a husband. We have welfare; we have assistance for single mothers; we have daycare; we have career women more concerned about their careers than their children, and because they don’t know when their man is going to split, they climb the corporate ladder putting in 70 hours a week, all the while say they are doing it for their kids. No they’re not. They’re doing it because their husband is untrustworthy and has not given her the kind of love that would secure her in her home. Her mother and society told her she better take care of herself because her man surely won’t.
Ask the average Christian woman why she is going to college and she will even tell you that she is not going to wait around for a man to take care of her so she needs to be self-sufficient, just in case. She’s already planned out her divorce before her betrothal.
Is it wrong for ladies to go to college and be educated? Absolutely not. But if the motive is because of preparation for an unloving man and the subsequent divorce of that man, then college is not the answer, a loving godly man is. Ladies need to check their motivations for why they are doing what they are doing.
Husbands who do not love their wives lead to all the messes that we see today. Why are Christian women adopting feminist ideologies? Because men are lazy, unloving and have become wimps, especially Christian men. If I was a godly woman, and I was to survey the scenery of single men to find a masculine, loving, God-fearing, strong man, the Christian sub-culture would be fairly disappointing.
Often times, the heathen look and act more responsibly and more masculine and even appear to be more loving in their actions than do many Christian men.
It’s like non-Christian men have an empty tool belt to be the kind of husband God calls them to be, so they try to jimmy-rig the relationship to mimic a godly marriage.
Christian men have a tool belt full of the right kind of tools to do the job, but have no idea how to use them. They have become useless, and because they have adopted such a feministic view of their own role, they forgot they even have these tools and have become nothing but a tool themselves.
FIRST AND FOREMOST: a man can not be a godly husband without first being a true Christian.
Why?
Ephesians 5:25 tells us: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.”
Here’s the deal: if you don’t know Christ, how in the world are you going to love your wife as Christ loved the church?
You won’t, you can’t.
Unless you are first a child of the living God, you will never be able to truly love your wife.
First, you have no idea what Christ did for the church, and second, God is love…how are you going to give something you must first have possession of yourself. God is the ultimate standard and source of love and without knowing Him first, without receiving love from Him, you’ll have nothing to give. Man does not have in and of himself the ability to love his wife; he must go to the source and receive in so he can give. He has no access to love, at least not godly love.
It’s like a mailman who refuses to show up at the Post Office to load up his bags in the morning. What in the world are you going to give the people on your route?
Some of you might say that before you were a Christian you loved your girlfriends. No you didn’t, you loved yourself and your girlfriend was a means to your own end of pleasing yourself.
The Bible talks of different kinds of love. One is a sentimental love that is found in friendships, where as long as the other party is treating you the way you expect, giving you what you want, and reciprocating the kind of love you are giving, you are fine. But as soon as any of that stops, you are no longer in love. It’s like 7th grade puppy love.
You hear people talk about this kind of love when they describe their breakup: “I don’t know what happened I guess I just fell out of love with her…” Like you were both riding on the tailgate of a truck and you hit a bump and OOPS you fell out! She stayed in, you fell out, what a bummer. It certainly isn’t your fault, you fell! Who’s going to blame you for a break-up which was an accident?
Another kind of love is a sacrificial love. It is the kind of love that is demonstrated by Christ, who comes to this world and as the Bible says, “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Jesus dies in our place without looking to what we could give Him in return. His love is not dependent upon our value; His love is all sufficient because it is sacrificial, and not sentimental.
Jesus took upon Himself our sinfulness, and bore for us the punishment our sins deserved. He was murdered for those He loved, rose from the dead, defeated our enemies, and showered upon us His eternal Grace. Why? Because His love was efficacious, it was effective. His love was pure and sacrificial and was not driven by selfish, self-serving motives. It was selfless.
And so, God calls men to love their wives as Christ loved the Church.
How much did and does Christ love the Church? How did he demonstrate that? By sacrifice. What did it accomplish? Change.
Christ’s love was sacrificial and it brought us righteousness. It changed us into something new and glorious. It made us able to love Him, love others and become lovelier ourselves.
In the same way, men are to love their wives and in so doing, their sacrificial, Christ-like love will bring change. It will make the woman beautiful. The more a woman is loved, the lovelier she becomes.
The First Union
Genesis 1:27-28: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
What should be obvious about this picture is the preclusion of any other form of marriage. God, in His infinite wisdom, created man first, then woman, and in so doing set the tone for leadership and responsibility.
This pattern of one woman, one man, for one life is the first pattern set for us in Scripture. Since this is the model, pre-fallen and sinful patter, this excludes polygamy. You can’t have a harem or revert back to the days of early Utah. One woman, one man, for one life.
This also excludes bestiality since there was no helper found suitable for him from the animals. God didn’t give Adam Sheba the dancing monkey in a tutu. He gave Adam a woman.
Adam couldn’t just divorce and find another woman, there were no other women!
God gave Eve to Adam much as we see today when a father gives his daughter away to the husband.
You know the rest of the story…
God tells Adam that every tree in the garden can be eaten from except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Adam doesn’t do his job in teaching his wife what God said and Eve is subsequently deceived by Satan as Adam stands by twiddling his thumbs and doing nothing.
Sin enters the world and the death that Adam was promised if he disobeyed God on the day that he ate of the fruit occurs, and Adam and Eve die spiritually that day.
God enters the garden in the cool of the day and the first person he confronts is Adam. This represents for us the nature of God’s view of the relationship. Adam was to be the initiator and covenant head. Adam sins by not obeying God and by abdicating His role, and he shifts the blame to God for giving him the woman, and then he shifts it to Eve whom he thinks should be responsible.
But to whom did God tell the instructions? Adam. So who does God hold responsible? Adam.
Eve has her own mess with God, but God comes first to Adam, and every child born from his tainted blood (which are all humans) has Adam’s blood pumping through their veins. The sin of Adam affects everyone born after him. Each child is born dead in spirit and with sinful blood. Each child is born a child of Adam.
A couple of weeks ago we looked at the different sins of women in Proverbs. We talked about the plate-chucking, loud, quarrelsome, gossiping, flirting, unfaithful wife that is decay to her husband’s bones.
Let’s look at some of the common sins of the sons of Adam.
Sins of the Sons of Adam
Bad Friends
Proverbs 24:1-2: “Do not envy wicked men, do not desire their company; for their hearts plot violence and their lips talk about making trouble.”
Proverbs 13:20: “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”
Some men get married and they realize the relationship is harder than they anticipated. Instead of cultivating the relationship they find new friends that are ungodly. These are the drinking and strip club buddies. These are the golf and going-to-the-game buddies. These are the single friends that are out chasing skirts at nightclubs buddies.
Some men pick friends that are more debauched them because those friends will never nag them about their sin and call them to repentance if they dishonor their wife or God.
If you want to freak your wife out, go ahead and pick friends that are not good influences and see how long she’ll take it. If there is anything that is a good first indicator of what’s going on with the way you are husbanding your wife, take a look at your influences; your single buddy that loves to tell you about all the girls he’s sleeping with; your married buddy that is cheating on his wife and telling you about it; your other married buddy that isn’t cheating on his wife, but constantly disrespects her by the way he talks about her to you.
Take a careful look at your friends and ask if they would ever tell you to honor and love your wife, to live sacrificially for her, to read the Scriptures to her, to pray for her, to show Christ to her.
If you don’t think your friends would ever give you that kind of advice, then perhaps they aren’t really your friends; they’re your vicarious sin buddies. They’re the guys through whom you sin.
Is there anything wrong with having an unbelieving friend? No. But if instead of evangelizing that unbelieving friend and bringing him to church, he is evangelizing you and brings you to a strip club, then there’s a problem. When you dance with the devil, you never lead.
Pick your friends carefully.
Some men sin through their speech.
Careless Speech
Proverbs 11:13: “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.”
Proverbs 12:18-19: “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.”
Proverbs 12:23: “A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself, but the heart of fools blurts out folly.”
Proverbs 17:19: “He who loves a quarrel loves sin…”
If there is anything in this church that will get you taken to the woodshed quickly, its gossiping about your wife or tearing her down in front of others while she wilts before your eyes.
Some men sin by talking about their wife instead of talking to their wife. He makes a comment about how she isn’t that exciting in bed and before you know it, everyone but her knows. Then she finds out from the wife of one of the men and she is absolutely crushed because she had no idea.
Men, if you are going to talk about your wife while she isn’t there, you better be telling me something good about her because if you are disrespecting her, I’ll ask you to apologize to her.
We are called to protect our wives. That means to protect her physically, spiritually and emotionally. When a man gossips about his wife, he is not protecting her spiritually and emotionally and he is the one doing the damage.
Some men also love to pick fights with their wives just to get some twisted satisfaction out of yelling and screaming at each other. These men obviously haven’t been working very hard since they have extra energy to pick fights.
Men, if this is you…you may want to ask yourself if you are one of the elect of God. Can you imagine Christ picking a fight with the Church like that? Can you imagine Christ gossiping about His bride? Can you imagine Christ lying about the Church?
Yet, we are called to be the head over the woman as Christ is the head of the Church. That means we are to model His behavior with His bride. How does Christ treat His bride? That’s what you’re to follow.
Sinful Lust
Proverbs 5:18-20: “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer – may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love (Hebrew “love making”). Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife?”
Some of you men have a picture in your mind of what a woman should look like and that picture isn’t your wife. Pornography does nothing but feed that dilemma.
Some men get used to looking at pornography and think that when they get married they won’t need it anymore. The problem is that the pictures of the women in their mind don’t leave that easily and you begin to compare a porn star with your wife.
You’ve been staring at naked tall, petite, black, brown, Asian, blonde, brunette, read-headed girls that have comic book body proportions thanks to surgery, and you now have a totally unrealistic composition of all of these women which you use to compete with your wife. Don’t ask your wife to look like that, she can’t! It’s physically impossible.
No wonder your wife can’t win. She’s competing with good lighting, plastic surgery, and PhotoShop. Your expectations are so unrealistic because those women don’t exist. They are touched up images of an imperfect woman, and without makeup, good lighting, and the aid of a computer geek she can’t even live up to her own post-production image.
Isn’t it strange that just a couple hundred years ago the plump, light skinned, healthy woman was considered a hottie, and the lean, tone, tanned skinned field worker was considered homely.
Culture has a way of changing our taste buds.
So what should your perfect woman look like? What is the God-given standard for beauty? Your wife!! If your wife is tall, then tall is your thing and should be the most attractive to you. If she has red hair, then read hair is your favorite hair color on a woman. If she is curvaceous and healthy, then that is what most attracts you.
Every man here at Kaleo should consider his wife the most beautiful woman in the world. If not, then you have the problem, not your wife.
Your ideal woman should look like the woman God has gifted you with, not some 14-year-old anorexic on the cover of a magazine.
Men, do you compete with PhotoShop? No. You’re not fat, you’re “husky,” you’re “barrel-chested,” you’re “healthy.” Men don’t subject themselves to that same standard, yet they expect their women to follow an unrealistic standard which at some point has to be abandoned because gravity takes over and surgery and PhotoShop at some point won’t help. What do you do then? Trade in your 50-year-old wife who has born and loved your children for two 25-year-olds?
Men, the next time you want to criticize your wife’s body, get naked and look in the mirror. That should shut you up quickly. If it doesn’t, get some glasses and clean the mirror, then take another look.
Be captivated by your wife. She is the standard, not someone else.
Paul says something interesting in the New Testament. He says in 1 Timothy 5:2 that you are to treat the younger women as sisters, with all purity.
Some of you single men have asked Drew and me what is permissible in your relationship. In other words, “What can I get away with without going to hell.”
Well, let me ask you a question: Do you fantasize about your sister? What would be permissible between you and your sister? That’s the standard! Unless you are in the covenant of a marriage, she is your sister and you are her brother. If you treat her without purity you are committing incest. It’s that simple. If you don’t like that standard, take it up with Paul!
It is as ridiculous for a person to ask for the benefits of being married (intimacy, sex, living together, sharing a bed) without being in the covenant of marriage as it is for an unbeliever to want the benefits of salvation without being in the New Covenant. It’s ludicrous.
If you want all the benefits of the marriage covenant, then you need to be in that covenant.
Proverbs 6:23-27: “For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way of life, keeping you from the immoral woman, from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife. Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes, for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulteress preys upon your very life. Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being scorched?”
Some guys like to dance with fire but they don’t want to get burned. It doesn’t work. If you are led astray by an immoral woman you will get burned.
Proverbs 23:27: “…a prostitute is a deep pit and a wayward wife is a narrow well.”
Some don’t know that the woman who will sleep with you after three drinks is cut from the same cloth as the one that will sleep with you after you pay her 50 bucks. She’s just cheaper. Men, stay away from women that call you to their bed. It is a deep pit and a narrow well that you won’t escape from.
Marriage is for men, not boys. It takes a godly man to marry and be a biblical husband.
Financial Immaturity
Proverbs 12:11: “He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment.”
Some men don’t work and instead chase fantasies. I’ll bet there are some of you here that think you are going to make it big in acting or playing an instrument, or painting, or in some get-rich-quick multi-level marketing scheme.
You’re chasing fantasies and you lack judgment. You need to work and work hard. You need to prepare for a wife. You need to stop chasing fantasies where you think you can shortcut the curse and go right to rock star status. It’s not going to happen. I know Disney said that if you wish upon a star, and Anthony Robbins said you could be whatever you wanted, and Mazlow said you can actualize your potential. I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but they’re a bunch of liars.
See how long you can live on your own chasing fantasies and then ask yourself if you could provide for a wife and kids doing that.
“Well I’m going to be rich one day, you’ll see.” Great, send me a postcard. It’s like the guys that sell Amway. You go ahead and make your first million, then give me a ring and I’ll sign up. Guess what, you never get the call.
Proverbs 15:27: “A greedy man brings trouble to his family…”
Some men like to spend on themselves but never on their wives. You’ll buy new tools, a new computer, new clothes, a new sports car, new golf clubs, or new gym shoes, while your wife has to beg you to buy clothes that fit the kids. Don’t bring trouble to your family by your greed. Learn early and often to be generous with your wife. I don’t mean spoil in a negative way, but make sure she has what she needs and can trust that you’ll take care of her. If she thinks you’re greedy, she will begin to resent you and she’ll notice the guys that are generous.
Some guys like to date and go Dutch. Some of you want to take a woman out and then ask her to chip in on the bill. I tell ya what, if you can’t pay for the meal, you haven’t earned the right to get the date so wait until you can.
You know why? This translates into a marriage that goes Dutch. “Honey, you want new clothes…better get a job. Honey, you want a new car, better get a raise. Honey, you want to take a vacation, better work overtime.”
Good job genius; you really demonstrated your Christ-like sacrificial love on that one. Can you image Christ asking us to go Dutch? You want to get saved, better get to work. We’d be jacked. Christ loves sacrificially. That means it costs you something.
Does that mean you have to earn six figures to marry a woman? No, but you better be working towards providing for her if you have any intention in living a biblical marriage.
Poor Leadership
Proverbs 11:16-17: “A kindhearted woman gains respect, but ruthless men gain only wealth. A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself.”
Some men are ruthless and cruel with their wives. They yell and scream and threaten.
Women are built for love. If you love a woman she will respond; if you are cruel she will shut down.
Proverbs 11:29: “He who brings trouble on his family will inherit only the wind…”
Proverbs 27:8: “Like a bird that strays from its nest is a man who strays from his home.”
Men, are there other ways to stray from the home than moving out? Yes, you can stray emotionally and spiritually. You can stray physically by not being affectionate to your bride. You’re like a bird that leaves its nest and lets the little hatchlings die.
A wife likes to know her husband is going to be home each night and that she doesn’t have to compete with a friend or a hobby. She wants a man to be there because she feels safe when he’s around.
You say, “Honey, I love you,” but you say it on a cell phone.
This is how we sin against our wives: we pick bad friends, we are dishonoring with or speech, we lust after the wrong things, we are weak financially, and we demonstrate poor leadership by straying from our home emotionally and spiritually.
Some of you men might say, “you don’t understand.” I don’t need to understand…who is responsible? You are, the husband.
Cultivating a Godly Wife
How many men would like to have a Proverbs wife when you get married? What kind of husband do you think she has?
Women are built to respond to men as initiators. Women become what their husbands invest in them. That is how they are built. They are built for response by a godly initiator. When a man is pouring into his wife, loving her, praying for her, being affectionate, providing for her, pursuing Christ, being understanding and gentle, the woman will respond.
We love God why?...because He first loved us. We are to follow a model of initiating love, grace, compassion, and godly strength, and what we receive in return is what we invest.
It is the best return on your investment that you could ever make.
What does this require?
Proverbs 15:1: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Proverbs 15:8: “The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases him.”
Proverbs 15:18: “A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.”
Proverbs 15:22: “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.”
Proverbs 16:24: “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”
Proverbs 17:14: “Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.”
Proverbs 20:6: “Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?”
Proverbs 14:26: “He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.”
Proverbs 10:12: “Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers all wrongs.”
Proverbs 16:6: “Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the Lord a man avoids evil.”
Proverbs 18:22: “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord
Ephesians 5:23-28: “For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.”
1 Peter 3:7: “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.”
1 Corinthians 7:3-4: “Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”
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