Ungodly Demands

I do not believe that the Scripture requires a wife to submit to ungodly demands of a husband. It is sheer stupidity to say that no matter what the husband says, you're to submit to it because you're the wife. Some teach this concept, saying that the Lord will keep you safe from any dire consequence if you submit. I do not agree with that.

Paul said, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord" (Ephesians 5:22). In I Corinthians Paul lays out the whole chain of command. The husband is, actually, the authority over the wife, Christ is the head over the husband, and God is the authority over Christ (I Corinthians 11:3).

If this chain of command is broken anywhere along the line, God's order is gone. The husband is the head over the wife only as Christ is the head over the husband. If Christ is not the head over the husband, then the wife should be in submission to Christ first. She skips over the broken link. Peter said to the Sanhedrin, "We ought (Greek imperative, must) obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). That applies to the relationship in the home if the husband is making ungodly demands upon his wife.

First of all, a woman should be more careful concerning the man whom she marries. Determine whether or not he is the kind of person to whom you could submit before you marry him. If you doubt his judgment and think that he's so dumb now, why did you marry him in the first place? Maybe the Jewish culture was correct in arranging marriages. The Jews said that a decision as important as marriage should never be left to the capricious emotions of a teen-ager. I must admit that many marriages ought not to be. Yet, in the divine order of things, God's rule is "Wives, submit unto your own husbands."

If you have a godly husband, one who loves the Lord and is seeking the Lord, how glorious that is! How much easier that makes your position of submitting unto him. I read of a husband who was in a bar one night with some buddies. As the bar closed up he made a wager with them. He bet that, if they all went to his house, he could order his wife to wake up and fix them a dinner - and she'd do it without grumbling or griping but smiling the whole time. The guys took him upon his bet.

So, they staggered into his house past 2 a.m. He went in and told his wife to get out of bed and fix them a meal. She came out with a smile, went to the kitchen without any complaining, and prepared the food. Then she placed it on the table, smiling very cheerfully the whole while. His buddies couldn't believe it. As they paid off their bet, they complimented her. "We had a bet with your husband that you wouldn't make a dinner. We lost, but this is worth seeing! How can you be so pleasant under such adverse circumstances?"

She said, "I'm a Christian. I love the Lord. I know that my stay here isn't going to be very long, and I'm looking forward to being with my Lord and the joys of dwelling with Him in heaven.

"My husband isn't a Christian. His future is so black that I thought I'd make it as happy for him as I could while he's still here." The husband became so convicted that within a week he accepted the Lord.

When God commanded the wife to be in submission to her husband, He knew all about this male macho image. He knew that man by nature wants to feel that he is capable of handling the issues. He wants to feel that he is trusted for his strength and ability. There is nothing that makes him feel better than for his wife to say, "Honey, you do what you feel is right because I trust you because you are the smartest man in the world." Arno Pederson told me an interesting story of the beginning of the Pederson baby furniture company. It happened back in the thirties when they decided to drive from their home in Burbank to the World's Fair being held that year in San Francisco. As the car was fully packed and they were ready to leave, Mrs. Pederson said, "Arno, we don't have the baby's stroller."

He answered, "There is no room for it."

She said, "We must take it, we cannot possibly go to the fair without it."

So he tied it to the top of the car and headed for the fair. A few miles up the road she said, "Arno, you are the cleverest man in the world, surely you could design a stroller that would fold up so you could put it in the trunk of the car." When they returned from the fair he began working nights in his garage to build a fold up stroller. When he completed it all of the neighbors wanted one also and that was beginning of the fold up strollers and the Pederson furniture company. He said that he couldn't let his wife down and though he knew he was not the smartest man in the world he wanted his wife to continue to believe that.