Contentious Wives

Good morning. Good morning. There we go, that's better. Turn in your Bibles to Proverbs 21. Appreciate the introduction. There's a lot of people here that I don't recognize.

I've been here several times over the years, so there's some new faces. That's wonderful to see. If I asked the believers in this room, also I don't mind the children whatsoever personally, so that's your choice to take them out. I like the sounds of their little cries. I don't like that they're crying. I like that they're in the room is what I meant to say.

If I asked any believer in this room, do you believe that all scripture is given by God and is profitable for doctrine and for reproof and for correction and for instruction in righteousness, So that the man of God may be fully equipped unto every good work. I expect every believer in this room to say yes. In fact, I bet you most of you would be able to tell me that was 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

So with that being said, the choice of scripture verses today will be interesting to people because it's a verse that maybe is not often tossed around in conversation. It's possibly not even discussed in the home, and you certainly don't hear a lot of sermons on the topic, especially in the 21st century. But all scripture is given by God and is profitable, and we are going to look at a scripture that for some people will begin as a very uncomfortable journey.

I'm not unaware of this at all, and so I'm going to ask you to bear with me as I try to tell you why I think this is an important scripture for us to understand and study, and why I actually believe that it is written to everyone in this room, not just the people who you may initially think it was written for. So with that being said, Proverbs 21, verse 19. I have in my translation better to live in the desert than with a contentious and ill-tempered wife.

So this is not the right time for you to start elbowing the woman next to you. If you are a man who thinks that's funny, I'll admit that's kind of silly and funny. But for many people, this is a daily struggle. For many men, it is a lifetime of thinking it would be preferable to be in an arid desert. For many women, it is actually an internal battle that they face where they are realizing in some sense that they are not obeying the Lord Jesus Christ.

They're not living how they maybe wish they could or know they ought, and yet they find themselves powerless to change. If you turn to Proverbs 27, there's a bit of a parallel verse there. Proverbs 27, 15. A constant dripping on a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Verse 16. Restraining her is like holding back wind or grasping oil with one's hand.

So, basically impossible to restrain a contentious woman. It's like a constant dripping. It's better to be in a desert than with a contentious and ill-tempered wife. Quarrelsome wife is another word that we can use in Proverbs 21. So first, let's talk about what this means, the nature and definition of what's going on. We're talking about a woman.

And if you're thinking to yourself, oh, well, yeah, men have problems too. So yes, we're all sinners. We're conceived in sin because of Adam and Eve and what they started. And everybody in this room we could pick different sins out about. But today we're going to talk about the quarrelsome wife. And it is a contradiction.

Turn to Proverbs 18. In Proverbs 18.22, God tells us he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from Yahweh or grace or blessing from God. And so it is a contradiction for a wife to be quarrelsome, to be ill-tempered and contentious. It's supposed to be a good thing for a man to find a wife. I believe that scripture, Proverbs 18, actually applies to both believers and non-believers.

So an unbelieving man who finds a wife has also found a good thing, according to scripture. And it ought to be a good thing. People go to a wedding and you're supposed to be celebrating. One of the reasons is that it's a good thing for a man to find a wife. And so if a man finds a wife and then she turns out to be ill-tempered wife or a contentious wife, that is a contradiction of what is supposed to be going on.

If you look at Ephesians 5 verses 22 through 24, turn there with me. I am reading from the Berean Standard Bible, so it sounds different to you most likely. Very similar, but some different word order sometimes. Verse 22 of Ephesians 5, after Paul tells the church to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Just a brief comment on that verse When Paul says submit to one another out of reverence for Christ he is not telling everyone in the church submit to everyone else Regardless of the fact that that's senseless and impossible, what Paul is saying is, submit to one another, and then for the next 20 verses, he's explaining exactly what the different relationships are where he's telling people they are to submit to one another.

And how they're supposed to honor the fifth commandment of God. And the way you submit to one another, in fact, in marriage, is for the wife to be submissive and for the man to be loving and caring. That's how you obey the fifth commandment. But Paul says, Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the Savior.

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. There's nobody here that would argue that Christ is not the head of the church. We all understand there's a relationship of Christ to his bride, that he is in fact the head, and we are to submit. And yet that is how women ought to act. So again, an ill-tempered, contentious wife would be a contradiction in terms.

Turn to 1 Peter 3, 1-6. The fact that it's a contradiction in terms, though, doesn't make it impossible. It just means that we're living in a way that's outside God's design. 1 Peter 3, Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your husbands. Just another section about submission, talking about how they'll win over an unbelieving husband, Even if they refuse to believe the word, the husbands, they will be won over without words by the behavior of their wives.

When they see your pure and reverent demeanor or your respectful and pure conduct. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment such as braided hair or gold jewelry or fine clothes, But from the inner disposition of your heart, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Nothing ill-tempered or contentious would ever be described as gentle and quiet.

It goes on to talk about how the women of the past adorned themselves, not necessarily in how they looked. Sarah, one of the most beautiful women that maybe ever lived. The Bible describes her as so beautiful. And yet Sarah adorned herself by putting her hope in God, being submissive to Abraham, even calling him Lord. And so it is the goal, it is the role of modern women to imitate someone like Sarah.

And so it's a contradiction of terms for you to be ill-tempered or contentious. It's not funny. You ever heard the phrase, happy wife, happy life? It's supposed to be funny. Right? The obvious implication is, if we don't keep our wives happy, they'll make us miserable.

But if we can keep them happy somehow, then we can have a happy life. It's actually not funny. It's a mockery that we would even use a phrase like that. Because it's mocking what God has designed us to be. The fact that any wife is ill-tempered or contentious is a result of the curse. So if you remember Genesis 3.16, God tells Eve that she would have a desire for her husband, but he would rule over her.

And there's no other authority-submission relationship that I can think of where we would make the same kind of jokes. You know, like, happy kids, happy parents. No, we tell kids, you obey your parents. We don't tell them, you manipulate and you act the way you want until you get what you want, then make your parents happy. We wouldn't look at a person at a company or a soldier and tell them that they're the one that really should be exercising authority over their authority figure.

If you remember Luke 7, 8, there was a centurion who knew the power of Jesus, and Jesus was actually amazed, humanly speaking, at least by this man's faith, Because the man said, he is a man under authority and he has people under his authority. And he says, I tell them what to do and they do it. That was his way of confessing. He knew Jesus had authority over even the disease of his son.

Contentious women, contentious wives in particular. It's bad for men, women and their children. It devastates marriages. It destroys churches. Talk to a lot of people who have ever had a big church split or a big problem in a church, and at least in the 21st century, you will hear a lot of people reference at least one overbearing woman that was a big part of it.

So this is not to say all women are bad. It's not to say the women in this room are bad or anything like that. This is me trying to trust that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for us. This verse, Proverbs 21.9, or 19, the one that we were looking at. Oh, excuse me, Proverbs 21.9 also. Better to live on the corner of the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

There's two verses in Proverbs 21 that are very similar. It's scoped to marriage. It's written about marriage. And one of the things that's interesting about this is that I can imagine and I can also tell you that I know now from experience talking to dozens of men over the years of being a Christian, Thank you In the church who when they go to church are very good church ladies And nobody would suspect that they are the contentious and ill wife at home There seems to be a phenomenon that occurs when you are in your home, when you are alone, without everyone else watching, where you can act differently than the way you are capable of acting for a few hours on Sunday.

And part of it is just simple economics. You're there more, you're going to have more of your sin shown there. It's also the same for husbands. There are husbands in the church who are probably kind, sweet gentlemen who you would be shocked to find out how harsh they can be in the privacy of their homes with their wife and their children. How impatient that they can be at times when at church they always seem so patient and mild-mannered.

And it's just the way life is. All these things come out in the closer relationships. It's also not okay to start elbowing your husband when I start talking about those things. So anyway, we all know what this is like. Some people are more or less going to fit in these categories. But we all have the sin nature that we were conceived with, that we are fighting.

And as Jim just taught, James, when you did the catechism, your repentance unto life is you endeavoring to continue to fight these areas of sin. This is the Christian life. So this is a pattern of behavior. If you argue with your husband one time, that doesn't make you a quarrelsome wife. I mean, in that moment, maybe you are. But the idea of the proverb is a warning against somebody who's going to habitually be quarrelsome, unsubmissive, loud, not the precious, gentle, and quiet spirit described in 1 Peter.

It's not a single instance of falling into sin. And it's not, let me try to figure out how to phrase this. It's better to live on the corner of the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Verse 9, Proverbs 21, 19, better live in the desert than with a contentious and ill-tempered wife. It's not presenting two options like, hey, why don't you go live in the desert?

It's showing you by comparison something that is one of the most undesirable things any human could ever want. Nobody would ever want to live in a desert. Nobody would ever want to live on the corner of a housetop is the point. It's trying to show by contrast how difficult it is for somebody in that situation. And then finally, it's redeemable. So when I say finally, I mean finally as part of my introduction.

So for anybody who thought, all right, we're getting out of here. Not yet. Excuse me. Finally. It's redeemable. If today, right now, you realize that you are someone who is contentious, quarrelsome, ill-tempered.

If your husband, with all his imperfections, with all of the times that your husband has done something where he actually deserved some kind of justice or judgment back upon him, and then you exercise it, you were the judge and jury rather than leaving vengeance to the Lord. If you realize that you're that kind of woman, and I'm not asking people to raise their hands or anything like that, it's redeemable by the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we learned just 10 minutes ago, you identify your sin, you name it, you confess it to God, by faith believe that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sin and had to suffer for all of that.

Give that all to Him. The gospel is provided for women who do what God forbids and for women who omit to do what God has commanded. For all sorts of other people as well, but in particular right now, there is hope. And there is forgiveness. And part of the repentance that is distinguishable but inseparable from our faith This is that you will start to walk in newness of life by the power of the Holy Spirit working in you and sanctifying you to not want to be that kind of person.

So Christian women and their spouses should expect growth and victory. Now, part two, who needs to hear this? I have a list of eight people that need to hear a verse like, better to live on the corner of the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife. It's better to live in the desert than with a contentious and ill-tempered wife. The first one is contentious wives.

Turn to James, chapter 1. If you are, in fact, somebody who realizes, I am contentious. You need to hear this verse. You need to know how it affects the man that you love. You need to know how it affects the family that you're trying to raise in a godly way. The church that is affected by how your family functions.

The nation that is built of families. You need to know how your contentiousness behind those closed doors, when momentarily you think nobody sees. You need to know that the Lord sees and there are consequences. So contentious wives James 1 I want to remind you in James 1 13 that when you tempted no one should say God is tempting me for God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone Verse 14 but each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed You need to recognize that you have some desire that is not being met.

And that desire that is not being met, you are reacting with contentiousness. You are reacting in a quarrelsome way. Somehow you think that you're going to get the thing you want, or you're going to stop getting the thing you're getting that you don't want, if you quarrel. You don't trust what the Lord has said about submission. You don't trust... I mean, quarrelsomeness is wrong just among Christians.

Turn to James 4. Even if you weren't a wife, to be quarrelsome with someone as a contentious wife can be would be problematic. You need to understand that it is your desires that are causing you to do these things. What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Verse 1 of chapter 4. Don't they come from the passions at war within you?

You crave what you do not have or you desire what you do not get. You kill and covet but you're unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask. Our desires within are what drives us to do what we do. You may have evil desires.

Desires. You're not getting them fulfilled, so you react, you quarrel. You may have a good desire. Have you ever had a good desire and your husband didn't fulfill it? And it was a good desire. It was maybe even the right thing to do and your husband did the wrong thing.

I guarantee it's happened to every wife in here. The response to you not getting even the good desire can be sin. Because it's God who wants you to live a holy life, despite the fact that all around you other people are going to engage in different activities. And so for you to become contentious or quarrelsome, even over a good thing, is now violating how God has told you to go about things.

God has given you a way to act by being submissive, having a gentle and quiet spirit, by submitting to your husband as the church submits to Christ. He's given you a way to do it, and when you do it a different way, you're shaking your fist at God, and you're saying, God, I don't think the way that you gave me to live my life and to deal with unmet desires is the right way. And we'll often cloak that in piety by saying, well, I want a good thing.

I need to force the issue somehow. And that's just not how God has commanded us. His command is that we do our duty the way he's told us to do things and to trust the results up to him. And I will tell you as a husband, maybe your husbands will tell you this as well, I have been far more convicted in my own life of times that I needed to change by my wife's humble submission to me than by her argumentation.

In fact, I don't think she's ever won me over arguing. Honestly. Even if she was right, I think it was so distasteful to me. But when my wife humbly submits and I realize the immense pressure that is now on me to be the one that's leading well and making right decisions and being holy, the Holy Spirit uses that in my life, which is what he promises to do even with unbelieving husbands in 1 Peter 3.

So you want to be effective, do it God's way. Okay, that's the real irony of pragmatism, if you know what that word means. Pragmatism is when we do things just because we're trying to effect a result that we want. We don't follow principles, we follow what we think will just get us what we want. The real irony of pragmatism is it ends up not working, Which is God's gift to us when we realize that we need to do things His way and by faith trust that there is something mystical going on behind the scenes every time we follow Him by obedience where a blessing can come that can't be explained simply by materialistic processes.

Does that make sense? So you go on the street and you tell somebody the gospel. I know this church is an evangelistic church. You guys like to do that. And time after time, people say, I don't want to hear that. I don't like that.

The conversation's awkward. And we keep doing those kinds of things because we believe God can give the blessing in a mysterious, invisible way. We don't do it because we think it'll work. We do it because we know that's the way he told us he will make sure it works. So contentious wives need to hear this message because you need to repent. You need to be people who say, I do not want to live this way anymore.

I'm hurting people. I'm hurting people I love. I'm hurting myself. But also non-contentious wives need to hear this. You need the warning. You need to know.

Turn to Titus 2. I'm afraid that one of the reasons why we have an epidemic of contentious wives in our culture One of the reasons why for 200 years almost now, feminism has gone from starting to taking over American culture is that we have silence on the part of some people who disagree. There are women who would never be contentious. Hopefully there's women in this room whose husbands think, I thank God that my wife never met the description in this verse.

But if we look at Titus 2 verse 3, it says, Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers or addicted to much wine, but teachers of good. Now listen to what older women, and I would argue also any non-contentious woman, you're older than someone if you're a wife and you're not contentious, what they're supposed to be doing. In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.

I said earlier that the forgiveness offered in Jesus Christ because of his shed blood on the cross, His glorious resurrection three days later and that unimaginable ascension into heaven that is offered to everybody here also applies to women who have omitted to do what's commanded. You may be a non-contentious wife. You may be a wonderful, sweet woman to someone who, maybe he's a nasty man.

I'll do a side note. I've heard multiple testimonies of women who stayed with nasty, abusive, unbelieving men, and they did what they thought was obedience to 1 Peter 3. And sometimes after decades it was, they saw that man come to Christ. And every one of them would testify that it was worth it. But if you're a woman who's not contentious, if you're an older woman in the church, You're obligated to be teaching other women.

It says you're going to train young women to love their husbands and children. Some of you, and I don't like to do this, some of you, and point fingers, but it's just a preacher thing. Some of you in this room, if I asked you, who is a younger woman that you have trained to love her husband? And children. You would not be able to think of someone that you ever spoke to about that.

Some of you would never be able to say that you taught another woman to be self-controlled, pure, a manager of her own house. I don't mean to open a can of worms, but some of you have been too busy at work to be able to talk to another woman about how to manage your own home. How to be kind and submissive to their own husband. Some of you think you're modeling it, and maybe you are, and that's great.

People need to be taught. They need to be trained. And so contentious wives need this message, so do non-contentious wives. And non-contentious wives sometimes are older women who've overcome contentiousness. Some of you need to start confessing more openly that, you know, I used to be this woman. This is what God did in my life, and you need to help a younger woman.

Some of you need to be willing to be uncomfortable. Talk to younger women when you see something that seems a little off. Ask them detailed questions. Ask them things that reveal whether they're actually obeying this verse. And for you young ladies, see a few young ladies in here, some very young ones, unmarried ladies, you need to be ready for marriage.

You need to find yourself an older woman who will take time to teach you. An older woman who will confess the errors that she's made in her life, the sins she's committed against her own husband, And it will tell you how it hurt her and how it hurt her family and how she wants you to avoid those things. Young women need to be training themselves for marriage.

And so we get to verses about a contentious wife and we think, OK, well. That's just for the contentious wives among. Well, it's for everybody. Every woman in the church needs to hear that message. But if you recall, the book of Proverbs was written to a man. It was written to the son of the king, right?

It wasn't written to women necessarily. It's certainly for women. But the object of the lesson was actually men. And so men need to hear this message as well. This is why this wasn't just a 45-minute diatribe against feminism. That could certainly be done.

Needs to be done. Maybe not on Sunday morning. But this is a lesson in the scripture and how as a man, you can read a scripture about contentious wives and you ought to be able to walk away believing that that was profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness so that you may be equipped for every good work as well.

A lot of us tend to do this and we read the section about something about women and we think, well, that's that's for her. The women should be reading Proverbs 31 once a month at least, right? But not the men We don need to do that Well husbands in this room in particular is one of the categories There husbands of contentious wives maybe in this room Maybe somebody else will listen to this message or someone you know will go out Husbands of contentious wives also are called to know how to deal with it.

And you must love and help her. Ephesians 5, the passage where wives are told how to submit to their husbands Husbands, as they submit to the church, the church submits to Christ. I want to read to you now, husbands are to love their wives. Verse 25 and following. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. There's a bunch more stuff there, all about self-sacrifice and how it's a picture, the marriage is a picture of Christ and his church, and it's all really good.

But what I want you to notice is it does not say husbands love your wives when they're not contentious. In fact, it says just as Christ loved the church, when did Christ die for his people? While they were good. Yet sinners, right? That's when Christ died for the people. The good works that are the righteous deeds of the saints that the bride adorns herself with, I think that's like Revelation 19.

These are all good works done in Christ. Christ effectively picked up the ugliest bride he could and decided he'd clean her up. He didn't wait for her to pretty herself up. Men, it is your responsibility, once you've married her, love her. Love means things like making the first move. So when she's being difficult, and the temptation, I know the temptations.

Okay, I'll confess. I had a contentious wife. She said it was okay if I said, she still is sometimes. She didn't say it was okay, I said that one. She said it was okay that I said she used to be. We can edit that out, right?

She knows. My wife has grown so much in the area that she's now far more sensitive to even smaller amounts of contentiousness than previously she wouldn't have even noticed. I'll tell you the temptation. The temptation is go look at a movie or YouTube. Go read something. Play Facebook.

I don't know what all the other social medias are now. So I'm sure there's new temptations of just distractions, right? There's always a way to distract yourself when there's difficulty in the marriage, when your wife particularly is being difficult. When you know she's wrong right now and she's handling it poorly, she's being quarrelsome, there's no winning here.

Restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil in my hand. So I'm not even going to argue with this person right now. She's acting so irrationally. Any man that's ever dealt with that knows exactly that feeling. And what the Bible commands of us men is that we make the first move to find out how do I move toward her to love her. There's all sorts of other types of distractions that I almost don't even want to mention, but because I fear they do pop into people's minds.

There's other women. There's pornography. Gambling. There's all sorts of vices. Drinking. Drinking might not be wrong, but I'll tell you what, if you're in the middle of a fight with your wife, grabbing a drink might not be the thing that you need.

Even if technically it's legal and under the limit. Your job is to move towards your wife. Your job is to let her know you love her the way that Christ was willing to suffer for his bride in that moment. So men need to know that there's such a thing as contentious wives. If you're married to one, you need to know that it is your job to disciple her. Continuing Ephesians 5, Why did Christ give himself up for her?

To sanctify her. Verse 26, Cleansing her by the washing with water through the word. If women's big error that we see as the result of starting in the garden with Eve Contending is a usurpation of authority and becoming contentious and maybe even more masculine. Contending is a masculine thing. This is why I don't think women should be in the military.

I don't think women should wrestle. I don't think they should box. I don't think they should be in the MMA things where they're beating each other up. I think self-defense is a great thing to learn. I think they should be able to do those things. But contending is a masculine thing.

If women's sin is just becoming contentious, for men it's passivity. And for you to sit around and just wait and hope. Oh, I hope a Titus 2 woman comes along and teaches my wife not to be contentious. Men, it's your job to be discipling your wife. Have you ever opened up this verse and taught her? You ever looked at Ephesians 5 and talked to her about submission?

Is submission a bad word in your house? For some people, it's scary to even bring up because that will make her quarrelsome. Well, if you love her, you're going to do it because you love her. And you know it's what's good for her, and you know that all Scripture is given by God and is profitable for her. And for correction, and you trust God. So men, if you have a contentious wife, love her and commit to trying to help her.

Don't just sit back and hope. Also, you need to be a man of prayer. 1 Peter 3, 7, where we continue after Peter exhorts women how they should be. He tells men to love their wives dwell with them in a Let me go there so I can read it correctly 1 Peter 3 7 In the same way treat your wives with consideration or love them as a delicate vessel Some versions it says a weaker vessel.

And you know, feminists get real mad about that. And I'm going to tell you, every woman that's ever been born has a little feminism in them, okay? You don't like to hear it. You're not like the ones today, but we all have a little bit of these poisons that have fed us. Being a weaker vessel is not a bad thing. You need to understand that.

Now, there's probably been many men who have wielded the phrase weaker vessel to harshly hurt people. They say, you're weaker. Remember, go home today and take out one of your nicest glasses that you would reserve if a dignitary visited your house, and then take out one of your plastic cups. Which one are you willing to just throw to the ground? The weaker vessel is the more precious one.

You understand that? It's actually the more beautiful one. It's the one that has more good purpose. So being a weaker vessel isn't a bad thing. Don't let anybody tell you that. It actually makes you precious in God's sight and in the sight of men.

You know, Jesus Christ is described as precious and His blood is described as precious. And the only other thing I found in the New Testament that's described with the same Greek word is women. Just so you know. Husbands, treat your wives with consideration as the weaker vessel, delicate vessel, and with honor as fellow heirs of the gracious gift of life.

So we don't treat women as if they're not also saved with us, right? But then listen, it says, so that your prayers will not be hindered. Some of you men get down on your knees and you say, God, change my wife. And then you don't do anything. You don't do anything to disciple her. You don't do anything to take a risk.

You don't do anything to be not passive. God forbid you're stuck in pornography and all these other vices that men flee to. But even if it's just going and being distracted with an innocuous YouTube video, you're wasting your time. You're supposed to be loving and helping your wife. So you want your prayers to not be hindered. Love her, help her, treat her as the weaker vessel she is, meaning you treat her as if she's precious.

And you also help her with her difficulties. If you're a husband with a good wife, are you encouraging your wife to be that Titus 2 woman? How are you raising your daughters? Are you actively teaching your daughters how to fight these sins of contentiousness and being ill-tempered? There's a reason the Proverbs are written how they are. I mean, this whole chapter is telling young men stay away from prostitutes and women you shouldn't stay away from.

There's like no chapter of the Bible warning women, watch out for male prostitutes. It's just not like the normal thing that tempts women, okay? And then there's the sections talking about women being contentious and ill-tempered. There's a reason. It's because it's a more common sin. And so, men, are you teaching your young daughters?

Are you teaching them not to manipulate? You know, women do this subconsciously. They learn at a very young age how to manipulate. Every dad knows, right? My boys, they can do whatever they want. They are not getting an ice cream cone if I don't want to buy them one.

But if my daughter wanted one, boom, she had it just by blinking her eyes a little. That's how girls are. It's okay sometimes. They're cute. But you want to teach them that they need to control themselves And they need to be people who are raised to believe that they are to submit to some other man someday. It's one of the reasons you hopefully teach her how to find a good man.

Older men, Titus 2, back to Titus. Right before Paul exhorts the men in Crete, or the women in Crete, what they ought to do, he exhorts the men. This Bible is so small print it's hard for me to find all the chapters. But Titus 2, verse 2, Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance. Older men are to be these models for the younger men.

And if you're an older man and you don't have a contentious wife, or maybe you don't even have a wife anymore, you have an opportunity to be discipling others as well. You need this message. And then finally, younger men need this message too, maybe more so than others. Because you're the ones that are looking for a wife. You're the ones that are going to marry a woman who's either contentious or maybe not so contentious.

Or you're going to marry a woman with some degree of contentiousness because we all have some degree of sin. And you're going to want to be ready to help her. Maybe even during the courting phase, you can be helpful. You can be discerning. You could be talking about important things that are sometimes uncomfortable in all our culture, like children, working outside the home, submission, making decisions, budgets, all the things that you have to do when you're married and while you're just dating in an American way you don't even want to talk about.

And so young men, the Proverbs were written to you actually. The Proverbs is one big warning. Hey, here's all the stupid stuff that your dad and grandpa did, and it didn't work out. If anyone knew the pitfalls of dealing with difficulties in life and especially with women it would be David and Solomon right Those guys had experienced a lot of things And by the power of the Holy Spirit they wrote Scripture that we can believe is infallible It means it's perfect.

It can't fail at what it is meant to accomplish. And it can't be wrong about anything it speaks about. And so if you care what the list was, it's basically a contentious wife or a non-contentious wife, an older woman or a younger woman, a man with a contentious wife, a man with a non-contentious wife, an older man or a younger man. Basically, I'm saying everyone in the church needs Proverbs 21.9, Proverbs 21.19, Proverbs 27.15.

All of those verses about the contentious wife, all of the things in Ephesians and 1 Peter, these are all things that God gave to all his church to help them to help each other. So how to fix the problem we have? Like all sin, we have to confess how we've fallen short. Seek forgiveness in Christ because of what he did. And then we need to do the effort to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and to make no provision for the flesh.

That's Romans 13, 14. It's not enough to just point the finger and say, hey, ladies, don't be contentious. We have to tell people what they are to do. We put on Jesus and we fight the flesh. So practically speaking, what are some things that you can do? Ask your husband if you're contentious.

He'll know. In case you were wondering, well maybe he's never known. He'll know. He'll know if he thinks you're contentious or if he thinks you're submissive or maybe somewhere in a sliding scale there where he could say, Well, you know, there's certain times when I find you to be a bit difficult. And I can understand the proverb better. And I'll tell you what, he'll be scared to tell you.

If you're a little contentious, he'll be scared to tell you. Just so you know. But ask him honestly. Say, you humbly really want to be the kind of wife Christ wants you to be. He will be able to tell you. And I'll tell you this.

This is true of all of our sin. It's true of my patience, my harshness. It's true of my wife's contentiousness. It's that it's always amplified in the more difficult moments. That's why I can come to church for a couple hours and be patient. And you'll think, well, he's just the pleasantest, kindest guy.

Oh, he even smiles when he preaches sometimes. Sometimes, some of you probably never see me yell at my kids. Maybe Joe has, right? My kids aren't even here half the time I come up here. They love their Sunday school. Your contentiousness comes out.

The man's harshness and impatience, those things come out when things are difficult. That's why we have to practice doing all of these virtuous things all the time, so that when things get difficult, which they will, when the trial comes that Jesus promised, then you'll be able to be holy, because you practiced the holy living in the non-difficult moments. Do you think that Paul ever sang a hymn before he was in the Philippian jail?

You can answer that. It's not a trick question. Absolutely! You don't go to jail and become an evangelistic person that sings hymns of joy during that suffering suddenly. Even if you could argue with me, well, God could do it. No, He wouldn't.

You become a person that sings hymns every day in your home. And then guess what? Maybe when things get tough, you're going to not complain and you'll be singing hymns of praise. But it takes more than just hoping. Just because God's all-powerful doesn't mean that He doesn't work through the means that He's provided. So sing hymns at home.

Be submissive to your husband, even on the day that doesn't feel so much like a challenge. Be extra submissive that day. Think, how can I be pleasing to this man that God gave me? Ask him, are you contentious? Listen to him and believe him. And then when it starts to come up in normal life where he can say, yeah, you kind of feel quarrelsome right now, listen to him.

Trust him. And men, you know, this goes both ways. I don't want to turn it into a no, I got to do a whole sermon about men thing just because I talked about women. Men have sin issues too. Don't miss the message because of the fact that there's other sins out there. You need accountability.

Some of you may not need the accountability for contentiousness, but if you are a younger woman, little kids, little kids will bring it out of you, that's for sure. All of a sudden you start spending all your life making sure a couple other little creatures are alive. They hardly give you anything back except the big blue eyes once in a while. You stop paying attention to your husband, then he wants something and you can snap at him.

Get accountability from other women. And if you're another woman, offer to be an accountability partner to somebody. And then ask the hard question. It's hard. I have guys in my life that I have to call and I have to say, Did you look at porn yesterday? And it is the most uncomfortable thing in the world to do.

I hate doing it. And then they say no enough times and I think, Stop asking. I don't even... It's so awkward. I get it. But if people need help, they need help.

Be willing to help them. And if you need help, find somebody who will actually ask you, Have you been kind to your husband this week? Or tell me how your interactions with your husband have been. And then they can describe it, rather than just saying yes or no. And then help them. Be willing to say, maybe you should have listened.

Maybe there's a different way to talk to them. So, first point was ask your husband if you're contentious. The second one was get accountability. The third one is ask your husband again. Works both ways, but yeah, your husband knows how he feels about it. Find ways to deny yourself.

Find ways to deny your flesh. Little ways will add up into character changes. So these little habits will add into a whole character change where you're the kind of person who is quiet and submissive, even in areas that maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal to go back and forth, and you will build big habits of submission. There's hope in Christ. I'll remind you that Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, The sovereign over all the universe, the one who said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Jesus Christ knows more about submission than every one of us. He's the one that came into the world and humbled himself by becoming obedient, even to the point of death on a cross Jesus Christ is your perfect example of submission And just as we sing his praises for being such a wonderful perfect Savior in Proverbs 31, it's verse 30, where the children praise her in the gates, the woman who, that might be an earlier verse, but the woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. And so there is hope for women to be praised for their good works that they do in Christ.

There's hope for men to enjoy their marriages. There's hope for women to enjoy the same marriages. So I trust that we'll all be exhorted in that direction today. Let me pray. Father, thank you for your word that always rings true in our ears. Thank you that we can trust that your word will never fail.

I pray for these precious people here today, ones that have hidden hurts and pains, people that are dealing with difficulties in life, that we would all be open to be able to talk about, here's where it's hard, here's where I'm hurting, and that by the power of your word as a church, this local body would help one another, that they would rely on the elders' wisdom to teach them and help them, And that the one another's would come alive. Marriages would be restored. Marriages would grow.

Children would be discipled from a young age. And that together, as families and local churches, we would even be able to contribute to changing our culture. In Christ's name I pray. Amen.