The title today is a question every husband must answer: "IS YOUR WIFE MARRIED TO A MAN OR A MANIKIN?
This “Dear Ann Landers” letter appeared in the newspaper from a wife:
“My husband doesn’t talk to me. He just sits there night after night, reading the newspaper or looking at T.V. When I ask him a question, he grunts "huh, or Uh’huh." Sometimes he doesn’t even grunt uh’huh. All he really needs is a housekeeper and somebody to sleep with him when he feels like it. He can buy both. There are times when I wonder why he got married.”
It sounds like the man she married turned into a manikin somewhere along the road.
God has designed you to be the spiritual backbone of your family! Step up to the plate gentlemen and take your rightful God-ordained place. Is there a man in the house or a manikin in the house? One is real; the other is fake. The problem with the manikin is that it can look good. But it is hollow and lifeless, a shell of a man. How can you tell the difference? I have four keys by which to recognize a man from a manikin in the house.
This sermon is for everyone today. For those ladies who are unmarried, don’t even hold the hand of a man who does not show the four basic Christian characteristics I share with you today. If you do, you will end up kissing a manikin. And that would not be a pretty sight! To the young unmarried bucks hearing this sermon, learn these four qualities of a godly family man and will make yourself very eligible. To all men who are married, I challenge you to shape up, become full of the Holy Spirit and be the family man God has designed and destined you to be.
Key 1: A Man HANGS OUT with SAVED people.
A Manikin RUNS WILD with UNSAVED people.
A family man reaches for God’s blueprint on how to run his home. He seeks for direction and “know how” from the manufacturer. Turn to the words of a man named Solomon. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write a book of saying or proverbs to help us live effective and godly lives. He speaks to every home in Proverbs 24:3:
“3 By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established.”
Notice the two different words in verse 3 to describe our homes. First “by wisdom a house is built.” To build a home is to develop a family. It means to create relationships. It means to find a saved Spirit-filled wife or husband, date, and launch out on the exciting adventure called marriage. It means sharing your heart and mind with that person, having kids and growing old together. All of us are somewhere in the process of building a home.
But then you must “establish” your home. To establish your home means to build it on a concrete slab, on a firm a strong foundation. If encourage you to get the tape of two weeks ago on laying a concrete foundation for your home. It is entitles “Home Sweet Home or Little House of Horrors.”
We all know that our family relationships are going to be bombarded with fierce storms. Jesus warned us in John 10:10 that Satan has one intent, to “steal” your partner, to “kill” your love for each other, and to “destroy” your love relationship and vows. And unless husband and wife establish their relationship firmly on the rock Christ Jesus, it’s over between the two of you. Jesus had this kind of “establishment” in mind when he spoke about the wise family man and the foolish family manikin in Matthew 7:24-28,
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. [It was “established.”] 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man [like a manikin] who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
We want you to establish your life and home and business and church on the Word of God. My desire if to hear you confess with David in Psalm 119:105,
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.”
He talks about two different kinds of lights: a “lamp” and a “light.” They are not the same. A “lamp” is a small light. David says, “You Word is like a small light, a flashlight, for every individual step I take, for every thought that flashes through my mind, for every small decision I must make.” He has in mind a laser beam kind of light. A “light” is a large lamp. “Your Word is also like a large light, a spotlight, for my path, for my direction in life.” He has n mind an outside street kind of light. “Your word is a flashlight for my feet and a spotlight for my path.”
When you establish your home on truth and love and God, you will weather the storms of life. You will come out face and stronger the other side.
The Holy Spirit through Solomon exposes the most devastating sin to every home. This sin is the most deadly and destructive force for any home. What do you think is the most threatening problem that could easily destroy your homes? My first response is adultery. But Solomon identified another more serious and deeper problem. He identifies it in the previous verse, verse 2.
“Do not envy wicked men, do not desire their company.”
He points to your friends. It is hanging with wrong crowd. The Holy Spirit highlights desiring to hang with “wicked men” as the biggest problem in homes both then and now. Every man needs to clearly understand this.
I used to imagine that wicked people were people on “America’s Most Wanted,” the “bad people,” like drug pushers, terrorists, rapists and murderers. When I thought wicked, I thought crime and police. We even imagine a certain look about wicked people, like Marilyn Manson, who sees himself as a combination of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. Yucky stuff.
But a “wicked” person is anyone who does a simple thing; they ignore God. That includes my mother and father and my two sisters. Yes, on the outside a “wicked” may seem a very ‘normal’ person. It may include your unsaved mother or your faithless father. It may be your wild but cool friend at school. It may be a highly respected teacher, a socially respected doctor, a very nice neighbor. But, but, if that person rules God out of there daily thinking and decisions, they are wicked. They have "no time" for God. The council they offer is based on selfishness and greed and goes like this: "Me first; get rich quick; nobody will see; nothing will happen; let your conscience tell you; everybody’s doing it."
What is wrong with that? Solomon tells us that the problem with the wicked is that,
“…their hearts plot violence, and their lips talk about making trouble.”
The heart is the fountain from which flow all the issues of life. As know the principle in Proverbs 27: 3,
“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
If the heart is filled with violence, violence pours forth. Violence against God, violence against marriage, violence against the home, violence against neighbors; and violence against everyone. They talk about making trouble. “Let’s go find a party and have a good time.” They are continually dissatisfied. They are never really happy because everything they live for is false and fleeting. They are always grabbing for everything, for things they do not have. The State lottery is a frightening and false hope that lures men into false security. Sure, it looks like they are having a “good time.” Sin does have a pleasure side to it. Moses had to make this choice in his life: Egypt or Israel, pleasure in Egypt or the people of God!
You know the story of Moses. He grew up in the house of Pharaoh of Egypt. But he was born an Israelite and belonged to the people of God. We read in Hebrew 11:24-26,
“24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, (he was 40 years old at the time) refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt,
He had to choose between the “disgrace of Christ” and the “treasures of Egypt.” Which have you chosen? Which is of greater value? Everyone wants to experience the Cinderella story, the rags to riches story. But what possess a man and a woman to choice rags over riches? What make a person make an illogical and faith choices that rejects this world? Hebrews finishes the verse,
“…because he was looking ahead to his reward.”
Some of you here today need to make a choice between the short pleasure of this world and the eternal pleasures of God. This includes grown ups. Which is of greater value to you? Moses looked at the riches of Egypt and turned his back on it all. He turned from treasures to disgrace, from Egypt to eternity, from pleasure to poverty, from Pharaoh to God. He chose to look ahead for heavenly reward.
Where are you looking? Are you “looking ahead” for your heavenly reward? Are you made the decision like Paul in Phil 3:13-15,
“13 Brothers….But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, (March is our looking ahead month, our month of vision) 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 5 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
A sign of Christian maturity is lifting up your head and “looking ahead” to eternal reward. Immaturity is being controlled by the pleasures and treasures of this world.
If you are not looking ahead, Solomon warns, you will start looking at wicked men. You will start comparing yourself to them. And you might find yourself lacking. Envy will grows inside you. How many times have we lost our young people to college sin? Paul said it plainly to Timothy in 1 Tim 6:10,
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
Wandering from faith is very seldom a deliberate and intentional moving. It is a slow meandering stroll away from. Hebrew 2:1 calls us to watch that we do “drift away.” You naturally wander to where you are looking.
Solomon says that this looking quickly develops into longing. You automatically go beyond looking at wicked men and start to long for them. You want to run with them, to “desire their company,” to be with them.
Yes, we live in a wicked world and we rub shoulders with the wicked every day of our lives. We are in the world. And we are not going to escape the world by moving into a monastery. It is longing to hang with them as friends.
When you got saved, God gave you a new family. We share covenantal fellowship through Christ. We call each other brothers and sisters. We are joined together in the Spirit through the blood. A man is excited about fellowship and being with believers. He is committed to the people of God. When each morning comes around, he says in Psalm 118:24,
“This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
When Sunday rolls around he says with his heart in Psalm 122:1,
“I rejoiced with those who said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD."
A family man hears the words of 1 John 2:15-17, and makes a decision about who he hangs with:
“15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”
A man is interested in one thing: doing the will of God from the heart.
KEY 2: A Man HUGS his wife lots.
A Manikin HIDES from his wife a lot.
We all know the verse in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives.” But how can a husband do this? Pay close attention to the Scriptures. We must go back to verse 18,
“Be filled with the Spirit.”
That means be Spirit-filled, or be controlled or dominated by the Holy Spirit. Sot eh first key to loving your wife is being a Spirit-filled man. Love is an overflow of the Spirit who is in you.
Secondly in verse 19, he loving man is a singing man. No it has nothing to do with the sound of his voice. It has to so with the beat of his heart. As Paul says,
“speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.”
A singing, joyful heart freely gives love to his wife. Then in verse 20, a loving man is a thankful man.
“Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father.”
No matter what happens, no matter what goes wrong, no matter how you might be misunderstood or treated in a marriage, your heart is filled with thanks, even for your trials because you know they come from God and have a perfecting work.
This overflows into verse 21,
“To be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.”
Spirit-filled, singing, saying thanks and submitting. Those are the spiritual prerequisites for a successful man and marriage.
This is the type of man who let’s Ephesians 5:25 sink into his ears,
“Husbands, love your wives.”
Let me put some teeth into this Scripture by changing one word in this verse to make it read, “Husbands, hug your wives.” This begins to explain the word love. Paul is talking about how we feel towards our wives. God wants us to deeply connected to our partners. It has been that way since Adam and Eve.
Husbands are told to love their wives 6 times. In verse 28, Paul says, “Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies” and in verse 33, “each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself.” (Wives are told to love only once, with the inferior word, phileo)
We love “as Christ loved the church.” This is a sacrificial, one way, I love you covenant love. God created Adam with the passion to love. When God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, He said in Genesis 2:18,
“It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a suitable helper for him”
Men are built with a desire to share hugs, to be with a partner, to be part of a family. This is why 94% of all men who are divorced will remarry. Family and intimacy is extremely important to every man. It is only a manikin that us unmoved by a woman.
Men have pet names for their wives and visa versa. They are private and exclusive words, terms that are inappropriate for anyone else to use.
Did you know that God as our husband has a pet name for us? All of us know the word. He has a word of tenderness and love for us His bride. It is the Hebrew word recorded in Isaiah 62:4. God is speaking over His people Israel and promises them a new name, an affectionate name. He says,
“No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, (there it is, Hephzibah) and your land Beulah; (God then tells us what it means) for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married.
It means, “My delight is in her.” God is saying, “I enjoy her company and touch. I like being with her. I like experiencing intimacy and closeness with her.” That is how God thinks of you and me. We sing song of His love, “I will sing of His love forever, I will sing of His love forever.” Then we sing, “Jesus, lover of my soul.” David discovered this truth in Psalm 149:4 that,
For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns (or “beautify”-KJV) the humble with salvation.
King Hezekiah in II Kings 21 called his wife, “Hephzibah, my lover and delight.” You need to see your wife as your Hephzibah, your lover and delight, the woman you experience life with. God has given her to you. I say that again gentlemen, based on the authority of God’s holy Word: God has given her to you to hug and love.
The Spirit makes it plain in Ecclesiastes 9:9 that God gives you two things to enjoy: your woman and your work, in that order. Women first, work second. (We will come to work and employment sometimes soon. Today we focus on enjoying your wife.)
9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun-- all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.
The words “enjoy” means to look at with desire and touch. Sharing intimacy and hugs always. That is how you and I must love our wives.
Key 3: A Man is HAPPY with his STUFF
A Manikin is a GROUCH about his STUFF.
A family man has learned a great and wonderful secret of the Christian faith. Paul knew this secret in Phil 4, verse 12,
“I have learned (memuhmai) the secret.”
The verb “secret” speaks of being initiated into something. It pictures various stages of progression a person must go through to be qualified to enter the inner circle. That is when a person has “arrived.” Paul says about this lesson, “I have got this lesson under my belt; it in the bag. I have arrived; I am living it, right now. I have been initiated into the secrets of contentment and a contented life.”
Contentment with stuff had a direct affect on each of our marriages. Hebrew 13:4 speaks about marriage,
“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
How can we “honor marriage” and keep it free from sin? The next verse, verse 5, tells us how.
"5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." 6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
The Greek word for “content” (autarkhs) describes strong independence. It pictures a person who can support them self without anyone’s aid. It means they have enough, are master of themselves, and have no weakness. [Paul borrowed this term from contemporary Stoic philosophy.] Paul is saying, “I have learned to be satisfied; I’ve learned to be sufficient in myself, to trust Him.” He was 100% convinced of God’s provision, God’s strength and God’s people.
We are to be content because we know that we are totally provided for, that our Shepherd has infinite and supernatural resources, that His promise to never leave us for 1 second or abandon us in any situation is true.
Church, God commands us to live above this world. A deep-seated, over powering contentment should be control your whole life. Paul is very practical in 1 Timothy 6:8. He deals with the basic essentials of daily living.
“And having food and clothing, let us be content.”
Paul testifies about his choice in Phil 4:10-17,
“11 …I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 12 I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.
Yet, Paul confessed, “I am a happy-camper, 24/7.” His contentment was focused on something beyond his stuff, beyond his world and his circumstances
Discontentment and covetousness lock God’s blessings out of your marriage. Covetous men are angry men because they cannot have what they want. They will constantly blaming the other person for their troubles.
We call all identify with the wisdom of Solomon in Proverbs 17:1.
“Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.”
This house with plenty may be filled with strife and arguing and fussing and whining and shouting. Sure we all have husband and wife words where we wish the rapture would take just one of us away.
In Proverbs 15:17
“Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.”
Let me create two pretend neighbors to explain this Scripture. Little Bobby comes home from school one cold afternoon and asks his mother, “Mom, want’s for supper?” She holds him for a moment and explains, “Well, Bobby, we have some leftovers in the fridge that I will make a warm soup for the family tonight. Home made vegetable soup and bread is all we have, son.” Little Bobby says, "Oh, I’m hungry, Mom. I like your soup mom.” Little Bobby knows that at that table, there will be more than let over soup. There will be love and conversation.
Next-door is Bobby’s friend, Johnny. He too comes home from school that winter afternoon and asks his mother, "What’s for dinner, Mom?" She speaks in bitter tones, “Oh, the ox your father has been feeding special grains is ready to be butchered. We’re finally going to have prime rib with all the trimmings.” The little boy responds, “But Mom, are you going to talk with Dad at the table at supper? Or are you and Dad going to argue with each other? Are you going to tell me, “Pass the potatoes to that man!’” That is when little Johnny asked, “Mom, can I go over to Bobby’s house for supper tonight?”
In the kingdom of God, circumstances should make no difference to your “peace of mind.” That is because we share a secret together
Key 4: A Man tries to HOLD his wife till “DEATH do us part.”
A Manikin tries to HARM his wife when “DIVORCE do us part.”
A family man accepts full responsibility for his wedding vows. When did you last visit the vows you made on your wedding day? You may be able to remember all the words, but you know what you meant. You looked your partner in the eye and vowed, “I promise you that this new relationship with will always be the most important relationship behind my relationship to God. End of story.” Does your time and attention to your wife reflect that?
Turn in your Bibles to, the last book in the Old Testament, to Malachi chapter 2:14. God is decrying divorce among His people. Things were not going well for them. The prophet speaks God’s heart and details why the blessings of God were being withheld,
“It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.”
The KJV reads,
“Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.”
The problem is relationship with the wife. God calls her your “partner” or “companion.” That word describes a fellow traveler, someone who has promised to walk with you along the way. It describes pictures two people who help each other, arm in arm, as long as God gives them breath.
Malachi is speaking against, “treachery” or “breaking faith.” Do you know what treachery is? It is when a husband is acting the part as a friend but is secretly working the destruction of their wife by seeking a younger or another wife. God calls that treachery. Some of you in the house have experienced this treachery first hand. And it hurts real bad.
It hurts because promise has been broken. And we all construct our hopes around promises that are made. When a man promises to love a woman until death, he gives her security to become a woman of God. Marriage is designed by God to begin at the altar and end at the graveside. It is not designed to end in divorce court. Between the altar and the grave, we knew that there will be times of conflict and anger and heartbreak and boredom and monotony. That is why we singed a marriage license. We said, “For better or worse, till death us do part.”
That means that marriage is a room in which there is no exit except the door that is marked “Death.” If the Lord brought you together, He will see you through.
CONC:
I read once the story of an attorney named Horatio Spafford. He lived in Chicago before the turn of the century. He was an influential Christian layman, a friend of Dwight L. Moody, and instrumental in establishing the Moody Bible Institute. Right after the Chicago fire in 1871 he put his wife and children aboard a ship and sent them to Europe. He wanted to get them out of the city while it was being rebuilt.
As they were crossing the Atlantic Ocean the ship was struck in the middle of a November night by another vessel, and both ships sank. This mother saw her four children drown, and she herself was struck by a falling mast and was knocked unconscious, but she was miraculously saved. She fell on some floating debris and later was picked up and taken to Wales.
While she was in a hospital in Wales she telegraphed back to her husband two words: "Saved alone." He of course took the first ship to Wales. As it was sailing across the Atlantic it reached almost the identical spot where her ship had gone down. And as Dr. Spafford was walking on the deck he was moved to write the words of the hymn that starts like this.
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
"It is well, it is well with my soul.”
Spafford says God has “taught” him to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul.” May we learn to confess with Job in chapter 1, verse 21 when we feel like we are in the trashcan,
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
