Rejoice With Your Wife
Scripture: Proverbs 5:18Devotional Series: Husbands
Teaching: Husbands pt. 3 (SUN_AM 2024-08-11) by Pastor Star R Scott
To love someone is to look for, and try to provide for, the ultimate and total well‑being of that person. Corinthians says it this way: The role of a man when married is to see how he may please his wife. Now, Paul, in that verse, is contrasting it with our being single and being able to give all of our time and energy and commitment to the kingdom of God, to the Lordship of Jesus; amen? So, if you’re single, that’s what you should be doing.
But then he says that, if you marry, then you have that responsibility; you have the responsibility, the obligation, to care for your wife and your family, which is just as spiritual as being out on the street preaching the Gospel. It’s just as spiritual to be home with your family making sure your family’s needs are being met and that they’re being prepared for the kingdom. Now, what does that do? That doesn’t mean that the family just hides out and stays at home alone. If you’re bringing them the right instruction from the Lord, you will then be leading your family into fellowship and communion with the body of Christ where there is that mutual edification. I like what the Holy Spirit says there: “When you enter into that covenant, then you have that responsibility to know how to please your wife.” That crosses a whole spectrum of needs concerning your wife that you need to be aware of.
It’s important for your wife to know that you’re still pursuing her, that you still find her attractive to you primarily in the very being and the spirit of her person, which is that meek and quiet spirit within her that attracts you, that godliness within her, that purity within her that attracts you to her. Also, from the perspective of the physical, you are to cleave to your wife, which means you keep her close to you and show affection. And I think it’s more important to show her loyalty.
So, here we are as husbands, leaving our fathers and mothers, and being called to cleave to our wives. We just shared with you, in the Hebrew, the nuances of what that word cleave really means. The Holy Spirit tells us here in Proverbs 5:18, as it speaks to the man, saying, “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.” Rejoice with the wife of thy youth: now, we’ve seen different times in the Bible where the men had gone off and married pagan women. Then the Spirit of God brought revival back into the land in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, who reproved and rebuked them: “Get rid of all those foreign wives and their children, and go back to the wife of your youth (amen?), that holy covenant that you swore.” What is it that’s so binding? What is it that keeps that union together? Why may we put those pagan women and children away? The reason is because they serve other gods. “You go back to the wife with whom you made covenant before Jehovah”; amen?
Our communion, no matter what happens in any marriage, is in the Lord Jesus Christ: that’s what we’re committed to. And, if we’re committed to Him and to His Lordship and to His Kingdom, we can surely work out all this other stuff. The way we work it out is by trying to out‑love one another: dying to self and looking to the total wellbeing of that individual.
But then he says that, if you marry, then you have that responsibility; you have the responsibility, the obligation, to care for your wife and your family, which is just as spiritual as being out on the street preaching the Gospel. It’s just as spiritual to be home with your family making sure your family’s needs are being met and that they’re being prepared for the kingdom. Now, what does that do? That doesn’t mean that the family just hides out and stays at home alone. If you’re bringing them the right instruction from the Lord, you will then be leading your family into fellowship and communion with the body of Christ where there is that mutual edification. I like what the Holy Spirit says there: “When you enter into that covenant, then you have that responsibility to know how to please your wife.” That crosses a whole spectrum of needs concerning your wife that you need to be aware of.
It’s important for your wife to know that you’re still pursuing her, that you still find her attractive to you primarily in the very being and the spirit of her person, which is that meek and quiet spirit within her that attracts you, that godliness within her, that purity within her that attracts you to her. Also, from the perspective of the physical, you are to cleave to your wife, which means you keep her close to you and show affection. And I think it’s more important to show her loyalty.
So, here we are as husbands, leaving our fathers and mothers, and being called to cleave to our wives. We just shared with you, in the Hebrew, the nuances of what that word cleave really means. The Holy Spirit tells us here in Proverbs 5:18, as it speaks to the man, saying, “Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.” Rejoice with the wife of thy youth: now, we’ve seen different times in the Bible where the men had gone off and married pagan women. Then the Spirit of God brought revival back into the land in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, who reproved and rebuked them: “Get rid of all those foreign wives and their children, and go back to the wife of your youth (amen?), that holy covenant that you swore.” What is it that’s so binding? What is it that keeps that union together? Why may we put those pagan women and children away? The reason is because they serve other gods. “You go back to the wife with whom you made covenant before Jehovah”; amen?
Our communion, no matter what happens in any marriage, is in the Lord Jesus Christ: that’s what we’re committed to. And, if we’re committed to Him and to His Lordship and to His Kingdom, we can surely work out all this other stuff. The way we work it out is by trying to out‑love one another: dying to self and looking to the total wellbeing of that individual.