Somebody Loves You

Raul Ries: If you do what is right, then God will answer your prayers. And God will touch your husband. And God will do a tremendous work within your own life because you're in subjection, which is a military term, hupotasso, to be underneath Jesus Christ. Your husband might not be, but if you are, then God will take care of the rest.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Somebody Loves You radio, the Bible teaching ministry of Raul Ries in Diamond Bar, California. Thanks for being with us today as Raul continues our marriage series with encouragement for those whose spouse is not yet a believer.

If you're currently walking alone on your spiritual journey, you'll get a challenge today to keep honoring God with faith and submission, trusting Him to work a change in your spouse's heart. Stay with us for assurance that God hears your prayers and can richly bless your marriage. Today's lesson is titled, "A Word for Wives and Husbands." Here's Raul Ries in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 1.

Raul Ries: He's going to be speaking to wives that have non-believer husbands. I don't know if there are any here today; there probably are. Maybe your husband or maybe your wife is a non-believer. What do you do when you have someone that is not a believer and you are following Jesus Christ?

Well, I can share with you that when I got married, my wife was a believer; I was not a believer. And the reason is because she had been backslidden and she had played and she had paid the consequences of her sin. And so we got married and she found out that for the next four and a half years, it would be hell on earth for her.

Now, we know what the scripture says in 2 Corinthians chapter 6:14 through chapter 7, verse 1. He says, "Be you not unequally yoked together with a non-believer for what fellowship has light with darkness?" And yet, even though the scriptures are given to us, people don't take them to heart. And so what do they do? They go out and they have a boyfriend or a girlfriend that is not a believer and they marry them. And then they pay the consequences of sin.

I think it's important that we listen to the Word of God and that we would be obedient to what God's Word says. You would save yourself a lot of headaches and a lot of pain, especially in a marriage. And I believe that if you're single this morning and you're hoping to get married one day and you're actually looking for someone to marry, you're already starting out the wrong way.

You should really first of all have your full relationship with God completely and fully in obedience to Him. And then He'll take care of the situation in your loneliness and singleness. But as so many times is that people get lonely and they meet this person that communicates with them and talks to them, and they start becoming friends and one thing leads to another.

Eventually, what I've seen too is that the other person that is a non-believer leads the believer away from God, instead of the believer leading them to Christ. We have to be very careful how we treat our situation, whether married or single. I told you in the past that God hates divorce. And yet I know there are people here probably that have divorced.

Now, we don't know the situation, I do not know your situation, but I know one thing that there are situations where a husband and a wife in the marriage might be some verbal or physical or sexual abuse. And sometimes it leads to separation, and eventually, it leads to divorce. I mean, you can't help it.

But there are also on the other side people that willingly, willfully disobey God's Word. Just because they have fallen out of love with their partner, they'll go out and find somebody else and they will divorce their partner, and that is wrong and that is sinful. God will hold you accountable to your marriage.

In this culture that Peter's talking about, first of all, women were actually nobodies; they were not respected in this culture. In that culture, the Greek and Roman culture, most husbands had concubines. The only reason they had a wife is so that the wife could bear my children. But if I want to play, I get a concubine, you see?

But then Peter is writing and he's giving counsel to a woman that accepts the Lord, her husband's not a believer, and now she has to come into fellowship with the church. And how does she come into the fellowship when she's nothing in the community and now in Christianity she's going to be accepted and now she's going to begin to pray for her husband to be saved?

What do you do if you have a husband that is not saved or a wife? Do you preach to them to death? Do you actually go buy tracts and divide them up and break them up and put them in their lunches so you're hoping maybe they'll eat one and they'll be converted? No, it doesn't work like that. First of all, we need to realize that it is the Holy Spirit that converts and convicts people's hearts.

And Peter here gives you great counsel on how to win someone that is not a believer in the kingdom of God in your home. And that is by your obedience and conduct of life. That's the way to do it. It's by your commitment that you make to Jesus Christ as you follow up the Lord, and as you're obedient and you're submissive to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

And you take, if you're a woman, your husband's not a Christian, then you need to take the spiritual leadership of your home for your children until your husband gets saved because your children need leadership, you see? And if you have a husband that is a believer and a wife that is a non-believer, then the husband takes the leadership and he prays with his children and he takes them to church and he makes sure that they're being taken care of spiritually.

And you pray for your wife for God to save her. And if you're a wife, you have a husband non-believer, then you pray that your husband will be saved. And if this morning you find yourself struggling with your husband or your wife, there needs to be peace in the home. Somebody has to make peace. Otherwise, you're going to destroy your home.

And the problem so many times is that you got two people with two wills, and one or the other or both of them do not want to take the fault, and they don't want to submit. And somebody has to give. And I hope that it's the believer, I hope that both believers both submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Marriage is for life until death do us part. You shouldn't even think of getting married unless you're willing to count the cost. You shouldn't. If you think that marriage is just having sex and having a good time, you are wrong. You are wrong. Stay single because you don't need to be married.

In saying that, that's not where it's at. The first thing that a person has to do like in a marriage, you have to build a spiritual what? Foundation. That is, I pray and I read the Word of God with my girlfriend as I do with my wife too. Why? Because if I start in the spirit, then I'm not going to end in the flesh, you see, my relationship.

God has to be a priority in my life. Secondly, as a single person with my girlfriend or my boyfriend, we should never seek to be alone because why? The devil will tempt you. You're only looking for trouble. And then you should not only base your relationship with Jesus Christ and being a godly person, but also desire that you're going to keep yourself pure in the relationship so that God can honor your ceremony when you get married. You're wearing a white dress for purity, you see?

And so Peter wants to make sure that he gives advice to the women, and then he's going to speak to the husbands. Look what he says as he speaks to them, as a true example of marriage. Beginning with verse 1 of chapter 3, he says, "Wives, likewise be submissive to your own husbands that even if some do not obey the word."

What word? The Word of God. "They, the husbands, without a word." That means the woman nagging or communicating or preaching to the husband. "They without a word may be won." Notice how? "By the conduct of their wives." There it is. The word conduct literally in the Greek means the manner of life you live in private life.

That's how your husband's going to get saved. It's not by what you say to him, it's not what you preach to him, it's by your conduct, by your manner of life, the way you live your life as a wife in the home, taking care of your home, taking care of your children, taking care of your husband, you see?

And then through that, your husband will have an awakening that nobody can bring but the Holy Spirit can do that. It can be in a week, it can be in a month, it could be several years, it could be a lifetime. Are you patient enough to wait and to be obedient in the lordship of Jesus Christ? Because that's what God desires.

Guest (Male): This is Somebody Loves You radio with Raul Ries. For resources to help ground your home in God's truth, visit us anytime at somebodylovesyou.com. Now, you can also join Raul for Straight Talk on the Somebody Loves You Worldwide YouTube channel every Tuesday at 10:00 AM West Coast time. Let's continue now with more of our study, "A Word for Wives and Husbands."

Raul Ries: Look what else he says. When he talks about, "Wives, likewise be submissive to your own husbands, even if some do not obey the word, that without the word may be won by the conduct of the wives." Verse 2, "When they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear." Now, what does he mean by that?

Well, somehow the husband looking at his wife, not only can make observations as a non-believer, but one of the great observations that he sees is that his wife fears God. That she fears God. She's not going to lie for him, she's not going to compromise her position for him. Because there will be husbands that will ask their wives to do certain things like, "Hey, let's cheat on our income tax," or, "Let's do this," or, "Let's do that."

As the Christian wife, you need to love your husband, you need to be with your husband, but you're not to partake in his evil things that he does and his practices. God doesn't call you to submit to that. Understand that. You don't have to submit to that. When we submit, we submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ and that is to righteousness and to truth and to love.

And so here he's talking about this woman that her husband's not a believer, but because of her manner of life and because of her conduct and because she fears God, her husband is touched by this. Verse 3, he says, "Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair and the wearing of gold and the putting of fine dress." Now, what does he mean by that?

Well, in that culture, women dressed pretty spectacular. They wore pearls in their hair, they had gold in their hair, they wore these beautiful dresses, and they painted themselves up beautiful where they were a real attraction to those that were walking down the street to turn around and look at this woman that was so dressed up and so beautiful.

What Peter is saying is that a woman needs to be careful that when she dresses and she takes care of herself that she's moderate, not to the excess of bringing attention to herself, you see? Be moderate in the way you look and the way you dress. Why? Because these women were thinking, "Well, maybe if I fix myself up and I dress sexy, maybe my husband will love me and maybe he'll get saved." That's not true.

Because Peter says that it's not the outward that counts, but what does he say? The inward. It doesn't mean that a woman has to be not taking care of herself. No, you need to take care of yourself. You need to look good for your husband, for your children, and whatever else you do.

But it's important that when you do it, you do it as unto the Lord and you don't do it overboard, but you're moderate in what you do so that when people look at you, they see a godly example of a godly woman. Look what else he says. This is pretty interesting. "Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging of hair, wearing of gold, or putting of fine dress; rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart."

Underline that. There it is; the heart is more important. "With the incorruptible beauty," how? "Of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." Wait a minute, you say, "Raul, are you telling me that I can't talk to my husband?" No, I'm not saying that.

What he's talking about is that woman not nagging her husband, not being aggressive, you see, not lording it over her husband. But as she looks at herself in the eyes of God, beautiful on the inside, then she says what? Again, "Of a quiet, a gentle and a quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God."

When she obeys and submits her life to God, that's the best thing. Then her husband will be won to the Lord, you see? Because her husband will see that not only is she submissive to him in the things that are godly and in then how she is submissive to the lordship of Jesus Christ and how she takes care of her home, take care of her children, take care of everything that she has to do, and at the same time spend time with her husband and loving her husband even though her husband is not gentle and kind to her. That's what wins people to the Lord, you see?

So here Peter aligns this whole thing for women. Then he says in verse 5, "For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands." Going back to Sarah and Abraham, you see? And the Old Testament, all those wives with all those guys, they were the same way, submissive to their husbands because they were submissive to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the home.

Then verse 6, here's the example, "Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." Now, does that mean that I have to call my husband lord? No. She did, as respectful in that culture, she called him lord. "And then whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror," you see?

You don't have to be afraid. If you do what is right, then God will answer your prayers and God will touch your husband and God will do a tremendous work within your own life because you're in subjection, which is a military term, hupotasso, to be underneath Jesus Christ. Your husband might not be, but if you are, then God will take care of the rest.

And then look what he says to husbands. This is pretty interesting. Verse 7, only one verse, but what a powerful scripture. One little verse, and yet it is so packed for husbands. And now he's speaking to husbands that are Christians, okay? So if you're a Christian husband today, listen carefully.

"Husbands, likewise, dwell with your wives with understanding." Now, probably this is one of the big areas where you have in marriage counseling where she comes in and says, "My husband doesn't understand me." Well, what do you mean? Well, here he says, "Husbands, likewise, dwell."

First of all, dwell before understanding. The word dwell here means not only to stay, to abide, but literally it's in reference to the husband and the wife sexually together, you see? Giving themselves in submission sexually to each other, dwelling with each other. That's in love.

But then in that relationship that they have, not only in consummation sexually, he says, "Then understanding your wife," which means that you have to not only understand what she's going through, being patient, but the only way you're going to understand your wife is to spend time with your wife. How? Conversing with your wife.

In this culture and this time, people are so busy that by the time you actually measure out the clock, I mean, how many minutes or hours or literally days or weeks or years are we really spending together building a home, building a relationship? Not much with a lot of people because people have their own agenda, they're doing so much for themselves.

But maybe if you cut off time from the gym or from other activities, maybe your marriage could be spared. And you could spend time as the spiritual head of your home, praying with your wife, reading the Word to your wife, understanding what the will of God is for her as it is for you.

And then as your wife sees you as the spiritual head of your house, making decisions, when you make a decision, she's not going to question you because she knows that you spend time with God. And even if you make a mistake, she's going to respect it because she knows that you're a man of God.

The problem comes when men are not men of God. Your wives can't trust you, and you cannot trust her if she's not a believer either. It's very hard. So it's real important that as husbands we dwell with them with understanding and then listen what he says, "Giving honor to the wife."

The word honor means dignity, importance, that is, making her feel like she is important in your life. Pretty heavy. Because if you don't, listen to what he says. He says, "Dwell with them in understanding, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel." Here Peter says that your wife is what? She's not weak; she's the weaker vessel, which means that God has made her the weaker vessel, that is, she has different emotions, different emotions than you have.

And so when I deal with my wife, I can't deal with her as a man; I have to deal with her as a female, you see? Because of her emotions and because of her needs are different than my needs. And it's kind of neat because Peter says that as we do that as the weaker vessel, then...