The World’s View of Marriage (1)

In previous studies we have examined the foundation of the home by studying the meaning, manifestations, and means of being filled with the Holy Spirit. How vital it is that we, with Paul, start with that! If that is not accomplished first, the rest of Paul’s guidelines for the home will be impossible to implement. Spirit-filling, or as we also paralleled in Colossians, Word-filling, must be the very foundation of the Christian home (as well as everything else in Christian living). As noted before, when the Word of God permeates us, the Spirit of God controls us. This prepares us to examine the specifics Paul gives concerning the Christian home. In the verses that follow (5:22-6:4) Paul writes of the responsibilities of each family member. 

Just minutes before I stepped into the pulpit to deliver the first message on marriage, it occurred to me why I love to preach on marriage and the family. I quickly added three brief thoughts to my notes before stepping into the pulpit. One reason is that this is part of God’s Word, and that is my passion. My desire, based on Paul’s admonition to the Ephesians pastors in Acts 20:27, is to preach “all the [pas, “whole”] counsel of God.” Second, I have a wonderful wife and family that God has given, so I love to preach on a subject that is so dear to my heart. Third, is how important and foundational the marriage and home are not only to the Church but also to society itself. As we’ll see, there has been throughout history violent assault on marriage and family. I love to preach on this because if we don’t have godly homes, we won’t have a Church or even a country left in which to live.

Every family consists first of a husband and a wife, that is, a man and a woman. Is that a novel thought? Hardly. The whole notion of homosexual marriage is so ridiculous, so unimaginable that it barely deserves refutation. While it is more and more accepted in our day as various states legalize it (and some churches sanction it!), there can be no argument whatsoever that God does not even condone it, much less make it a standard for the family. 

We, therefore, ask the question, “What exactly is marriage?” While the answer might seem obvious, it actually grows more obscure by the day. It is vital that we know the answer to this before we can ever understand the home in general or the responsibilities God has given to each family member. Let us look, therefore, at the contrast between the world’s view of marriage and God’s view.

What is the world’s view of marriage? To say the least, many marriages are not happy, fulfilling, or rich. As the story goes, a certain little seven-year-old girl who had just seen the movie Cinderella was testing her neighbor lady’s knowledge of the story. The neighbor, anxious to impress the little girl, said, “I know what happens at the end.” “What?” asked the girl. “Cinderella and the prince live happily ever after.” To which the cynical seven-year-old answered, “Oh no, they didn’t. They got married!”

While that brings a smile to our faces, it is tragically true in many marriages. Why? Because they are not based upon the truth of Scripture. There truly is nothing on earth that has come under more direct assault, both today and historically, than has the institution of marriage. This fact is apparent in four ways.

First, the Jewish attitude concerning marriage. In Jewish culture a wife was quite literally considered to be, like cattle or household possessions, the property of her husband and was certainly not an equal. In his morning prayer, a Jewish man would often give thanks that God had not made him “a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.” Women never ate with the men in the home; the husband and sons would eat first and the wife and daughters would wait for what was left. Husband and wife never walked arm in arm, rather the wife walked behind the husband. Things such as pitching and striking tents, packing and unpacking household goods, and tending flocks were the duties of the women.

The provision God gave for divorce in Deuteronomy 24 had been so distorted by liberal rabbis that a man could divorce his wife for any offense he chose: adultery, spoiling his dinner by putting too much salt in his food, walking in public with her head uncovered, talking with men in the streets, speaking disrespectfully of her in-laws in her husband’s hearing, or if she was just quarrelsome.

There were, of course, exceptions to all that. We see deep affection between Jacob and Rachel (Gen. 29-30), and Abraham treated Sarah like a queen. But such examples were the exceptions, not the rule.

At this point some of us might be tempted to say, “What a terrible thing to be taught in the Bible!” But that is not taught in the Bible. The Bible only records these attitudes; It does not condone them. Such attitudes are certainly not God’s guidelines for marriage. Man perverted what God created and intended. We’ll continue next time.

The Means of Spirit-Filling (4)

In the last three posts, we have seen three commands concerning the believer’s relationship to the Holy Spirit that without question affect the control the Holy Spirit will have on the believer: we must not grieve the Holy Spirit, we must not quench the Holy Spirit, and we must yield to the Holy Spirit. This leads us to final principle.

Fourth, we must walk by the Holy Spirit. This principle is found in Galatians 5:16; “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Here is great promise. If we are walking in the Spirit, it is impossible for us to fulfill the lust of the flesh. The reverse, however, is also true; if we are fulfilling our lusts, we are not walking in the Spirit.

The word “walk” (peripateo) means “to walk about,” figuratively, “conduct of life,” that is, how we conduct ourselves as we walk through life. Specifically, our conduct is dictated and regulated by the Holy Spirit. We do not walk according to the world system’s standards, or according the Satan’s devices, or according to our flesh, or according to some legalistic method; rather we walk by the Spirit. Further, it’s in the present tense, showing a continuous, regular, habitual lifestyle of walking in Spirit control. It’s also in the imperative mood, showing that this walk is not an option but a command.

There is a paradox here that is easy to miss. Think of it: while the Holy Spirit is the source of the all holy living, it is the Christian who is doing the walking. While this seems obvious, various teachers have missed it. The failure to understand this paradox has lead to the idea of, “Just let go and let God,” which teaches that Christian living is simply a passive submission to God, who will live life for us. This teaching is called “Quietism,” which the old Quakers held. Other advocates of such teaching to one extent or another were the Keswicks, Charles Finney, and Hannah Whitall Smith in her book The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life. To these sincere, though misguided, folks, passive surrender to God means an almost total absence of the Christian’s actions.

The obvious problem with such teaching is that it ignores the many commands to the great effort on our part that godly living demands. As I Corinthians 9:24-27 outlines: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” The Christian doesn’t sit on the sidelines eating popcorn watching the Holy Spirit do all the work. The Christian life is a life of struggle, commitment, and discipline. We are in a war. That is why Paul writes later in Ephesians 6 that the Christian is to put on spiritual armor to prepare for battle.

So Spirit-filling is not something magical or mystical; it’s not the final goal or outcome of the Christian life, or something “exclusive,” meant only for “special people” who have had a “special experience.” It is an all-important and foundational principle of Christian living. We will never grow unless we are Spirit-filled. In fact, if Spirit-filling does not come early in our Christian experience, much of our lives will be totally wasted! As we’ve seen, “Spirit-filling” means “Spirit-control.” Therefore, the only way the Spirit can have control is if we give it to Him. This is implicitly implied in our text; we do not willfully give ourselves to wine, rather we willfully give ourselves to the Spirit. Dear Christian, do you see how foundational Spirit-filling is? 

Again, this does not mean we are filled once-for-all. We recall that Spirit-filling is a continuing experience, a repeating reality. Tragically, there are many Christians who have never really given themselves to the Lord, have never been filled with the Holy Spirit. Even more tragic is that some never will. It is for that reason that much of their lives will be wasted. It is for that reason that they know no warmth, light, or power. And it is for that reason that their homes are in shambles.

Oh, my Dear Christian Friend, are you filled with the Holy Spirit? If not, you will never have a “Christian home.” You will have a house with Christians living in it, but you will not have a Christian home. Oh, what a difference there is between a house and a home! Let each of us as family members be filled with the Spirit. It is that thought that leads us into our study of the Christian Home.

The Means of Spirit-Filling (3)

Continuing our study of Ephesians 5:18—Be filled with the Spirit— we see in Scripture four commands concerning the believer’s relationship to the Holy Spirit that without question affect the control the Holy Spirit will have on the believer. The first is we must not grieve the Holy Spirit, and the second is we must not quench the Holy Spirit.

Third, we must yield to the Holy Spirit. Yielding to Holy Spirit control is at the very heart of Spirit-filling. This is what makes it possible. As Paul wrote the Romans, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Rom. 6:13). There is no middle ground here. The believer either yields to the Spirit or yields to sin. Paul adds a few chapters later, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (12:1-2). 

In both Romans 6:13 and 12:1, we find the Greek word paristemi (“yield” in 6:13 and “present” in 12:1). This is a compound word comprised of histemi, “to place or stand,” and para, “near.” It, therefore, means “to cause to stand near or before.” It was used widely in secular Greek, such as, “to place at someone’s disposal,” “to bring [as a sacrifice],” and “bring before (the emperor or the court).” Paul’s point, then, is clear: the Christian is commanded to place himself before the Lord as a living sacrifice for God’s glory and use, to yield to the total control of God’s will, to conform not to the world’s mold but to God’s mold as revealed in His Word. 

Theologian Louis Sperry Chafer puts it well in his book, He That Is Spiritual: “A yieldedness to the will of God is not demonstrated by some one particular issue: it is rather a matter of having taken the will of God as the rule of one’s life. To be in the will of God is simply to be willing to do His will without reference to any particular thing He may choose. It is electing His will to be final, even before we know what He may wish us to do. It is, therefore, not a question of being willing to do some one thing: it is a question of being willing to do anything, when, where and how, it may seem best in His heart of love. It is taking the normal and natural position of childlike trust which has already consented to the wish of the Father even before anything of the outworking of His wish is revealed. This distinction cannot be overemphasized. . . . There must be a covenant relationship of trust in which His will is assented to once for all and without reservation.”

The way to know God’s will is to know His Word. To be yielded, then, is to covenant with God to obey His Word before we even know what It says. When we do that, we will never get “hung up” on any issue or get upset when a preacher tells us how we should live based upon Scripture. Once we settle the issue of submission to God’s Word no matter what, we will accept whatever It says. The real problem in all of us is biblical authority. We must settle that issue before we can even address any other. 

In his equally good book, The Holy Spirit, theologian John Walvoord writes: “The yielded Christian has an unusual relationship to the Word of God. As its revelation becomes known and its application becomes evident, the issue of being yielded to the truth as made known by the Holy Spirit becomes very real.”

How true! The yielded Christian does, indeed, have “an unusual relationship to the Word of God.” It’s so unusual, in fact, that he or she will seem very odd in today’s world, even among some Christians. To be Spirit-filled is to be Word-filled, no matter what It says and no matter what other people might think.

The Means of Spirit-Filling (2)

Continuing our study of Ephesians 5:18—Be filled with the Spirit— we see in Scripture four commands concerning the believer’s relationship to the Holy Spirit that without question affect the control the Holy Spirit will have on the believer. The first is we must not grieve the Holy Spirit.

Second, we must not quench the Holy Spirit. Closely linked to but still distinct from “grieving” the Holy Spirit is “quenching” the Holy Spirit. We read of this in I Thessalonians 5:19: “Quench not the Spirit.” The Greek behind “quench” (sbennumi) in the literal sense means “to extinguish by drowning with water, as opposed to smothering.” Mark 9:44, for example, speaks of hell as a place “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” 

Figuratively, then, sbennumi means “to dampen, hinder, repress, as in preventing the Holy Spirit from exerting His full influence.” How do we “drown” the Holy Spirit’s working? By simply saying “No” to Him, by resisting His guidance, by opposing His will. 

What are the practical ramifications of quenching the Holy Spirit? Think a moment of the qualities of fire and how the metaphor of quenching applies. The first quality of fire we usually think of is that it produces heat, so when we quench the Spirit, there is no longer any warmth in us. We become cold, indifferent, even apathetic. Paul counseled Timothy to “stir up the gift of God, which is in thee” (II Tim. 1:6). The full idea in the Greek for “stir up” (anazōpureo) is “to kindle up the flame” or “to rekindle the fire, to stir up smoldering embers into a living flame.” Just as we occasionally have to stir a fire in a fireplace, fan it a little, and add some fuel, every Believer needs the same spiritually speaking. The fuel is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit is the fan and the stirring that rekindles the warmth and passion in the believer. So the first implication of quenching the Holy Spirit is that we will “cool off,” the warmth of God having faded from us.

A second quality of fire, of course, is that it produces light, so when we quench the Spirit, we “lose the light.” As construction workers sometimes must stop building or filmmakers must stop shooting because they “lose the light,” we lose the light of knowledge and discernment. If there is one definitive characteristic of Christianity in our day, it is that of an almost total lack of discernment. The majority of the Church has “lost the light” of God’s Word; it simply is not Spirit-controlled.

This reminds us of the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness: “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night.” Without that light to guide them, they would have wandered aimlessly. We, therefore, must not quench the Spirit lest we lose the light that will illumine our path. As the Psalmist declares, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Ps. 119:105).

A third quality of fire is power. The power of fire is truly astounding. The infamous Chicago fire of 1871, for example, destroyed about four square miles of the city, which was almost one-third of its total area. The Holy Spirit’s power is infinitely above any power that we can conceive, whether natural or supernatural. Paul wanted the Corinthians, for example, to understand that his “speech and [his] preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (I Cor. 2:4). Unlike today when talented orators philosophize, psychologize, and make people feel warm and fuzzy, Paul did none of that; he simply preached the Truth. 

Paul likewise told young Timothy that God had given him, and by extension all God’s people, “not . . . the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (II Tim. 1:7). In the last letter Paul wrote, his emphasis was not on the type of “ministry” we see today, but on the power of the preaching of the Word, as he goes on to write in 4:1-4. We forfeit all that if we quench the Holy Spirit by rebellion or resistance. This principle is linked directly to a third principle.

The Means of Spirit-Filling (1)

As we observed back in 3:16, many people speak of being “spiritual” using such statements as, “I don’t consider myself to be religious, but I feel I am spiritual.” As we also observed, however, to be spiritual means that we are characterized not by our natural instincts but by the Holy Spirit. Another term for spirituality is Spirit-filling. In other words, to be truly spiritual, one must be Spirit-filled. As theologian Louis Sperry Chafer put it in his classic book on the subject, He That Is Spiritual, “A spiritual Christian is a Spirit-filled Christian in whom the unhindered Spirit is manifesting Christ by producing a true Christian character.”

Having studied the meaning and the many manifestations of Spirit-filling, we now turn to a third and final principle, the means of Spirit-filling. How, then, are we to be filled with the Spirit? We approach this subject with great caution because we want to avoid the idea that there are certain “formulas” in the Christian life. We are told that there’s a certain formula to follow in order to know God’s will, that there’s another formula for prosperity, that there’s a another formula for revival, that there’s still another formula for finding one’s spiritual gift, and that there’s even a formula for being Spirit-filled. 

Well there are no such “magical” formulas. Since God does command us to be Spirit-filled, however, then there must be a means to bring about that end. Again, some tell us that this is accomplished by “praying through,” which actually means different things to different people. Not only is that idea vague and scripturally indefensible, Scripture nowhere speaks of prayer being involved at all in Spirit-filling. Prayer is, of course, essential in Christian living, but it’s not mentioned in the context of Spirit-filling.

That being said, we do see in Scripture four commands concerning the believer’s relationship to the Holy Spirit that without question affect the control the Holy Spirit will have on the believer.

First, we must not grieve the Holy Spirit. As we studied back in 4:30, we must not “grieve” (lupeo, “to sadden or bring pain to”) the Holy Spirit. While all sin grieves Him, the sins listed in verse 31 are especially painful to the Holy Spirit because they are particularly inconsistent in the Holy Spirit indwelt life: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, and malice. God warns us that continuing to grieve the Holy Spirit invites God chastening: “But let a man examine himself, . . . For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world” (I Cor. 11:28, 31-32).

So when we become aware of our grieving the Spirit, the obvious cure is to cease doing so and claim the promise of I John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This puts us back on the path to Spirit-filling. We’ll continue next time.