Introduction
Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37). And, the only people who go away unsatisfied from that living water are those who are filled with the stagnate water of self-love. But, if you’ll seek the Lord Jesus, today, if you don’t know Him, listen to me, if you’ll seek Him today, you can find Him.
Take God’s Word and open, please, to the book of James chapter 1, and in just a moment we’re going to read a formula that will change your marriage from a “Duel” to a “Duet.” One verse, just one verse out of the Word of God, properly understood, I guarantee you, will transform a marriage.
Now, we’re talking about a duel. Is it common to debate with your mate? Well, it is. Almost all folks who are married sometimes get into it. Now, look up here all you holy-looking people and just nod your head this way. Sometimes we get into it. Now, sometimes some folks stay in it. I mean, you’d think they were married by the secretary of war rather than the justice of peace. I mean, they just stay in it.
Well, the most important thing, believe it or not, is not whether or not you have confrontations. The most important thing is this, how do you handle those confrontations? Look in James 1 verse 19: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” Better words, truer words, or more helpful words could not be said in a shorter sentence. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. Now, what he is really saying is this, “Tune in, tone down, sweeten up.” That’s what it says. “Tune in,” be swift to hear. “Tone down,” be slow to speak. “Sweeten up,” be slow to wrath.
Now, I want us to think about these things in some detail. First of all, he tells us that we are to tune in. And, He’s talking there about the awesome power of the listening ear. You know the Bible says in Proverbs chapter 18 and verse 13: “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” To speak before you listen.
All good marriage communication, or communication anywhere else, begins with listening. Did you know that psychologists tell us that we really only catch about twenty percent of what we hear? Really only about twenty percent. Being a preacher, I think perhaps it’s less than that.
And, then you know, so many times what we hear is not clear anyway, and it’s garbled. I picked up this sentence the other day, “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Have you ever listened to a person talks that way? I mean, when they’re finished you really don’t even know what they have said and you have to listen so carefully.
Now, for the sake of time, I’m gonna buzz right past that and just say “tune in,” learn to love your mate. Are you listening with your ears and with your eyes? Because there’s verbal communication, there’s visual communication. “Tune in,” listen. One man said, “My wife goes around the house all day long just talking with herself.” His friend said, “Does she know she’s doing it?”
He said, “No, she thinks I’m listening to her.” Now, now listen. “Tune in,” begin to listen. Love with your ears and love with your eyes.
Secondly, tune in, tone down. Learn something of the awesome power of the tongue. Look, if you will, in James chapter 3 verses 5 through 8. James says, “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”
Now, Mr. Torched Tongue, may I tell you that you can burn down your marriage with your tongue! But, now continue. “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame.”
Tiger-tongue, listen to me. You shred and claw with your mouth, we used to say, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” That is absolutely absurd and silly. Your tongue can be like a vicious beast. And, then let’s continue to read, he goes on to say in this same chapter, speaking of the tongue, “But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”
Tetanus-tongue, you poison love! It always sounds so cute when we say these things. I’m always reminded when I think “torch-tongue,” “tiger-tongue,” and “tetanus- tongue” of Winston Churchill and Lady Aster, who were always at it. Lady Aster said to Winston Churchill, when she was infuriated by him, she said, “If I were your wife, I’d put arsenic in your tea.” He said, “Madam, I can assure you that if you were my wife, I would gladly drink it.” On another occasion it’s said that Winston Churchill was drunk and Lady Aster said to him, “Churchill, you are drunk!” He said, “That is true, and you are ugly.” “But,” he said, “Tomorrow I will be sober.”
My dear friend, there are seven deadly games that people play with their tongue. I want you to listen to ’em. If you’re married, don’t play these games, they’re deadly. First of all, it is playing the judge. One partner assigns himself or herself the duty of being a judge. And as the judge, you blame and condemn your partner. Never say to your partner, “It’s all your fault. You should be ashamed!” As a matter of fact, it’s probably bad ever to start a sentence with “you” in an argument. “You always” or “you never.” You’re almost always wrong when you use the word always. “You always do this,” or “you never do that.” Try this if you like to play judge, rather than saying “you,” begin this way, “I feel this way,” or “I think this,” or “it seems to me,” or “I need.” Don’t play judge! All right?
Don’t play professor. Now, there are those always in marriages who want to play the professor. That is, they want to talk down, and they want to act superior. And, the marriage is full of constant put-downs and belittling. Well, you say to your partner, “Hey, that’s stupid. If you had an ounce of brains, you’d know that’s not right,” or, “you could never understand, you’re not a woman,” or, “you could never understand, you’re not a man.” We put our mates down.
One man said to his wife, “I can’t understand how God could’ve made you so beautiful and so dumb at the same time.” She said, “It’s simple. He made me beautiful so you’d be attracted to me, and made me dumb so I’d be attracted to you.” Constant put-downs! When you attack your partner’s self-worth, when you belittle your partner, your partner’s going to be defensive if you attack their self-worth.
Don’t play the psychologist. That’s a third game you don’t want to play. Don’t play the psychologist. Don’t sit around and try to analyze your mate. “Let me tell you why you said that.” “Let me tell you why you think that way.” Well, why should you not do that? Cause you don’t know. Probably they don’t know either. Do you know the Apostle Paul said, “It’s a small thing with me that you judge me.” He said, “I don’t even judge me. We’ll wait ’til God comes, then every man shall have praise of God.” Don’t assign motives to your partner’s heart. Don’t assign motives to your partner’s heart. Don’t play the psychologist. It’s a deadly game.
Don’t play the historian. That’s another game that people play. They correct the detail of every story that the partner says. The incredible think is I was preparing this sermon, I just finished it yesterday on an airplane, and sat down to supper last night. We were having supper, and our son is building a house down in Florida, and our daughter, Janice, said, “How far is Steve’s house from his old house?” And Joyce said, “Well, I don’t think so.” I said, “Well, a block and a half.” Janice said, “Who cares.” That’s something, you know, I don’t like other people to do it and here I just prepared the sermon, and here I’m doing it. Have you ever been out to supper and somebody’s gonna tell a story and they say, “You know last Tuesday we were going to…” And you say, “No, dear, it wasn’t Tuesday, it was Wednesday.” “No it was Tuesday.” No, I know it was Wednesday because Wednesday’s the day I take the laundry…” Who cares!
Don’t, my dear friend, play the historian. Don’t contradict or correct your mate unless it is necessary. And, a lot of times we play the historian just to pull the smoke screen over the whole thing, we’re losing the argument, and so we just change the subject to something that happened way back yonder, some other time. You know, one man said, “Every time we get in an argument, my wife gets historical.” He said, “You mean hysterical?” He said, “No, I mean historical. She brings up every hour of the past, and just resurrects these old things.” Don’t play the historian, stick to the subject.
Don’t play the dictator. That’s another game that people play. They use force in the marriage. It might be just the force, verbal force, “I will not allow that in my house.” Or, “I demand that you do thus and such.”
My dear friend, you beware of ultimatums in marriage. Don’t make ultimatums. You keep your words warm and sweet, because you may have to eat ’em. Worse than an ultimatum is a veiled threat. “If you do that again, you just wait, you’ll see what happens.” You don’t say what it is, you just leave that up to their imagination. “Just try that one more time, and you’ll see what happens.” You see, the dictator is the person who changes that marriage relationship from “I do” to “You’d better.” And, they try to force their way.
Let me tell you some clubs that the dictator uses. First of all, there’s the physical thing. They’re the men who strike their wives. If you do that, sir, I’m telling you that there’re very few people as low on the totem pole as you are, a man that would physically strike his wife. Sometimes wives physically beat up their husbands and they are physically stronger.
And, then there’s the opposite of that. There’s the dictator who doesn’t use brute force, but there’s the neurotic invalid. Did you know that some people just get sick and they become invalids? Not really sick, I’m not talking about people who’re truly sick. I’m talking about neurotic invalids, it’s a form of dictatorship. There are those who withhold money in order to have their ways. There’re some who withhold affection in order to have their ways.
There’s the martyr who sulks and pouts. May I tell you that dictatorship in marriage is cruel? It leads to frustration. It says to the partner “I can do a better job with your life than you can.” It robs the other person of self-esteem. Don’t assume the role of the dictator.
Then there’s the critic. Playing the role of the critic. Don’t condemn your partner, and don’t criticize your partner. But, above all, don’t compare your partner. Don’t compare your mate with somebody else’s mate. Don’t ever say, “Why can’t you be like?” Perhaps if you were married to the person that you’re comparing with, you might have a different story. Don’t compare your partner to her mother or his father. “You’re just like your mother.” One man said to his wife, “Why can’t you cook biscuits like my mama could?” She said, “Why don’t you bring home dough like my daddy used to?”
Always comparing. Don’t play the game of the critic. And, never criticize something over which the other person has no control like his parents, physical traits, or attributes.
Last of all, here’s another deadly game that you don’t play. Don’t play the preacher, the preacher. Now, this is perhaps, the most insidious of all. This is where we want to preach to the other partner. We assume a sort of a holier-than-thou attitude. We become his conscience and we try to be the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we use the Bible as a club to beat up our partner with.
Now, I’m not saying you ought not to share the Word of God. I’m not saying that you ought not to discuss the Word of God, but don’t you in a family discussion, get out your little pulpit, wherever it may be, and begin to preach to the other person. It’s destructive in marriage relationships. Share Scripture? Yes. Build your life on the Word of God? Yes. But, don’t pontificate with a holier-than-thou attitude. I remind you again of what Ruth Graham said, “It is a wife’s job to love her husband, it is God’s job to make him good.” My dear friend, don’t play these games.
Now, here is the third thing, listen. “Tune in,” “tone down,” and “sweeten up.” This verse says that you are to be slow to wrath. Now, what you’re to do is to resolve your hurts, not to dissolve your home. They can be resolved.
I want to give you three do’s and three don’ts, and I’ll be finished with this message. Three things I want you to know, first of all, not to do if you’re having a conflict. Number one, do not practice avoidance, where you just retreat and you just avoid confrontation. Somebody has written a book, and it is a good book, Caring Enough to Confront. Have you ever played this game in your home? “Hey, is something wrong with you?” “No.” “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” Do you ever play that game? “Well, I think there’s something wrong.” “I told you, there’s nothing wrong!” And, both of you know there’s something very wrong. But, we just tend to back off and retreat, we have the idea that it’ll go away.
Why do we retreat? Several reasons. Sometimes we fear the anger of our partner, so we just close up. Sometimes we may be afraid “If I don’t retreat, our marriage will be broken.” Sometimes, and I suppose this is the most insidious of all, we retreat because we’re afraid if we get into argument and a discussion, we might have to admit something about ourselves. We might have to see where we, ourselves, really are wrong, and so we just retreat.
But, my dear friend, unresolved conflict is not really resolved by retreating, it only gets worse. You may stuff it, you may repress it, but I will guarantee you that your stomach will keep the score. You have a problem, you shove it out the front door, refuse to discuss it, it crawls around the house, and comes in the basement window. Don’t practice avoidance. The wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy.
Love your mate enough to confront.
Number two. Don’t practice appeasement. Some don’t avoid, they just appease. They just have the say-so, and then they give in. One person always seems to win, and the other person always seems to lose. One person always seems to dominate, and get his or her way, and the other person simply appeases and gives ground.
Now, to compromise is one thing, that’s where both give. But, to appease is something else. Sometimes we appease and call it compromise. A man said, “My wife and I had a disagreement about where we’re going on our vacation. I wanted to go to the seashore, but she wanted to go to the mountains. So, we compromised and went to the mountains.”
Now, this is what happens so many times in a marriage, where one person just simply gives. Now, what happens if you appease your husband or if you appease your wife? Constant appeasement. You may think that you’re solving the problem, but you’re not solving the problem. What happens is you internalize the whole thing, and when he gets violent and you get silent, and you just internalize it. You just give way, and give way, and give way, and give way. It becomes in your heart like a smoldering rag, like oily rags put in a closet. They may burn out, or they may break out and burn the house down.
Now, if you are an appeaser, I’ll tell you what else you are. You’re a person given to self-pity. You’re a person who goes around with a martyr complex. You feel trapped because you know you’ll never win. And, while that marriage may stay together, you get an emotional divorce, which is tragic. Do not, do not practice avoidance. Do not practice appeasement.
And, do not practice aggression. Now, when you hear me say don’t avoid and don’t appease, you think I mean attack. But, I do not. Do not practice aggression. You must face your partner, but the Bible says, “Speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). “Tune in,” “tone down,” and “sweeten up.”
Sarcasm is never in order. I have told you before and I want to tell you again, there are few problems that husbands and wives cannot solve if they will attack the problem, rather than one another. And, in order to do that you’ve got to start at the right time.
Choose your times to have a discussion. Sometimes, unfortunately, we can’t always do that. But, I said don’t avoid an argument, but avoid it at certain times. Right before dinner avoid it, when your blood sugar is low. Psychologists tell us that ninety percent of family arguments begin just before mealtime. Ninety percent. Or, have you ever been on your way to a social event you get in an argument going to a party, or maybe get in an argument going to church, well no confessions this morning. But I mean, on your way to a social event you get in an argument. Well, then you feel trapped, because then you have to turn around and go back home, or go into that event with a smile on your face, and you know on the inside that your guts are just churning.
Choose the right time. Use the right tone when you confront. The Bible says, “A soft answer turneth away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1).
The right time, the right tone, the right turf. Have you ever noticed that maybe the person who is an appeaser, or the person who does retreat, will sometimes come out of their shell when company is around. And, they will criticize their partner, or assassinate their partner when other friends are around? Do you know why they do that? It’s a
secret desire to hurt their partner and a secret desire to embarrass their partner. And, they feel they can do it there because they have him trapped, he cannot react, and it is a cheap shot. My dear friend, confront, but do it the right time, the right tone, the right turf.
Now, those are three things “don’t” do’s. Don’t withdraw, don’t appease, and don’t attack. But, now let tell you three things to do. We’re talking now about being slow to wrath, how to “sweeten up.”
Number one, learn to practice accommodation. Did you know that you need to learn to say, “I will change”? So many times we want to change our partner. But, my dear friend, you are to change you. You have desires for your partner, but goals for yourself. You change you. And, you can change your partner by changing you because now he has to react to someone different, and you have changed.
And, you do that by what we call accommodation. Now, let me show you how it works. For example, suppose there’s a wife who says, “My husband and I don’t spend enough time together. He doesn’t give me enough time.” Well, how could she accommodate him, for example? Well, she might learn a sport that he loves. And, maybe they can play that sport together, and she takes up his sport. And so, she accommodates herself. She wants time with him, but she has accommodated. She has changed herself. Practice the art of accommodation. All of us can accommodate our partners to some degree. And, it is not just that wives have to accommodate husbands, or husbands have to accommodate wives.
Number two. Practice not only accommodation, but practice acceptance. Make up your mind, in accommodation you say, “I change.” In acceptance, you say, “He may never change or she may never change, so I accept it. I just accept my partner.”
Now, you know, there’re certain things that we have to accept about others. And, they are different, they may not be wrong or you may not be wrong. Joyce and I are so different. Joyce and I came from, in many ways, the same background. We have been grade-school sweethearts. I met Joyce in the fourth grade. We didn’t get serious ’til the sixth grade. Now, I’ve known Joyce all of her life, just about and she’s known me. But, in the Gentry household, there were never any little witticisms, never any little jokes, or those things. In the Rogers’ household, they flew back and forth all the time. I mean, you had to duck or you’d get hit in the crossfire. All good-natured, but just constantly back and forth like that. Well, to me, if you love somebody, you tease ’em. Joyce said, “Just say what you mean, and mean what you say.”
Well, who’s right? I am, of course. No. Listen, they’re just different. Around our house, we didn’t make a lot of birthdays, special events, or to send cards. But, around her house, those were the big days, and you certainly did that. Well, who’s right or who’s wrong? I’m afraid she is. But, I really wasn’t wrong. It’s just the way I was raised. And, you just have to accept how the other person is. You see, getting married is like buying a phonograph record, you buy it because of what you want on one side, and you just take what comes on the other side. You just, accept your mate.
And, my dear friend, listen, there is accommodation, acceptance, and last of all, there is adjustment. And this is the best. In accommodation, I change. In acceptance, I make up my mind they’ll never change. But, in adjustment we both change. And, that’s so wonderful. When both change, when we adjust.
Again, Joyce turns into a pumpkin about nine o’clock at night. Phew, I mean, she’ll just disappear. She’ll be sitting there and at suppertime, if it’s too late, her face may fall in the plate. I mean, she’ll just go to sleep. Now, the longer I go, the faster my engine runs. And, I mean it just seems a shame to me to go to bed at eleven o’clock, or something like that, or twelve o’clock, cause I’m just getting started. I mean, the longer I go the stronger I get. But, in the morning it’s hard to get the bed off my back. I cannot, it’s just hard.
Now, I don’t want you to think I lay in. I have to get up. But, I tell you, it’s a battle every morning. I believe in the resurrection, I have one every morning. Listen, every morning I have to be resurrected, but she wakes up, boing! Dat, dut, ta, da, da, da. I wake up to Joyce rushing around the house, singing, and everything. Boy, now, what do you do when you get a lark and an owl? Well, you have adjustment. I go to bed a little earlier and she stays up a little later. You see?
That’s adjustment. Rather than having a war, where both lose, you have a compromise where both gain a little bit. Now, my dear friend, don’t avoid it, don’t appease, and don’t attack. But, on the other hand, my dear friend, accommodate, accept, and adjust. It’ll be worth it.
Conclusion
Let me share with you what Peter Marshall had to say. He said this about marriage, he said, “Dearly beloved, the marriage relation, when rightly understood and properly appreciated, is the most delightful, as well as the most sacred and solemn of all human relations. It is the clasping of hands, the blending of lives, and the union of hearts, that two may walk together up the hill of life to meet the dawn. Together bearing life’s burdens, discharging its duties, sharing its joys and sorrows. Marriage is more than moonlight and roses. It is much more than the singing of love songs, and the whispering of vows of undying affection. In our day, it is by many lightly regarded, and by many as lightly discarded. But, marriage will ever remain in the sight of God an eternal union, made possible only by the gift of love, which God alone can bestow.” And, that is so true. My dear friend, marriages are kept alive by God’s grace.
Let’s bow our heads in prayer. Heads are bowed, eyes are closed. Father God, remind us one more time to accept the to Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. And, Father, how I pray, in the mighty name of Jesus, that there will be those today who will say an everlasting ‘Yes’ to you and be saved. Hear our prayer in the name of Jesus, Amen.
