Amen turn place to first Peter chapter three first Peter chapter three. We're going to talk about unequally yoked wives of all subjects. But that's where we happen to be today. And we're in first Peter chapter three verses one through six is what it says on your outline. But we won't even get anywhere near that because of the way we're going to divide it up. We're going to deal with verses one and two today. We're going to deal with them very fully. And then next week we'll talk about wives in a more general sense, in a more Christian sense, and in a more applicable sense to all ladies. But I think today's message is applicable to everybody. If you listen closely, you may be a male, but you will benefit from today's message. You may be a child, you can benefit. You can be a married woman, you can benefit. This is not going to be exclusively to ladies who are single or ladies who I'm married to unbelievers, but certainly that is the target audience, just as Peter makes it his target audience. So let's just read the first six verses together. First Peter three. Likewise, you wives be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear. And that's what we're going to study today. But just for context, let's read a little more. Do not let your beauty be that outward adorning of a ranging in the hair, or wearing of gold, or of putting on fine apparel, but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands. As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror. Amen. If all goes according to plan, just think how nice this is going to work out. We're going to have this message today, two more messages for the ladies, a message geared to the graduates, and then on Father's Day we'll deal with verse 7, which will be about fathers. So, let's see if the plan works according to plan. I want to deal with an issue that's very relevant to our society today, and I want to recommend a book. This book goes into greater detail that I'm going to be able to go into in this particular message, but the book is called A Beloved Unbeliever by a woman named Jo Berry. I believe she's deceased and gone to be with the Lord now. Now, I will say this. I don't 100% endorse the book. I would give it a 95 to 97% endorsement. There's a couple things in here I think that could be stated better. I think there's a couple theological issues that probably were misstated. They're pretty easy to find, and I think a discerning woman that's trained well at the church here can find them. I don't think it's devastatingly bad, but I just wanted to let you know. It's not 100% approval, but there is some excellent and really, really good and helpful material in this book. Now, this book's going to be available in our book room next week, Lord willing. We've got them on order. Really, she has a great perspective on some things that will help us tremendously. And I was blessed this week as I read the book again and remembered how good it was. Jean Witten reminded her, actually was the first one to tell me about this book many, many years ago. And the Lord's worked great ways in Jean's life there. So that's just my way of further delving into this issue. But by way of introduction one more time, I just happened to be listening to the radio driving in my car and heard a five minute snippet from of all people Dr. Laura. Now I love to switch around the radio stations and listen to different things and get my buttons turned. I got ten different stations I can listen to and I'll usually just flip on through until I find something of interest. This one struck me of interest. Dr. Laura was talking to a lady and this lady was very upset because this lady was a Roman Catholic and she wanted to have her baby baptized and her husband would not allow it. I said our baby will not be baptized. And the lady was calling Dr. Laura to find out how she could convince her husband to let her have the baby baptized. And Dr. Laura said I will not convince your husband to baptize the baby. In fact you're going to have to get used to having an unbaptized baby. And the lady was horrified. How could I do that. She said well then you shouldn't have married. a man that's not a Roman Catholic, if it was so important to you to have your baby to be baptized. Now that's worldly wisdom, but it's also 100% correct if you think about it. You know, how important really was it to that woman? Well, it wasn't important enough that she knew he was not a Roman Catholic when she dated him. She knew he was not a Roman Catholic when she married him. And that was all fine and dandy. She was willing to do it. But then when the baby came, she wanted to baptize the baby. And Dr. Laura just gave her a reality check. Sorry, this is the choices that you made. This is what you've decided to do. And you're going to have to accept. That's the way that it is. Well, we're going to be dealing with an issue like that, but not from a Roman Catholic perspective and not having anything to do with baptizing babies. We're going to deal with it from a Christian perspective. And so what I want to do first is examine the grammar of this of these two verses. And it's a very interesting way that Peter puts all this together. I know some of you have your Greek Bibles. and to follow along in the Greek Bible if you have them as we do this. And if you don't, I've written it out in English so that you can follow along in your English Bible. But the tenses and the phrases and the very words that are used were done purposely into a masterful sentence by Peter. So, open your scriptures and let's look at it word by word. It says, likewise you wives. And likewise means, of course, in the same way, but it doesn't mean exactly the same way. What it does is it ties together with what we've already seen. We've seen that we've been told to be submissive to government. Slaves have been told to be submissive to their masters. Likewise, wives are to be submissive to their husbands, but not in exactly the same way that a slave would be submissive to the master. Obviously, there's going to be differences. If there weren't differences, they would simply be told, OK, do what the slaves do. But Peter doesn't say do what the slaves do. He says, likewise, we're going to talk about submission now for you wives. And then he goes on and talks about how to do that. And of course, governmental submission is different than submission to slaves. And we as Christians are all to be submissive one to another and have compassion for one another and love as brothers. And that's how it all ends. Chapter 3, verse 8, look at that. Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous. There's the capstone to this little mini-series that we have within Peter of submission. We'll deal with that when we get to verse 3, 8. That will tie the whole thing together. But likewise, brings it into this whole context of submission that started in chapter 2, verse 13. Let's take a look at that verse. Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether the king is supreme or the governors. And then it goes on down. And of course, submission is the governing theme for these verses here. And then he tells the wives to be submissive. Now, it's not a command. This is not in the imperative sense. And if you have a Bible translation that does this, you'll notice that B is in italics. And the reason that is, is it's a present participle. which could be translated being submissive, and he's not telling them this is what they ought to do. He's actually saying this is what you are and this is what you're supposed to do. He's not chastising them and saying, OK, you unsubmissive wives, get into line. He's made to say, keep on being submissive. Be what you are. To your own husbands. To your own husbands. It limits the submission. Not to every man. to your own husband that if any do not obey. Now, yet, it's not being called into question whether the husbands disobey because they're going to do that by very nature, the fact that they're lost. This is in the present active indicative, which means they continuously, they actively and in reality, they do disobey. This is exactly what they do. Even these kinds of husbands need to be obeyed. Limited by the fear of the Lord. We'll talk about that in just a little bit. And of course, a Christian always refuses to sin, even when his authority commands that he does. Those are limitations on it. If your government authority tells you to bow to the idol, you give your life instead of bowing to the idol, right? And so there's limitations and there's limitations here, too. But as a general rule and in a regular course of action, The Christian wife is to submit and obey her lost husband because he really is a husband. He actually does fulfill that role. And then there's a play on words in the next two. Obey the word that they may without a word be one. This has to do with a play on words in the Greek because we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So the wife will naturally want to preach to her husband. But that's not how you win it. You see it's not by preaching the word. Now I will give this caveat. If your husband asks you what is the gospel. and wants to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, by all means, tell him. If he's asking you about the gospel, please do so. But we're talking about actively disobeying, disobedient husbands. They want nothing to do with this Lord Jesus Christ. They want nothing to do with this Christianity. Then don't go around preaching to them. Don't go around leaving tracks, trying to hope that he'll just happen to find them. Don't go around leaving your Bible open to certain passages, maybe with an arrow pointing to it, so he'll see. You know, don't do that. There's something else you can do and it's what you're supposed to do. Your conduct. This word conduct is used twice. The conduct of the way you see talk is cheap but a changed life can mean something and he can be one. That's a future passive by the way. You know God's Word is amazing. It just astounds me sometimes when I'm reading it. I mean it almost sounds dumb to say this but God is so brilliant. I mean it sounds dumb to say that but it's just astounding because you read the Word of God and you see even the very tenses that he used are exactly the perfect tense to use to put this in the future that he may be one. And to put it in the passive, that it obviously would be God that would be doing the work in his heart. It wouldn't even be the work of the wife. It should be a means that would be used, but it would be the work of the Holy Spirit that would be used. It wouldn't be his decision. It's a passive thing. He would be one to the Lord. This is the goal. Now, it's not a guarantee, but the wife can be a means that God will use to save her husband. by living her life before him. As he observes her chaste conduct, chaste means pure, chaste means virtuous in this particular sense. She's behaving like a Christian. She's behaving like a woman that's a Christian ought to behave. Again, it's in the present participle. which means that she's continuously doing this. It's a day-by-day, 24-7 thing that she's doing. She's a changed individual living a changed life before a man who is not changed. He's the same as he was. But he ought to be able to, in all honesty, say, something's different about my wife. She's not the girl that I married. And hopefully, he would come to the conclusion that she's better. than the girl I married. However, because of lost people's antipathy to the gospel, he may not like the changes that he sees going on. That's a reality, too. And the whole thing ends accompanied by fear. And is he talking about reverence and fear for the husband? Grammatically, it's not possible to know for sure, but I've got a feeling, and it's my belief from the totality of Scripture, that really the fear that Peter is talking about is not the subjective kind of fear of man, because we're not to be men facers, but it's the fear of God that we find back in chapter 2, verse 17, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Just like slaves are not to fear their masters in the worst sense of the word, they're to fear God and serve their masters. So it is with the wives. They don't have to fear their husbands. They're to fear God and serve their husbands in the role that they have. And respect for the husband is dealt with, but it's dealt with by the example of Sarah with Abraham. So that'd be my interpretation of that there. But like I say, the grammar is inconclusive. So that's basically the grammatical check of what we're looking at. And we, in some ways, have touched all of the points that I want to make today. I just want to expand upon them now in your outline form. First of all, let's see the challenges and the motivations for those that are unequally yoked. There are challenges that a woman faces that's a Christian that has a lost husband. There's the challenge of submission, because let's face it, that's a difficult thing to do. It's a difficult thing to submit to a lost man. And these challenges were very real in the first century because the way it was designed in the first century was such that it was expected in that Greek culture of the Roman world that a woman would have the same religion as her husband. How do you think about that? What if he was a worshiper of Zeus? Then it was just expected that she would worship Zeus. But she can't. And so there's a real problem here, right? You've got a true life situation that's extremely difficult. In the first century, the man chose the family religion. And whatever he was, it was assumed the family would be. Now, just like today, there are many men that will tell you that they're Catholics, but they would never go to a Catholic church. You ask them if they're Catholic, they say, yeah, I'm a Catholic. That's what they say that they are. But it's OK with them if their wives were to attend a Christian church, for instance. No, much the same thing in the first century. Those things haven't changed a whole lot. And of course, a woman in that case ought to attend a Christian church. And so that's a good thing. Peter gives some sound biblical admonitions that are relevant and timeless and still applicable for today. The woman's husband may be lost, but he's still her husband in every sense of the word. They are not somehow less married. Because one's a Christian and one's not a Christian. And then there's the challenge of living like a Christian. And that's going to be very hard to do. And you've got to be in submission to someone who himself is not in submission to God. Now, this becomes relevant on many levels, like I say, but we are speaking to unequally yoked wives. But I hope if you're not in that situation, you can make a broader application in other ways, too, because it does apply. But it's very hard when you're to be in submission to one who himself is not in submission to God. The challenge is greater. The challenge is real. And this is why we beg the young girls of our congregation to not get involved with lost men. Because you just don't understand how difficult things are going to be. You have no idea. There's a flip side. Christian men marrying lost women. That's true. But you know what this is the book that the challenge is even greater for women because women have been told that they have to submit to their husbands. So it's even more for women as much as this is true for men. It's even more critical for women because whatever man you decide to marry girls understand this. This is going to be your spiritual head in the Lord. And if you can't respect him as a spiritual head of the Lord, he ought not to be your husband. You ought not to marry him, at least if he's already your husband. We'll talk about that in a moment. You don't have a choice to make. The choice has already been made, right? But if you're single, then you need to look for a man who will be the spiritual head that you can submit to and follow him as he follows Christ. It's that serious. It's that severe. And then there's the challenge of silence. And what I mean by the challenge of silence is the fact that the women are told you have to be preaching you have to be his preacher. God's basically saying I'm sovereign. I can send the word to him. I can send the messenger to him. What I need for you is to be the example of the Christian in his own house. That's a challenge but that's exactly what God says. Now, there's motivating factors for the woman married to an unbeliever, and that's given here in the text, too. The motivating factors are, as we already said, the fear of God, of course, the desire for his salvation, and this we actually see from the language also. There's what we would call a hena clause in here. However, for those of you that do know Greek, it's not the typical hena clause that goes with the subjunctive, but it basically functions the same way. There's a purpose, and there's a motivation for her. She desires to see her husband to be one, that he may be one. She desires to see his conversion. That's a legitimate goal. It's not a guarantee that it'll happen, but it's what she wants to see happen. And the way that she is allowed to help bring it about is by living her life. And then, of course, the motivating factor is just she's a wife. All the duties that belong to a Christian wife belong to her. So she's to model those duties and serve God by being a Christian wife. You know, again, a Christian girl starts dating a lost man and forming a romantic relationship with him. And soon she's in love. And you just hear it. You know, I've had it happen too many times to hear people talking this way. And the girl just said, well, he's so handsome and he's so funny and he's so kind. And he's so respectful. And all these things to be true. But there's one thing that she's forgetting. He has an unchanged heart. And he doesn't bow to Jesus Christ, the Lord. And that brings us to the stark contrast between a believer and unbeliever. Turn to Second Corinthians, Chapter six. Because there is a stark contrast between a believer and unbeliever. How many times do we talk about that in the church? Why do we talk about it so much? Because the Bible talks about it so much. It's continually coming up in the Scriptures. There's two kinds of people in the world. Believers and unbelievers. The stark contrast between a believer and unbeliever is found very explicitly in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, where he... we'll just read the first part of verse 14 to start with. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Now, Paul is alluding to an Old Testament example here. I'm going to make a long story short. Basically, the whole idea was in that agricultural day of yoking two animals together. A yoke is that thing you put around their neck, and you'd have a yoke around one animal's neck, and you'd pull a plow. But if you wanted to have more horsepower, so to speak, in that day, I mean, you didn't rev up your carburetor or work with your fuel injector engine. Instead, what you did is you would yoke two animals together. So, one ox could do a really good job, but just think of the power of two oxen, yoked together, pulling through that field. That's a very powerful force, and an oxen was a very great thing to have. But there were some Old Testament prohibitions, some of them given for practical reasons, but really they had symbolic reasons behind them, too. Typical reasons, so to speak. We're told in the Old Testament not to yoke a donkey and an ox together. Now, obviously, there's some practical reasons why you wouldn't do that, because that ox is going to be dragging the donkey behind, you know, the donkey can't pull like an ox can. So, very practically, there's a reason for it. And you're not going to be able to go straight, because there's going to be this pull. But it also was to show the children of Israel that God does make a distinction between you and the lost ones around you. You're Israelites. You belong to me. You're mine. And there were a lot of these ceremonial, we would call them, laws given that way about mixing of garments and such like that to show them the purity that God required. So there's the Old Testament example that Paul's alluding to, do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And what does the unequal yoke include for Christians? Well, it isn't just marriage, that's for sure. But it certainly does include marriage, which is the closest of all human relationships. It's any kind of an equal partnership where we throw our lot in together and willingly put ourselves on an equal footing or underneath unbelievers. And what would be some examples of that? Well, marriage, of course, would be one of them. Business partnerships. I'm not talking about working for a lost man or for a lost corporation. And I'm not talking about hiring lost people to work for you. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You can hire people, you can work for people. But when you're an entrepreneur and you start your own business, what you ought not to do is form a 50-50 equal partnership with a lost man in the same business. Again, I've seen this happen. I can think of a man right now. that ended up bankrupt because he did that. He had a dream. And he had this dream after his career was over, starting his own business. And he wanted to have this business and this shop that he wanted to have. But he didn't quite have enough capital to do it. So he found another man that had the same dream and the same goals and the same desire. So they started this business together. And he was actually warned by Pastor Martina at the time, who was here, not to do it. He said, don't form this unequal partnership. And the man went ahead and did it anyway. And sorry to say it was disastrous because what happened is the other man wanted to do shady business practices, skim a little here, skim a little there, do this, do that. The Christian man, of course, couldn't do it, but he was in 50-50 partnership. What could he do? Well, the advice was, why don't you sell your part to the other man? But he didn't do it. And next thing you know, no more business. Business ceased to exist many years ago. A horrendous story. But it was an example of an unequal yoke and what can happen. So like I said we mustn't take this too far and we certainly don't want to have any prohibition about you can only work for a Christian or you can only have Christians working for you. That is not what the scriptures are talking about. But we're talking about equal partnerships. Let us beware. And the intimate fellowship and companionship. Again, don't take it too far. It's not that you can't have lost friends. You ought to have some lost friends to tell you the truth as much as they will let you because you can be a witness to them and you can be a guide to them. But your closest intimate fellowship ought to be with Christians. Because truthfully, only a Christian can understand your heart. See, you can have friends that are lost and you can relate to them on a human level. Because they're human beings and they're made in the image of God. And they're not dirty and unclean if you touch them. That's a wrong idea. A very wrong idea. But when it comes down to sharing those most intimate, personal things that touch the heart of myself as a Christian, how can I bear my heart, truly, to a lost friend in a way they could possibly understand? Because my motivation is going to be towards the Lord Jesus Christ. My motivation could be towards his glory. My motivation is going to be to desire to do what he wants. And no slight of the loss, man and woman, but they can't understand that. How could they possibly understand that? They don't have it within them to understand that. So your most intimate fellowship and companionship has to do with the equal yoke and membership in a church. Interestingly enough. And here's where I will say something positive towards ourselves as Baptists and against many of our brethren that we love tremendously that believe in infant baptism. One of the great veins and things that happens with infant baptism is you actually bring unbelievers into the membership of the church and they're not converted. But they've been baptized as babies and they're members in good standing. And in most churches, they'll remain members in good standing unless they conscientiously deny the faith. And so, if they can just be decent, they'll be baptized, grow up in the church, never be converted, but just sit there and nominally participate and mouth certain words and be there occasionally and do their thing and they could grow to be 90 years old and die and be proclaimed what a fine Christian person this was. And they never even knew the Lord at all. And I'm not exaggerating. This happens. It's exactly the bane of Protestantism. It's the bane of Protestantism, which I believe, many will disagree, but I believe is a carryover from Roman Catholicism. It's the bane of Protestantism that really has a rotten root to destroy the church from within. The church is to be made up of professing believers. Now the objection comes back. Heard it many, many times from brethren that I love. Well, you say that and all that's well and good, but you can't guarantee to me that every single person in your church is a Christian. I agree. We do not guarantee that every single member of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church is a Christian. But I will tell you this. Every single member of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church is a professed Christian. They've made a profession of faith. They said they're a Christian. In charity, we believe them. We have reason to believe them by examination of their life. And if they prove by their life to not be a Christian, they'll be disciplined and removed from the church. What more can you do as a human being? We can't know 100 percent, but God knows 100 percent. What we ought not to be doing is indiscriminately bringing lost people in that we know are lost, and making them to be members of the church, and Christianizing them, so to speak. That may be offensive to some. That's probably not offensive to any of you out there, but believe me, that would be really offensive to some people to talk that way. But the contrast between a believer and an unbeliever could not be more stark. Because no matter how you dress up a pig, it's still a pig, right? You put a bow on it, Clean it all up. Looks really nice. Still looking. And what does this say about a believer and unbeliever? I ripped it out of your outline there. Righteousness compared to lawlessness, light compared to darkness, Christ compared to Belial, and the temple of God with idolatry. Let's read what the scriptures have to say, coming right from the scriptures. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness, and what communion has light with darkness, and what accord has Christ with Belial, or what part has a believer with an unbeliever, and what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. I'll be a father to you and you'll be my sons and daughters, says the Lord God Almighty. Amen. It's the way to live your life. There is black and white. God telling us what we ought to do. Just turn back to 1 Corinthians 7, just for a minute. Let's get back to talking about a believer married to an unbeliever. And what if the unbeliever doesn't want to be married to the Christian? Doesn't like the changes that have happened and doesn't want to stay with the Christian? This is a real possibility and something that does happen. We are presupposing, and the Bible presupposes, that when we have these unequal marriages, that the woman, in this case, or the man in this particular case of our degree has come to Christ after after the marriage which is very common access the most common way to be on equally open to talk about how to become an equally open just a few moments. But the most common way is that God saves one spouse and has saved the other at least yet the most common way. First Corinthians chapter 7 verse 10. Now to the married I command yet not I but the Lord. A wife is not to depart from her husband, but even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. But to the rest, I, not the Lord, say, and that doesn't mean that it's not inspired. It simply means that what he said in the first part was found in the Gospels. What he's about to tell you now is not found anywhere in the recorded words of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, so don't let that trouble you that way. But to the rest, I, not the Lord, say, If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And if a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. Why? Because they're really married. Because the marriage is real. Because the children that they have are legitimate children that are actually blessed by God in the way that God has designed for marriages to take place. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife. and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they're holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? For how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? It would be against the scriptures to drive out your unbelieving husband or drive out your unbelieving wife by poor behavior or by acting discontented or not fulfilling your role. That would be against the scriptures. But if you live as you ought to live and you do as you ought to do and your husband or your wife says that's enough of this. I don't want anything more to do with it. Well, maybe the Lord didn't save them as you wished, as your motivation. But you know what? The Lord freed you. Because when you're not in bondage, you can actually even remarry. And there's such a case like that when they're divorced. Now, some Christians disagree. And we're always willing to talk to you about divorce and remarriage and issues like that. But basically, that's the way that I would read it. If you're not into bondage, it's just like he died. It's just like she died. If they leave you for those reasons and it's not your fault and you didn't do anything wrong, Well Lord answered your prayer in a different way and that shouldn't be our goal. That shouldn't be what we're trying to do. That's not what we're trying to accomplish. But in the sovereignty of God that sometimes is what happens. Well. With all that being said and done, oh, by the way, there is one other thing to talk about infant baptism just a few moments ago. This particular passage is sometimes used to try to prove infant baptism, and it does not. It has nothing to do with infant baptism at all. When it says your children are holy or your children are sanctified, it's basically the same root word of the same root family as what the unbelieving wife is or the unbelieving husband. And I don't know anybody that has a doctrine that says, well, if the husband becomes saved, then automatically the wife and the children are saved. I don't know anybody that has a doctrine that says if the wife is saved, the husband is automatically saved and the children are automatically saved. But a lot of times you will have people use that same group word. And that's what you see right here. It says that Shonah Holy proves that they're saved. Such is not the case at all. It's talking about pure, talking about legitimate, that it's right in the sight of God. There's nothing wrong at all about it. And so the passage is sometimes misunderstood. Okay, back to 1 Peter chapter 3. And this is where we'll close this morning. How does a woman become unequally yoked? How does this take place? We already touched on one of the ways. And the most common way, and the way in which there's absolutely no sin at all involved, is when God saves the lady after they've already been married. Now, that's not sinful in the least. There's no sin involved. In fact, that's where you can absolutely trust in the sovereignty of God. And you can pray and say, God, you're the one that put me in this situation. You're the one that has designed to save me. Now, by your grace and mercy, will you help me to live? And will you save my husband? While you have no guarantees that such will be the case, you certainly have the sovereignty of God to rest upon that he did save you. He pulled you out of the muck. He pulled you out of the mire. He found you when you were not looking for him. And he can do the same for your husband, too. The Bible tells you how to live that way. There's no sin involved and there's a great deal of hope. And I think what we can see in First Peter here is that Peter is presupposing this is the case. He's addressing first generation Christians and exhorting them to trust God for the salvation of their spouse, to trust him and leave their husband's salvation to him. And we can see that in the scriptures. You don't preach him into the kingdom, but you live a godly life before him. And God can send others to do the preaching. You know it's just plain fact that it's very unlikely that the husband's going to listen to his wife. Very unlikely that the husband's going to want to be instructed by his wife. As I said if he asks you by all means if he says I'd like to go to church with you. OK. Yeah. Let him go. That's great. You know that's a blessing. But such may never be the case. And this is where the book Beloved Unbeliever really excels really is some practical good attitudinal advice of how you can live your life under such a situation like that for Joe Barry understood something that I really picked up as I read it especially this time around. She said a lot of times wives very subtly believe that their husbands are less than what a husband ought to be because they're lost. Scriptures don't teach that. Scripture teaches that they are a husband. They really are a husband. It's very easy for Christian women to look down on their husbands as somehow being inferior. And such must not be the case. Great book in that regard. There's another way that it happens. And I've seen this one happen in my own family. He proves himself to be a false believer. He proves himself to be a false believer. This can happen in so many ways I touched on. Sometimes the church aids and abets this by proclaiming someone a Christian is not a Christian, be it by baptism or by a decision that came forward in an altar call. And now we know he's Christian. Yeah, the church can aid and abet such a situation. And it ought not to be in the business of doing that. Or maybe he's a hypocrite. He lied to her. Or maybe he was saved for years. And he fell away. There was no way for her to know. Everybody thought he was a Christian. Everybody believed that he was. He fooled everybody. I don't know what you can do about that. It happens. It could be hard to discern. Happened in my own family, but it was more of a decisionism type of thing. There's someone I know, married a fellow that had made a decision. I'm talking about the very week after they were married. He basically said, I'm never going to church again. I don't want to hear anything about God again. He was abusive. He was vile in just about every way you could imagine. Finally, she left him. And we were all glad. We were all very glad. This guy was above, of the worst order. But he was proclaimed to be a Christian. People thought he was because he made a decision. But I think people closer to the situation knew a little bit better. I wasn't involved in that. That was a little before my time. But you know, Seek godly counsel and advice. You should always get premarital counseling and you should listen to it. Even if you don't like what's being said, you need to listen to it. Listen to your parents, especially if they're Christians. Listen to your pastors. They watch for your soul. Listen to your Christian friends. They care about you. Don't get the Romeo and Juliet complex going that says, well, the whole world's against us, but love will make it happen because people forget the way that Romeo and Juliet ends. OK, we got the Romeo and Juliet complex going. We've already advised you to read the play and find out how it ends. And that's probably what will happen to you, too. Get some objective advice. And if they tell you what you don't want to hear, listen to them anyway. Because maybe your heart is talking and you should be listening to your head or to God's word. And if in doubt, don't. If in doubt, Don't marry the person. Because once you marry them, it's not too late. You don't have a choice. You have a choice before. Submit to your own husband. Once you're married, you don't have a choice anymore. You're not supposed to submit to every single man. So don't marry someone that you can't submit to. And don't ever fall into the trap of thinking that marriage is going to make a man better. Because now he doesn't have to be on his best behavior. Now he doesn't have to impress you. Now he doesn't have to do all the things and win you and woo you. Don't think he's going to get better. Somehow I'll change him, make him better. You won't make him better. Don't ever think that way. That's God's protection for you. Some people get angry. They say, well, why hasn't God given more protection to the woman? Why hasn't God watched over her better? Why doesn't He make him submit to these lousy men? God's given you all kinds of protection. Just women don't use it. Christian women often don't use the protection that God has given to them, and hence the difficulties that come. There's another way. A woman might just plain be unaware of the biblical teaching. Believe it or not, there's women that go to church and no one ever told them. One of the things that we purpose here is that we're never going to let that happen. Someone comes to church here, they're going to hear it. They're going to know. They don't have to come very long. I mean, this is a theme that we kind of pound on a lot. I don't usually spend entire messages on it. It just happened to come this way. But how many times have you heard me talk like this? I mean, many, many times. It's a theme we talk about a lot. But there's ladies right now in church. They're in church who told me. If someone would have told me that, I wouldn't have married the guy I married. That's what I said. I wouldn't have married him. No one ever told me. I was unaware. That's sad. Some churches just don't do a very good job teaching. So it is possible that this can be done in ignorance. And you know what? There is a cure for ignorance. Become educated. It's not wrong to be ignorant, but we don't want people to remain ignorant. So we train and we teach. And then here's a subtle one that happens in a really very, very common in evangelical circles. Oh, I know he's lost, but I'll win him later. I'll win him later. And all I can say is this really comes from very bad theology. This is horrendous theology. And it really springs from Arminianism if you think about it, because basically the presupposition is all a man has to do is make a decision. If he'll just pray his Jesus prayer, then he'll be fine. And eventually he's bound to do that. If I harangue him enough and talk to him enough and convince him enough and get enough people praying for him, Or maybe she is a Calvinist and has a perverted view of God's sovereignty. I'll go ahead and do this and God will make it all work out for my good anyway. And you know what? The Bible tells us, Romans 8, 28, that all things do work together for good to those that love God, to those that are called according to His purpose. So, in some ways, you'd have to say, yeah, it will work out for your good. But the way that it works out and the good that it brings may not be anything that you would ever have wanted or anything that you ever would have desired. The good may be your learning to live for God in the midst of very difficult circumstances. It may be that you'll become an object lesson for others to not make the same mistake that you made. That's good, but I don't think it's the kind of good that you want for your own life. And then the last way. We don't have a lot of hope in this one but the last way is just pure outright rebellion against God. I know what God says I know what everyone's saying. I'm going to do it anyway. Do it my own way. I'm going to do it anyway. One of the most important things for a Christian to do is to pray isn't it. We pray we seek the Lord's face and what Christian is that doesn't pray. I would put it this way. If you don't pray, you're not a Christian. Every Christian prays. Most every Christian is ashamed of their prayer life and don't pray as much as they wish that they would pray and as much as they desire to pray. But I'll tell you this, every Christian does pray. How are you going to ask God's blessing on your marriage when you purposely rebelled against Him when you entered into it? You purposely rebel against God Kind of like, in your face, God. Now bless me. It's rebellion. It needs to be seen for what it is as rebellion. May God preserve us from such a rebellious attitude. You know, the best defense against all these problems is don't get involved in the unequal yoke. And for those that are in that situation, trust God. Trust God and his sovereignty. God is for you. God is with you. There's things that you can do. You can live a fruitful Christian life. It may be a different kind of Christian life than others are called to live, but you can live a fruitful Christian life through his praise and to his glory. God tells us so right here in First Peter, chapter three, verses one and two. May the Lord convince us there really is a difference between those whose father is God and those who are children of the devil. Let's look to the Lord in prayer.