You can sometimes see more clearly seated in church. There, away from life’s problems, the Spirit helps us to think.

This is especially important to do regarding our home and our marriage. Never try to evaluate things at home while the pressure is on.

For example, during a time of husband-wife tension, the man is apt to expect a wondrous submission at that moment, even though both are exercised, stirred up in argument. Men, make your judgment a fair one — under better conditions. Probably at that moment you are failing, too, in your own responsibility to love.

Now, here in the quiet of God’s presence, let us hear His word and pray that each of us may get something which will forever make our marriages more like that union between Christ and His Church.  That is what the Bible asks.

Love between husband and wife can deepen through the years.  Every Christian marriage can discover this if they will.  For suggestions as to how this can be in your own wedded life, turn to our text, Proverbs 31.

I.  SUGGESTIONS TO THE WIFE

Verse 10 at once gets us to the point:  Be “noble of character.”  Are you?  Let me explain this Biblical “noble character.”  Here it means godly, strength, courage and capability — a kind of personal excellence.  Though sometimes called the weaker sex, what strength can a godly woman possess when the grace of God is fully upon her!

Faithful mothers once labored to teach their daughters to be women of virtue and nobility.  Perhaps it is so rarely seen today in our maturing girls because it is so rarely taught.  “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies!”   Proverbs 31:10.

Here is a woman who never covers sloth or vanity with such excuses as:  “I just don’t have enough time, strength to do that task.  I don’t have enough money to work with.  You can’t expect me to show that kind of love; I’m just not made that way.”  No, a noble woman does and becomes whatever God wills.  May God give us women like this!

Surely, nothing is so attractive as a virtuous, noble woman.  There is radiance and there is beauty.

Now, open your Bible to the text, Proverbs 31, and follow down through the verses, thinking in modern terms.  Notice in verses 11 and 12 that the godly, virtuous woman pleases her husband “all the days of her life.”  There is growth in love, and no first thoughts for self.  Even if not blessed with every modern convenience, she applies herself to work, verse 13.  She does not shop without plan and system.  No habitually last minute rushing to the corner store, missing sales and quantity-buying benefits, verse 14.

Picture a wife who drags out of bed in late morning and only after much time exchanges her housecoat and slippers for clothes and shoes.  The virtuous woman is up early with household chores planned, verse 15.  She is a total asset, not the household’s greatest expense, verse 16.  She keeps herself physically vigorous, no lounging in front of TV munching on sweets, unable to do hard work or walk to the corner without the car, verses 17-19.

Those wives who are buried under their own self-burdens should read verse 20.  Verses 21 and 22 contrast sharply with those today who frantically — at the last minute — purchase clothes for each new season, plunging the budget into oblivion.  And as for their own dress, it is often carelessly shoddy before the family but over-fashionable when before the eyes of outsiders.  A falseness.

The good wife is ever respectful to the one God has set as her head.  In love she covers every fault, never complains of his weaknesses before others, verse 23.

She knows how to sew, verses 22 and 24.  Of strong character and faith, she neither complains over the present nor frets over the future, verse 24.

I am afraid that an all-too typical modern wife might have to be described, in the light of verses 26 and 27 as follows:  “She has ceased, long ago, to study and read good books, even the Scripture.  Her conversation is shallow.  Gentle, sweet grace is foreign to her tongue.  Husband and children are not the center of her thoughts, dreams, love.  She is herself the center.”

Ought we not to pity the woman who cannot make a full time job out of her home?  Husband, children and the upbuilding of her own spiritual and mental life are worth it all.  Proverbs 7:11 condemns the woman who “is unruly and defiant, her feet never stay at home.”  The Apostle Paul orders mature women to “urge the younger women to love their husbands and children,  to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.”  Titus 2:4-5

One can almost hear the words of praise bursting from a proud husband, “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all,” Proverbs 31:29.  How true then is verse 30!  “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”  Pity the woman whose chief concern is her own physical life and vanity!

Just a closing word to those faithful wives who have unbelieving husbands.  It is especially important for you to show Christian virtue.  Before you speak a word to him, wait for the right season:  1) When he is not riled up; 2) when he is loving toward you; 3) when you discern God at work in some area of his life.

How would you like to preach every day?  Here is how:  Show him daily how he ought to be toward Christ by living exactly that way toward him!  What is your relationship preaching?  To fail here and block his view of the kingdom is a grievous sin.

In summary:  Be seasonal in your speaking with him, but be constant, in season and out of season, in living just as you long for him to be toward Christ.   “How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?”  I Corinthians 7:16.