How Can I Be a Godly Leader for My Wife Without Domineering Over Her?

What practices should make up a Christian worship service? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

You can also leave a voicemail at that number if you get our voicemail system, and you can feel free to email us anytime. Send your question to us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Mark calling in from Kansas. Mark, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hey, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much to you and your team and the rest of the teachers and preachers on Radio Network for doing a great commission. Where would America and the rest of the world be without you? Thank you so much and God bless you.

Thanks, Mark. I noticed at the beginning of the program, Pastor Adriel Sanchez said he'd been preaching out of Revelation. I believe he said, if you have time, I have a quick other question. No one's ever been able to give me an answer to out of Revelation, but I was wondering, had Satan been cast from heaven before God created man? And if so, or if not, did Adam and Eve see him cast out of heaven? And also, I was wondering how much time had Adam and Eve been in paradise before the fall? And did they have access to heaven at that time before the fall? Because when we first created, we weren't ever meant to die to go to heaven. So did they have access to the Father in heaven or was they subject to just paradise at that time? Yeah, great questions.

I mean, some of those, Mark, would cause me to, I'd have to speculate some, so I don't want to do that. But with regard to, you know, was it like they were in heaven? Adam and Eve were in this unique space because they're given this command, you know, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to be fruitful and to multiply.

And they're called to obey that command. And had they obeyed that command, I think they would have experienced the quote, unquote, heavenly life. But there was still something that was set before them, a greater experience of God, a greater experience of life, if you will, the heavenly life.

Sometimes theologians will refer to it as eschatological life, eschatology having to do with the end times, that final life glorification. But they didn't experience that yet. They had not experienced that. And of course, they fell. Now, how long were they in the garden before they fell? We don't know.

That would just, we'd totally be speculating. I think the way Genesis is set up, it sort of feels like it was fairly quickly that they weren't there for a really, really long time before they fell. Sort of like Israel in the wilderness, you know, getting the law of God and then immediately committing idolatry, you know, how quickly they went astray is sort of what you see time and time again with humanity. And so I think that's a clear answer, at least to one of your questions. And then some of the other ones is we don't know. We do know that Satan fell prior to what we see happening there in the garden when he's going to tempt Adam and Eve. But you mentioned you had maybe a quick question about the book of Revelation.

Let me see if I can help you out with that. What was your question there? Okay, there again, I was just saying what you would maybe come up with, because I've always speculated and tried to figure it out myself. So I thought, let's see what old Pastor Ariel says about my thoughts. So I've always assumed that paradise was here on earth after the fall, you know, the thistles and the weeds and working and the sweat of our brow. But the question I've always kind of had out of Revelation was, and emotions have kind of gotten high over my lifetime over this subject, because I even heard a couple sermons the last couple days describing heaven 1500 by 15.

And in my mind, with no limitations to our Father, Almighty God who created everything, I could be speculating, but I just kind of wanted to see what you thought about this. I don't see him who created the universe and everything making heaven just 1500 miles, you know, in our human mind, that seems like a big place. But where it says in Revelation, where he saw a new heaven and a new earth, I've always felt like, and I never have heard a preacher say this, but why would he make a new heaven and a new earth?

Because to me, paradise was where Adam and Eve was. And he's going to burn it up, which purifies everything with fire, that the earth will go back to its original state, like when Adam and Eve were here, which I'm assuming was paradise. Yeah, so what it's going to be is it's going to be even better than that, because like I said, Adam and Eve were in this sort of this waiting period, this probationary period, we might say, were they going to obey the commandment of God or not, and when they fell, that garden, which was supposed to grow and spread throughout the whole world, that garden, there was a huge shift, obviously, right? Like they were cast out of the garden, thorns and thistles, the world is essentially now transformed by the corruption of Satan. And everything in creation experiences this, and this is what everything in creation is longing to be delivered from.

Paul talked about that in Romans chapter eight. And so it's going to be even better than what Adam and Eve had in the garden. When we think about the new creation, it's going to be the heavenly life that was set before them, that they would have had, had they obeyed the Lord. And we experienced that heavenly life, that new creation through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who did obey at every single point so that we in him might have that gift of eternal, heavenly, new creation life.

And the whole world is going to be glorified. This creation is going to be transformed by the grace of God, where the people of God are going to live and reign in perfect peace and in righteousness. So that's what we're looking forward to, and the picture is painted beautifully in Revelation 21.

And so appreciate, again, your questions, Mark, and thanks for giving us a call. And I'm so glad that Pastor Adriel spends a lot of time in Revelation, because we do get a lot of questions about that book, don't we? At least lately, man, as I've been preaching through the book, but we are coming close to the end. I'm still in Revelation 20, so just maybe a few more weeks for our church, and then we're going to have to find something else.

Okay. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, doctrine, theology, you name it, we'd love to hear from you. You can always leave a voicemail for us 24 hours a day at 833-843-2673.

That's 833-THE-CORE. Let's go to Sally from Missouri, who has been waiting on hold for a while. Thanks, Sally. What's your question for Adriel?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. My question is, the six million Jews that were slaughtered, was that predicted at the cross when Jesus said, don't cry for me, cry for your children, and I can't wrap my mind around how God or what God did when they were being slaughtered and gassed like that. I can't even watch Schindler's List.

I've never watched a movie in my life. And that is the question. I don't understand that.

Okay. Well, Sally, I don't know. You're asking what the Holocaust predicted by Jesus. I think the text you're referring to is Luke 23, verse 28. But turning to them, Jesus said, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children, for behold, the days are coming, when they will say, blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed. And they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us.

For if they do these things, when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? And there's a couple of things that could be referenced here. One, I think the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. And that's something that Jesus repeatedly warned about, the destruction of the temple. We know, of course, that that was a horrific event.

I mean, just an absolute massacre. And so Jesus is referring to that. Also, this language of calling on the hills and the mountains to fall on us, I think this language, which we also see in the book of Revelation, is a part of what you see taking place at the final judgment, the final judgment of our Lord upon the evil in the world.

When we see these things, and of course, we're confronted with it over and over again, we think of things like the Holocaust, we grieve at the sinfulness of man, the hatred that exists in us. We long for God and his grace to work, first and foremost in our own hearts. Christianity doesn't say the problem is primarily outside of you, it's out there, the evil people over there.

No, it begins with us. Jesus says from our own hearts, proceed all sorts of things, murder, adultery. And so we need Christ to cleanse us and we long to see his kingdom come and his grace to cleanse others as well. And we lament, we mourn alongside of the suffering, knowing that God is a perfect God who is going to bring about just judgment, but until he does, we do experience these things and you feel the sorrow, Sally, as you think about those horrific acts.

And of course, as I said, I think it's a call for all of us to examine our own hearts, to pursue the Lord, and to pursue the peace that God calls us to have with him, first and foremost, and with our neighbors as well, and then seeking to do everything that we can to prevent those kinds of heinous atrocities that we see. Sally, God bless you, and thanks for your question. Sally, thanks so much for listening to CORE Christianity and for your tender heart. We really do appreciate you. Well, we'd love to hear from you. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, you can always email us. Here's our email address. It's questionsatcorechristianity.com. We also want to take a moment to say thank you to a very special group of people. We call them our inner CORE. Yes, if you're blessed by the work that we're doing, would you consider supporting us with a monthly gift of $25 or more?

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We'd love to have you join that very special group of people. Let's go back to the phones. Jared is on the line from Texas. Jared, what's your question for Pastor Adrian?

Hi, Israel. Thank you for all the work that you do here. It's really been ministering a lot in my life. My question is about a passage in Ephesians 5 where it talks about husbands loving your wives, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. My question is, in my own personal life, leading family devotions and stuff like that with my wife, how to lead one's wife in the word without being domineering or just giving a lecture, being a hypocrite, and truly doing that in a way that's honoring the Lord. Because it seems to be a time that can be really beautiful and has been, but it's also been a time that maybe can cause some friction. Jared, thank you so much for that question.

Super practical. And of course, the text that you went to is 100% the place where we want to go where you have Paul's exhortation to husbands in Ephesians 5, verse 25, love your wives as Christ loved the church. And so there's the call.

That's the standard. How should I love my wife? Well, I should love her as Jesus loved the church.

And what did that look like? Well, he gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. I think that's an illusion, a reference to baptism, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, your one flesh. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his flesh but nourishes and cherishes it. And so I think first and foremost when we're thinking about leading, it's asking ourselves those questions. Am I giving myself, serving sacrificially, I mean there's the example, Jesus serving sacrificially, my wife nourishing and cherishing her?

And what does that look like practically in my day-to-day living, providing for my family, providing for not just physical needs but emotional needs, care, love, companionship, partnership, all of those things. And I think that as we do that, hopefully the relationship is being cultivated to where we want to, together, open the word of God and pray. I think starting small can be really helpful, especially when we think about family devotions. A lot of people are like, okay, we want to start with, we're going to read these many chapters of the Bible a day and this amount of time in prayer, and I think that that's great. So I think even just beginning by saying, hey, let's close out the day together in prayer. You know how hard it is, I've seen this for so many couples, it's just so difficult for them to pray together, truly to pray together, to sit down and to spend intentional set-apart time praying for their family, praying for their church, praying for the needs in their lives, in society, and so I think starting there. And the challenge with that, and I think this is one of the reasons it's so hard a lot of times for couples to pray together, is no one knows you better than your spouse does. And so oftentimes we can just feel that sort of, I feel like a hypocrite. Here I am, they saw me get upset the other day or get angry earlier or grow frustrated, and now here we are praying and trying to be holy. And so I think that's one of the reasons there's a lot of vulnerability there, but even that should be an opportunity for conversation, Jared, where we can say, look, man, I'm so sorry that I acted in this way.

I need the grace of God. And that's, again, part of the way we lead. As husbands, it's something we're all called to do, husbands and wives, to be able to say, man, have mercy on me, Lord, forgive me for the way I was acting here, and let's come before the Lord with a clear conscience, working together, and then trying to build those habits where we're doing things together, primarily, I would say, worship together as a family on the Lord's day, going to church together, sitting under the ministry of the word, and receiving and talking about those things. I think those are all ways that you can lead, but then outside of Sunday worship, thinking about, okay, what does it look like?

Let's brainstorm. What would it look like for us to daily offer ourselves as a married couple, our family, to the Lord in prayer, reading scripture? Maybe it's just a few verses in the morning together and we pray together, or maybe it's something we do in the evening, but that, I think, requires the two of you to sort of sit down and think through that specifically and what will work best for your family. And so, Jared, may God give you wisdom, and may he give us all as husbands the strength, because it really is, I mean, we're going to fall short, but the strength and the grace of his Spirit to love as Jesus loved his bride. And so, God bless you, brother, in that. Well, that is so well said. Thanks for that, Adriel.

And by the way, my wife's love language is cleaning toilets. There you go, Bill. So, when was the last time you cleaned the toilet, is what I want to know. Let's see.

Yesterday. Okay, all right. Good, good, good.

Servants hard here. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Daniel calling in from Tennessee. Daniel, what's your question for Adriel? Hi, so my question is, I don't live far from the school shooting that happened in Tennessee, and I've been saved for about 17 years.

We just moved to Tennessee last year from Michigan. I guess my question would be like, there's talks of gun control, there's talks of this is the answer, that's the answer. My question is to the church. Why is it over the past 10 to 15 years, I've seen progressively the church and church become more fearful, more gun based, more security based, more making sure that we're protected and safe. And yet Jesus clearly shows otherwise in the scripture that we're supposed to lay down our lives, not be afraid to lose it.

Yeah. Yeah, Daniel, I think that you're picking up on something. And you asked the question, why is it that the church is becoming more fear based? And I think part of the problem is we're being shaped more by media, secular media, whatever you listen to, which is oftentimes trying to stir up fear and hatred. And we're not being shaped by God's word and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Now, that doesn't mean that we just you just say, you know, you know, throw your children to the wolves, that kind of thing.

No, absolutely not. We're called to protect and care for our children. I think that's one of the ways we love each other. But at the same time, you're totally right in terms of the church really having a vision for what does it look like for us to lay down our lives for our neighbors as opposed to, gosh, why is everybody so so hard on us or why is everybody trying to take away this, that or the other?

We saw this a lot during the pandemic. And so, you know, I think, again, the root is what is it that's shaping you? What is it that's discipling you, forming you? Is it the fear that is just being pushed in society or is it the grace of God? And if it is the grace of God, that doesn't mean that we don't take proper precautions, that we don't care for our children, that we don't protect our families, those kinds of things. But we also recognize with Jesus, right, that this world, I mean, if we're following Jesus, if we believe these things, if we if we cling to these truths, look, the world is going to hate you, Jesus said.

I mean, if you're honest about sin, if you're honest about the exclusivity of the gospel, there are just going to be people that don't like you. And so how should we respond? It's not with fear and vengeance and, you know, the sort of us them thing.

It's with charity and truth and a commitment to the word of God and being faithful to to that. And so I think I think one concern that I've I've heard from many Christians is just that that fear of like, what do you want? Do you want us to just sort of, you know, roll over and let let things go by the wayside and just leave our children to know? The answer is no. That's that's not what what we ought to do. That's not what the word of God calls us to. But it also doesn't call us to taking vengeance into our own hands. Certainly not. It doesn't call us to cynicism.

It doesn't call us to grow in our hatred of people, though we should ever be growing in our hatred of sin and evil. And so I think that's that's that's the issue, Daniel. Now, I just want to go back to you. Was that sort of what you were getting at in terms of the the growing sort of fear and desire to protect oneself as opposed to the desire to serve?

Yeah, that was basically it. I mean, I work also at a university, so I was talking with other officers about this stuff yesterday. And, you know, and I just said, you know, and I hope this isn't too brash to say, but when when it comes to the loss, there's no no use for it. And it's a deep place of mourning. Yet these people we know and we believe are Christians who are with the Lord now.

And I said to my friend yesterday, I said, look, this girl, if we know right, a bad tree doesn't bear good fruit. If she's cut off for all eternity because of the choice she made, where should we actually be mourning the loss? It doesn't mean we shouldn't mourn the loss of these ones. But are we not mourning this lost soul that's now gone forever because she was so hurt? I understand what you are trying to say here, but I think that you need to be very careful. I think actually one thing that you're not seeing is these these things are not the same.

Yes. So let's just assume your premise and say that this woman is in hell under the judgment of God. But we're talking about victims and a murderer. And so when you ask the question, where do we mourn the loss? I think we mourn with the victims and the families.

And that doesn't mean that we don't lament the state of society. I mean, the fact that we have these kinds of things happening, we don't rejoice at the death of the wicked. I mean, this is what what the prophet Ezekiel said. But at the same time, we do long for justice.

This is what, you know, when John has a vision in Revelation chapter six of the martyrs beneath the altar of God, he sees them crying out to God. How long until you avenge our blood on the earth? How long until you judge God, those who have killed us? And that judgment is is serious. And actually, that's a judgment that we see carried out throughout the Book of Revelation. And that is something that the people of God cry out to God for. So there's there's this tension where we say, God, bring about justice, defend your people. And at the same time, we're longing to see the salvation of Christ extend to the four corners of the earth. But in situations like this, we mourn with with the victims and with the families of the victims. And we say to the Lord, how long, O Lord, judge, O God, bring about truth and justice and righteousness. And may God help us to pursue that in all things and to come alongside of those who are hurting right now and suffering and to care for them and to comfort them with the love of Jesus Christ. And so may God again be with the victims. May the Spirit of God be be comforting those families as we look to him. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833 the core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.