The Devil's Triangle In Marriage Series

It is estimated that the average husband and wife spend less than thirty minutes a week talking about something other than the kids or what happened on their jobs.

This is why we so often see marriages, apparently healthy, break up after twenty or more years. Two young people, in love at the marriage altar, have become total strangers, enemies instead of friends.

The devil’s triangle has taken another home. You may think this is an over simplification, but it represents what is happening in over 90 percent of the troubled homes I have counseled in my 25 years as a pastor.

C. GOD’S INTERVENTION –

THE CONDITIONS OF CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE

(Eph. 5:21-33)

1. God’s Answer to the Husband - Love (5:25)

God tells the husband to love his wife “just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it” (5:25). When the husband loves his wife like this, he loves her SUPREMELY and SACRIFICIALLY. He puts her first - above his work, above his hobbies, above his buddies, and above himself - and he LETS HER KNOW IT. Her need to be needed will be met and her fear of being taken for grated will be gone.

Quintin Matsys, a great artist in years gone by, began his adult years as a blacksmith in Antwerp. He fell in love with a girl of that town whose father was an artist. When they talked of marriage, her father stood against them. He said, “My daughter must be the wife of a man of culture, a man of the arts, a man of refinement - but the wife of blacksmith? Never!”

The girl adored her father. He was wrong, of course, but the decision and the inevitable division, broke her heart as she tried to work things out. The strong young man was torn as well. Knowing nothing about art he went to a store and bought an artist’s pad and pencils.

The strong hands tried to draw but the result was failure and frustration. Then, drawing with his heart as well as his hands, he worked day and night on a picture of this girl, as he saw her through the eyes of love.

He appeared at the home one afternoon and gave his creation to the father and said, “Sir, I am no longer a blacksmith, I am now an artist.” The old man saw in that picture the latent talent but he also saw the strength and love behind it. He welcomed him with open arms and the Quintin Matsys who gave himself for the one he loved received his bride and found his calling in life.

2. God’s Answer to the Wife – Submit (5:22-24)

God’s answer to wives is the hated and misunder¬stood word - submit. Paul says, “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as to the Lord” (5:22). This does not mean wives are to be doormats, or are to never express their opinion, or are to obey anything a husband might ask.

Common sense knowledge of scripture tells us that a wife does not have to go against God and violate her standards at the command of an ungodly mate. For example, no Christian wife would abuse her children or sell her body to pay the rent. There are limits. There are conditions.

The basic meaning is that the wife looks up to the husband as the one, under God, who is primarily responsible for the physical and spiritual welfare of that home.