“Wives,
be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a
service] to the Lord.
23 For
the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the church, Himself
the Savior of [His] body.
24 As
the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to
their husbands.
25 Husbands,
love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
26 So
that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with
the Word,”
Dear people of God, I recently read a newspaper report of a tragic
story of a man who assaulted his wife who has eventually died.
It is reported that the lady was pregnant with their third child
and the man was fond of beating her whenever there was a quarrel between them.
Even though the lady’s family were aware, despite their intervention
the man continued his evil act of beating his wife during quarrels but this
time around, the man was reported as punching her pregnancy until she
collapsed.
Neighbours were said to have rushed her to the hospital where
she was given oxygen to resuscitate her and again, it was reported that the man
disconnected the oxygen supply and the woman eventually choked to death.
The number of cases of domestic abuse of married men beating
their wives to death is on the rise for reasons such as disrespect, attending family
function, infidelity, denial of marital benevolence, etc.
On the other hand, there are also reports of wives stabbing
their husbands to death during quarrels. One such incident I read last week was
of a pregnant mother of 7 children who stabbed her husband to death because the
man poured petrol and set ablaze her roasted chicken she wanted to sell to take
care of the kids.
According to her, the husband was negligent in his
responsibility of providing for the family so she took it upon herself to do so
and a quarrel led to her stabbing the man to death.
It does appear many married couples are allowing the devil a
field day into their lives with the escalating unfortunate incidences of
domestic violence.
The major cause of this problem is a lack of fear of God on both
sides and a gross disrespect for God’s commandments in the Holy Bible.
While the wives have failed to be submissive or subject to their
husbands in EVERYTHING as God’s Word has commanded, the husbands have also
failed to LOVE their wives as Christ loved the Church.
Couples who have a problem obeying God’s command in this area
always argue that the man must first love her before she submits for the
womenfolk or that the woman must first submit before he loves her for the
menfolk.
The error and danger with this position is that nowhere is it
written in God’s Word that wives should not submit to their husbands when he
fails to show them love.
It is also not written in God’s Word that a man should not love
his wife if she fails to submit to him.
God has given the man his role and the woman her role and the
Lord would judge them based on His Word and not how they feel or what they
think or what they believe.
No matter how you want to justify your action as a person, God’s
Word in the Holy Bible remains the ONLY standard by which all humans would be
judged so the earlier this sinks in for people to understand the better for
them.
If you expect God to honour His Word in your life, you MUST do
EXACTLY what His Word states and it is for your own good.
When you got married to your spouse, you took a vow before God
and humans to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, for better for
worse, till death separates you and spouse and on that basis you were
pronounced man and wife.
Why then do you ever think you could break that sacred vow and
believe it has no grave consequences?
Don’t you know it is a dangerous thing to take a vow before God
and break it?
See what the Holy Bible says in
Ecclesiastes 5:4-6 (AMPC), “When
you vow a vow or make a pledge to God, do not put off paying it; for God
has no pleasure in fools (those who witlessly mock Him). Pay what you vow. [Ps.
50:14; 66:13, 14; 76:11.]
5 It
is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. [Prov.
20:25; Acts 5:4.]
6 Do
not allow your mouth to cause your body to sin, and do not say before the
messenger [the priest] that it was an error or mistake. Why should God be
[made] angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? [Mal. 2:7.]
Why are some men foolish enough to allow their family members
and close friends dictate to them how to run their home according to the
world’s standard and not according to God’s Word?
Why do some women allow themselves to be deceived by family,
relatives and friends to hide things from their husbands on the premise that
men cannot be trusted?
Is that written anywhere in God’s Word, the standard of judgement
for every human being on this earth?
I know a man of whom it was reported allowed his mother to
destroy his marriage by consenting to sending his wife away and according to
him, in his culture, men do not apologize or beg women so he can never beg his
wife to come back home.
When God judges you, is he going to consider your culture or His
Word?
See what God’s Word says in Colossians 2:8 (AMPC), “See
to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive
by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle
fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men's ideas of the
material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the
rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the
teachings of] Christ (the Messiah).”
Dear friend, if your marriage is rooted in the foundation of
Divine Wisdom that is Christ Jesus according to His Word, you can be sure that
no matter the arrows the devil fires in your direction, your marriage will
withstand it because God is with you.
If on the other hand your marriage is rooted in the foundation
of human wisdom that is foolishness before God, such marriage cannot last and
it would be one crisis after another until it ends in either adultery or
divorce or recurring violence or even death.
You can be sure that none of these outcomes is acceptable to God
because God says we MUST pursue peace with all HUMANS and holiness without
which no one would ever see Him – Hebrews 12:14.
My advice for you as a married couple is to come down from your
high horse of pride and foolishness of human wisdom, repent genuinely before
God, apologise to yourselves as husband and wife and commit your marriage into
God’s hands.
Thereafter, study the Bible as a family, pray together, respect
each other, love each other genuinely and shut out every ungodly counsel you
receive from family, relatives, friends, neighbours, etc and live according to
what God says in His Word.
A Word is enough for the wise.
Jesus Christ is coming shortly to take in Rapture ONLY those who
are qualified according to His righteous standards in the Holy Bible.
Are you living a genuine life as His disciple? Are you ready for
Him? Come to Jesus today, for tomorrow may be too late for you.
May the good Lord bless you as you heed His Word today, act on
it and share with others in Jesus’ Most Powerful Name, Amen.
Gabriel Ama.