that passage of 1 Peter 3 to try to help marriages in trouble. One day, I went and began reading more of the Bible. I'm telling you, if you're taking notes, please make note of this, that before 1 Peter 3, in our marriages. Then I found out that there's more in 1 Peter 3 that continues after verse 7. And I thought, man, there's stuff here that applies to our marriages. So we're going to consider 1 Peter 2, verse number 19. endure grief. Because what I was hearing so often is, well, God wouldn't want me to suffer. That's the justification for just about everything that Christian wants to do that would otherwise be under the heading of sin is, well, you know, but if I do right, if I do, you know, if I follow the ideal path, you know, then I would suffer and God doesn't want me to suffer. The Lord says right here, if for conscience, A man, as a result of his discontent toward God, is willing to endure grief. That's thankworthy. God says, thank you for that. And it goes on to say about this man in verse 19, the last two words is suffering wrongfully. And so I thought, wow. even if it means enduring grief and suffering wrongfully. Verse 20, for what glory is it if when you be buffeted for your faults you take it patiently, but if when you do well and suffer for it? When you do well and you're being buffeted. I'm not going to take you to the extreme of being beat up. I do draw the line that if a man becomes physically abusive and a physical threat to his wife and children, I think that's where you're coming to a point where I think she has a right to take her children and leave the premises and go find a safe place until that situation's worked out. I'm not talking about sitting there and taking a beating or having your children abused. What I'm saying, though, is that there's a lot of other areas in which we hurt one another that come far short of you know, being slapped around or beaten up. Buffet, suffer. When you do well and suffer for it, in verse 20, ye take it. I don't understand the King James Bible. Oh yeah, we don't use this kind of language anymore, do we? Just to take it. Take it patiently. I just get so tired of it. Take it patiently. suffering. For even here unto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should. What's those next three words? Follow his steps. Follow his steps. Where do the steps of Christ lead you as you follow him? They lead you into an endless bliss? Phenomenal marriage with no problems, you know, all your needs supplied, everything you possibly want. No, we go back and it has to do what it says, suffering wrongfully resented. When you do well, suffer for it. So he steps lead us to what then? Suffering. Now, and that doesn't necessarily have to mean suffering in your marriage, but it could. and you wanna be pleasing to God, let Him see that you're willing to suffer as Christ has already suffered for you, leaving you an example to follow His steps. And I think what this would do, if we were to get hold of this, it would help close the door, the exit from so many marriages today where we are now so weak And it's like, well, you know, if I don't get what I want, if I'm disappointed, if I'm disillusioned, if I feel like my needs aren't being met, if I feel like, you know, this person just aggravating me and makes me and hurts me, hurts my feelings. Therefore, I have a right to look at my alternatives. And the Lord says, we go into 1 Peter 3 verses 1-7, I mentioned I've used that a number of times to help people whose marriages are in trouble. Yeah, either a spouse is lost or behaving like as if they weren't, they aren't even truly been saved, but they're just totally away from God and living by the flesh. How to win them back to Christ first, yourself second. Then we come to 1 Peter 3 verse 8, because I found out that, hey, There's a greater context here. So verse 8, finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love his brethren, be pitiful, full of pity. So you've got this person and maybe he himself is suffering and being pitiful toward that person. You want the best for them. You want them to have a good judgment seat of Christ. You want them to have a good life. It's not always just thinking about me, it's having pity upon the other. Be courteous, that would sure go a long way in marriage. Just not forgetting please and thank you. A good reality check for us guys is how we can let our wives have six bags of groceries if they're struggling to take up the stairs to the second floor apartment, and it's like, she's fine. She's fine. But let that beautiful blonde approaching Oh yes, is it because it's me? Anyway, enough of that beautiful blood. We're approaching the automatic electric eye doors into the store. And we're right there and say, I'll get that for you. And so we're tripping over ourselves, you know, to help some physically beautiful individual. But somehow we forget to be courteous to the person most vital in our lives. Verse nine, expanding on that, not rendering evil for evil. And right here in this lesson, we're really coming to the crux of it now. And in order for us to get there, we've got to define evil. Because evil, we think automatically, a synonym for evil is automatically, what do we think? We think evil equals, anybody? Satan. Satan? How then do you rightly divide the word of truth when God does evil? Oh yeah, it's all through the Bible. So how do you reconcile that? Well, if we properly define evil, then we'll have a problem. Because evil is injury, harm, damage, destruction. When my kids were young, we made liberal use of the rod of correction. better known to most people, she was spanking. And you know, at that moment to that little child, and I made sure, and it is going to hurt. I'd rather it hurt you somehow, rather than having life hurt you a lot worse later. You didn't have any discipline and self-control. So yeah, we made sure, you know, if they were wearing a diaper, the sluts went, I didn't necessarily like to do a bare bottom, but the swats go just below the diaper. I'm not going to let the diaper insulate them from, you know, they're going to hurt and crying out and all that availed them nothing. It's not a matter of crying. And by the way, unless you think I'm a brute, our standard is three swats and more, maybe four or five only in extreme cases, or if they threw a tantrum or scream or whatever, then that would call for extra swats. I wasn't quite to the point of the mother of John and Charles Wesley. Mrs. Wesley's approach was, you whip them until they cry, and you keep whipping them until they stop crying. And she raised 12 pretty awesome kids, including John and Charles. But I'm just saying that to my child at that moment, that was an evil. It hurt. So we get hurt. and we don't hurt back by word or action. Or not rendering, railing for railing. Now if that sets off any bells in your mind, this idea of railing, it may be taking you back to the cross, where they railed on Jesus. It's a verbal attack, just merciless. It could be behind the person's back, but more common, it's right to their face. And so, what do you do when your mate rails on you? That's an evil. You don't give him back. They rail on you, just lose their control, or just go berserk, screaming, and invectives, and perhaps even swearing, and you just don't go there. You don't go there. and we're not gonna render evil for evil, really, for really. See, what we are gonna do in verse nine, but contrary-wise, let's go to the opposite. What do you think of them instead? It's a blessing. You're gonna find something kind and sweet. And even there, you gotta be careful how you do it, because you come across as being superior. You know, like, all right, fine, you just cussed me out, but now I'm gonna show how much better a Christian I am than you. God bless you. voice, bringing down the volume, and just say, you know, what you said, I'm going to take it to heart. I think you probably got some good points there. I'm grateful for what you just shared with me. I needed to hear that. I just want you to know how much I love you, how much you've done for me and for these children. And I just want to say how much I praise God for you. And I'll tell you, according to God's word, that's how much And in fact, it says in verse 9, instead, give him a blessing, knowing that ye are there unto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. Your blessings are on the line. You say, no, no, he doesn't deserve it, he's not gonna get that from me. You know, the old saying, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. Face, I don't like you, never gonna cut off my nose, just to show you how much I like you. That's not the way to go about it. You, your blessings are on the line. You let Satan convince you to get in the flesh and you now spout evil. You now rail on them. They hit you, you hit them, whatever the extremity. They threaten you, you threaten them. And there's so many different ways that this can be run with. But instead, you give them a blessing. And that can have residual effects. It can spread out like a stone in the water and affect your mate. I don't care if he or she doesn't deserve anything. How about your kids? How about your parents? How about his parents? And on and on it goes. It spreads outward. Verse number 10. For he that will love life. Oh Lord, thank you for putting me in the Bible. That describes me. I want a life I can love. I know we're not to fall in love with this world, per se. There's still some things about this world I see at the hand of my Creator. Being from Sonoma County the last number of years, I love redwoods. I love the hills. I don't like the product that they use the vineyards for, but I sure love the vineyards. And I love the coast. And even after 6,000 years of man's sin, messing everything up, there's still incredible beauty out there. And I want a life I can love. I want to be able to just going through life and just loving it. And not only that, in verse 10, he that will see good days. I like that better than the alternative. You know, rotten, lousy days. says okay here's a formula for it for you to get that to get a life you can love and good days that you will enjoy let him oh what's that next word in verse 10 let him what refrain his what hold back your tongue bite your tongue let him refrain his tongue from what you bite it off, and you bite your head, and even if you've got tears running in your face for the way you've just been slaughtered emotionally, I'm just not gonna give it back. And you've got the goods, you've lived together all these years, you've got the goods. We're gonna talk somewhere in here, maybe we'll talk about knowledge, using knowledge all right. You know some things that could just devastate your mate, throw him back in their face, You don't do it, you're not gonna use that evil. Oh, it says in verse 10 there, and is less that they speak, next two words, no guile. No guile, now guile has to do with deception. It has to do with, you know, what we're talking about here, because it's interesting how when we get angry, we can go into hyper drive magnified, everything gets exaggerated. And two phrases I'd encourage you to be careful of, you always and you never, both of which are bold-faced lies. But that's what I'm talking about here, you know, we go to extremes. Verse 11 continues on, so this is a continuing sentence. and do what in its place and do good. Now to eschew is to get away from, to avoid. So you avoid the evil. It's opening up before you this golden opportunity to slam that person and you just, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna talk about running away to mom. and I'm not going to talk about abandoning him, and I'm not going to talk about going to see a lawyer, and I'm not going to talk to him about my options, and I'm not going to talk to him about having an affair. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to entertain my own thoughts, and I'm not going to throw that in his face, as tempting as it would be. So it says in verse 11, that it was too evil, and he hates that. Hating the very thought of hurting your mate. Hating the very thought, as much as they are hurting you, that if you hurting him, you hurting her is an abomination to you. He can't stand it. And by the way, let's remind ourselves that you're not gonna have to answer for what they do to you. You can answer for what you do to him or her to the Lord one day. So it'll pay off in the long run to learn this kind of constraint. Verse 11 continues, instead of evil and good and putting good in its place, It says in verse 11, let him, next two words, seek peace. This is if you want a life you can love, if you want good days, seek peace, and interesting phrase, ensue it. Now this is largely a copy of Psalm 34, and in Psalm 34 it's pursue it, pursue peace, running after peace. But ensue is a little different take. Both are valid. Alright, we've got a situation where we are at war with Imperial Japan, and if we invade the home islands, they are fanatically devoted to their emperor, they see him as a god. They will fight to the death, they are arming themselves all the way down to their children. Men, women, and children will all seek every means possible to kill Americans. And so our president, Harry Truman, decides to use the brand new weapon just developed after giving warning to the Japanese government, which they ignore, they drop the first of two atomic bombs. Give them a couple of days, the Japanese still don't respond, they drop the second. And largely eliminating in a matter of moments, two major Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ensue peace, they talk about suing for peace. What's it take for us to end this war? And in the process, can I remind you, probably saved at least a million American lives and millions of Japanese lives. As horrible as those weapons were, I'm just saying that it got the job done under those circumstances. And it caused a bitter enemy to sue the thing that they said they would never do. They find it broken and to do it, sue peace. And so it is, you know, finding, you know, looking for, pleading for, seeking, how can we come back to peace in our home? I want the peace. If you want to have a life you love and have good days, you're going to want to have a peaceful home. And so he says in verse 12, for, or because, the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, those who do right, and his ears are open unto their prayers. And if your marriage is stressed, you need then more than ever God hearing and responding to your prayers. And if you're saying, I know what that preacher's saying, I don't like it. I don't believe it. I'm not going to follow it. All I'm saying is you're even closing heaven. And you're not even the instigator. You're just the responder. And you respond improperly and heaven is closed to you at the moment you most need it. You say, well, what do I need? This thing does totally break down. What if it doesn't? I mean, my wife and I have known plenty of what we thought were godly couples, ended up in divorce court. And almost every case, we knew which spouse we'd rather see the kids with, predominantly, if not exclusively. And sometimes one mate just goes off the rails and goes totally berserk, goes totally worldly, totally carnal. And I don't see that child raising at home. And so, I'm just saying that It may come down to a number of factors, not least of which is just the Lord repairing the relationship. And at that moment, you desperately need, when you have no other recourse, you need God. And you want His ears on you. And so if you're doing these things in verses, actually I want to go back to verse 1, but if you're hearing everything up through verse 11, and it just doesn't seem to accomplish anything, and things are still going from bad to worse, sympathy of Almighty God. And I may not be able to find justice with lawyers and judges and the legal system, and maybe I've even got family turning against me. They're on his side, her side, but not my side. And all these things are turned contrary. I have at least one God in my corner. It says, his ears open to prayer. Oh, oh, oh, but first of all, let's continue. but the face of the Lord is against them that do what? Back to that evil again. You say, no, listen, I think I have every right to do this. And a lot of people in the world say, including some Christians, they'd say, yeah, you know what, you're so right. And this is where you're gonna be so careful that you don't allow worldly counsel, even from other Christians, sense to you on this earthly plane, I plead with you, do it God's way. Because otherwise you'll turn God himself against you. In these 15 minutes we have left, let me turn back to Psalm 34, which I referenced a few moments ago. And I want to take you through several scriptures, because this matter of evil in the next 15 minutes to address this critical matter. So have nimble fingers. Psalm 34 verse 12. Why may I see the desire of life and love of many days that he may see good? I'm glad I got, you know, 68 years has been great on this earth. I'd like to have a whole lot more. I'd like to live such a long and fruitful life. I might even catch up to Mike Rogers someday. Here it is, keep thy tongue from evil. Don't let your tongue be injurious and cause damage and harm and pain to another. And thy lips from speaking guile. Don't be cunning, don't be deceitful. Verse 14, depart from evil and in its place do good. Find ways, listen, that person won't even talk to you any longer. They're so angry. I just suggest there's many nonverbal ways of communicating your love. And I know there's all kinds, listen, all of you here these days, but all of us who are pastors know the most outrageous things that Christians can do. And how far are you willing to trust God in this? You have a spouse that's betrayed you, in the process of betraying you, perhaps has abandoned you, is doing harm to you, and yet you just look for ways to do that person good, and let the Holy Spirit deal with his heart, and your goodness will go a long way toward that. That's another factor in my making, 1 Peter 3, verse 1 through 7. And it says, depart from evil, do good, seek peace, and pursue it. God's word upon the righteousness of Israel unto the tribe, the faith's word against them that do evil, to cut off remembrance of them from the earth. That's pretty strong language. And this is one reason why, and that's both, notice that's from Psalm 34, echoed by Peter in 1 Peter 2. It seems to me, in 1 Peter 3, it seems to me that when we, as you're now turning to Proverbs 3, it seems to me that when the Bible talks about the fear of the Lord, What it's talking about is, wait for it, brace yourself, the fear of the Lord. Because I already got issues with the world, the flesh, and the devil. And I don't need God turning against me and his heavy, heavy rod of chastening being brought down upon my life. And so as much as I love the Lord and knowing that God is love, I'd also be wise that while I'm in this flesh, in this sinful world, I would do well to retain the fear of the Lord. And I hope you only push God so far, and then when he pushes back, buddy, you're in deep trouble. Proverbs 3 verse 7 says, be not wise in thine own eyes. Yeah, because everybody's got their excuses why they're not gonna do what God said. Pastor Roger, did you ever know Dwight Tomlinson here in the Bay Area? Oh, yeah. So, really, Tomlinson was our first independent Baptist pastor. And he was my first boss as a pastor. He says I was his first staff member, but I was one of the first. And I also, by the way, I also have the record for the most fired staff member I think he's ever had, and then rehired over and over and over. I was a young guy. Anyway, okay. What I'm leading up to is this great preacher, who by God's grace is still going strong today. I remember so vividly, he used to say, if Christians would just do what they know they should do, they'd have no problems. Because when you're talking to them, they'll tell you, I know what I should do. And they'll tell you, and it's exactly right. And then they'll tell you why they're not gonna do it. And their situation would go from bad I can't believe at any moment that you could have regained control and you're going right into the earth. What? Just do what you know you should do. And so be not wise in their own eyes. Verse seven, fear the Lord. And what's those next three words? So you see the evil and just turn away from it, eschew it, have nothing to do with it. Because it's right there, those words are right there. That action is right there, that retribution is right there, that getting even is right there, and you let it go. Verse 8, it shall be health of thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. It'll keep you healthy, keep you strong. Dropping down to verse 27, withhold not good from them to whom it is due. You have certain good, that you are contractually, or if you would prefer, covenantally required to perform for your mate. And you just don't withhold that good. It's like, you know, how can I cook a nice meal for a guy who behaves like that toward me? Or how can I provide for a woman who's done that to me? And hey, withhold that good from them to whom it is due. When it is in the power of thy hand to do it, say not to thy neighbor, not to thy neighbor, go and come again, tomorrow I'll give, when thou hast it by thee. Do what you're to do, and do it in a timely fashion. Go to chapter, we're in Proverbs, go to chapter eight, verse 13. Eight, 13. Which says in Proverbs 8, 13, the fear of the Lord is to, next two words. See, if you have a fear of God, you hate evil. Because God hates evil. And your fear of him is like, I dare not. goes on after the Kola in verse 13, he tells us some things. This is now Jehovah interrupting here in the middle of what Solomon is saying to his son Rehoboam, or the Heavenly Father is saying to us as his sons. He gives us this list of the things that he hates. Pride? Oh man, there's a lot of marital issues right there. If we went back to the book of Genesis, that she was, Abe was meant to be and help meet for Adam. That he was to love her. We go to the book of Revelation and we find out that all things were created for his pleasure. Everything's for his glory, his pleasure. It's not about me, what I get and what I feel I deserve. That's all. can see. So often our our problems that do is we just think way too much of ourselves and the evil way is something God hates and the froward mouth, the mouth that just gets out of control and there's not even there's no effort made to rail it in. God says all those things at the end of verse thirteen, do I what? He hates it. We have a hard time associating hate with God but here you go. He hates it when we're prideful. He hates it when we're arrogant. He hates it when we indulge in an evil way, even if the person deserves it, as we saw in 1 Peter 2 and 3. And the Lord hates a froward mouth. It just refuses to be brought under discipline. Froward means perverse, ungovernable, disobedient, and a great old word we don't use much anymore. you quit being so evil. That's all we're talking about here. You say evil, I think of it as, I am your father. And we think Darth Vader, that's evil. You know, the devil, that's evil. And I look in the mirror sometimes and go, that's evil. There have been times we've had a preacher in my pulpit that was evil. A lot of evil going on among God's people. God's trying to get rid of it. Proverbs 14, 16. A wise man does what? He feareth. I was at Williams the other day, and they have this beautiful, really great restaurant. You may have been there yourself. Is it Grinzell's, is that what it's called? In Williams, beautiful place. And I walked along, and there, on ground level, the place where all the little children would be, is this beer, which is bad enough, but anyway, and it's called Blank Blow. And take one of the most foul English words out there, I said, what do you guys do with this stuff here? Well, I'm just the manager over here in the food area. You want Dino over there at that counter. I go to Dino. I said, Dino. And he right away told us, this customer isn't happy. And I said, Dino. And he surprised me with a yes. I said, I thought you had such a nice restaurant. And you guys go put this stuff down here that is abominable. It's horrible that children see that word, and you treat it like it's nothing. legal. Of course, we're going to make alcohol legal because it's going to, they're going to buy it somewhere anyway. And of course, we're going to make marijuana legal because we're going to do it anyway. Of course, we're going to make pornography legal. We're going to do, might as well get some tax dollars on it and might as well put a filthy word down there for all the children to see right, right where everybody walks by because it's profitable. Isn't that all that really matters? I'm just saying that a wise man feareth and we, we need to, we need to come back to where we, we fear Not just the consequent, and that's one of the words that's now become taboo, right there with duty. Duty, don't try to float that word with the average evangelical Christian today. Man, don't wonder, you're trying to, I've had them say to me, you're trying to put us back under the rock. And I'm thinking, well you could use some water, actually. You want to talk about one of the most controversial messages ever preached? I said, let's hear it for the Pharisees. And those guys, they put themselves under these huge constraints more than they had to, but at least they were trying to do right. I know there's a lot of pride involved in that, but I just pointed out some things and said, hey, there's some things I'm pretty sure about these guys. They messed it up by rejecting their Messiah, but I'm losing my crowd here too. departeth from evil, but the fool rageth." Would you think about that the next time you fly into a rage at home? It's so tragic what our children are exposed to. And then there's, we're now drifting into other marriage instruction, but you got a problem, take it to your bedroom and close the door, go sit in the car where the kids can't hear you, And when you come out of the bedroom, mom and dad are hugging, hugging, kissing, kissing, and madly in love. The kids, I don't want to shield them too much from the realities of life. There's a lot of realities. I'm just a child, I have to deal with them. There's plenty of time later for that. But as far as they're concerned, mom and dad are just mad. Going back to Dwight Thompson, it had such an impact on us, a lot of stories. I said, look, look, look here, look at, look at me, look at daddy. I just want to announce your mother and I are not getting a divorce. And they continued eating. He just wanted to know. That's not on the table. That's not an issue. He said before, he says, you know, I would never, I'd never divorce Gail. And he said, you know, if she was ever to become unfaithful, he would, you know, he would, They would still live together, but you would no longer feel that you have relations with her. That's a whole other thing. I kind of like one other preacher I heard say, he said, my wife and I, he said, we've never, we've never had a disagreement. We've never had an argument. He goes, we've considered homicide a few times. We've never had an argument. And so the fool rages and is confident. They're so sure. two people are having a disagreement, if you only hear from the one, that other one is just the most rotten person on the face of the earth. Until you talk to somebody, you talk to the other one, and find out everything gets flipped. There's all of a sudden a lot of information you weren't told by person A about person B, and then you find out why person B has their aims against person A, Do they not err that devise evil? But mercy and truth shall be to them that..." That's the last two words. Devise good. You know, you want God's blessings? You want mercy to come down for you from heaven and truth coming down to you from heaven? Then you look for ways to devise good. Just making life miserable and look for ways to devise good for that person and you're going to get God.