Our homes and marriages are currently under Satanic attack as never before.

Today we have marriage-type courtships and courtship-type marriages. “Why be bound?” is the cry.

But God orders homes and marriages. Marriage is “’til death do us part.” And parents are held accountable by God for their children.

The universal struggle of good and evil, light and dark involves our homes—and our marriages in particular. Many miss this, feeling Christianity is a sort of private matter. To the contrary, Christianity is basically expressed in relationships: Love to God and neighbor.

There is then a deep, spiritual significance to our troubled, unhappy marriages. A wedded couple is said by Scripture to be God’s living symbol of Christ and the Church. Little wonder Satan is interested in disturbing this. The problem is inspired!

Perhaps some of you right here are far from happy in your marriage. Finally you have sunk into hardened unbelief that things will ever be different. One pastor is quoted as saying that he does not know of one married couple in all his congregation who are truly happy. Yet all are playing the part. Hide the problem at all costs!

It is my earnest prayer that as we study marital responsibilities that each couple will be led to humble rededication to the Lord Jesus Christ and His plan for their lives together.

Turn to our text, I Peter 3:1-7.

I.  GOD’S PLAN AND PURPOSE FOR WOMEN

Study the first verse. Regarding their husbands the wives are commanded, “Subordinate yourselves as being secondary to and dependent on them.” (Amplified) Or, as Phillips translates it: “adapt yourselves to your husbands, so that even if they do not obey the Word of God they may be won to God without any word being spoken, simply by seeing the pure and reverent behavior of you, their wives.”

Wives, do you feel trapped at the center of your family life – that everything revolves about you? Your burdens; your desires? That is wrong. Nor, should things revolve about the children, either. Where does the husband fit in?

Look now at Genesis 2:18 where God creates woman as a helper adapted to the man. Then, after their fall into sin, the woman is told in 3:16, “Thy desire shall be to they husband, and he shall rule over thee.” To ignore this, is to be abnormal. Officious, independent wives are abnormal. (Though many husbands are to blame!) It is sin that leads one to be less than the normal God prescribes.

Make your husbands the center of your concern. Let your children see this. It is God’s pattern. It is always sin to break out of God’s pattern. We never win freedom that way. Are you gripped with the trust that you express your relationship in Christ in what you are toward your husband?

Verse 2 of our text points out that the godly behavior of a dedicated wife will not go unnoticed by the husband. Furthermore, God also sees and values it, 4. Please notice that this godliness involves the wife’s deepest motives, attitudes, dress, life ambitions. In short, ladies, it has to do with what you are and not only with things about the house.

Many a harsh, bitter wife refuses to be entirely honest at this point. Hiding behind a pile of arguments, they excuse themselves from obeying the living God. None have the right to say, “I know what God says, but I also know my husband (!) so I will not obey God.”

Oh, I appeal to you wives for the sake of your husband, your children, your own life; yea, for Christ’s sake be reconciled to God and to your husband. What you are toward your husband, you are toward Christ! Try the way He commands here in His Word. It is the only way out. Pray and study First Peter 3.

II.  GOD’S PLAN AND PURPOSE FOR MEN

Now, let me address husbands by citing several God-given instructions to them. We shall base these teachings on verse 7 or our text: “Ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor until the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.” (One wonders how many prayers are dry and meaningless because of failure here!)

A.  Be the head. Let it at once be understood that marriage is not a 50/50 partnership. That may be a popular saying but it is not a Biblical saying. The husband throughout Scripture is seen as the head of marriage and home.

Now, this does not place him in a position of despotic, absolute ownership of the wife. It is not that kind of relationship. Even the term “head of the house” carries a wrong flavor. Study the ext verse and it will be discovered that “husband” is a title of tender leadership. Far from ruling out love, this kind of headship involves deep, active love.

Being head in a marriage is not the right to escape responsibility and “sit back and call the shots.” It is a kind of leadership that will require taking initiative to meet needs and problems. It will mean that you will accept responsibility for the spiritual life, the peace, order, training and discipline of your family. You will not merely blame the wife for failure to do what is your own ultimate responsibility. You will even assume a lead role in helping her out of a bitter frame. That is what it means to be head. Think it over, men. Think prayerfully.

B.  Base your relationship with your wife on enlightened understanding. That is what our text says, study it over. This will mean that you will not simply respond to their faults, the irritating situations, nor fret and fume according to your own instincts and feelings. You will instead respond to them according to new understanding which you receive from God. This will require studying revelation. Begin with our text here. Let the truth set you free from old resentments – act deliberately on the teaching of your divine text. Fulfill your roll and lift her in arms of love into her place. You will be glad you did! (See Ephesians 5:28)

C.   Aim at helping them. Men, our task as leaders is to support, encourage, honor them – not get our own way and prove we are always right. Even when you are convinced they are confused or wrong, God commands that you are to KNOW how to HELP them. Do not merely continue the struggle, hoping somehow to win your point. Before settling any issues, get your home out of the swamp of tension. You are the head. Lead the way into peace and love.

Every husband should study carefully Christ’s example as a spiritual husband to us who believe, as given in Ephesians 5. Are you able to discover in verse 26 the instrument which our Heavenly Husband uses to help cleanse and perfect His bride? That is the very means men everywhere ought to be using to help and uplift their partners – the Word of God. You do this by sharing with them thoughts and lessons which you discover there. These do not have to be spectacular. God will bless a truth flowing from husband to wife. It is a vital flow from head to body.

It is a terrible fact that many married women are prisoners of loneliness. Their status in life, rather than providing them with the beautiful companionship they expected, has only isolated them. They no longer can go out freely among their former friendship, and the husband is failing to make loving provision at this point. The man who does not wish his wife to be a gad-about should ask himself whether he is himself, providing vital, meaningful companionship.

CONCLUSION

Husbands, are you willing to try for something new – brand new? Wives, will you cooperate in good faith? If so, then pray right now that God will forgive and heal your own faults. A long look at I John 1:7 will help.

Next, begin deliberate day by day sharing in conversation (right at the kitchen table) over three areas: 1. Spiritual Life – talk over a Bible portion that means something to you, or another lesson in Christian experience. 2. Everyday things – the house and family. 3. Personal Needs – your fears, failures, personality struggles, current tensions and very personal problems. These seldom shared subjects may carry you all the way back to your old home life as a child….and ultimately lead you to a new home as a man.