Gilliland, David: The Wise Man 05 His Wife ~ Proverbs 1

We are very thankful to see everyone who is present tonight at the meeting. We thank you for coming. Some perhaps here for the first time tonight, we're glad to see you, and others who have already been here in previous nights, we appreciate all your help and support, and trust the meetings will be some blessing to at least a few. We thank you for coming in the Lord's name. Now we're reading these nights, have been reading and reading again tonight from the book of Proverbs, and commencing to read in chapter one. The book of Proverbs and chapter one. Proverbs chapter one and verse number seven: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father and forsake not the law of thy mother. Verse twenty. Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets. She crieth in the chief places of concourse, chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates in the city, she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Now, a verse from chapter eighteen. Chapter eighteen and verse twenty two. Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favor of the Lord. In chapter nineteen and verse fourteen, houses- house and riches are the inheritance of fathers, and a prudent wife is from the Lord. And finally, at the moment, chapter thirty one. Chapter thirty one, and commencing here, verse ten. m Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. And then you have a full list of her activities, very interesting reading, but we'll go right down to verse twenty eight. Her children arise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excelest them all. Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates. Now, that'll do just for the minute. I have quite a number of other readings that we need to take. As on other nights, the material is sprinkled throughout the whole book, so that I'll be referring to other passages. I have noted some of them down here for ready reference, but some of them I might ask you to turn to them as well. Now, tonight, as you all know, brings us to the final installment of our studies in this very important and ancient book of wisdom. The theme that has been before us in the nights of the week that are just now gone has been the way of the wise man in the book of Proverbs. In considering the portrait of this man as he is spread across these pages, we have covered quite a bit of ground, and yet there is ground uncovered. But the path that we have taken has followed the following course. We have thought about the wise man and his walk on Monday evening. We followed that by thinking not so much of his feet, but of his tongue, the wise man and his words on Tuesday evening. That brought us to his hands on Wednesday evening, the wise man and his work. And what his hands produce, of course, and what his hands would accumulate and gather is wealth. So that last night we said something about the wise man and his wealth. And now, as I've mentioned on a number of occasions, the topic that is before us and remains for consideration tonight is the wise man and his wife. Now, I have left this particular topic to the last night for a couple of reasons. First of all, I could see it's the topic that people were most interested in, so I thought, I thought we would just try and keep it and keep you coming on because I knew, I knew you would come for this one. Secondly, it was the topic that I was most afraid of, and had I taken it up Tuesday, I mightn't have arrived at the meeting on Wednesday night. And so after tonight, I can make a hasty exodus and leave you to fight it out among yourselves and leave the ladies to their self-defense, and I think that should be no problem because it is a discipline in which they are highly skilled and well practiced. However, it is an important subject, and given the society in which we live, it's a subject that does demand serious and scriptural treatment. Now, along with those specific topics, each night, more or less to try and help those who are younger and those who would want to read the book with understanding, I have tried to make some general comments about the book of Proverbs that meshed in with the specific subject of each particular night, so that on Monday night I spent quite a bit of time talking about the properties of this book, proverbial and poetical and practical and so on. I'm not going over that. The general properties of the book of Proverbs. On Tuesday night, I took a while and said a little bit about the penman of the Book of Proverbs, because what we have here comes from the pen of the great Solomon himself, at least in greater part. Then, on Wednesday night, I spent a while talking about the personalities of the Book of Proverbs. It's like a portrait gallery, this whole book. We looked at the portrait of the senseless man, commonly called the fool. His problem is not a mental deficiency. The senseless man has a moral deficiency. He has no regard for the word of God and for the will of God. We thought about the scornful man. We thought about the simple man. We thought about the slothful man, and of course, we have been thinking all week about the skillful man, the man of, the man of wisdom. Actually, that's what wisdom is. Where is wisdom first mentioned in the Bible? If anybody wants to shout out, I don't mind. The first mention of wisdom in the Bible. Now, you have wise in the book of Genesis, but I'm speaking about, about the noun wisdom. The first mention is in the book of Exodus, if I recall properly, chapter twenty eight. and it's those men whom God gave wisdom so that they could bring together and make the fabrics of the tabernacle. I think it wasn't every fool knew that. Wisdom. And he could take the linen, and he could bring in the crimson thread, and then he knew when to bring in the blue thread, and then he knew when to bring in the purple thread. And when he had brought in with skill and wisdom every thread in its proper place, he produced a weaving that was a perfect reflection of what God wanted. You know, that's what wisdom is. It's the skill. I'm finding it very difficult. I don't know how it is with you, dear people, but I find it very difficult to take the different threads of life. Some of you, brethren, have a few business threads. Some of you have family threads. Some of you have other threads I'm not going to detail out. The threads of the different departments of life, and getting them all together so that it makes a tapestry. The tapestry of life. Unless, unless I'm judging too harshly, I reckon that some people have woven a piece of fabric in their life, and mind you, it's not the pattern that God wanted. It doesn't look well. Some of it's discolored because they have too many threads of the one kind in it, and they have left out some of the other thread. You know, knowing what to bring in, knowing what to keep out, knowing the proportions, knowing the proper mix, knowing the blend and the balance of life. It seems to me that's one of the biggest challenges that any human being has. I often meet a man, and he's an absolutely super businessman. You see, in the assembly, he's practically a dropout. He hasn't... hasn't got the weaving right. I meet another man, um, in the hall. He's a stalwart, he's a stalwart for assembly principle. You see him in his business. There's many a crook there. He's got all the threads in one side, but he hasn't got the weedy thread. So that's what wisdom is. It's bringing in the various threads just to make a pattern as God would want us to have them. Now, it's important for our subject tonight. That's the personalities of the Book of Proverbs. Last night I said something about the period of the book. I'm not going to mention that again tonight, but it's important just now for what is before us for this final meeting to have a fair grasp and a firm grasp of the perspective of the Book of Proverbs. Now, this whole book is written from the standpoint of the man. Right? He says, my son, my son, my son, my son, over twenty times. So it's a father, and he's giving advice to his son, so that in the book of Proverbs, he'll be telling his son what to expect in a wife. Now, you'll not find any chapter in the book of Proverbs that tells the woman what to expect in a husband. You get that in other parts of the Bible, thankfully. But the book of Proverbs is written from the standpoint of the male. Of course, that does not at all, that does not mean that it cannot be read very profitably by ladies and by women and by girls, because many of the principles are equally applicable to both genders, but nevertheless, Proverbs is written a father speaking to his son. It's an interesting thing to go through the pages of Proverbs. This is another little study that we haven't been able to do, because, as you know, we're just touching things here and there. It's interesting to go through the book and to see the different relationships that are examined and treated. You get, as I said, a father and his son, parents and their children. You get a king and his subjects. You get a master and a servant. You get a man and his friend. You'll receive quite a number of proverbs about children and their parents, but the relationship that is particularly before us tonight in the meeting is a man and his wife. Now, in the broad look at the book again, you'll have to bear with this because this is exceedingly important. You notice a careful reader of the book will notice that in chapter one and in chapter thirty one, we are introduced to two women. Two women. Now they're quite different, and yet they're linked. We are told in chapter one about this woman called Wisdom, that she crieth out in the place of concourse, and she cries out in the streets of the city, and she calls to the population of the city and has a particular interest in the younger generation, and she says, how long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and so on. And she makes an appeal. Now, the woman of Proverbs chapter one is figurative. We preach that chapter, as you know, in the gospel, I have called, ye refused, I will laugh at your calamity, and so on. And we make it as if wisdom is God calling for the ear of the sinner or for the ear of the young person. Now that's fine, that's fine. We can use it in a gospel, but it's wisdom, wisdom figured as a woman. Why? Why is wisdom depicted as a lady. Any ideas? What's the significance of wisdom as a lady? Well, the Hebrew word for wisdom is a feminine noun, rather strangely. That's, that's one basic thing. It always says wisdom, she, she, she, she. And yet wisdom's representing God, and God is always spoken of in the Bible as he, but wisdom is she. Now, I take it, I take it that the reason wisdom is depicted as a woman is because she represents a principle that is to be embraced, a principle that is to be loved, a principle that is to be appreciated, just as a man would embrace a woman and appreciate her. That's, that should be the reaction of human beings to wisdom. She's to be cherished. The relationship between the man and wisdom is to be a relationship of total commitment, so that in chapter one we have woman as a figure making appeal to the young man. When you get to chapter thirty one, this man, oh, he's not young. Oh no, he's not young. He has grown up children. His wife's a mature lady. If the man and woman of chapter one was figurative, the man and woman of chapter thirty-one is literal. The woman of chapter thirty one is his literal wife. He is no longer a youth, because the Bible tells us that by the time you get to chapter thirty one, he's well known in the gates. He's one of the elders in the city. He's re- he's respected by the whole community. And this man who now has become a pillar in the community, and he's a father figure, a father figure for all who look beh- upon him. We are told that beside him and behind him there's a virtuous woman who is his wife. Now, how did this man get this good woman? How did he get such a wife? She became such a good mother to his children. She became such a stalwart and a supporter of him in his public duty. She never let him down. How did this man manage to select such a lady as this? Because the book of Proverbs, as we le- learn in a minute, tells us about a great variety of women, but this woman is better than them all. How did he manage to get her in chapter thirty one? There's a very simple answer to it. When he was a young man, starting out on life, in chapter one, he embraced the other woman. Are you with me now? When he was just a young, he wasn't an elder in the gates. He wasn't a chief man in the town. When you're starting out in chapter one, he's just a young man, and his father tells him, don't forsake the instruction of your father, the counsel of your mother. He's just about to leave home. And in chapter one, he embraces God's wisdom. The figurative woman, he embraces her, and having embraced God's wisdom in chapter one, he's able to go out and face all the complexities of life, and because he knows God's wisdom, when he was making a selection of a literal wife, he picked the best woman in the community, and she became an asset to him all the days of her life. You know, I cannot help but feel there are some fellas, and if ever they show their follies when they go to pick a wife. What they're thinking of, or what they're, what was in their heads, or what they were doing, I will never know. Because you could either put your hand in a lucky bag and done better... than some of them. You see, can I say to young men here, before you go out into the complexities of life, I'm talking about those who are saved in tender years, younger years, teenage years. Before you embark and leave home and go out upon the complexities of life and make your own choice, I want to say, you familiar- familiarize yourself with God's wisdom. Embrace it. Love it. Appreciate it. Cherish it. And once you embrace God's wisdom, hold on to that wisdom the way the Bible says a man cleaves to his wife. Never let it go. Hold her close to your bosom, and wherever you go, if you have that wisdom in your heart, it will inform you in every decision of life and help you to make it in a way that would be to your advantage and be to the glory of God. Now, searching for a wife, of course, is quite an enterprise. It's quite an enterprise. Some people have very wonderful methods of doing it. The Bible tells us that whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing. And then it's qualified in the very next chapter we read it, that the man who has a prudent wife has favor from the law. Now, I don't think the search for a wife is something to be carried on frivolously. Again, younger brethren here, I don't want to embarrass anybody, but you see all this double dating business. You see all this lifting and laying business. You see all this on and off business. You see all these one night stand business. That might be all right for the fools of the world, but you see, for men who are marked by God's wisdom, that kind of behavior will never do. That's not the way you search for a wife. Uh, some have searched in very unusual ways. I'm not going into that detail just now. I'm not thinking so much about courtship and so on, but the book of Proverbs does tell us, because it's given, because it's given to a young man, we are not a little bit, not in a state of surprise that there is really so much material in this book about women. Because let's face it, I'm speaking tonight to a mixed audience, but let me face it as a man, as made of the same chemistry as the other men in the meeting, and we're all part of the human race and shares in human nature. You know that women of some description plays a big part in the life of every man. And we can't get away from that. And women exert an awful influence. So that throughout the chapters of this book, the young man is warned, I- I'm going to put it tonight into three different categories. First of all, he's warned about an immoral woman that's to be avoided at all costs. Now she's to be shunned like the plague. I'll, I'll come back, I'll speak about her because she's all round there. She's all round the, all round us here. Then I want to speak about undesirable women. And while you might find yourself married to one of them, well, we just will pray for you. We'll pray for you, but we'll talk about them, because, you know, women can sometimes display very undesirable features. And, uh, I hope I'll be given a portrait of some of them shortly, and I hope there's no one in the meeting will bear the reflection. And then I want to think about the ideal woman. The immoral woman to be avoided, the undesirable woman to be shunned, and the ideal woman to be imitated. Now, I haven't just made a, a, a complete count of it, but I would say something like it must be up on something well in the teens, up on twenty times, that the writer of the book of Proverbs, he warns his reader about the dangers of a strange woman. The dangers of the strange woman. Now, we have a number of passages. I can't, I can't really say to go into, into many different passages or to many different details, but I just want to say this, that the strange woman is a woman who has absolutely no regard for marriage. The integrity of marriage never crosses her. She may be married herself, she's not always married. In the book of Proverbs, the strange woman might be, uh, a single woman just embarking upon a very immoral course, what the world would call, I hate to even use the word, what the word would call, world would call a prostitute. That could be the strange woman. Now that woman's to be avoided. But then the strange woman in Proverbs could also be a married woman who sets herself to break up another person's marriage, or else she sets herself to bring down a young man who is yet his own marriage. Now, she's strange in the sense that she has departed, she has departed from the true paths of righteousness and integrity, and she behaves in some very, very strange ways. The first thing that's emphasized about her, I have taken a note of these now, just listen, don't turn to them. I'll not even give you the references, but verse number one says this. The strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her word. Verse two says this. The lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb. Her mouth is smoother than oil. Verse number three says, to keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Verse number four says, keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth. Now, the first way that you know this strange woman is the way she talks. She'll make suggestions. She'll make a pass. It might be in the office where you work, but just by the way she drops a word, she'd just be opening a door. Now, the man warned this young man, he said, you what? He said, you keep, you don't, he says, affect the word flattering. The word flattery means smooth. You know, there are women can be very smooth in their talk, very suggestive in their language. The next thing that's said about her is she has the attire of a harlot. So there's not only the flattery of her lips, but there's the fashion of her dress. She'll dress to attract, and she'll dress to kill. Now, I'm, I'm touching on things that are, I know they're sensitive, and I'm touching upon them seriously. Now, I want to speak a word very, very sensitively, I hope, to younger sisters, especially in the meeting. And when I touch on these subjects, I hardly ever mention them without at some stage asking for the prayers of those to whom I speak, because if I was severely tested in some of these things that I'm just mentioning, there's not a man in this meeting might go down more quickly than I myself. So I solicit your prayers in all honesty before Almighty God. But young sister, you know, and I'm not going to carry this too far, so don't worry, but you know that the designers of modern day fashion, they create their designs in order to accentuate the female figure and the female form. They try to encourage as scant coverage as possible. That's all done with a single aim to attract, to attract the baser appetites of fallen men. Now, all I'm saying is this, you know that happens out there widely and wildly. Can I appeal to young sisters who want to be godly? You do your best to be very selective in the clothes that you wear. Now, you should never appear at a meeting, because I'm, I'm dismayed at some of the dress that I see. You should never appear at the meeting. Now, try your best, and I don't want to be too hard, but it's not easy just to get maybe what you need and so on, because these old-fashioned things are almost a way overboard altogether. But you should never appear at a meeting in any kind of a dress that has a distracting influence upon the eyes and the minds of men. I have known brethren, and they have found it very difficult to concentrate on remembering the Lord just because of the immodest dress of some of the younger ladies. Now I'm going to ask, tell you younger ladies, remember that we are made of very poor material. I and every other man in this hall tonight. Every one of us, we are made of poor material, and within my bosom there slumber the coals of lust. And it takes a very small fan to ignite that into an inferno. And I wouldn't like to be. I know, and I know you wouldn't like to be, and I'm not thinking of any dear sister in this meeting. None of you young ladies would like to be the Bathsheba. That would be for the undoing of any of your male friends. Now, her fashion and her flattery. I say always watch your, always watch your tongue. Watch your line. All these double meaning jokes, they should never cross the lips of a child of God. Watch your language, watch your looks. It talks about her eyelids. You know, there are times that the look of an eye can pass a message that the lips never need to speak. You know, and I know, because I also, I also am a man, and I also live on planet Earth and stand upon the ground. You know that a seductive glance and a lecherous look can present an invitation, even though not a word is spoken. Now, your dress, your language, and your looks, those all have to be carefully done. You know, manhood, manhood in our day and womanhood are both under tremendous attack in a number of ways. I see that one of the main attacks, one of the main attacks on manhood is to feminize manhood. I think it's disgusting, these boys. I'm not saying you want to wear earrings, I'm not even thinking that, but these boys, generally speaking, earrings have been the badge of women, women of the world, I, and I think it's disgusting, these boys run about with rings in their nose and rings in their eyelids and rings in their ears, and the whole thing, it's not, it's, it's just the feminization of manhood. And then as far as womanhood is concerned, womanhood has been robbed of her modesty. Men robbed of their manhood and masculinity, women robbed of our modesty, and it's nothing strange now. It's the commonplace thing to see ladies go down the street adorned in their treasure. And if that was only women of the world, I could pass on tonight. Now, I'm not suggesting that any of the conscientious sisters in this meeting would want to contribute to the blurring, to the satanic blurring of male and female. What I fear, if you go down the street in your trousers, that even though you don't intend to contribute to that satanic subversion, you be very careful that that's not an act of fact, what you end up doing. Now it's serious. I think we need to stand, stand clearly, and see that the tidal wave of chaos is sweeping across these islands, and there's a frontal attack upon God's creatorial order, and we should count it a dignity in these last days to show exactly where we stand. You see, your young brethren act like men, and young women act like women, and God will honor you for it, even though the world is danger, and even though sinful society scorns you. Now he says there's a kind of a woman, he says, my son, there's a kind of a woman that you need to watch, and he says you'll meet her at the corner. Do you know where you meet these women? You might meet her in the oven, but she'll ask you, she says she'll meet her, she she she'll come round the corner just when it's twilight. I want to tell you where you'll meet her. I'm not, I myself am not familiar with this area, but I've heard quite a bit about it. And this lady that I'm speaking about just now, no respect for herself, no respect for womanhood, no respect for manhood, no respect for marriage, no respect for the Bible, no respect for God. One of the places that she most frequently visits is the internet. Now I'm making a serious appeal tonight. I have had one or two letters, not from this country, but one or two letters. I've been given permission to read one of them, but I'm not, I- I'm not even happy to do it. And young men that did a bit of private viewing on the net, and they first encountered this lewd woman of Proverbs five, six, and seven just on some website. They have found that their lives are shattered. Their soul is scarred. Their sexuality has been besmirched. Their testimony has been left lying in smithereen. And whether the rest of their life will piece it together again, only God knows. Now, a serious. These things need, he said, avoid her, shun her, keep away from her past, don't listen to her flattery, don't look on her passions, don't visit her house. He says, keep absolutely clear. For he says to Stratcher, how did you say, now I know, but I, I, I, I, I, I can, I, I can manage. I, I, you know, I know I, I dabble a wee bit, but, but I can manage it. Now listen. There's a verse in one of these proverbs, and this is what it says. Just dealing with that very subject. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be burned? I say to all the brethren here, myself included, if you sit at that fire and warm and in any way activate the lusts of your baser nature, remember it'll burn your clothes, it'll spoil your character, and it'll so scorch your feet, so scorch your feet that you'll never be able to walk the same for God again. I mean, it's as serious as that. And I think that given the world around us, that we need to be very, very careful. Now, I, I, I could, there's a lot more could be said, as you know, because it's amazing. It's amazing how much of the book of Proverbs is dedicated to that. He says a man that gets entangled with a woman like that, one of the saddest things about it, I talked about her flattery and her fashions and her focus and all those other things. I'm looking over them again. He says one of the things, the figures that he, he says a man that gets involved with that is he falls into a narrow well. And he says he's like a man that falls into a deep pit. And once you get into a narrow well, what you're being told in that figure is just this. It's one thing to get in, but it's a handling getting out. You see, once you cross a line with this kind of behavior and with this lady, once you cross a line, and just where that line is, is very hard for us to define because a person could give latitude and could cross that line within five minutes. Once you cross that line, you find yourself sunk in a well, and you can't get out, and you fall into a deep pit. Well, you might get out of a deep pit, but one thing I'll tell you, you'll bring a bit, you'll bring a fair bit of the mud with you. Have I trusted God? I maybe have pushed that too far. I hope that I haven't, and I just pass on. Now, that's the immoral woman who is to be shun rigorously and ruthlessly shunned at all costs. Now, they're undesirable women that display very uncommendable features. If you have your Bible and want to turn to it, you can turn to chapter eleven. and if you're not disposed to turn, I'll read it. It's only a short text, and you'll be able to follow... follow what is involved. Chapter eleven and verse number twenty two is the verse that I want. It's one of the most expressive of all the proverbs. As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman, which is without discretion. It, it makes me smile nearly. They're talking about rings in people's ears and noses and so on. Well, here's a ring in the snout of a pig. It doesn't, it doesn't seem to fit. It doesn't seem to fit. It's, it's, it's, it's just incomparable. A pig and then a gold ring in its snout. You say, well, now, is there anything? They just, they just don't match. Well, he says, I'll tell you. He says, that's just like a woman that has a lovely face, but no sin. Doesn't match. She has a nice countenance. Nice countenance, but very little behind it, no discretion. Hasn't good judgment. Hasn't good judgment. She, she looks the part. She looks the part, but she can't play the part. You know, can I just say, just say to younger brethren here, now this woman may be married, I'm not, I'm not just interested in that at the minute, but I'm speaking to the brethren who are looking to be married, and all I want to say is this: don't just allow your decision to be completely overruled by external look. You know, character is more important than countenance. And if you marry a woman with the glamour, she might have plenty of glamour, and she might even help to color it. But if she has no gumption, that will be like a snake with a gold ring in its snout, and you'll maybe just get nothing but grunts. And, uh, I don't want, I don't want to be giving you any marriage counseling, if that's what you end up. Have a bit of sense. Have you, you have sense. You have sense, and make sure that this is not just all show. You've all heard about the man and his wife who were having a little tiff, because that does happen, you know. Not to any of the men here, it has been heard of happening. And they were having a little tiff, and, and, and, and thing had gone on a little while, and he became frustrated and gave off a bit of steam, and he says, I, he says, I just can't, I just can't understand it. He says, it's a mystery to me. He says, how the Lord made you so pretty, and at the same time he made you so stupid. When she said, it's no mystery to me. For she said, the Lord made me so pretty so that you might marry me. And he says, he made me so stupid so that I might marry you. So, a gold ring in a pig's snout. That's just a woman that has all our sight. Now, what about this second lady? We'll have to go to her. She's mentioned... Well, maybe I'll just read the verses. Chapter twenty one, Chapter twenty one, um and I think we'll maybe just read two or three verses here in different places. Verse nine. It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house. Now, chap- verse nineteen of the same chapter. It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman. Now, chapter twenty five and verse twenty four: It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house. And finally, for the moment, chapter twenty seven, another one of my favorite proverbs for its expressiveness. Verse fifteen: A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Now, the second undesirable feature that has been coming up now in these four, this is not a woman without discretion, but you can see that in these four proverbs, the woman that is described is brawling. That's the Hebrew word that's translated in some of the verses, and other verses it's translated contentious. Now he says you'd be far better, you'd be far better dwelling on a rooftop than dwelling in a big white house with a brawling woman. Far better up on the roof in a wee guest room where you hardly room to stretch yourself, than to be in a big, big wide room with a woman who just is ill-humored and bad tempered. You know, let me speak to the sisters here. This is why, this is why, this is why I was keeping this until tonight. You know, it is a common feature of women to nag. If you want to annoy your husband, just become an old nag. And if you want to ruin your marriage, and if you want to sour your own soul, always the fighting and wrangling and contending and brawling, and some could leave out the R and say bawling, because that usually goes with her. You see, there's a difference between men and women in many regards, but in this regard, and it's a generalization. And you need to watch this. The men need to watch this, and the sisters need to watch this, because there are marriages that are not getting on too well, and we have Christians, and the only thing they're doing in their marriage is just sharing the same address and living beneath the same roof. But as far as the sweetness that God intended in married life, that has nearly disappeared. Now, the difficulty is this. A man, when a problem comes, generally speaking, a man will do one of two things. He'll either clam up or else he'll blow up. And more in eight cases out of ten, the latter. And that's over. Woman will love. She take. Goes in here. Six weeks later. nine months later. eleven months later. He thought it was all set. Had it all set. But she doesn't. And she's nagging, and she's contending, and she's up testing, and she's keeping the pot boiling, and every time that things just seem to be getting, getting again onto an even keel, she gives the knob. And I want to say to the sisters, if that's your character, that's something that needs to be judged in the presence of God, because that has the potential to wreck your mark. And it will hinder your husband's affection. And it will stifle your joy in him. Now, just indiscretion, that's the first one, then contention. You know, some men have had an awful lot to contend with, as you know. Let me, let me just remind you, the famous John Wesley. John Wesley had some very, very interesting romances. They were not at all desirable. You know, he was very closely attached to a girl called Safki. I want to read just a little bit here about the details of it. A girl, Safki, but that didn't work. I'll just leave that. Actually, what happened there? Maybe I should tell you. He was just about to marry her. He just about to marry her. She loved him and he loved her. And one day, in the place where she was staying, John's brother Charles burst in, burst in through the door in a rage. And he said to this girl, he said, Grace Murray, you have broken my heart and going to destroy my brother. And when he said that, he just fainted. And the marriage never happened. John Wesley was deeply disappointed. He went away to stay with friends, and he met another girl within a week he married. And it became one of the most disastrous marriages in history. He married on the rebound. He married when his emotions were in a turmoil. Now, can I speak to young men here? You be very, very careful about that. Now, it just didn't work out. Later, when do you hear this? He had a friend called John Hampson. They'd been married for many years. John Hampson said, once I went into the room unexpectedly, and I found Mrs. Wesley foaming with fury. Her husband was on the floor, where she had been failing him by the hair of his head, and she was still holding in her hand venerable locks, which she had plucked out by the roots. He said, I felt in my heart as though I could have knocked the soul out of her. When I read that, I thought to myself, it's no wonder Wesley came to Ireland so often. At least the ladies here were more civilized. He arrived back in England, and this is what he put in his journal. He says, I came to London and was informed that my wife died on Monday. This evening was, she was buried, though I was not informed of it. Just as cold and curt as that, and I'm hardly a little bit surprised. Well, there's some of the brethren here, and by the appearances, and I will share your safety, the good lady not be able to pluck a handful out of your head so that, uh, we can proceed with at least a measure of and with a measure of cut. Would you see a contentious woman? Sure. Contentious, argumentative, wrangling, bittering, always throwing brickbats. And no, sister, you don't want to be. Chapter thirty, chapter thirty, just for... a final reading along this connection. And then I'll have to give something more positive. Chapter thirty, and the verse... the verse that I want here is verse number twenty one. For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear: a servant when he reigneth, a fool when he is filled with meat, an odious woman when she is married. And this is not the strange woman, this is not the indiscreet woman, this is not the contentious woman, but an odious woman. What would an odious woman be like? Well, I'll leave you guessing. I'll leave you guessing. I'm not altogether sure in the context. The way it says an odious woman when she is married, I take it that this is a lady who has had one or two disappointments. And things haven't worked out maybe in courtships or relationships. Eventually she gets married, and she has a chip on her shoulder. And she has been made bitter by old score. And it has made her personality very, very odious and detestable. Ladies, can I say, I'm back again to what I was mentioning. Remember, ladies have a special facility for holding grudges. That's just plain fact. That's plain fact. So have men, but the women folk more so. And I know that things can happen, but may God help us, because if you have that unforgiving spirit and you're banking up a ledger of ancient grudges, it will make your personality odier. All these things need to be watched because they can greatly sour and spoil what would otherwise be a holy and a healthy relationship. But then there's an ideal woman. There's an ideal woman. Uh, the reason I'm not going through Proverbs thirty one, which many of you may have expected me to do, is that I'm speaking again from the standpoint of the man. Who can find a virtuous woman? Her price is above rubies. Now, let me just say three or four things about this lady. If you can bear with me, I know you're tightly packed in tonight. I'll say them very, very quickly. This is an ideal woman, and it's an ideal relationship. Now, the first thing is this. It's marked, it's marked by a consistency, and it's marked by a fear of God, and it's marked by a spirituality. When you get to, you read the lovely alphabet of all her virtues from verse ten right away down to almost the end of the chapter, and when you get to the end of the chapter, this is what it says. Favor is deceitful. I'm in chapter thirty one and verse thirty. Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Now it's really, I'm, I'm really sorry that I haven't time and inclination to go through the catalog, but you take this woman personally. You take her socially. You take her matrimonially. You take her maternally. She's a good mother to her children. She's a good supporter of her husband. She's behind him every inch of the way. He stands in the gates, and she looks after her children. She helps the needy. She can make money. She's very industrious. She's a busy woman in every way. And you say, what's the secret of all this apparent success? You get that at the end of the chapter. It's the fact that within her heart, she fears the Lord. Now, her relationship with her husband is right, her relationship with the elders in the gate is right, her relationship in the village is right, and her relationship with her children is right. And I think it all hinges from this one supreme fact that our relationship with the Lord is right. Now, we often hear ministers of Brannan about keeping right with the Lord and reading and praying and so on. Can I just encourage the sisters, and I know there are many diligent sisters who have held healthy marriages in the midst of a decadent society for many years. May God bless you richly and maintain things for his glory. And can I say, you keep your soul right with him. You know, favor is deceitful and beauty is vain. I've already hinted at it. It's amazing. I saw in the paper the other day, it's just amazing the amount of energy and expense that is now put into the maintenance of beauty. Listen to this. There's three hundred and thirty seven million pounds spent on skincare every year in Britain. I'm not going to scold you if you're trying to take a little bit of care, but don't forget the inner beauty. And do you see, out of that three hundred and thirty seven million, there's eighty percent of that material, and it costs less than ten percent of the money to produce it. I'm not saying the retailer gets it all, but certainly this big business, and the whole craze is about beauty. Cosmetic surgery in the UK costs three hundred million a year. Now listen to these things. One in five bank loan is taken out for cosmetic surgery. Over three hundred and thirty million in this country alone, because people just want this done, they want that done, and they're all concerned with external beauty. Now, I would say, let every Christian lady look after herself with moderation, but always remember, in a world that's crazy about fashion and figure and form, the fear of the Lord can produce a beauty that no Baptist can ever give, and no surgeon can ever impart. Now, one of the features of this ideal woman that is to be imitated and copied is just the fact that she had that spirituality, and she had the fear of the Lord. Now, a second feature I mentioned quickly. It says her husband trusts in her. She does him good all the days of her life, and quite a number of other things that I can't just go into, but her husband, the heart of her husband trusted in her. Now, dear brother, if God has given you a good wife, she deserves your trust. You know, there's nothing will jaundice a marriage like a jealous husband. Won't allow his wife to speak to another man. Won't allow her out of his sight. Suspicious, jealous, possessive. You see the man that we're reading about in Proverbs chapter thirty one, he had such a revenue of return from his wife, and I think a lot of it came from this. Not only did she fear the Lord, but he trusted in her. There was confidence in this marriage, and that encouraged this lady. There was, of course, communication, because it's obvious from the passage that they were speaking. Can I ask, and I know it's a very basic, it's a very basic little point. Can I ask the dear believers here, are you speaking to your wife? Or do you speak to her from behind the newspaper? Does she talk to you? Do you just pass each other like ships in the night? Is there a breakdown of communication? There was confidence and there was communication, and what I think I'd finish with in this con- regard is this, that in this marriage, this ideal woman, and I'm speaking not about herself and what she did, I'm speaking about her husband's relationship to her. There was commendation. He praised her. This whole poem was written in her commendation. I want to ask the men. This is the wise man and his wife. Do you trust your wife? Can I ask you, do you ever thank her? Do you ever praise her? Do you ever commend her? Do you ever give her a surprise? Do you always take her for granted? Do you expect her to have the meal ready on the button every time, breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper. Do you ever take her out for a meal? Do you ever see that she has a break? You know, there are men in this meeting tonight, and if you go home to the meeting and make the supper and wash the dishes after, both the cooker and the kitchen sink will fail. And if you have never commended your wife and helped her and encouraged her and given her a little change, I tell you, if you have had thirty years of marriage, you should be absolutely ashamed and go home tonight and thank God that the marriage is held together in spite of your carelessness, and tell God if he continues to spare this good wife that he has given you, that you'll change your schedule from this night forward. Now, it's essential. I'm talking, I'm not talking old hat, and I tell you what I can see. I can see that especially younger couples are under great difficulty, and there's pressure, and we need to get back to the biblical blueprint. Not just of marriage. He's already standing up that platform saying marriage, and marriage is for life, and marriage should be until death do us part, and I believe that with every ounce of my being and with every molecule in my spiritual body. That is God's idea, and it's all right to say that. But I'm not just concerned, I am concerned, but I'm not just concerned about lifelong marriages, and neither is God. What God is concerned about is lifelong marriages that are happy marriages, and that are healthy marriages, and that are holy marriages, because lifelong marriages that are lived, I'm talking about Christian people, lived in misery. I tell you, it's a little bit removed from the pattern which he has planned. Now we have to recognize that we are fallen creatures, and yet may God help us to exercise wisdom, because I speak as a very feeling husband, and I speak with full recognition that if there is any area of life where we can be a little bit foolish and thoughtless and self-centered. It's just in this very area that I'm talking about now. I'm going to conclude with just a word from a man called Taylor, one of the Puritans. It'll not take me a second, thirty seconds to read this. This is what he said about the wise man and his wife. He said, if you're aiming for pleasure, marry. If you prize rosy health, marry. A good wife is heaven's last best gift to man. His angel of mercy, his minister of graces innumerable, his gem of many virtues, his box of jewels, her voice his sweetest music, her smiles his brightest day, her kiss the guardian of his innocence, the balm of his life, her industry his surest wealth, her economy his safest steward, her bosom the softest pillow of his cares, and her prayers the ablest advocate of heaven's blessing on his head. That's what a man thought a good wife was four hundred years ago. I think he agreed with the writer of Proverbs, and may God help us to emulate this in our relationships for his glory. Try, dear brother, try to be a better husband. Dear sister, try to be a better wife. The attack is on marriage in these days. May God help us to keep together in his fear and withstand the devious assaults of satanic opposition. Wise man and his walk. Wise man and his words. The wise man and his works. The wise man and his wealth. The wise man and his wife. But you say, how do you keep all together? I, I, I just, it's keeping all together that's my problem. And what is there, what is there will bind everything? Is there an umbrella that will put it all together and keep it in its true perspective? Yes, there is one umbrella. I've mentioned it many times in the meeting. I mention it now before I pray. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. A man who fears God in his soul will be able to approach life with the right attitude and with wisdom for every problem that can arise. Shall we bow together to pray? Our Father, we commend to thee thy precious word. Let us know that these practical matters, they touch our lives. We acknowledge our failures. We acknowledge that we have not been as diligent or as discreet as we should have been. And we pray that wherever these matters would highlight weaknesses in our own approach, that thou will give us grace to make the necessary adjustment and give us courage to take the measures that are essential, so that again our lives may become aligned with the pattern of thy precious word. Thou dost know problems within and pressures from without, and the only thing that we can do is lift our eyes to thee and ask that thou will grant us help from above, so that our testimony, our witness, our service, our communion, and our marriages may be preserved for thy glory. Help us in all these matters. Remember us in personal life. Remember us in family life. Remember in assembly life. O God, we cry for help in every area as we put our trust in thee in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.