How to Win Your Unbelieving Spouse B

The lovely, gracious, gentle submission of a Christian woman to her unsaved husband is the strongest evangelistic tool she has.

It's not what she says, it is what she is. If you're a Christian and your spouse isn't, what's the most effective way to evangelize him or her? What do you need to say, and more important, what do you need to do? John MacArthur answers those questions as he continues his current series on Grace to You, titled Restoring Marriage. John will look at concepts that aren't very popular today, things like submission and meekness and modesty, and he'll show you how those characteristics not only can bless your marriage, but can even draw your unbelieving spouse to Christ.

So here's John MacArthur with today's lesson. The lovely, gracious, gentle submission of a Christian woman to her unsaved husband is the strongest evangelistic tool she has. It's not what she says, it is what she is. The woman is to submit to her husband's leadership. That is a God-designed principle. Wives, submit to your husbands, Ephesians 5, 22. Wives, submit to your husbands, in each case your own husband, Colossians 3, 18.

The same thing comes from Paul in Titus 2, 4, and 5. Young women are to be subject to their own husbands. Again, that possessive pronoun is there every time such a statement is made. The woman is to submit to the husband's leadership. This is her greatest tool of evangelism, the virtue of her wifely character. The first duty of the wife then is submission. To put it another way, voluntary selflessness and dependence. There's a second responsibility in verse 2. Let's call this faithfulness.

Number one is submission. Number two is faithfulness. Verse 2 says, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. Now that's a very basic spiritual truth for a marriage. He's talking here about a pure life. What does chaste and respectful behavior mean?

Well, it basically means irreproachable conduct. Faithful to her God, faithful to her husband. Don't break trust.

You want to win your unsaved husband? One, be submissive. Two, be faithful. That's what chaste, respectful behavior means. Chaste means pure. It means you're not fooling around with anybody else.

It means you're pure. Respectful, it means you have respect for Him. You demonstrate that respect.

You never get involved with anyone else and you show Him proper respect. The third principle comes in verses 3 through 6 and it is modesty. You have submission and its intention which is to bring Him to Christ. You have faithfulness in verse 2 and then you have modesty. Please notice verse 3, 4, 5 and 6. In verse 3 it says, let not your adornment be merely external, braiding the hair and wearing gold jewelry or putting on dresses. Now, he comes to a very important matter for the Christian wife trying to win her unsaved husband. He says, look, the normal, and I want to say this knowing there's a risk involved, the normal preoccupation of women is with the outside.

And I think we would all agree with that. Certainly in our society, the normal preoccupation of women is with the outside adornment. He says, let not your adornment be merely external. You say, is he against combing hair? I don't think so. I don't think so. You say, is he against wearing gold jewelry? I don't think so. I don't think he's against that. After all, the beautiful woman, the bride and song of Solomon was bejeweled and wonderfully so. Is he against putting on dresses?

No, I don't think so. What he is saying is let not that be your incessant preoccupation to the disregard of the character inside. Boy, they got really carried away and I don't have time to give you all the insight, but in the Greek and Roman world, there was an immense preoccupation with the outside. Cosmetics were big. You ever seen the punk rockers with the purple hair and the green hair and all that?

Nothing new. They had it in Greece in the Roman time. Women dyed their hair purple and they dyed their hair red and green and yellow and all kinds of colors. They waved it. They braided it elaborately.

They piled it higher and higher and higher and higher in one of those beehive things. They wore wigs and they were especially fond of wigs made of blonde hair taken from people outside of their particular part of the world. They wore hair bands. They wore pins. They wore combs. They wore ivory tortoise shell jewelry in their hair. They wore gold and pearls, silk and scents and emeralds and diamonds and all that kind of stuff. They really laid it on. It wasn't any different than the fashion plate mentality of today.

People literally tied fortunes up in their clothing and since they were pretty well decked from neck to feet in a garment, most of it showed up on their face and their head where it could be seen and where their wealth and their pride could manifest itself most visibly. This isn't anything new. Listen to the Lord's indictment of Israel in Isaiah 3.

Listen to this. In that day, verse 18, the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, headbands, crescent ornaments, dangling earrings, bracelets, veils, headdresses, ankle chains, sashes, perfume boxes, amulets, finger rings, nose rings, festal robes, outer tunics, cloaks, money purses, hand mirrors, undergarments, turbans and veils. Now it will come about that instead of sweet perfume, there will be a putrefaction.

Instead of a belt, a rope. Instead of well-set hair, a plucked-out scalp. Instead of fine clothes, a donning of sackcloth and branding instead of beauty.

Pretty straightforward stuff, right? Women have always tended, fallen women, to be preoccupied with the outside. But that's not the true beauty. And I'll promise you, ladies, that external beauty does not capture the heart of your husband if there's nothing on the inside. Peter doesn't condemn all outward adornment, but what does he say?

Verse 4, let your adornment be the hidden person of the heart. That's where the true beauty is. Hey, when you got married, it wasn't long before you really weren't too conscious of what she looked like. But you became very conscious of what she was like inside. That's the true beauty.

Christianity has always existed in a world of luxury and a world of decadence. And Peter says, don't you spend your time and money adorning your body. And you know, that's a temptation.

Here's a woman, she's got an unsaved husband, she doesn't have much of a happy relationship with him, and so she simply turns the other direction and spends her life indulging herself to make her external beauty all that it could possibly be and more. Peter says, don't do that. That's not how you win him to Christ. If you're going to be preoccupied, let it be the hidden person of the heart.

What do you mean? I mean the inner person. The inner person, character, virtue. First Timothy 2, 9, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing. That is, they ought to be clothed in a modest way, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works as befits women making a claim to godliness.

First Timothy 2, 9 and 10, work on the virtue of your life. Work on your character. That will make you far more beautiful. By the way, the most beautiful women on the inside tend to be very beautiful on the outside. Have you noticed? Have you ever noticed how makeup can't change an ugly disposition?

And have you noticed how makeup can't enhance a beautiful disposition? What is it that we are to do in adorning the inner person? Look again at verse 4. You are to adorn the inner person with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit. Gentle means meek. Quiet means just that, peaceful, calm, in control.

The word spirit means disposition. The most beautiful kind of woman is the woman with the meek, gentle, peaceful, calm, quiet disposition. That is the inner virtue that a woman is to pursue, and that is what wins the heart of a man. Not only that, would you please notice, it is precious in the sight of whom? Of God.

It is highly valued by God. Now again, he's not forbidding all outward adornment. He is saying that you must work on the inside. Don't confuse spirituality with tackiness or sloppiness. That too calls attention to the outside and betrays a heart unconcerned to reflect the beauty that God has given to a woman. But the fact is, you're to be modest and to work on the inside. Look at verse 5.

He gives an illustration. In this way, in former times, the holy women also who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands. Who are the holy women? Old Testament saints. They hoped in God.

What does that mean? That they were true believers. He says, I'm not telling you anything new, but in Old Testament times those women set apart unto God who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves.

In what way? Submissiveness to their husbands. That's the proper adornment. They're the models to follow. And he names one in verse 6, Sarah. Sarah is a model. She's a model that you ought to look like. She's a model that you ought to pattern your life after.

Why? She obeyed Abraham. She's a model of obedience. She called him Lord.

That wouldn't be real popular today. Yes, Lord, what do you want? You see how far you women have drifted? It's biblical. Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. Master.

She's the model. By the way, calling him is in the present participle, the present tense. Constantly calling him Lord. Constantly in submission to him. Why does he choose Sarah here?

Because of the next statement. You have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear. He knows that if you're a believer, you're a child of Abraham by faith, right?

You remember that, don't you? Very clearly outlined in Romans 4, 11, and 12 in Galatians 3, we are the children of Abraham by faith. And so he's just kind of tagging onto that and saying you not only will be the children of Abraham by faith, but you'll be the children of Sarah, Abraham's wife, by following her. So he's saying Christian women who follow the pattern of Sarah can be called Sarah's children as well as Abraham's children. You're not only children of faith, but you're children of submission. You not only follow the faith of Abraham, but the submission of Sarah.

If you do what is right, that's what he says in verse 6. If you do what is right without being frightened by any fear, what do you think that means? Intimidated. I believe every single society since the fall has tried to intimidate a woman who wanted to be submissive to her husband.

I don't think that's new. There are fears in being submissive, potential fears. If you're a Christian wife and you had an unsaved husband, you might be afraid to totally submit for fear of where it might lead you and to what sin it might result. You have to stop short of that. But Peter says don't be intimidated. Don't be frightened.

Don't be fearful. Just do what's right and what is right is to submit to your husband. That's the principle. It's the principle of submission. It's the principle of purity.

It's the principle of modesty. That's how you win your husband without a word. You want to win that unsaved spouse? Be submissive. Follow the beautiful pattern of Sarah, calling him Lord, doing what is right. Be pure and faithful to him in the physical and the emotional area. Be modest.

Decorate the inner beauty that may manifest itself on the outside and don't get preoccupied with trying to fix the outside when the inside isn't what it ought to be. That's how you live as an alien and a stranger in a marriage with the hope of influencing your husband for Christ. Finally, verse 7, turn the tables. How does a husband win an unsaved wife? That's less frequent but does happen. You husbands likewise. What do you mean likewise, Peter? You submit too.

There's a submission on our part. Go back and read Ephesians 5 21. Submit yourselves to one another, wives to the husbands, husbands to the wife. We don't submit to the authority of the wife. We don't submit to the leadership of the wife, to the headship of the wife, but we do submit, listen to this, to the needs of the wife. We subordinate our own little world and our own little agenda to meet the needs of the woman who is our wife, even if she's not a Christian. Verse 7 says, you husbands likewise.

You have to submit just like the wife, just like the employee, just like the citizen. He's talking to Christian husbands, you husbands, which means he's writing to the scattered believers. You're the Christians and you've got to take care of your wife. By the way, in that culture, a man could just kill his wife, as I pointed out. Cato, according to Roman law, says if you were to catch your wife in an act of infidelity, you can kill her without a trial, but if she was to catch you, she wouldn't venture to touch you with her finger. She has no such right.

So you can just kill your wife if you want to get rid of her. But what is the responsibility of a Christian husband when he has an unsaved wife? Should he bolt the situation and say, I'm going to find me a Christian girl.

You're out of here. What should be his attitude? Three things. Number one, very briefly, consideration. Live with your wives in an understanding way.

Present tense, constantly be continuing to live with your wife in an understanding. That's gnosis again. That's knowledge, deep experiential knowledge.

What do you mean? Sensitive to her needs, sensitive to her feelings. And I believe it includes the sexual aspect as well. It includes intimacy because knowing someone means having an intimate relationship.

Remember that? Cain knew his wife and she bore a child. You are to live with your wife in the most intimate way possible, sexually, emotionally.

That doesn't change. Live is the word sonoikin. It means to be together with someone in the house. Stay intimate. Stay close. By the way, that same word sonoikin is used in the septuagint for intercourse.

So he is definitely talking with sexual overtones. You are to live with your wife in a deeply intimate way. Don't cut yourself off from her deepest physical, emotional needs just because she's not a Christian.

You fulfill that dimension far from abusing her or ignoring her or being indifferent to her. You are to be sacrificially sensitive to that unsaved woman. You are to be thoughtful. You are to be respectful.

That would frankly be kind of a revolutionary thing in that culture for a man to become a Christian and then all of a sudden become totally respectful and sensitive and feeling toward his wife who didn't want anything to do with Christ would really be cross grain. But that's exactly what it says. You are to nourish her, in the words of Ephesians 5, cherish her, protect her, insulate her, maintain that deep, deep sensitive intimacy. Secondly... Secondly, not only is there to be consideration, but there is to be chivalry. That's a good old word, isn't it?

What does he say in verse 7? You have to live with her as with a weaker vessel since she is a woman. She's a weaker vessel. What do you mean by that? Well, first of all, weaker is a comparative.

What's it compared to? Weak. So just keep that in mind. She's weaker, but you're what? Weak.

So don't get overconfident about your great abilities. You're weak. She's weaker.

What does it refer to? Physical, emotional, natural weakness. A woman is physically weaker. She must be protected. She must be provided for. She must be nourished. She must be cherished. So, husbands, you have an unsaved wife, maintain deep intimacy with her, sensitivity to all of her needs, and understand that she needs your protection, she needs your provision. Third word, companionship. Consideration, chivalry, companionship.

I love this. Grant her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life. What's the grace of life? It's not eternal life.

It's not saving grace. Grace simply means a gift. What's the best gift that life has to offer? Marriage. That's God's grace gift to everybody. You're heirs together.

That's a very important statement. He's not speaking spiritually here. He's speaking merrily. We know he's talking about an unsaved wife because he says, you husbands likewise. And he ties it into 3.1 where you've got a Christian in an unsaved environment, 2.18 where you have a Christian in an unsaved environment, 2.12 and 13 where you have a Christian in an unsaved environment. So he is saying, look, you must live with her as a fellow heir of the grace of life. Cultivate companionship, friendship, respect her as heirs together of the grace of life, the best that life has to offer, the topping on life. This calls for fellowship, partnership, friendship, companionship, communion. That too was foreign in Peter's day.

Women were not allowed to at all associate as friends, even of their own husbands. They were at best to clean the house and bear children. So he says, husbands, do that. And if you are not considerate and if you are not chivalrous and if you are not a companion, look at the end of verse 7, your prayers will be what?

Hindered. What do you think he's praying for? He's praying for what? The salvation of his wife. But that prayer is going to be hindered if he is not treating her in this way with deep intimacy, with great protection, provision and with friendship, companionship.

Then his prayers won't be hindered. So how do you win an unsaved partner? By living an exemplary Christian life.

Just that simple. Whether you're in the government, seeing yourself as a citizen, on the job as an employee, in the home as a marriage partner, the role is always the same. You submit to God's ordained pattern for that social relationship and you live it out to the maximum to please God and God will honor you as a testimony wherever you are.

Let's bow together in prayer. Lord, thank you for such straightforward and encouraging advice and truth. Bless those wives who have unsaved husbands.

Make them all that you want them to be. Bless those husbands that have unsaved wives. Make them all that a husband should be in order that they might win that partner, in order that their prayers for the salvation of their mate might not be hindered. For Jesus' sake, amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. Today's lesson on how to win your unbelieving spouse to Christ is part of John's series titled Restoring Marriage. Well, John, clearly the topic of this study, marriage, has provoked lots of controversy in recent years. You've been saying for years that marriage is under attack by secular culture, and you see that today more clearly than ever. So how should the Church respond to the marriage debate? And to be clear, the debate is not over just because the laws have changed. How should Christians defend what Scripture says about this sacred institution of marriage?

Well, let's be honest. Marriage is not under attack anymore in the culture. The war is over. It's not under attack.

It's been conquered. Marriage has been conquered in our culture. Marriage is not an issue. In fact, there's probably more disdain from the younger generation in this culture for marriage than there's ever been in the history of our country. They don't even consider marriage, unless there's some maybe lingering traditional reason for it. Most people cohabitate with little regard for marriage, and then you've got homosexual marriage and all the chaos that that brings. So from the culture standpoint, the war is over, and the anti-marriage forces won the war.

The danger is that because this war is over, that the Church becomes accepting of that defeat. When the Church has to rise up and exalt God and exalt His Word, and that means to elevate marriage. The Church, it seems to me—I don't know how long it's been that I haven't heard a sort of a megachurch preacher say anything at all about marriage. In the first place, so many of their churches are filled with young people who aren't married, and other people who are divorced, many of the young people that are in their churches are single, but they once were married, or they're living with somebody, or they were living with somebody.

And there's this sense that we don't want to tamper with that because we're trying to win them over. This is more of this pragmatic approach to the Church, which says, We want you to like us, and so we don't want to offend you. And wow, if we start nailing immorality, sexual immorality, homosexuality, if we start elevating marriage and the sanctity and the beauty and the purity of marriage, we're going to drive the millennials and the young people away. But this is the opposite of what the Church needs to do. It needs to rise up and proclaim God's design for marriage. The only hope for this culture is really families, godly families.

They're the only hope for any kind of return to God, a return to blessing for a nation. So that's why we're doing this series, Restoring Marriage. I hope you found it beneficial, and if you did, you may want to get this series. It's available in a four-CD album if you prefer CDs, or you can go to gty.org and order four MP3 downloads. The title, Restoring Marriage, so important, and you can order it today. Yes, and friend, if you want to know what Scripture has to say about marriage and how to defend it, if you want your marriage to fulfill God's design, this series will be a helpful resource. It's ideal for newlyweds or for anyone in a tough marriage. To order John's study titled Restoring Marriage, contact us today. To purchase the four-CD album, call 800-55-GRACE or visit our website, gty.org. By the way, you can download all four messages free of charge in MP3 or transcript format at the website.

The title again, Restoring Marriage. To download the study or any of John's more than 3,500 lessons free of charge, visit our website at gty.org. And to continue your study of what Scripture says about marriage or parenting or salvation or any other topic, let me encourage you to get a copy of our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible. Scripture has everything you need for life and godliness, and the MacArthur Study Bible has the 25,000 footnotes to help you understand and apply all of that life-changing truth page by page, verse by verse. To order, visit our website, gty.org or call us at 800-55-GRACE. That number, by the way, translates to 800-554-7223. Now for John MacArthur and the staff, I'm Phil Johnson, inviting you back at the same time tomorrow when John shows you the key to maintaining family unity. It may not be what you think it is. Be here Wednesday for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.