Please, as you read this, understand that i’ve chosen not to spend much time saying things like, “In most cases, not all, but most, or otherwise qualifying the things that are said!! Maybe a little more that sort of thing would have fit, but it also might have distracted the reader from what is being said!!

This was read out loud in class, and you wouldn’t believe the negative reaction i got from some of the wives!!

HERE WE GO.... This morning, we will be dealing with one of the most important issue we have looked at in a long time. It brings together a number of ideas, not the least of which would be; grace, fellowship, holiness, righteousness, marriage and family, quality of our relationship to God, prayer, the power and witness of the church.. If indeed God has wanted me to teach, He most certainly would give any teacher a sense of urgency about what happens in the class room. If any of that is true, i, at this point think, that the things we will discuss this morning may be the most important we have ever dealt with.

The God of heaven has been dealing with me for 10 or 12 years about this.

We spoke of David’s polygamy and that it was tolerated but not good. It was certainly counter productive in his case.

I then asked if there were any such things that were going on today that were tolerated, accepted but not good. Nothing much came of that.

Last week we were talking of the fact that as Christians and citizens we have rights, but we may not have the right to exercise our rights.

We closed the class with Karen saying that is true, but we (I’m assuming that she meant women, though that certainly does not exclude men) have needs that we deserve to have met. This class is about that very fact.

Please let me say that i have been dealing with this issue, thorough for years i did not realize it. I wanted a closer relationship to God. I wanted to know what God thought of me as a servant. I certainly wanted a more powerful prayer life. I have been a tolerable husband. We’ve been married for 25 years.

I do not think that God brought us into this world to be "tolerable" at anything. Least of all as spouses. He did not give a “tolerable” gift to us. He gave the very best that He had. Jesus did not tolerate His role. He looked at us, our need, our helplessness and gave the performance of an eternity.

. Please let me qualify this statement by saying that i have been watching the church for nearly 30 years and have seen the working of these things run through every pew, marriage and church i have ever been a part of. Nothing is unique to this church or any of you all.

Read:

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.28 So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies He who loves his own wife loves himself;


If we as husbands put ourselves under the load of that Scripture portion, our churches, families, prayer and relationship to God would be stronger and vastly more Christ like. We must put ourselves under the load of Scripture to receive the grace that is inherent in a fully formed Christian walk. To the degree that we delude ourselves in to believing that some thing else or less is enough, we will find ourselves and our churches not to mention our marriages weakened.

Christ like closeness to God comes from Christ like behavior. Jesus did not have that intimacy with His Father, because it was handed to Him. He had it because He earned it. He earned it by; obedience and great attention to detail. Christ Jesus cherished us as His church, His “bride” if you will. With incredible patience and persistence He saw our needs and went systematically, thoughtfully about meeting them.

Most of us, as men, have been decent fathers, arguably passable husbands. We have for the most part done our best to provide for our families financially and physically. We have taken out the trash. We have been faithful, we have, only rarely looked at other women. We have prayed, read our Bibles, take our families to church. We have given. We have filled a host of other needs/wants as they arose.

Have we tenderly, like Christ cherished us, cherished our wives? Have we given ourselves up for her as He gave himself up for us? In an effort to see her blossom and grow have we learned what is important to her? I’m not yet sure how to handle verse 27, but i know that it speaks of thorough, through and through preparation for her crowning moment! When Jesus presents His church to Himself before all of creation and His Father. So that as all of Adams race, the angels, creation and the Father look on, He will carefully, ever so carefully, brings us gloriously on to center stage. Presenting to Himself, His most prized possession, “without spot or wrinkle, in all her glory, that she would be seen to be Holy and Blameless” Have our wives seen that devotion in us?

So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

There are all kinds of issue that are raised here. Let us neither joust with windmills nor ride off in all directions. Karen said last week that “we have a right to have some needs met. What are those needs? Where do they come from?

Are our wives different than us? Yes, emotionally and physically She brings with her, as she was created, (yes i know about the fall) things that are embedded in her as deeply as her need to breath, needs like;

An overwhelming desire to feel connected to her mate.
A certain need for order, beauty and sensitivity
Sometimes she needs to talk about details that you and I never dreamed of.
Sometimes she wants us to hold her intimately, closely, without interference and sometimes without sex.
She, sometimes, wants wild passion from us. Sometimes to be the focus of all of our senses

She needs us to look at her and what she brings to our lives.

No, we will probably not be able to meet all of her needs. But as followers of Christ, we are called to pray and allow God to lead us. If we want Christ like intimacy with the Father, then we will have to bring Christ like thinking inside our marriages.

“Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” sometimes being a Christian is about doing things that we probably would rather not have to do, at least an first.

“that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory” This speaks of ultimate care, and commitment. When our wives find it, in us, for them, we will be able to see the results. The whole world will see. God will make sure that all of creation will see!!!!

Let me ask you a question; “Where does the gossip weed grow?” It grows where there is a need for someone to feel like they are on the inside rather than the outside. It grows where someone has a need to feels more important. Some times it grows where someone hurts so badly that they see to it that some one else hurts as well. May i ask you another question? “Why is there always such a problem with gossip in the church?”


There are a host of other things that we could mention here. All women are not the same. Some of these things apply more at one time or another. But they are all, part of what God has made her. She brings them to us, hoping that we will understand. She reads the same Bible that you and I read. Yet my guess is that, in her thinking, something is lost as it is translated by us as husbands. There is sort of an eclipse as we walk between her and the light of the gospel. There is a dynamic she can’t see but she can feel! When she reads passages like the one in Ephesians and Prov. 5:15-18, Malachi 2:13-16, Pet 3:7. She doesn’t know for sure what it is, but it happens. Something isn’t right. Year after year, something isn’t right. She wants to talk, but were not available.

What I’m about to say is powerful stuff. It could bring up painful issues for some. It may apply in some cases and not in others. There are all kinds of factors that enter in at this point. But the fact remains that sometimes the following applies;

Why do so many of our wives struggle with their weight? Could it be because they find that what is in the refrigerator is more satisfyinthan what’s in their relationship to us? Could that possibly be the case.

, “Is there anything, today, that we tolerate, that is counter productive but for some reason it lives on?” I say that there is. I think, that in some ways it can take on some of the flavors of polygamy. No, we do not have multiple wives, but it smells a bit of something that God detests and it is in part, the reason that the church is so powerless today.

The woman that married into the polygamous situation said that “He goes where he wants and you don’t ask questions.” Could it be that our wives core needs, are so far down our list of priorities that she feel a bit like they are part of a harem and that if they don’t get it just right, those needs may never be met. The message that we send her is; “Your needs are excessive, and out of control.”

The verses that follow might be read in such a way that we could easily trick ourselves in to thinking “this doesn’t apply”!! That could be dangerous for both of us. They all speak of treating our wives with great tenderness and taking care of business.

1 Peter 3:7
In the same way, husbands must always treat their wives with consideration in their life together, respecting a woman as one who, though she may be the weaker partner, is equally an heir to the generous gift of life. This will prevent anything from coming in the way of your prayers.

Prov5: 15-19
15. Drink water from your own cistern, And fresh water from your own well.16. Should your springs be dispersed abroad, Streams of water in the streets?17. Let them be yours alone, And not for strangers with you18. Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth 19. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, Let her breasts satisfy you at all times; Be exhilarated always with her love.


Mal 2:13-16
13. "And this is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
14. "Yet you say, `For what reason?' Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
15. "But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then, to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth.
16. "For I hate divorce," says the Lord, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the Lord of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously."

Somehow i need to live the life of the one who has been forgiven the unforgivable debt. That means that I should show graciousness, at every turn. Not to the point of pollyannish naiveté, but nearly every time I get a chance, and my wife should get the freshest and most liberal helpings of that grace! That isn’t rhetoric it is fact!! God would not waste His time or ours by having spend year after year with our spouses and not use them to teach us. To think that we can compartmentalize the relationship between God and our wives is nonsense!! “The two shall become one flesh” My wife’s needs are my needs!! Certainly there are some spouses who bring things that aren’t healthy to any marriage but by and large her needs are mine!!! What God wants from and for us is what our wives want!

If we want to grow, we need to get our priorities strait! How could it be any other way!! Life is too short and we are tooooo slow to learn how to love God in one place an our mates in another. All of this needs to made cultural. By that i mean we need to create a culture of graciousness when it comes to God and our mates!! All of the men in the church need to be involved in and praying toward that end!!! The reverse seems to be the norm, and we can prove it by looking at the divorce rate in the church!! Which are now ................!!!!!!!

I really do not enjoy writing this sort of thing because i live so far below what God wants. Many of us do and in the church we stroke each other pretending that these things don’t exist. The net effect, is an environment that emotionally mimics polygamy. The mechanism for this is our lousy priorities. Our wives come so far down our list of priorities, “darned statistics can be so embarrassing”!!

These things are virtually impossible to accomplish, this wonderful gracious marriage style that is advocated here, APART FROM A HEALTHY CHURCH THAT HAS COMPLETELY BOUGHT INTO THE IDEA!! “It takes a village to raise a child!!!??, how about keeping your wife and loving God” In the place of the polygamous aromas that permeate the halls and homes of our churches we need the crisp clean, rain washed mountain air the blows in from the throne of God!!

My life has been shot through with a make-your-own-trail ignorant kind of thing. It is really not far from pathological selfishness. Having finally discovered how much i really need the fellowship of Christian brothers, i’m finding that they are as caught up in the thing as i have been!! We are running around bumping into this thing constantly, like birds flying into glass that can’t see and the effectiveness of the church continues to plummet!!


This “soulmate” is forced to think that she shouldn’t ask to many questions like the woman in the harem. It is culturalized and sanctified by the church because FOR THE MOST PART, NOT ALWAYS, BUT FOR THE MOST PART were busy denying it pretending that it doesn’t exist!!!, BUT WEEK AFTER WEEK, YEAR AFTER YEAR IT GOES ON SHE KNOWS IT!!! AND GOD KNOWS IT!! Many self respecting women won’t put up with it or simply can’t take it, “Oh those_statistics”! (an aside for sure)!