Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today.

Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. In the old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Likewise ye husbands dwell with them according to knowledge.

Obviously we read that this morning as our theme for the day. Giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. Look at verse 8. Finally, be ye all of one mind.

Wait a minute. Now, he just said that husbands, you're going to have to learn, you're going to have to gain knowledge to figure out how to get along with your wife because the two of you are different. Then he says, be ye all of one mind. Having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing. In other words, you ought to give blessing for railing. You ought to give blessing when somebody gives evil to you. Well, if a husband or wife could learn that, if either the husband or the wife was angry and just started getting mad at their mate, what if the other mate responded with blessing? Can you imagine how many arguments we wouldn't have?

Can you imagine how it would squelch division in a marriage? You say, well that's easier said than done, preacher, you're absolutely right. Look at verse 10. For he that will love life and see good days.

Notice that good days. Let him refrain his tongue from evil. That's a nice way of saying you better keep your mouth shut to your wife if you want to see good days and his lips that they speak no guile.

Obviously, I'm picking father. Pray that you bless, Lord, as we look again once again this evening at the differences that you've designed between men and women. And Lord, I pray that you'd help this to help us as your word always does.

In your name we pray. Amen. I think we kind of proved our point this morning about the fact that men and women are different. But, you know, really one of the greatest myths that there is is that I've heard people say there's really no essential difference between men and women beyond obviously physically. And I'm here to tell you that's just absolutely unbiblical.

It's unreasonable and it's dangerous to your marriage for you to think that. Let me say this. God made women and men different both physically and emotionally. And then in first Peter chapter three we find that he commands husbands to take note of this. He says you better dwell with them according to knowledge. We talked about that this morning.

Which brings me to this. You and I might not understand why our spouses think and feel the way they do. But we have to understand and accept that they do think and feel certain ways. You see, a lot of us say, well, I don't know why my wife thinks this or acts this way. And a lot of us say, well, I don't know why my... You don't necessarily have to know why.

You just need to know that they do and accept that and love them for that. Because there are going to be differences. And if you think about it, husbands and wives, the way we are different, we talked about that this morning, how men use obviously the left hemisphere of the brain, women use both. And we talked about how we've been created genetically in different things. And if you look at the way men are made and the way women are made, it's an absolute train wreck. I'm having trouble with a train tonight.

Do you notice that? It's an absolute train wreck waiting to happen in marriage. And it's going to happen without the help and grace of God in marriage. Number one tonight, I want you to realize, and we're going to dig into a little bit of genetics here, but number one, you have to understand that men and women think different. They think different. From the early stages of development, the brains of men and women develop differently. Now, I told you that men use the left hemisphere of the brain. And then obviously women use both. Let me tell you why. When you and I are born, it starts out different.

And I'll tell you why. Women, they get a heavy dose of estrogen. And that helps women. It kind of spurs them to nurturing and caring. It gives them that nurturing and caring nature.

Like I said, there's always exceptions. But on a whole, women are gifted with that. And that's one of the things that causes that. Weeks after conception, men receive a huge dose of testosterone. And later, as a fetus in the womb, they get a biochemical bath. And what that does is it severs the connection between the left and right brain. That's why men only use that one side. And women, for some reason it doesn't happen that way. And they use both. That's why women, you know, they have logic, but also they have intuition. And here they have, like I said this morning, they have calculation, but they also have feeling.

And they're using all that at once. And us men, we have the one side of the brain. And that's why. Because when we're born, that biochemical bath separates that nerve. And we just use that one half of our brain. So we automatically from the start think different, act different, all these different things. When this happens in men, when that biochemical bath separates that left and right side of the brain, here's what happens.

That promotes competitiveness and focus in men. But when that happens, it hurts their ability to multitask. And this happens before we even are born. That means that already for men, the ability to multitask and do all kinds of things at once is difficult for us.

Where women, it just comes a little bit more natural to be able to do that. Because they're operating with their entire brain. And us guys, we're working on half a brain. So that's your good excuse when your wife gets mad at you, you tell her, hey, I only have use of half my brain. Women, if your husband tells you you're getting a big head, tell him why.

I've got to use it all. The result is a very different way of thinking for men and women. Men are analytical.

They have laser like focus oftentimes, not when they're sitting on a recliner watching the game. But when it comes to tasking, they have focus and they're very analytical. They think through things and they've got to have reasons for a lot of things. Women are much more intuitive and they're able to juggle many tasks at the same time. Now obviously there's advantages and disadvantages of both.

But we're going to talk about the differences here. A man can usually tell you exactly why he believes something. In other words, if a man doesn't trust someone and you say, why don't you trust him? That man will have a good reason. He'll either say, well, I saw the way he acted in a particular situation or a decision this gentleman made and I took note of that and I just don't trust him.

Well, there's a reason for that. Now if a woman says, well, I don't trust him, you'll say why? She might not have a good answer to that. She might not have a list of reasons why she doesn't trust a person. She just intuitively doesn't trust them. Am I right? You all know what I'm talking about?

All God's chilling said, amen. You see, as men, we'll look at our wife and she'll say, I don't like that person. I don't trust them. And you'll say, why?

Any of you men have ever had this conversation? What have they ever done? I don't know. I just don't have a good feeling around them. Oh, well, let's just base the whole world on your feelings, sweetheart. Well, you know, oftentimes with women, they might not have good reasons to feel the way they feel, but oftentimes they end up at the right conclusion because they have spiderwebs. They don't always end up at the right conclusion, but a lot of times they do. Us men will often end up at the right conclusion because we wouldn't get to that conclusion if we didn't feel we had. Hey, if you ask a man why he feels a certain way, look at me, he's going to give you good reasons why he feels that way. Now even if he's wrong, he's got good reasons for being wrong.

Because men are thinking logic, and men are dispersing facts, and they think that way, and they're analytical, and they're focused on that. And if I'm going to feel a certain way, now my wife and I, and she'll bear witness to that, and obviously we joked a lot this morning, and my wife wasn't here, so she's here tonight. I'm being very serious.

I'm just picking. But listen, we think totally different. I mean, my wife and I will begin to talk about subjects sometimes, and my wife just about just won't get into it with me. And here's why. If I don't, as a man, if I don't know what I'm talking about, I won't have an argument with you over it.

That's just me as a man. In other words, if you bring up a subject and I know about it, I'll argue with you on it. Because I think, I'm convinced that I know what I'm talking about.

But if you bring up a subject I don't know anything about, I'm not going to argue just to argue, because I don't have a good reason to think those things. But if I'm convinced that I'm right, why do we men do that? Because we've gone through the logic, and we feel we've got good reason to feel the way we do.

And here's where it starts getting into trouble. Because women oftentimes have a feeling, an intuition, whatever the case might be, and they don't have a good reason to feel that way. And we as men feel differently, but we've got all the logic, we've got all the facts that oftentimes women and men argue differently. And a man will have a better argument because he's got all these facts. But a woman might not have the good list of facts to argue with, but she's convinced she's right. Because I might not know why, but I just know. And us men are like, but you can't explain why.

That's when we begin to get into trouble. Let me get onto some more terms if I can. In math terms, a man can show you his work.

He's got a good reason, he can almost list it. Women don't show their work, but often they get to the right conclusion. Their brain, listen to me, oftentimes women, their brain works faster than they can explain. Again, they've got intuition, they've got calculation, they've got feeling, they've got this, they've got everything going on.

And a lot of times it takes a little bit longer to process that. And so we as men, we're a little bit quicker, we've got the reasons, we've got the facts. And when you begin to get into a disagreement, oftentimes it's not that the woman's wrong, it's just that she can't explain her feelings as well as a man can because he's gotten to those feelings by logical steps. And then before long, what does a wife feel? A wife feels that you don't even listen to me. A wife feels you don't trust me, you don't listen to what I have to say.

Men, can I give you some advice? If your wife has a bad feeling about another woman, stay away from her. If she has a bad feeling, you say, well, she doesn't have a good reason to have a bad feeling. She's never done anything inappropriate, we've never... Listen, if your wife has a bad feeling, stay away. Good intuition. You say, well, what if she's wrong? Well, then she's wrong, but you've done right because you respected her opinion.

Boy, this morning, you go, let's have fun tonight. Let me put it this way, to see the difference in focus, watch one spouse talk on the phone while the other is listening. Let me illustrate. Usually a man, if he's on the phone and he's talking with somebody on the phone, and let's say his wife is sitting over here and she tries to tell him to tell the person on the phone such and such. And he's on the phone and she's like, well, tell him, ask him this, ask him that. Now the man will have to, would you hold on for a second?

But now say, what did you want me to ask? But now if the woman's on the phone, she could be talking to the lady at Macy's or whatever the case might be. And the husband's talking and she's talking to the lady and the husband will say, ask her how... And my husband wants you to know what kind of... What would she just do? She just multitasked.

She was able to hear this and this and she was able to process us more. And us men, because we're so focused on one thing, it's harder for us to multitask. So oftentimes, you know, it's like, can I tell you what? My pet peeve is ordering at a drive-thru. Do I have any other men that hate to order at a drive-thru? I don't mind ordering for me because I make it very simple.

But when you've got three kids and a wife and every order has to be different and, you know, I'm like, give me number or whatever or give me such, such, that's fine. What kind of sauce? Whatever you want to give me.

Well, whatever kind of drink you want, whatever. A woman's there, give me a number four. Now, hold the pickles. I don't want any onions and I don't want too much mustard. Put this on the side and kind of a thing. And you know what?

When you're the man, you're driving, you have to be the one at the speaker. And then you're trying to order. I'll need a number. And she's saying, no, make that a diet coke. Hold on for a second.

What do you want? I mean, if they would invent drive-thrus where there was speaker on both sides so that when you come through, you're by yourself, order that one. But if you come through your wife's on that side, she could order in that speaker and you could just sit there. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I think that's a great invention. You know why we hate to order drive-thrus, ladies? Because you're asking us to multitask and it's absolutely driving us crazy.

Number two. I better get off that one real quick. We feel different. We don't just think different, we feel different. Because of the way God made us, men many times base their significance upon their achievements. A man in his 40s will start to look back and he'll begin to kind of think down on himself.

You know what? I don't have the kind of house I think I hoped I was going to have for my wife or my family. You know, when you're early 20s or just starting off, you think, man, you know, I'm going to go out and I'm going to do something.

I'm going to have all this. And then, you know, man, life happens. And before long, all of a sudden, now men, here you've got a wife and kids and you've been very blessed or whatever the case might be. But often times that's not really what flips our switch is the fact that I don't think that I've provided, I haven't achieved a lot.

I feel like with my job, whatever the case might be, well why does that? And then a wife hears that and she just thinks, what in the world, would you get over it? But they don't understand because men often times we feel different. And many of the things in our life is based on our achievement. But women, they're more centered on relationships.

And that's just the way we've been made. I mean, often times a man will be discouraged and things because he thinks he hasn't gotten for his wife what he wanted to get her. And many times, and there are exceptions, but many times it's really not even that important to her. And by the way, wives, the kind of house you live in, the kind of car you drive, the kind of clothes you have and all this stuff, that shouldn't matter to you. That shouldn't be the most important thing in your life. And God forbid you ever belittle your husband because you say, well so and so got such kind of house, how come you couldn't do that? How come you couldn't do that? Well let me tell you something, so and so probably has a nice supportive wife, how come you couldn't do that? But us men can't say that.

We're just joking. Ask a couple about a road trip. Here's a husband and wife, they go to Florida and back. Ask the wife, how was the trip? And she'll say something like, oh it was great, we found this little spot down in like in the Florida Keys and it was this neat little restaurant.

And the breeze was blowing and he has these palm trees and she'll go through these little details and the man will say, how was your trip to Florida? And he'll say, great, I saved 30 miles driving the one way as I did coming back. And my car averaged two miles more per gallon coming back than it did going down because I kept it at a certain speed. Well they saw two totally different things. You know why?

Man was achievement. I saved some gas. I went a different route. I'm going to tell you it's a big thing when you map out a trip with us men. Because bless God we're going to save the time, avoid the traffic. It's like a project to us. You know why? Because that's what we're based on.

We're based on achievement. And here's what happens. You go on a trip and a wife's sitting here looking at this like, isn't that beautiful? And she's looking over and he's like, well I don't know, I mean the gas kind of a thing. He's totally focused on something different. And then the wife looks at it and says, you know what, that's all you care about. You don't care about me. I mean we're supposed to have a nice time together and all you're worried about is your dumb gas mileage. And the husband sits here and he thinks, man I spent all this money and planned this to go on this trip. And you're making a big deal about gas.

Before long now you've got a nice wonderful trip that's absolutely turned nasty. You know why? Because you feel differently. That's the way things go. Men like to solve problems alone.

Did you know that women? We like to solve problems alone. That's why we don't ask for directions. Why?

You say, well he just won't pull over. Let me tell you why. We are based on achievement. We will find it. We don't want to feel like we couldn't achieve it without somebody else's help. So men like to be able to do it on our own.

Now a woman, it's different with her. Men like to solve problems alone. Women like to help others solve their problems.

They love it. And here's what happens. A lot of times a woman's like, well let me help you if you'll pull over there. We can ask directions and the man's like, no I've got it. I'm fine.

They're like, no you're not fine. And they drive around for an hour and she's getting madder. And he's getting madder because she's getting madder.

You know why? She wants to help him solve his problem. He doesn't want any help solving that problem. You see, often times, and listen to me, I want you to get this. Men just need encouragement to stick with it. If a man's going through a hard time trying to do something, it's not going well, what really, what all he wants, he doesn't need you to come in and show him how to do it and do it for him. A man doesn't like that. He wants to achieve that. All a man wants to do is to encourage, honey, you can do it.

You stick with it. Honey, we've been driving for eight hours in circles, but you can find it, honey. Do you know with women, it is supportive, encouraging, uplifting, and helpful for one woman to give another woman advice. Often times, somebody will go through something, maybe a lady will go through something and I don't want to bother anybody with it. And a woman at church will find out she's going through something and that woman will go talk to her and she'll say, why didn't you come to me? She goes, well I don't want to bother anything.

Well, why didn't you come to me? You know why a woman is so anxious? Because really, she loves to be able to help someone with their problems.

It almost means more to her than the person that has the problem. Because women absolutely love, it's just in their nurturing nature, they absolutely love to help somebody fix a problem. They love to do that. They love to help with that. Men, we don't want anybody to help us fix that problem. We want to be able to fix it ourselves.

We just want you to admire and trust us that we can. You say, well that's kind of simplistic, oh let me tell you something, there's been divorces based on this. I'm telling you folks, men tend to only ask advice under two circumstances. Number one, if he's looking for a solution. Number two, if he wants somebody to blame.

That's the only time that he will go to someone else and ask advice. We are just different. Let me get a little bit more specific. Number three, we communicate different. Now we talked about communication, about the need to do that.

Let me kind of get right down where the rubber meets the road. The different thinking patterns and behaviors of men and women are ripe for misunderstandings and unmet expectations. A young lady will get married and she'll have in her mind what marriage is.

A young man will get married and he'll have in his mind what marriage is. And both of them feel the way they feel about marriage. Both of them have the expectations they have. Because that's just the ones that they have.

That's who they are. And often times his expectations and her expectations are not realistic at all. And so immediately in that first year, everybody says we have so much a hard time in the first year of marriage. Because the first year of marriage hears him feeling and thinking differently, hears her feeling and thinking differently. Both of them think that they know what the other person was supposed to do and act towards them, how they're supposed to be with them. And then they find out life isn't like that and they have a big problem and one of two things happens. Either that divide starts there and it continues to either one day they divorce or one day they just don't speak, they just exist. Or we deal with it, get to the bottom of it, both of us change and adapt, love with God's grace and we make a marriage out of this thing. And that's what often happens. Let me, if I can, to show you how we communicate differently.

I think this is good. Primarily, men want to fix problems. Women want to affirm people. When the wife shares a problem, let's say you as a wife go to your husband and you've got a problem, something's going on in your life and you go to your husband and talk to him about it. Men, listen to this.

Men, listen to this. When the wife shares a problem, the husband assumes she is telling him because she wants him to fix the problem. And men love to fix problems. I love problem solving, me personally, I just love it.

It's just a challenge to me, I love that. Listen to me, as the man he's thinking, she's come to me with this problem. The reason she's come to me with this problem is because she wants me to help her fix it.

You know why a man thinks that? Because that's why he would come to somebody with the problem. A man wouldn't come to a person with the problem unless I'm coming to you with a problem, I want the bottom line of how to fix it. Listen, if I'm working on my car and there's something in my car I can't fix, I'm going to go to a guy that knows how to fix on cars and I'm going to say, this is what the problem is, how does this get fixed? I don't want to sit and talk with him three hours and have tea and cookies and experience the whole evening talking about that problem on the car. I want the bottom line, how do I fix this?

Okay. So the man's thinking if the wife came to me and she's obviously coming, she's got these problems and she's talking about this, this is obviously bothering her. The reason she has come to me is because she wants me to fix the problem.

And the reason the man thinks that is because that's why he would come to somebody. Man, listen to this. Really, she does not want you to fix that problem.

She just wants sympathy and encouragement. Did you listen to me? Men, say amen. Daniel Hartree, say amen.

Amen. Look at me. She wanted encouragement. She wanted love.

She wanted sympathy. Look at me. And if she tells you her problems, men, and you don't give her that sympathy and that encouragement, but instead you give her the solution to her problem. Look at me. She will prolong that conversation until she gets the sympathy and acceptance and love and encouragement. You say, what do you mean?

Look at me. She didn't want a solution to her problem. She wanted you as a husband to care enough to listen and encourage and be sympathetic. Put your arm around her, love her sweetheart. I'm so sorry you're going through this.

But if anybody can handle it, you can. I love you and I'm proud of you. And if she doesn't, look at me. How many times as a man, your wife came to you with a problem, you gave her the solution to that problem, and it's as if she didn't hear it. She just keeps talking about the same thing. And you're like, but I've taught you. You asked me and I gave you the solution to your problem.

You know why? She's continuing to talk about it. And many times it's like you say it, they don't listen, and they go right on to something else. You just gave them the solution. It's as if they don't even react to it.

They go right to another side of the problem, and they go on to something else. Why are they doing that? Because they didn't want your solution. They wanted your sympathy. They wanted your love.

They wanted your encouragement. So what does a man do? Well, a man thinks, she asked me, I told her, she doesn't respect me. She didn't even listen to me. She comes to me, I give her a solution. She won't even do it.

I can't tell you how many times in our marriage over the years my wife said something about it, and I said, well, sweetheart, what you ought to do is this. She won't do it. Then two weeks later, she'll come with the same problem.

This is going on. I'm thinking, well, I told you two weeks ago, well, she never wanted my solution. She wanted my sympathy. Now look at me, as a man, here's what starts to bother us. We start to think, well, we're not respected. They don't listen to me. By the way, wives, this is what happens. Husband and wife sit at home, she goes through all her problems, all her things, and the husband talks to her, gives her solutions. It's as if she doesn't even listen to them. I mean, she just keeps talking in those circles, and because she's a spider web thinker, and the husband, and then here's what happens. You'll tell her because you love her, but it's as if when you tell her she doesn't listen. And you'll go to church, or you'll go out to eat with somebody, and some other woman's husband, or some man from somewhere, they'll sit at a table, and she'll somehow bring up that problem, and he'll give one suggestion, and she'll say, well, I haven't thought about that.

Well, that's a great idea. And as a husband, you're like, are you kidding me? I've talked to you about this for weeks. But for some reason, it has more validity when it comes from somebody else. That drives men crazy.

You know why? Because we want you to respect us. We want you to admire us.

We want you to value our opinion. By the way, wives, when you talk to your husband about a problem, and he starts giving you the solution, and you're thinking, I didn't want that. I wanted encouragement.

Look at me. In that husband's mind, he was helping you. In that husband's mind, he's thinking, I really want to fix this for my wife, because I love her. And a husband, although he might not be able to figure out that, you know what, what you wanted was sympathy and encouragement, you didn't want to be told how to fix it, but to a husband, he thought he was helping. And then when a wife doesn't get what she wants, even though she got the solution, but she didn't get the emotional needs met, now she's upset, and then she doesn't take the husband's advice, and now she doesn't come to him next time. And now the husband's hurt because she seems to go to everybody else and calls her mother and calls her sister and calls everybody else, but she doesn't want my opinion about anything. Because really the whole time out of love, he just wanted to help her fix the problem. And the whole time she really didn't want him to fix the problem, she just wanted him to love her. Folks, I'm telling you, I am right about this. And that's where problems come. .