What are the biblical solutions for solving marriage problems?

Satan is very active today in the homes of the saints. I want to address myself to those who are husbands and wives because we cannot expect a true functioning of the assembly, either in worship or in testimony, if there are not proper conditions in the home, with both husband and wife fully committed to the interests of the Lord. Much of the weakness and declension that exists in the Christian testimony begins at home. Many of the problems that are in the homes are carried into the assembly and the conditions are sadly affected. Paul is saying ‘Husbands, wives, settle all your difficulties, get right with the Lord, get right with one another and find your true place in the assembly for the glory of Christ and for the glory of God'. Dear brethren, Satan is attacking the homes of the saints in perhaps a way he has never done before. In our part of the world in recent years we know of six Christian homes that have been affected by Satan, divorce has come in and how sad that is. Dear brethren, let us hear the warning, the enemy is attacking the homes of the saints. Divorce and breakdown in the family is a dishonour to the Lord. I cannot state it in stronger terms. Husbands and wives need to be devoted to the Lord and sink their differences, whatever they may be, forgive each other and live together in a way that is becoming to the Lord Jesus Christ and to God. What was happening at Corinth was a disgrace to the position that God had brought them into. Young men, young women, if you are looking to get married do not enter into it casually, do not trifle with each other's affections. Marriage is a matter of the greatest importance. Think about it, pray about it, and enter into it with all the solemnity that it requires because if this breaks down, again I say, it is a positive dishonour to the Lord's name. Do not think that because this kind of thing characterises the world that it can be allowed in the Christian circle; it must be refused.

Now I say as a husband, have I failed? What do I do if I have failed as a husband? Obviously the first thing to do is to get on my knees and confess my failure to the Lord in exactly the same way as I would confess any other failure. There is no difference. Let us be preserved from thinking that any failure in the home can be glossed over lightly because it does not reach the public eye. God sees us. We are under the eye of God. Any failure in the home must be confessed in exactly the same way as any public failure. And if the wife fails in any of her responsibilities she has exactly the same recourse for help and for blessing, to confess it. Then we must do something that we are not always prone to do, to confess it to each other that we might not fall into the same snare again and so avoid anything that would hinder the interests of the Lord. I believe with all my heart that Aquila and Priscilla would be such a couple, so concerned about doing what was right for the Lord that they would be harmoniously knitted together, united in the interests of the Lord. This is the attitude that governed their lives. What a delightful couple indeed.

It must be entirely a question of individual faith. You must walk before God in happy loving fellowship. You should both wait upon God together and seek to be of one mind in the Lord. This is your happy privilege. It is of the utmost importance for man and wife to cultivate the daily habit of waiting together on the Lord. It has a marvelous effect upon the whole range of domestic life. Bring everything before God, pour out your hearts together. Have no secrets, no reserve. Then will your hearts be knit together in holy love, and the current of your personal, conjugal and domestic life will flow peacefully and happily on, to the praise of Him who has made you one and called you to walk together as heirs of the grace of life.

What an incentive all this is for the husband to love his wife; but there are further instructions, he is to love his wife as his own body, for the man who loves his wife loves himself. No man in his right mind ill-treats his body, but rather feeds and cares for it. Christ likewise nourishes the church with the richest supply of food from heaven, and cherishes it with His own perfect love, for we are united to Him, being members of His body, having come from Him. Eve was derived from Adam before she was united to him; and because of this a man is to leave father and mother and to be joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh. With the light of this chapter how wonderfully beautiful is God's presentation of the relationship of Adam and Eve; and what wisdom is displayed in secreting so early in the history of man His thoughts of Christ and the church. Adam and Eve though first upon the scene, set forth God's original thoughts, conceived in relation to His counsels before the world began. Though exulting in these great revelations we are not to forget that the husband is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to reverentially fear her husband. Here lies the true secret of matrimonial happiness, and it is because these Scriptural exhortations are not heeded that so much sorrow and distress are found in the homes of many.

The two principles, "seek the things above" and "put to death your members which are upon the earth" should also be displayed in the Christian family. God gave marriage before sin occurred but it has been affected by sin. Scripture shows us here the two divine principles for marriage, firstly the wives should take the place of subjection to their husbands, and the husbands should love their wives. To make clear what Paul says here I will tell you what the opposites are. The opposite of subjection to the husband is rebellion again him, and the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. Unfortunately, I sometimes have to deal with difficulties in the marriages of believers, and I have witnessed that these two things, when wives are in rebellion in their own houses against their husbands and when husbands are indifferent to the needs of their wives, are destructive in Christian marriages. I know that the philosophies of this world differ but we do not want to be governed by these but by the thoughts of Christ.

Having settled the matter of His Lordship over yourselves and your home, what of the internal economy of your home? What have you to carry on with? You have your God-given love for each other—a great gift, life would be intolerable together without that—but that is not enough for a truly successful marriage; you will need to mix wisdom with your love; and not worldly wisdom, which is more often than not rank folly. You will need the wisdom which is from above, of which James speaks, which “is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits.” But how can you secure that wisdom, the price of which is above rubies? Listen to this, E—, and let the words be engraved on your memory and soul, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. ” “It shall be given him”; what an encouragement there is in that for prayer in the Name of the Lord to whom you have surrendered yourself and your home! What a standby that word of the Lord will be to you when in perplexity and doubt.

Having settled the matter of His Lordship over yourselves and your home, what of the internal economy of your home? What have you to carry on with? You have your God-given love for each other — a great gift, life would be intolerable together without that — but that is not enough for a truly successful marriage; you will need to mix wisdom with your love; and not worldly wisdom, which is more often than not rank folly. You will need the wisdom which is from above, of which James speaks, which "is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits." But how can you secure that wisdom, the price of which is above rubies? Listen to this, E — , and let the words be engraved on your memory and soul, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." "It shall be given him"; what an encouragement there is in that for prayer in the Name of the Lord to whom you have surrendered yourself and your home! What a standby that word of the Lord will be to you when in perplexity and doubt.

Wonderful indeed is the grace of God in its sufficiency for the needs which have been occasioned by mistakes, by ignorance, by even self-will. For in how great a multitude of marriages these things are evident. The believer is therefore not to despair, if he sees that in which he has been astray from Scripture in any of these various matters; but rather to turn freshly in faith and confession to the Lord, to lean utterly upon His grace, to seek His Divine intervention; and He may bring greatest blessing even out of ruins. If our God can say "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself: but in Me is thine help" (Hosea 13:9), then certainly the same help is present for the individual believer. In fact, that grace alone is sufficient for sustaining and preserving His saints through all the experiences of married life, just as it is essential and sufficient for restoring where there has been failure. Blessed thus to feed upon the fruits of grace all our journey through.

Verse 3 and 5 would insist that, when married, both wife and husband are responsible to show full consideration of each other according to the proper character of the marriage bond. They are one flesh, and neither the husband alone, nor the wife alone, has power in reference to his own or her own body, to bear fruit. They are united, and must not ignore this sacred relationship. By consent they could be apart for a time, to give themselves to fasting and prayer, and no doubt this could be greatly used of God in blessing; but it was generally not to be too long protracted, for Satan is ever ready to take advantage of such things. Proper consideration of each other is the important matter, and no defrauding of one another of his or her proper rights in the marriage relationship.

But Paul makes it clear in verse 6 that this is not the direct commandment of God, but his own advice, which God permitted him to give. In this chapter these two things are carefully distinguished, and interestingly so. This does not in any way violate the fact that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God; but it does illustrate the fact that all Scripture is not revelation. But God inspired Paul in this case to give, in response to the questions of the Corinthians, his own spiritual judgment in these matters. And let us remember, as we read it, that here is a man who is willing to forego what is lawful himself, to do what is most becoming in order to joyfully please the Lord. it would hardly seem wise to belittle the advice of such a man. Could we ourselves give better?

But there are snares through nature as it is; and nowhere was there reason to fear more from the habits and associations of the place than at Corinth. Heathenism in some cases consecrated fornication. Because of the licentious ways, there and then of the commonest occurrence but at all times a danger, let each have his own wife, and each have her own husband. Mutual consideration to the last degree becomes both in a relationship where they that were two are no longer so but one. Grace, if it lift above nature in certain cases for the Lord's glory, enforces the honour and duties of those who are in a natural relationship. It is the sure mark of the enemy, where grace is perverted to put contempt on the least or lowest ordering of God. If we are in the relationship, we are bound to be true to its claims. Hence the husband was to pay her due to the wife, and in like manner the wife to the husband. The married estate is inconsistent with independence of each other in all that pertains to it. The wife has not authority over her own body, but the husband; and in like manner also the husband has not authority over his own body, but the wife. Hence they were not to defraud or wrongfully deprive one another, unless by consent for a time, that they might be free for prayer and again be together, lest Satan should tempt them for their incontinency. The law made nothing perfect. Christ vindicated God's mind and will as to the first man, but Himself was the manifestation of God in man. So does the apostle speak of marriage in words far above the thoughts and ways of Israel. What is first was never so fully stated before; but grace, as ever, presents a better thing.