Well, it's great to be with you tonight and look forward to this for quite a while. And it's great to be with Pastor Ventura and his wife, Vanessa, and also to see my former student, Michael Ives, and his wife, Aubrey, and see their families grow up. It's a great Great thing. It's just a beautiful thing to see God-fearing families, isn't it? Sometimes you wonder, why doesn't the world catch on when they see happy, God-fearing Christian families and wonderful marriages? Can't they see the difference? So that's what we're going to be looking at, working on this weekend. Pastor Ventura asked me to speak about how we can cultivate scriptural marriages, how you can really love your spouse in a scriptural way. We'll look at that this evening. Tomorrow morning, we want to look at the whole subject of family worship. And tomorrow evening, how we should train our children. And all three of these talks I want to give you, I hope You're looking for this because this is what it's going to be. I want to make it very practical. I want to get down to the nuts and bolts of how you implement things, what you do as Christians based, of course, on Scripture itself. This evening, what I want to do is then read with you from Ephesians 5. And I'm going to be looking at this passage through the eyes of Paul, but also through the eyes of the Puritans, who, by the way, wrote more on this passage than any other group of writers in church history. And then I also, since this is not technically a sermon tonight, I want to mix in with the message some of my own practical observations. I mean, been a minister and a counselor for thirty-five years and having counseled many, many couples, I'm going to be intermixing my talk with some practical conclusions that I come to based on the Word of God as well as what the Puritans have set before us. So if we turn then to Ephesians 5, you know this is of course the most famous passage setting before us the best theology of marriage in all of Scripture. And we begin then at verse 20. Hear the Word of God. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ in the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you, in particular, so love his wife, even as himself. And the wife see that she reverence her husband. so far the reading of sacred scripture. The Puritans wrote more about marriage than any group of writers up to the contemporary scene. C.S. Lewis said that we owe to the Puritans the whole concept of romantic love in marriage. Now, that may surprise you because you may have heard the caricatures of Puritans that they were actually rather prudish and not very physically intimate with their wives. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. In the ancient church, many of the ancient church fathers, unfortunately, thought that physical intimacy in marriage was a negative thing. And, well, you had it to have children, but really it was sinful. And therefore, the less, the better. Augustine, as much as we admire him in many areas, had a lot of struggles with his own inward lusts. And he continued and perpetuated, actually enhanced that kind of conviction so that Roman Catholicism could say by the time of Pope Gregory in 590 that it was better for a man not to marry at all. And therefore, if you were higher up on the church ladder, if you were to be a priest or anything higher, you weren't allowed to marry because physical closeness and real love in marriage was a sinful thing. Now, it was the Reformers, a thousand years later, that came along and said, we are just going to get married anyhow, and we believe in marital love. But the Reformers were so busy defending things like worship and justification by faith alone that they didn't have time to write manuals on marriage. Actually, the four major Reformers were blessed with wonderful wives, every one of them, Luther, Calvin, Knotts, Zwingli, but they didn't really develop as the Puritans did, who came along a couple generations later and had more time to develop Christianity in practical directions, the whole biblical theology of marriage. So the Puritans are the first ones that wrote 300, 500, 700 pages books on how to love your spouse, how to treat each other. What are your duties to each other? William Gouge wrote a 700 page book on marriage, which, by the way, we are just I've got a copy of volume one here. We're actually making in a contemporary printing. Volume one is right here. This whole book deals strictly with an exegesis of the verses I just read to you. Building a godly home, a holy vision for family life. So now it reads, without changing any meaning, it reads as smoothly, as contemporary, as a book written yesterday. And so you can finally read, without having to struggle with the old Puritan language, what the Puritans actually said on marriage. Volume 2 hopes to come out this summer, and Volume 3 in the spring. Volume 2 will deal with how husbands and wives are to treat each other, and Volume 3, how parents and children are to treat each other. Now, William Gouge actually wrote this textbook, was the most important marital textbook of the Puritan age. If you were a Puritan minister in the 16th, 17th century, what you would do is you'd probably give a copy of this 700-page book to every couple that asked you to perform their wedding. Ask them to read the book before you marry them. You'd counsel with them a few times, and then you'd ask them to keep reading the book after they were married. Which, by the way, is why I'm so happy to see a goodly number of young people here tonight. If you're single and you're young, this is the very best time of your life to hear this talk. You need to understand the biblical principles of marriage before you begin. If you are married and you haven't been reading much biblical material on this subject, I commend you not only this book, but I commend to you a serious study of the scriptures. It's a very strange thing, isn't it, that people think that they need training in trigonometry and calculus and all kinds of subjects they've probably never used in their lifetime, and they don't train for marriage, which impacts everyday life. And so we need this kind of training that I hope to set before you through Paul's eyes and the Puritan eyes this evening. So what I want to say then, as I wind up this introduction, is that the Puritans set before us, like no other group of writers, a very healthy and exciting and biblical view of marriage. In the Middle Ages, the Pope couldn't marry, for example, but he would have all his mistresses on the side. And that was supposedly acceptable. And so sinful lifestyles were perpetuated at the expense of this beautiful relationship God calls marriage. Now, Richard Baxter, a Puritan, said it is a mercy to have a faithful friend that loves you entirely. This is a definition of marriage to whom you may open your mind and communicate all your affairs. And it is a mercy to have so near a friend to be a helper to your soul and to stir you up in the grace of God. That's a beautiful definition of marriage, unlike anything that would have been written in the first 1500 years of church history. John Dodd and Robert Cleaver, also Puritans, all the people I'll be quoting tonight are Puritans, co-authored a book. And in that book, they said this, thy wife is ordained for man like a little Zoar. She is a city of refuge. to fly to in all his troubles, and there is no peace comparable unto her but the peace of conscience. John Downing. God is the institutor of marriage. He gave the wife unto the husband to be not his servant, but his helper, his counselor, and his comforter. One of my favorite quotes, John Cotton, a New England Puritan, writes this, women are creatures without which there is no comfortable living for man. It is true, what is prone to be said of them, of governments, that even bad ones are better than none. Cotton then goes on to say, though some call a good wife a necessary evil, I say they are a necessary good. So what I want to do tonight is I want to look at four things with you. The purposes of marriage, the procedures the Puritans used, in getting married, the principles of marriage and the practices. Purposes, procedures, principles, and practices. In terms of the purposes of marriage, it's extremely interesting that the Puritans were the ones who changed the early Reformation and the Anglican view in terms of the priority of what marriage is all about. In the Anglican prayer book in the 16th century, we read this, the purposes of marriage are the procreation of children. Number one, that's a holdover, you see, from the ancient church, the medieval church. The only reason, if you're not holy enough and you had to get married, the only reason you get married would be primarily to have children. And then number two, the restraint of sin, so you keep your lusts under control. And then, oh yes, by the way, number three, to have mutual society of help and comfort to each other. Now the very early Puritan books followed that same order, because that's what everyone had always done. But by the middle of the Puritan age, by the 1640s, when the Westminster Standards were written, every Puritan writer had flipped that around. And so in the Westminster Confession of Faith, 24.2, you read this, marriage was ordained, number one, for the mutual help of husband and wife under God, number two, for the increase of mankind, that is to have children, and to supply the church with a holy seed, and number three, for the preventing of uncleanness. Much more biblical approach, according to Genesis 2.18, and of course, according to Ephesians 5, where the emphasis here is on helping each other to be godly and to serve the purposes of a God-glorifying union. So now the Puritans say the great purpose of marriage is to assist each other to walk through this life to the glory of God and to actually be an asset to each other spiritually so that The husband's role, you notice what Ephesians 5 says, the husband's role is that he might sanctify and cleanse his wife with the washing of water by the word so that he might present her on the great day without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. That's what Christ does with his bride, the church, but that's what we are to pattern ourselves after men with our wives. because we are to love our wives the way Jesus Christ loves the Church. Now, how many men do you know, when they announce to you that they're engaged and they're going to get married, if you would ask them the question, well, why are you marrying her? Would say, well, because on the great judgment day, I want to present her without spot or wrinkle before the Father in heaven. But that's what it should be. You see, I don't marry my wife, if I marry rightly, because I want A, B, C, D. I marry her because I love her and I want her to walk even more godly than she is. And I want to be the instrument in God's hand that helps her walk that godly walk. You see, that's the Puritan idea, that you are a mutual help to one another. And in being a help to one another, you are a help to your children that God will give you. And through you and your marriage and your children, you are a help to the church and you're a help to the nation. So the Commonwealth, as they would have said. So never will you find a Puritan sitting down with his wife and saying, honey, how many children would you like to have? None of that. Nor would you have a Puritan say to his wife, you know, I think. We really should have another three, four years before we try to show, you know, you're still going to school and we were busy. We have, you know, kids are expensive. None of that. Puritans would say. When you're married. You owe it to God. for the sake of the church of Jesus Christ, and for the sake of the commonwealth of England, to have children. You say, what? This is just about my family. You see, we're so individualistic in America. We just think of ourselves, you and me, maybe, and what we want. No, no, no, said the Puritans. When you get married, you're thinking of the church. You're thinking of the commonwealth. Did you notice that? is for the mutual help of husband and wife and then for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue and of the church with a holy seed. So I'm getting married to my wife so that I can present her one day without spot or wrinkle in Christ's righteousness before my father in heaven, but I'm also getting married to her so that God might bless us to have children and that we might, by the grace of God, have a holy seed And that on the great day, I might also present those children unto the Father, sanctified. And as my dad used to always say in his prayers, I heard it a thousand times, that we might be an undivided family reserved for the heavenly mansions above. You see, it's an eternal view. It's a spiritual view. It's a godly view. It's a view that lifts us up to the heavenly places. These purposes were drilled into the children by the parents in Puritan culture. Children knew, you just don't get married for selfish reasons. You get married for the sake of that spouse. And so parents would pray in the presence of their children that God would help them raise their children so that those children would be good spouses. for whoever God would bring into their pathway. Now, here, too, we're way too selfish, aren't we? I must confess that my children are 22, 20, and 17, and my firstborn hopes to get married in a few months. And for many years, when my children were young, I would pray. I realized the importance, and I would pray, Lord, bring to them good, God-fearing spouses. And to my shame, I didn't pray as much on the other side of the ledger. Lord, help us to raise these children so that they will be good, God-glorifying spouses for the ones that they will marry. That has become much more real in the last 10 years in my life, to pray both sides. Let's look for a moment then at the procedures for getting married. The procedures for getting married. I'll go through this very quickly. The Puritans said there's six steps. Number one, getting to know, to like, and to love each other. And they said this best happens in the family setting. The Puritans were wise enough to know what every middle-aged person or older knows, that you marry into a family. And so it's everyone's business in the family who you marry. You don't go off dating on the sneak and on cars alone all the time and seldom meet the family. No, no, no. In the Puritan culture, your father and your mother would help you decide who to marry as well. And they'd sit down with you and talk to you about it. You know, I would say to my son, I've been noticing this young woman in church, son, and she's very godly. I see some really helpful qualities in her, and I think in many ways she'd be a good match for you. Have you ever thought about her? A son being a good Puritan son, of course, would say, well. Dad, I really respect you, even if you felt no attraction to it. I'll pray about it for a while. So I respect your caring for me. And he'd come back two weeks later. Maybe he'd say, you know, I prayed about it and I just feel no interest. I'm very sorry, father. And I'd say, well, that's fine, son. We'll go back to prayer and won't put pressure. But you see, the parents were involved and brothers and sisters even would notice things and talk to each other about this. And when you did begin to court or date or Christian date, whatever you want to call it, you would get into each other's families and you'd play games together. You'd walk together, talk together. You'd talk about the Lord together. You'd laugh together. You'd get to know each other and get to like each other and then begin to love each other. Secondly, when you determined that you did have at least some romantic spark to that person. And you really liked and loved that person. And as you began to associate, you really felt this person had the maturity and the qualities, the biblical qualities here in Ephesians 5 and elsewhere in the Bible to be a good spouse, God-glorifying spouse. And you felt God's approval on it. And your family felt God's approval on it. And your best friends felt God's approval on it. Then at that point, If you yourself had the maturity to enter into the marriage state, you would enter into what the Puritans called a contract of espousals. And that was something similar to what we would call engagement, only it was even more serious. You'd go in front of a minister, you'd hold hands with each other, and you'd vow this, I do faithfully promise to marry you in time fitting and convenient. And we say, of course, where in the world did they get that from? Well, they say to us, where in the world did you get engagement periods from? We at least had biblical support, they would say, because such a contract is what obviously lots of daughters entered into, because the Bible says in Genesis 19, they were contracted to their husbands while they are said to have known no man. And Mary is described as a virgin espoused. And so what they would do is they'd enter into this contract. The next three Sundays in church, their names would be announced in case anyone had any lawful objections. And then they'd marry four, six, eight months later. They wouldn't do like we do in our churches, which I've always thought is a foolish thing. You announce the names for marriage two weeks before they get married. I mean, can you imagine if my son's going to get married on July 5, if two weeks before he got married, somebody were to come up with an objection? It would be a disaster. I mean, everything's prepared. This is much more practical. They're engaged, or they're betrothed, or they've entered a contract of espousals. Then it gets cleared away in the church, and they can look forward to this time of marriage. Step three is then the formal announcing to the congregation. Step four is the actual marriage ceremony. It's a religious ceremony. And it consists of the pastor administering the vows, preaching a short sermon, followed by a civil celebration. And then there were five that would that civil celebration would be going to the groom's house, no bother renting an expensive place and serving $100 meals and bankrupting the poor father of the bride. But they would go to the father's the father's house and they just have an ordinary meal. and they'd enjoy each other. And then number five, they would feast at the groom's home where witty questions and doubtful riddles of a non-risqué nature may be propounded, as one of them said. So they had a good time without being risqué. And then number six, they believed that the marriage actually was not consummated until there was physical intimacy. Now, what about principles of marriage? The Puritans built the principles of marriage on two major scriptural foundations. The first is, of course, the Christ Church principle, which you'd expect and which I read to you about from Ephesians 5. Now, here's what they said about this. And look with me now at Ephesians 5. When it comes to the husband, the husband's main duty, is to love his wife. And the reason why love is emphasized is because in a fallen man's heart, a fallen man tends to be selfish. And so love must be emphasized. You notice it does not say, wives love your husbands. But it says submit to them. Because God knew that in a fallen woman's heart, Her witness would want to be to take everything over and not submit to her husband. So in Ephesians 5, we're having God speaking into the reality of the situation of fallen people. And it recognizes that there's no one else in the world to marry than a sinner. That's one thing I try to say at every wedding I perform. Not everybody likes it, but that's OK. When the couple's in front of me, I'll look at one of them and I'll say, now, don't expect too much of each other, because remember. Tonight, you're marrying a sinner. And you, bride, you're marrying a sinner. Don't expect each one of you to meet each other's needs completely. Only God can meet all your needs. Once had a lady come to me and say, you know, I want to divorce my husband. I said, why do you want to divorce him? And she said, he doesn't meet all my needs. I said, my dear woman, there's not a man in the world that can meet all your needs. And she went out and divorced him anyway. Got married to another man and then divorced him a couple years later. You see, that's the first thing the Puritans want to say. This whole passage is speaking into a realistic situation. We are sinners. Now, how is a man then to call, how is he called to love his wife? Well, he's called to love his wife the way Christ loves the church. Now, no man will ever fulfill that completely because we're sinners. But every godly Christian man sets us before him as the ideal and prays that he may live this way and strives to live this way. And it's just four simple things you have to do, men. Four things. Number one, you have to love your wife absolutely. Look at verse 25. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. One of my favorite Puritan stories, and this is a true story, a Puritan pastor once went to a man who just obviously loved his wife to pieces. And he came to him and he said, you know, brother, I just want to exhort you in love. I think you're loving your wife too much. And the man was very upset. And he went home and he was befuddled and confused. He said, I love God most of all. Aren't I supposed to love my wife with passion? So he thought, well, he's a good Puritan. So he thought, I got to test everything by the scriptures. So he starts searching the scriptures and he comes across this verse. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. And he said, I don't give my whole self for my wife the way Christ gave his whole self for the church. I'm not loving my wife enough. So he went back to the pastor of the church and he said, Pastor, look here. Now, remember, Puritans are very, very biblical people. And these were the days when people actually change their lives if they read something in the Bible that they weren't doing. Today, of course, for the most part, people bring their prejudices and their preconceived notions and presuppositions to the Bible, make it read the way they want it to read so they don't have to change. But not that day. So the pastor looks at that text. Hmm. Husbands love you. Does Christ love the church? You're right, brother. Go home and love your wife. Love her. Absolutely. The Puritans said you are to don't over your wife. You're to love her with passion. William Goose said. If your wife is very homely. And she has many physical deformities. And she has a very ugly personality. And she's undesirable in many ways. You are to love her and treasure her if you've married her. You're to love her and treasure her as if she's the only queen in all the world that's suitable for you. So here's the principle. Paul is saying, and the Puritans have gotten hold of, that our day desperately needs to hear. And the principle is this, that husbands, your job is your job, not your wife's job. Don't be looking across the table and saying, my wife isn't doing what she should be doing. That's not your business. That's her business. Your business is to love your wife absolutely, no matter how she treats you. And your job, wife, is to love your husband no matter how, be submissive to him no matter how he treats you. As long as he doesn't command you to sin. It goes both ways. But the point is this, you see. Let me put it this way bluntly. I said I've been doing marital counseling for 35 years. I will tell you that in all those years, in hundreds of cases, I have never yet seen a single marital couple come to me where both people were minding their own business. And how do I know that? Because I ask them the question right away. I save hours and hours and hours by doing this. I say, tell me 12 things about your marriage. Tell me three things that you love about yourself as a partner. Three things you're doing well as a husband. Tell me three things that you think you could improve on. And then tell me three things you think your wife could improve on and three things your wife does well. And if he's judging her and she's judging him, what happens in those situations is when it comes to things that they're doing well themselves, they have no trouble coming up with a one, two, three. But when it comes to, well, what does your wife do well? Oh, well, boy, what does my wife do well? Well, she's good with the kids, maybe, but nothing about him. Then you say, what three things can your wife improve on? Boom, boom, boom, they got it. You see, then I know the marriage is in deep trouble. Because he's looking at what she should be doing instead of looking at what he's doing. So love your wife absolutely, without looking across the fence at how she's treating you. Love your wife secondly, purposely. Look at verse 26. That you might sanctify and cleanse it with a washing of water by the word. So you realize your wife is not perfect. She needs to be washed. She's got spots and wrinkles. Verse 27. She has shortcomings. So you are to love her as Christ loved the church when the church isn't perfect and He loves her anyway. If you love her, then realistically, verse 27, that he might present to himself a glorious church, not even spot or wrinkle, any such thing as should be holy and without blemish. So take 26 and 27 together. This is purposely and realistically together. Our purposeful goal is to influence our wife to good. I've already talked about that. Then fourthly, you're to love your wife sacrificially. verses 28 and 29. So it meant to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his wife loves he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it even as the Lord of the church. Here's the point. Jesus sacrificed himself for the church. You men are to love your wives as your own body. That means sacrificing. If you get something in your eye, what do you do? You say, well, you go to the mirror and look in the mirror and say, well, I, you know, I'm busy right now. I'll take care of you tomorrow. No. You say, I've got something in my eye. I've got to get it out right now. Because your body's hurting. You ought to love your wife that way. Don't put her off. If she's got troubles, if she's got anxieties, talk to her now. Embrace her now. Treat her as you treat your own body. So there's your fourfold goal. You are to love your wife absolutely, purposely, realistically and sacrificially. So ought men to love their wives. Now, when you love that way, you are loving purposely the way Jesus Christ loves the church. He's your model. He's your exemplar. He's not only your Savior, but he's also your model and your exemplar for marriage. So every time, man, that you get a selfish thought in your mind, oh well, my wife this, my wife that, my wife... banish it. What if Jesus did that with the church? He would have written this off a long time ago. You keep loving that woman and treasure her. And pray for grace to come to such a point that you love her so much in her individuality that you actually... May I say it? Love her false too. Because it's who she is. And you love her as her. You see, Jesus Christ Loves the church, as she is, with all her spots and wrinkles. And so we are to do. My wife complains about herself, and she does that from time to time. She often complains that she's not as organized as she ought to be. Well, she may be right. But I say, honey, I love you so much, your lack of organization is not a problem to me. It's who you are. I love you even who you are. Because I didn't marry you to be a perfect person. I married you as you and I love you as you are. That's the way to develop a real genuine love for your wife. Now when it comes to the wife loving, or being submissive, rather, to her husband. The Bible actually speaks in the original Greek, yielding subjection to her husband in all things, except when her husband acts contrary, of course, to God and his commandments. Now, that principle holds true, said William Gooch, even if your husband is a son of Delia. That is a difficult man. Isaac Ambrose writes, a wife must be meek, mild, gentle, obedient, though she be matched with a crooked, perverse, and wicked husband. You see, the Puritans said, based on Ephesians 5, that submission is not so much a matter of hierarchy as a matter of function. God assigned roles to a husband and wife in accord with how he created them. And our fallenness gets things mixed up. But when we're renewed after the image of God, when we're born again, regenerated, and we're brought back to be prophets, priests, and kings to God, then husband and wife, you see, are to take the way God made them. God made man to be a leader. God made woman to complement the man, to be a help fitting for the man. Just the way God made us, wired us, structured us. And so we're to be that way. in marriage. The Puritan Robinson explained it this way. God created man and woman spiritually equal, and when both fell into sin, she did not become more degenerated than he from the primitive goodness. Yet in marriage, one of the two must have final authority, since differences will arise, and so the one must give way and apply to the other. This God in nature lays upon the man. But too often in our day, women think that, well, man got the better end of the deal because he gets to be the head. I'll tell you, to be the head is a lot of responsibility. You know, men, on average, die seven years younger than women. I mean, yeah, women outlive men generally. It's a lot of pressure to be the head of a home. But we are not to complain as men and say, well, we'd rather be the submissive one because it's easier. No. It's not a matter of easy or difficult. It's just a matter. This is what God designed for men. This is what God designed for women. And neither one is to complain about their role. This is just what God in his providence gave to us. And so we work with that. Now, that doesn't mean as a woman that you need to be, that you can't express your opinion. Doesn't mean as a man that you're going to have to constantly trump your wife's desires. Actually, it can work in reverse. If my wife comes to me and says, if I say to her, let's go out to eat tonight, and she wants to go to a certain restaurant, and I'd rather go to another restaurant, I don't say, well, I'm the head of the house, honey, we're going to the restaurant I want to go to. I say, I love you so much, and a restaurant choice is more important to you than to me. So naturally, I'm going to choose what you want. And so then she might say, no, no, let's do what you want. I say, no, no, I'm head of the house here. We're doing what you want. So a man who really loves his wife really ought to make it as easy as possible for the wife to submit to him. And most God-fearing women, I don't say all, certain ones have particular characters, most God-fearing women don't find it terribly difficult to submit to a man who really loves them. Often the problem with submission is that there's not a lot of love coming from them, and it's difficult for a woman to submit. But the answer, even for that, is remember, both of you, both of you, follow your own area of responsibility. And when you see that happen, it's amazing what it will do for a marriage. Let me tell you a true story. There's a couple and the man treated his wife very obnoxiously. I mean, he was he was a loser. It was bad. And you just had to admire the woman for putting up with it. And finally, she said, I'm not going to put up with many longer and I'm going to I'm going to issue a divorce papers. So she went to a lawyer. She got the divorce papers to be issued. 31 days from now, she said, I don't want to do it right away because I want to make him so miserable that I'm going to treat him wonderfully well these last 31 days so that when I leave him, he's going to really miss me. I was terribly cruel. So for the last 31 days, she just I mean, when he came home, she had the paper waiting for him and his slippers, you know, and she, you know, ushered him, sit down, relax, you know, take a nap, you know, what time would you like something? He's going like, what's going on here? You know, after about 15 days of this, you thought, wow, I really haven't been treating my wife very good. This is a great woman. And he started treating her really good. And by day 31, she fell in love with him all over again and their marriage was saved. You see, so often what happens when marriage falls apart is one partner starts treating the other one lousy and that one in turn responds and treats the other partner lousy and you get in a rut and around and around you go and the rut gets deeper and deeper until there's no return. And what Ephesians 5 is saying, what the Puritans are saying, is if you really believe in the Church, the Christ Church principle, the Church doesn't look at Christ and say, He doesn't love me enough, so I can't be submissive to Him. And Christ doesn't look at the Church and say, She's so miserable, I can't save her and love her. So it should be in marriage. And so you wives, you've got to look at your husbands and say, I've got to be submissive to you the same way I am to Jesus Christ. The church loves Jesus Christ. The church wants to submit to Jesus Christ. You want to want to submit to your husband. That's the point. So when you think of your role, men, You've got the tallest order because Christ is perfect. You've got to think of Christ. Women, you've got to think of the church in relationship to Christ. And then secondly, the Puritans built off also off the principle of the covenant based on Malachi 2.14. Now they did everything covenantally. When you join a church, it was a church covenant that you joined. You made a covenant in front of the people. There was covenants in society. There was covenants with your employers. So this was nothing new. This was natural for them. But what they did in marriage. And of course, we had something of that in the marital vows, the very marriage itself was a covenant to obey the rules, the conditions of marriage set down in the Bible without reservation. Everything about marriage was based in the scriptures. J.I. Packer put it this way. The Puritans went to Genesis for its institution, to Ephesians for its full meaning, to Leviticus for its hygiene, to Proverbs for its management, to several New Testament books for its ethic, and to Esther, Ruth, and the Song of Solomon for illustrations and exhibitions of the ideal. The marriage, the best marriage textbook on the market still today is the Bible. Follow the scriptures. And you can have a wonderful marriage. Am I talking to someone right now, tonight, and you have only a mediocre marriage, maybe not even a mediocre marriage, but on a scale of one to ten, your marriage is a three right now. What was it at its highest point? probably eight, nine, ten maybe, it can get back there. If you go back to Scripture, you reinstitute the principles of Scripture, you can at least get back, at least get back to where you were at the highest point, if not beyond. So read your Bible and then go out and live in your marriage as you should. Now, The Puritans spent more than half, more than half of their marriage textbooks dealing with mutual duties of husband and wife. And at the head of the list, and they spent dozens of pages on this, was love. Hence the title of my talk tonight, How to Love. your spouse scripturally. And basically what they said was threefold. The way to love your spouse is to love your spouse spiritually, superlatively, and sexually. Those three ways. Let's look at each of them a moment. Marital love must first of all be spiritual. It must be built on a Christ-centered foundation, cemented with a mutual use of the means of grace. Husbands and wives must rejoice in humbly worshipping God together at church and humbly worshipping God together in their own homes. They must read the scriptures together. They must sing the Psalms together, the Puritans said. Observe the Sabbath together. Partake of the sacraments together. Must pray together for each other, with each other. We must have conversational communication together about the things of God. How do you do that? I'll give you a few ways we do it in our marriage. After every sermon we're driving home, I say to my wife, how did you get fed from the sermon this morning, tonight? And we'll start a spiritual conversation. It's very important. Before you know it, when you have children, you can become like two ships passing in the night as husband and wife, doing your separate duties. And you go through the motions. If you stop conversing about the most intimate things in the world, which is spiritual things, you stop really getting to know each other's insides, your marriage will decay. And so you have spiritual conversation with her. You have your private devotions with just your wife and with your kids not around. We do that at night when we go to bed. It's a wonderful time to talk. And then each night we close it with prayer. On our knees. One night I pray. Next night my wife prays. Back and forth. I want to hear my wife pray. I want to know what's going on in her soul. Praying together is a beautiful way of developing spiritual love. It's pretty hard to be angry with a woman who's just prayed for you. Prayer does wonders. And prayer is valuable. When you have a partner, and you in marriage, when each other is in need, and you are praying for each other, even to the point of tears, you will treasure that person like no one else on earth. You need spiritual love for each other. Love that is built on physical appearance only or human gifts only will rest on a sandy foundation and can be blown down, said the Puritan William Whateley, by any storm because it's not built upon the rock. But spiritual love that looks upon God, rests upon his will, yields to his commandments, resolves to obey them and communicates together as husband and wife about things most needful, that marriage is built upon a rock and no storm shall blow it down. We underestimate prayer. I once visited one of my parishioners and she was in great pain. I knew her very well, but I'd been a pastor for maybe 20 years and I shook hands with her when I went to leave and I said, I just wish I could do something for you. The wince on her face from pain just disappeared. And she looked at me, she said, Pastor, I need to rebuke you. I said, whoa, why are you going to rebuke me? I just prayed for you. She said, that's right. You just prayed for me. And by praying for you, you did something more valuable than any physician in this hospital could do for me. Don't you ever say again to me that you wish you could do something for me when you pray for me. That's the most important thing. John Newton said, I count it one of my greatest privileges in all the world that I may believe at any point of the day and night, somewhere around this world, someone is lifting up my worthless name and lisping it in the ears of my Heavenly Father. And if that someone is your spouse, it will cultivate spiritual love. When I go up on the pulpit to preach and I'm down and discouraged, I'm driving to church, I'm kind of extra silent, I'm feeling harassed by the devil. And my wife looks at me and says, you've got it again, don't you? I said, yeah, yeah. She lays her hand on my arm and she says, it's OK, honey, he'll help you one more time. And I'll be praying for you. You understand the love I feel for that woman? When I get on the pulpit, I look out at that pew, and I know, I know she's lifting me up, moment by moment, as I'm praying to the throne of grace. I wouldn't miss praying with my wife for anything in the world. If I'm on the other side of the world, if I'm camped out in Australia doing a conference, I wouldn't think of not calling her from Australia. I don't care about the money. I've got to pray with that woman every single day. We're married 24 years now and I've never had a day I didn't pray with that woman. You've got to stay spiritually connected. That's what this is all about. These two shall be one. How can you be one without prayer? Without spiritual conversation? Without knowing each other's spiritual struggles and joys and goals and dreams and fears? Number two, your marital love must be superlative. The Puritans said, you must love each other so much that you love each other more than you love anyone else on the face of the earth. Well, how do you get there and how do you keep it? Well, I can't speak from a woman's perspective here, of course, but I can tell you from a man's perspective. But the way to love a woman superlatively is to show kindness. Just incredible kindness. And love her. Love her dearly. Love her as she is. Love her with her faults. Respect her and honor her. Tell her every day how much you love her. Shower her with affection. Verbal affection. Physical affection. Emotional affection. Spiritual affection. Seldom walk by her in the kitchen without stopping to give her a hug. Write her an affectionate letter. Give her a warm card. Tell her she's God's gift to you. Tell her she's the best thing outside of spiritual life that ever happened to you. Appreciate her. Treasure her. Keep praise and compliments on her. Compliment her with affection in your voice, with love in your eyes, and with arms of embrace. Tell her what pleases you. And then compliment her when she meets your needs. Compliment her when she shows effort and strength, even in her areas of weakness. Praise her in the presence of others, especially your own children, as the wise husband did for the Proverbs 31 woman. Have you ever met a couple whose marriage was in trouble when both people were complimenting each other every day? I never have. Learn your wife's language of love. Aim to please her. If you like roses and she likes daisies, get her daisies. It's her love. Learn to think the way she thinks. Does she treasure it when you open doors for her and she feels like a woman? Open doors. Don't miss a door. Learn to know what she likes. And tell her, under God, you love her more than anything else in the world. You see, where two people put God as number one and their spouses number two and themselves number three, they're guaranteed a good marriage. I had a woman in my church who was actually quite worldly, but she she's an affectionate woman and she had a fairly decent marriage with her husband, though it was kind of rocky. And then suddenly she got converted by reading one sermon by Octavius Winslow. And my times are in my hands. Her whole life was transformed and revolutionized. And she looked at her husband one week later and she said, husband, all my life you've been number one and now you're number two. She said, I'm going to be a much better wife to you when you're number two than I ever was to you when you were number one. Cultivate shared friendship with your wife. Shared interests. Find things to do together. Walk together. Bicycle together. Talk together. Take trips together. Do hobbies together. There's a book written by the Klinevels called The Intimate Marriage, and one of their points is that under Christ, when husbands and wives love each other, having things in common together, similar interests, and then spending time talking about it and doing those things can really show and multiply love in your marriage. Provide your wife with biblical, tender, clear, servant leadership, not ruthless authoritarianism. Be the spiritual leader of your home. Love your children. Give spiritual leadership to your children. That will please a God-fearing wife almost like nothing else. Be the family office bearer. Be a real teaching prophet, a real interceding priest, a real guiding king in your family. Shepherd your children and your wife will love you. Learn to esteem your wife more than yourself. I always tell people, the more our children turn out like my wife, the better. You know, at the same time I'm complimenting her, I'm showing that I love her more than anything else. Show affection in front of your children. That's fine. Within boundaries. Children need to see it. They need to feel the security of a loving, affectionate father and mother. When our youngest was in first grade, she brought home a picture of two large white geese and their beaks were together, kissing. That's what she thought. So she said, she wrote a note, here's you, mom and dad. She said it with so much love, she appreciated it. And of course, it has to be natural. But let affection, let love just flow through your marriage in such a way that your children just feel so good about it. It will set the whole tone for the whole home. Last week, we were somewhere. We were talking with a couple. And my daughter, just out of the blue, surprised me. I never heard her say this before. She said to the person, she said, all my life I've never seen my dad or my mom argue one time. They just love each other. Show it to your kids. You don't need to complicate this complicated world for them. By a disharmonious relationship. Love your wife. Love your husband superlatively. And that means not doing the things that destroy love. That means not criticizing your spouse ever in front of anyone else. It means not allowing any other relationship to take priority over your friendship with your wife. And it means never criticizing your spouse cruelly. I look at it this way. Small things, let them go. Basically, you don't change people anyway. Why bother to spend all the energy to criticize and bring about all the bad feeling? Major things? You need to use the sandwich principle, just like Paul did. You know how Paul criticized people? Remember that? The Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians. He first tells them how much he loves them. How meaningful they are to him. Thanks them for what they've given him. He tells them how he prays for them. Puts down one slice of bread. Then he puts in the need of criticism. But I hear this is going on. And you need this advice. And he criticizes them lovingly. And then before he signs off, what does he do? He puts down another slice of bread. He says, but don't misunderstand me. I love you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. I long to see you. Hope to be there soon. Can't wait to see you. The Apostle Paul. And they eat the sandwich. You see, it's realistic. If I criticize my wife about something, I'm not criticizing the whole woman. But if I come to her and say, oh, man, you know, I'm sick and tired of these meals. You say that we're going to eat at six o'clock and here it is seven thirty. I'm tired of this. When are you going to get the meals on time? What's she going to do under that kind of leadership? She's going to look back at me and say, well, who do you think you are, Buster? Why aren't you helping me make the meals? or something like that. This goes on in all kinds of American homes all the time. And you think to yourself, how dumb can men be? Here's the way to approach it. You go for a walk with him some night after supper. You say, honey, you're the best cook in the world. I love you. You just make wonderful meals. You have so many good qualities. I want to thank you for them. And thank you for the meals. It's really, really great. I just have one little thing I want to talk to you about. How can I help you? Because sometimes, you know, the meals are running into family worship time and then the kids have to go away. Do you think there's any way we can possibly move up the meals just a tad? But please don't get me wrong, dear. I love the meals. I'm not complaining. I'm just concerned about family worship and, you know, be done on time. What do you think? What ideas would you have? I love you, sweetheart. She's going to eat that sandwich. And she's going to talk back. There's no reason for harsh words. I did it in love. You see, that's the way to criticize one another. So what you do is you never forget. The basic physical, mental, spiritual differences between a man and a woman either. Don't treat your spouse the way you would be treated. Because you're a man. You've got to treat your spouse the way she thinks. That's the challenge. It's not always so easy to understand a woman. My wife is easier to understand than most women, thank God. Some women are very complicated. They say no, they mean yes. I'm serious. I counseled a couple one time and the guy was bringing her roses and she said, well, you don't have to do that. So he didn't do it. And she said, how come you're not bringing me roses? We men are just straightforward thinkers. We believe what you say, women. So don't play these mind games on us. That's the way it is many times in many homes. People get very confused. And a man doesn't know really what his wife wants anymore. And so we need to learn to think. Think about who our wife is. A woman is more emotionally wired. A man is more rationally wired. In general. When your wife is troubled about something, here's our natural tendency, man, isn't this right? You sit your wife down, she begins to spell out her problems, and you cut her off, and you say, well, just do this. She goes, no, no, no, you don't understand. What do you mean I understand? I understood very plainly what you said. No, no, no. You're better off saying nothing for a while, just hugging her. Listening, nodding your head. And pretty soon she'll say, oh, wow, you're such a good listener. Figure that one out. In Brazil, in Brazil, there's a joke. I just need to tell you this because I want you to understand something very important. I don't mean this in a chauvinistic way. It's a common joke in Brazil that a genie comes out of a bottle and approaches a husband and says, I'll do anything for you in the entire world that you want. And the husband says, well, build me a road, build me a road from Brazil to Africa. And the genie goes, Brazil, Africa? You realize how much cement that will take? That's impossible. I mean, ask me something within reason. And the husband goes, OK, well, help me to understand my wife. And the genie goes, how many lanes do you want? This is a true story. I came home. I came home yesterday with a little, what are these yellow things in yards? Dandelion. Dandelion. This dandelion, one stalk of a dandelion was given to me by someone at my work who told me that his daughter, his four-year-old daughter, went and picked it out of the yard and said she was thinking of Mrs. Beeky and wanted to give this to Mrs. Beeky. Well, no one's ever given me a dandelion where it meant anything to me. I took that dandelion home to my wife and gave it to her. The most trivial, small thing. I'm just a man thinking. The most trivial, small thing. I think she'd just throw it away. But I know my wife is, well, you know, touched by love. She cried. She cried over a dandelion. You know, it's something huge happens. And I come to her thinking as a man, you know, I need to tell you this, but, you know, whatever the big thing was happened to say, it's OK, the Lord will help us. Just as strong as he doesn't cry. It's hard for us men to figure that out. You women understand perfectly. Now our job is to try to understand you and your job is to try to understand us. We're not really being thoughtless or careless or not loving you when we don't understand all your emotions. You have to understand we learned that we think we're wired differently. And so when you love each other, you try to understand each other rather than thinking from a male perspective towards a female or thinking from a female perspective toward a male. Finally, The Puritans said you need to love your wives sexually. Now, this is amazing, because remember, up until then, all those years, this was always sinful. The Puritans were the ones who said, this is what you owe to one another. This is what you should do for one another. And so the Puritans, more than any other group, promoted romance within marriage. I want to give you one example. This is an example of Thomas Hooker writing to his wife. When he's gone on a trip doing a conference. The man whose heart is endeared to the woman. He dreams of her in the night. He has her in his eye and apprehension when he awakes. He muses on her as he sits at table. He walks with her when he travels. He parlays with her as he flirts with her in each place where he comes. She lies in his bosom and his heart trusts in her, which forces all to confess that the stream of his affections, like a mighty current, runs full tide and strength toward his wife. That's what he writes to his wife, speaking of himself and how he feels about her while he's gone from home. And you just kind of read this from anyone early on within marriage. So husbands are to delight in their wives, they are to love their wives, they are to understand that in marriage, sex is not just sex, but physical intimacy is the fruit of all the culmination of the entire relationship. As someone has put it so well, physical intimacy in the evening begins with how you treat your wife in the morning before you leave for work. You see, here too, men and women are wired differently. A man may be much more sudden. A woman's much more gradual in her foreplay and her afterplay, and we need to understand that. in the marriage relationship, understand what pleases each other and give each other to each other self-sacrificially. And there will be the most profound enjoyment as you give yourselves to one another. The Puritans understood this. And yet, having said all these things, in Puritan way of thinking, marriage really is number two. Because Christ is number one. And marriage with Him is number one. But the beautiful thing is, you see, when Christ is number one, as that woman in my church said, you can be a better spouse when your spouse is number two. Because you don't put the burden of all the needs on that spouse. You have a realistic expectation and you bring all your needs to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why John Winthrop wrote to his wife that he loved her as much as a man could possibly love his wife. He wrote very affectionately to her and then he said, you are the love of all loves under the love of Jesus Christ. Let me close by giving you this wonderful quotation from Thomas Gatiger, another Puritan. He said this, There is no society more near, more entire, more needful, more kindly, more delightful, more comfortable, more constant, more continual than the society of a man and wife in marriage, for it is the main root, the main source, and the original of all other societies on earth. And yet, keeping an eye on eternity, more than anything else, Gadeger said, having lived together for a time as co-partners in grace here, may you and I, my dear wife, reign together forever as co-heirs in glory hereafter. You see, the Puritans believed that even though there is no physical marriage in heaven, everything in heaven is better than it is on earth. And you will know your spouse in heaven You'll know your spouse more perfectly. And you'll love together. You'll love the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly if you're both saved. And it will be better than your relationship on earth. So my main question to you tonight is, are you in love with Jesus Christ? Are you married? Are you betrothed? Are you contracted in your espousals to Jesus Christ? And out of that love, Are you loving your spouse? As a man, as Christ loved the church, and as a woman, as a church loves Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Pray, God of heaven, we thank Thee for the wonderful gift of marriage, spiritual marriage with Thy Son, but also human marriage in Christ with a God-fearing spouse, We pray that we may love each other, Lord, as husband and wife scripturally, and that we may learn from the Puritans and our forebears what scripture teaches us and may put it into practice, looking to Thee for grace to help. Use Thy Holy Spirit to grant us grace to do that, we pray. Make all things well and give us blessed marriages. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.