There are three types of marriage relationships that exist.
Endure
There is a relationship that you endure. It's a burden. You have to put up with each other because you're married and you made a commitment as a believer to stay together. And so you endure a relationship with each other. That isn’t much fun.
Escape
This is a relationship that you try to escape from. You may be feeling so damaged that you would like to just run away from this relationship. You want to block it out and you want to hide all the information inside your heart about the pain that you're experiencing. You just want to run and get away from the pressure. Common in this relationship is a man marrying his work, or a woman emotionally marrying their children or a friend or sibling.
Enjoy
But there’s a third kind of relationship. That’s the kind of marriage that you enjoy. Can I invite you to move to the third relationship? This relationship is available to every couple, who allows God to break every stronghold that is blocking their relationship. This is the only kind of relationship that God wants.
Many times I have heard couples say the same thing in different ways,
“I can’t stand my spouse, I know we should have never gotten married. I knew the month before we got married that it was all wrong. But we did it— and now I’m stuck. How do I get out of this mess? I just want to run. I don’t want to stay in this mess anymore..”
And I hear those statements…. heard it last month. You know what I do with those statements? I just ignore them. Because that’s not where the problem lies. This person is merely expressing the pain of an evil-for-evil relationship. The husband is attacking the wife, and the wife is attacking the husband and emotionally all the energy is draining out of the relationship and they can’t stand each other. They’re hurting each other intensely, and they’re both just dying inside, and they want to escape. But deep down they want something better. That’s why people come to Christ.
I believe that everyone in the world is looking for God, but most of them don’t know it. It starts out as a search for something better. The enemy is busy trying to get people off onto a detour as they look for God. People look for God in flashing lights, adultery, money, fame, sex, drugs & alcohol, and possessions. They may not even identify it as a search for God, but they are looking for something better than they are presently experiencing. “The drunk in the gutter?” What a place to look for God!” Yes, but they are looking for something better… They believe the lie that they will find it in the next drink, their indulgence rewarded with slow death. Every immoral pattern only frustrates—it never satisfies.
The good news is there are Three mighty heavenly Beings who are constantly at work to take our desire for something better and turn that into a knowledge of the plan of salvation.
A knowledge of God is a revelation, and that revelation includes the love & kindness of God as expressed in Jesus Christ. When we get this all together, you realize that God is someone who really DOES love you. He is out for your best good. We are drawn to Him.
We say “I’m interested in this plan of salvation—at first on the basis of self-centered selfish motivation. Heaven to win, hell to shun. And even when our motives are rotten, the Lord will take us right there. That’s the good news.
Some people blame themselves for marrying without adequately seeking God’s will in the matter. Take heart. God can change our motives. Taking a look at the love of God as revealed in Christ Jesus leads us to conviction. Conviction that we are sinners. Whether we have done any bad things or not isn’t the issue—we are sinners born with a sinful nature. Selfish. That’s the issue in sin, and that is also the primary origin of marital problems.
Jesus said “Howbeit when He is come, He will convict the world of sin, righteousness & judgement. This is the job of the Holy Spirit. Right here, most people, when they are convicted of sin, begin working on their sins. This is a subtle trap of the enemy. Start working on your sins. Then God will accept you. But the Bible says “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing?” Not one. I can’t and you can’t.
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? If so, then you who are accustomed to do evil, can also do good.”
Some people marry their spouse in spite of warning signs that they ignore. They think “It’s ok. I can change them later.”
Thus many couples have settled into an evil for evil relationship. They spend their time trying to control one another, in their pride. There’s a solution for this. Just like salvation, we need to release our spouse to Jesus. And resolve our own pride.
When the spiritual issues separating them have been resolved (and they both own their problem individually) what happens is the wife wants the husband, and the husband wants the wife and they emotionally can’t stay apart. The issue is are we able to resolve our spiritual problems, and are you individually willing to own your problem that is contributing to the evil for evil relationship?
Sometimes a person will say “You don’t know my spouse. Because my spouse will never ever change. I’ve tried it for twenty years, and they haven’t changed.” That’s the problem—they’ve tried on the outside, through their pride. There’s only one way to change the heart of a person, and that is to allow the Spirit of God to come in and do the work of Heaven.
The same thing is true in our other relationships. In them we can choose to return evil for evil or good for evil. What does the Bible say about conflict and forgiveness? What are the cause of conflicts in a relationship? I’ll share seven of them.
Causes of Conflict
Unresolved bitterness (Proverbs 10:12 says “Hatred stirs up strife”). In other words, if you have anger, bitterness and resentment in your heart it's going to lock your relationship with another person and unless you resolve that bitterness it will not resolve the issues.
Pride — If you have to control your spouse (or others) and there's a pride in your heart, you'll never be able to enjoy a relationship—as long as that pride is there.
Disrespect (Proverbs 22:10). if you disrespect another person and you are a scoffer you will never be able to enjoy a relationship with them. Because if you don't respect your spouse (or another person) you'll never open your heart to that individual. Proverbs 22:10 says “Cast out the scoffer and contention will cease.” If you want fighting to cease, learn to deal with respect towards your spouse and others.
Alcohol or drugs (Proverbs 23:29). Alcohol and drugs will destroy your relationships. I'm going to share something with you, practically. I've never helped a marriage together where one or the other is smoking pot and refuses to stop smoking pot. Or drinking alcohol.
In every case, when a person said “I refuse to stop; there is nothing wrong with smoking pot or drinking” they could never stop the fighting in the relationship. The evil for evil will continue. Unless a person is willing to acknowledge and renounce the alcohol and drugs in their life, they will never ever enjoy emotional intimacy in their marriage. Why? Because the Bible says contention and alcohol go together (Proverbs 23:29).
That's why when you go to the bars there's always fights there. I had an employee that went to a lot of bars—he also loved to fight. He’s dead now, unfortunately. Why do people fight in bars? Why do police have to go back to bars every couple days—to the same bar to pull these people out of bars? It's because drinking and loss of inhibition causes people—if they're angry inside—to lash out and they have no control over their emotions and all their emotions come out at that point. And that's why I say to couples if you want to stop an evil for evil relationship, stop drinking completely and stop all drugs (illegal drugs).
Rebellion If you have a rebellious attitude towards those in authority, you will automatically have an evil for evil relationship, because once you have an attitude of rebellion you will always attack anyone telling you what to do. There will always be a reaction to anyone who seeks to tell you anything. The rebellious live in a dry land they never can relax (Psalms 68:6). They're always reacting against something or someone. And that continues through the rest of the marriage, unless that stronghold of rebellion is broken.
Moral failure Whenever you're in moral failure you'll automatically have a problem of anger. That’s a given. Many people have uncontrolled anger, and it's a moral problem in their life that's causing the anger to come out. The solution is to start identifying and dealing with those spiritual issues. And what you're going to find is when you allow God to resolve the moral sin, all of a sudden the anger is gone.
Unresolved abuse from the past Unresolved abuse from the past can cause conflict. In fact, nearly 70% of marriages fail for women who have been sexually abused—unless they resolve the abuse in Jesus. Let’s turn to 1 Peter chapter 3 and I'd like to look at the example of a tender wife. God describes her as an individual who influences her husband by her attitude and by her example of godliness. By her attitude without saying a word. Just being around her you feel loved and appreciated you feel cared about and her love has an open heart to a where she cares about you. There are two things that her husband will observe in his wife. First of all, her pure conduct toward God, and secondly her fear/respect. She has a respect for her husband a respect for their children.
She desires to walk with God and in her life is an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. There are two ingredients of her inner beauty—a gentle spirit and a peaceable spirit, or a meek and a quiet spirit. These are the qualities that will permeate out of a person who has an open heart who cares about people. I love this chapter because I see it in my own wife and many other godly women.
For the husband, the Bible calls us to love and protect our wives. Failure to do that could cause God to not hear our prayers—how’s that for motivation guys? (1 Peter 3:7).
A husband is to lead as Christ led. How many of you have been yelled at by Jesus? Do you realize Jesus never does that? Some husbands yell at their wives. They don't lead their wives, they tell their wives what to do. That’s totally wrong. The Bible says a husband is to—by his example—lead his wife in the same way that Christ by His example leads us and cares about us.
Secondly a husband is to spend time with his wife. The word “dwell“ in first Peter 3:7 means to inhabit as one, to live together as one, to be one flesh, not to be two independent people doing two different things, but in one mind, one heart, moving in the same direction with each. Third, a husband is to be considerate of his wife. God says that a husband is to live (dwell) with his wife with understanding (that Greek word
sunóikeō means to come to know, to recognize, to understand completely, to show consideration. Be totally open with your wife to learn her desires, her goals, strengths, weaknesses, needs, and to seek to meet those to make her fulfilled and happy.
That's what consideration means—for the husband is to show respect. Peter says the husband must honor his wife. Honor means the worth you place on another person. The esteem you place on your wife. It's the opposite of despising someone. The opposite of honor is to despise your marriage partner. And I'm going to say this, in many marriages in any given church, the husband despises his wife and has no interest in understanding her heart. I was one of them 30-years ago.
Lastly, a husband is to view his wife as his equal spiritually—as joint heirs. Peter says we are joint heirs together. Now in Ephesians 5, and other places it says the husband is the head of the home and spiritual leader, which means he's responsible. But they're joint heirs together, and the wife has a responsibility to respond with openness to the husband, and the man has a responsibility to lead in a God glorifying direction.
So how do we respond to people in marriage, or to others in our broken world? There are only four ways.
Only Four Ways To Respond
Evil for evil —In 1st Peter 3 9 it says “not rendering evil for evil but on the contrary return a blessing.” In Romans 12:17 it says “Recompense to no man evil for evil.”
1 Thessalonians 5:15 says “See that no one render evil for evil onto any man but ever follow that which is good.” In all of those passages the warning is the same (1 Peter 3 is in the context of marriage). Peter teaches us—in the first seven verses—the unique responsibilities of the wife and the husband. And then He turns to the husband and wife and says “Stop returning evil for evil.” Stop attacking each other and making each other feel stupid, and destroying the emotional intimacy in your relationship.
Now there are two evil for evil relationships. There's the obvious evil-for-evil and there's the hidden evil-for-evil.
The obvious evil for evil is like one child says “You're stupid.” The other child says “Well you're stupider yet, and the other child comes back and says “Well you're dumber than any dumb person in the world…” And then the other will come back and have to beat that…
You've watched kids do that haven't you? That's an obvious evil for evil. You're seeking to attack the other person with obvious statements. But there's a more subtle one and that's what I call a hidden evil for evil. Most Christians fall into this category. Your spouse does something to hurt you and you emotionally withdraw from your spouse. “I’ll show them.”
That's what I mean by draining the emotional energy out of the relationship. And when you get done you can't sleep. You can't talk, you can't look at each other. You hate (or dislike) each other but you can't say anything because you're Christians, and you get in the car and you go to church and you turn your big smile and you say “Everything's OK, we're a godly family.” And your children say “What's wrong with you? You act in church like everything's OK but at home it's horrible..” That is hypocrisy. Living two lives in a hidden evil for evil relationship.
Evil for good —Proverbs 17:13 says of those who reward evil for good—”evil shall never depart from his house.” That's a scary verse and that's a verse I’d like to understand better. Maybe I can ask Solomon what he meant by that when/if I get to heaven. I do understand that part of what it says is this—If I return evil to people who are doing something right, evil will never depart from my house. That could mean that my children will experience evil if I fight with a spouse who is trying to do it right. You tell me if you have an interpretation of that verse, because I don't know fully what it means.
Good for evil —Romans 12:20 says “Be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good.” This is what Jesus demonstrated for us in so many ways. Through His Holy Spirit, we can do this too.
Good for good —This is not a Scriptural term, but Luke 6:31 says “As you would that man should do to you do, you also do to them.” I made the term up to fit the parallel of the other three. But you and I need to experience a good-for-good relationship. That makes for a fun marriage.
What are the consequences of an evil for evil relationship? There are three.
First of all you're going to consume one another (Galatians 5: 15).
Secondly, you're going to experience confusion “Where strife is there is confusion (James 3:16).
Thirdly, every evil work will be experienced in your home. “Where strife is there is every evil work” (James 3:16). In other words, you will have a house full of evil. That isn’t much fun.
All three of these consequences are at work in our world, friends. Lives, and cities and relationships are being destroyed by evil-for-evil. The carnal heart naturally seeks revenge, and hatred fills it. But it doesn’t take any wisdom to fight. Anyone can do it, amateur haters, as well as professional haters.
It does take wisdom to return good for evil. In His wisdom, God saved us (1 Corinthians 1:18-21).
Lost in wonder, God’s people will value His wisdom from above (James 3:17) and seek to light the pathway of others. Constrained by the love of God they will render good for evil, and their lives will represent God aright in the Great Controversy.
Those who endure this world will eventually escape it, and they will eternally enjoy the one to come.
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“But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17).