Love-the Fulfillment of all Righteousness
Beloved sisters, in this section I entreat the LORD to give our eyes a glimpse of that exalted platform of the love of Christ, that our hearts may remain there and be set free from the wiles of every lying vanity, vain imagination, and hardness of the heart of unbelief. Oh dear sisters, there is a Divine secret for maintain saving faith and the manifestations thereof: subjection, meekness, and holy fear. The secret is simple this: to keep ourselves in the love of God. For the inevitable response is the containing of sacrificial unconditional love for our husbands. This love of God within the woman for her husband is of such a nature as having reckless abandon, unconscientious self-denial, overflowing tenderness, zealous compassion, the covering of a multitude of wrongs, exquisite discernment of his soul according to what the LORD reveals…. For was not the woman created of the man and for the man (1 Cor 11:8-9)?
So often we are testing ourselves, examining our behaviors towards our husbands, succeeding, failing, trying, falling, rising, critiquing our progress; we are so self-absorbed in our pursuit of being the excellent wife, so inward focused, so engrossed upon moral performance and success, sometimes to the extent that we are desiring our own well-performance above our husbands themselves! But oh sisters, there is a secret to overcoming all of these temptations, this internal Spiritual battle, this marital voyage, and this is to have the love of God for our husbands. To have the love of God for our husbands indicates that our heart is filled with the very same love and devotion of the LORD Jesus Christ towards our husband. What does this entail? The result of having this love, is that we no longer seek to perform well in our role as a wife simply for our own attainment of moral perfection, to acquire reciprocate charity, to reach our ideal of utopian marriage…but because we genuinely and sincerely desire the Spiritual prosperity of our husbands, and not just lightly, not just as a desire among many others, but as our sole desire under and for the sake of the will of God. Thus, for example we no longer desire to be subject to our husbands because we are supposed to, or because this makes us “good wives”, but because we have received a gift of heavenly wisdom to see how our subjection is necessary for him, empowers him, uplifts him, confirms him, establishes him… And we no longer are appalled at the thought of our insubjection simply because it means that we have failed personally as a wife, but because we behold in the heavenly realms how this weakens his hands, puts weight upon his ankles in his race, even destroys him altogether—God forbid! This type of Christ-like love for our husbands is proactive and freeing; self has been forgotten and tossed aside. You are wholeheartedly intentionally forwardly pursuing the Spiritual prosperity--the fulfillment of the LORD’s will--of your husband! Oh sisters, we can become so self-righteous, so self-performance based, and I am not speaking here of the righteous zeal and earnestness to obey our LORD Jesus Christ and to do His will. For indeed we do not please men, but God who tests our hearts (2 Thess 2:4) and if we keep His commandments, we shall abide in His love; even as He has kept His Father’s commandments, and abide in His love (John 15:10). But in the simplicity and selfishness of our flesh, we are so prone to make our progress in excellence as a wife “all-about-me”, and we end up being cast at our husbands’ feet in needy failure, having accomplished little for him—God forbid!
How I need the LORD’s wisdom to proceed! For I seek to prove to you in the Spirit and WORD that if you love your husband fervently from the heart you will, as a result, inevitably most-assuredly perform all things well! Are not we to teach one another to be sober, to love our husbands, to love our children (Tit 2:4).
Firstly, consider that the Scriptures make this clear. When a lawyer tempted Christ with a question asking “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22:36-40) All of the law and the messages of the prophets from the beginning of time were hung upon, born of, directly related from the wholehearted love for God and sacrificial selfless love for others! Similarly Paul tells the Romans to owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law (Rom 13:8) and love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Rom 13:10). For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Gal 5:14). Thus, let it be certain in your minds: if you have the true love of God in your hearts you will most certainly fulfill all things well pertaining to your role as a wife.
There is often some confusion as to the nature of this love of Christ which the Scriptures teach to be the fulfillment of the law. For in the carnal mind, when we consider carnal notions of love we deem it to be some kind of emotion which is devoid of reason and knowledge. Indeed the “love” of carnal men, which is no love at all, is devoid of reason and knowledge. It is a type of zeal without knowledge (Rom 10:2), a type of brutish beastly passion which is to no avail in the Spiritual prosperity of souls. But the love of Christ is of an exalted and strange nature: for contained therein is the wisdom and knowledge of God itself! In reality, the love of God grants us discernment, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of how we are to obey, and of the will of God itself! Consider the following Scriptures: “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ. Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God” (Phil 1:9-11) When love abounds, it does so in KNOWLEDGE and JUDGMENT unto the ability to APPROVE things that are excellent! Consider the portion of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph 3:19). Love passes, supersedes knowledge itself! Consider the anointing which we have received and the result of this anointing: “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad [the anointing] in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom 5:5). What is the result of the anointing: the love of God shed abroad in our hearts! And what does this very anointing perform within us?: “But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” (1 John 2:27) The anointing of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts teaches us of all things! Thus, be certain dear sisters, that when you are containing the love of Christ within your hearts for your husbands you will have wisdom and understanding, of a Spiritual, practical, immediate, particular type, whatever type is necessary in any situation at any time to perform righteousness as a wife unto your husband! The LORD knows even when we have not learned the practical wisdom of meekness and subjection, but when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, possessed by the love of Christ, we will be meek and subject; we most certainly will, though we knew not how. We did not contain this wisdom aforehand. But His love teaches at those times. His love shed light upon the moral will of God!
When I embarked upon the narrow way of this marriage I knew not how to make strides
For in the ocean of righteous commands I was as a wife to him to perform I was lost in these tides
I sought His face earnestly that He might turn again unto me
That heart, soul, mind, and body may in the ocean of His perfect love be
It was there that my King showed me my lord’s soul, oh his dear soul, that might see its necessities
That my holy reverence, my fervent love, my soul’s subjection were unto him no mere amenities
For his tender wounds from the Almighty, the pains in his soul, the rejection by men
My meek and submissive love was to his panting soul a healing balm send
His love taught me the ways to speak, to behave, to perform
How I was for my lord’s sake my heart and will to his vision and purpose conform
Laying aside all within my members that stood in his way from running hard after my dearest King
I desire your success in His will, oh my lord, for this will I remain under your precious wing
King David speaking of his dear friend Jonathan said “thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (2 Sam 1:26), indicating that the love of women whom he knew was wonderful, surpassed by the love of Jonathan, but wonderful nonetheless. And the degree of the value of the woman’s love is directly related to her excellence in her walk before the LORD. Had the women in David’s lives been more stedfast before the LORD than Jonathan, perhaps David could not have made the statement above. Though I would scarcely have considered it in the flesh, there is something about the sacrificial selfless love of a woman for a man that is unto him a strength, a crown, a healing balm, an accelerator of Spiritual forces of his labor: His works of faith, labors of love, and patience of hope (1 Thess 1:3), an enhancer of running speed, a completer of certain weaknesses, for indeed, the LORD God has spoken that it is not good that the man should be alone and so He made him an help meet unto him (Gen 2:18). The LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said concerning the woman that she was now bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of the Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Gen 2:21-24) It is an unfathomable mystery: the LORD has taken from him and created for him what he cannot live without for which gives him just reason to leave his father and mother! And in the first man’s introduction to his help meet: his words that she was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh conveys that he possesses her and is the substance of her existence; that she has no independent entity, no substance of herself, no matter outside of that which was formed from him, of him, and for him! For him!
There is much that can be spoken of the Spiritual significance of the woman being created from the rib of a man, and not just any man, or “the man” in general, but from the man of God whom God has ordained from eternity past to be united with her in flesh and spirit. It is not any woman, even any Christian woman, that would be a help meet unto him, but only that particular woman who was created from his rib. Indeed in every marriage arranged by the LORD, the woman, her soul, her gifting, her strengths, her weaknesses, her foreknown course of progressive sanctification…is designed for the help of her husband! Furthermore, each man of God is a living stone in the house of God to be a vessel meet for the Master’s use, a soldier of the Commanding Officer, having a specific purpose, vision, and work prepared for Him by the LORD. In the manifold wisdom of God, a particular man of God is ordained for some special lot, some allotted course, some portion of His house to build and establish. And only the woman whom the LORD has Spiritually created from his rib, preparing of him, and for him is able to assist him in this eternal allotment of labour granted to Him. Even before she is brought unto him, she is Spiritually made of him, being imparted with necessary portions of this man’s spirit, that is like unto the LORD taking the spirit which was upon Moses and putting it upon the other male heads that they should bear the burden of the people with him, that he would bear it not alone (Num 11:17). As surely as the LORD was preparing the man for His role in the Kingdom of God He was taking of the spirit of the man and forming the woman’s soul as she is brought unto him! It is astounding! Oh sisters, forsake not such a precious miracle of the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, the Giver of every good and perfect gift; despise not Him who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (Jam 1:17, 2 Tim 1:9)!
Such a helper is gentle with him, as a nurse cherisheth her children: being so affectionately desirous of him, that she is willing to impart to him, not the Gospel of God only, but also her own soul, because he is dear unto her (1 Thess 2:7-8). Do the Scriptures not say that she will win him without word by the chaste conversation of her life coupled with fear (1 Pet 3:1-2)? She is as a Spiritual type of Abishag, standing before her king, cherishing him, lying in his bosom, that her king may be granted Spiritual heat: zeal, Spiritual affections, vision, intensifying the burning of his inner coals. She is very fair, and her king greatly desires her beauty for he is her lord, and she worships him (Ps 45:11). Her adornment is her hidden person of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price (1 Pet 3:3-4). She cherishes her king, and ministers to him, even aside from her making physical love to him. (1 Kings 1:2-4) Such Spiritual succouring that she performs unto him goes far beyond physical love making. LORD have mercy if her greatest help unto him is her lovemaking; she is in sin if this is the case! She must proactively recklessly love his soul and labour that he might finish his course, being a cherishing ministering angel unto him all the while! Her role is likened to that of wisdom, which was with the LORD, as one brought up with Him: and was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; Rejoicing in the habitable parts of His earth. (Prov 8:30-31). For whoso findeth wisdom findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD (Prov 8:35) and similarly whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD (Prov 18:22). Then will his fountain be blessed: and he will rejoice with the wife of his youth. She will be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; her breasts will satisfy him at all times; and he will always be ravished with his love. (Prov 5:18-19) His heart will safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life (Prov 31:11-12) She will be a comfort unto him as Rebekah was a comfort unto Issac after his mother’s death (Gen 24:67).
How is this love manifested when her husband is in vile sin? Consider Tamar’s response to Ammon when he tried to rape her: she answered him “Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in folly: do not thou this folly. And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? And as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee” (2 Sam 13:12-13). She pleads with him in the fear of God, yet she is willing to surrender her life unto him, lest he destroy his own soul! When the woman follows in the footsteps of Christ, even without word, she will convert her husband’s disobedience, that he may return to the Shepherd and Bishop of his soul and be healed. When she performs this, she is performing the irresistible love of Christ unto him. How can he resist lest he be utterly hardened by the hand of God Himself?!
20 For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps:22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth:23 Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, he threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously:24 Who His own self bare our sins in hHs own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. (1 Pet 2:20-25)
Go to Chapter 12 Temptations and the Heart
Beloved sisters, in this section I entreat the LORD to give our eyes a glimpse of that exalted platform of the love of Christ, that our hearts may remain there and be set free from the wiles of every lying vanity, vain imagination, and hardness of the heart of unbelief. Oh dear sisters, there is a Divine secret for maintain saving faith and the manifestations thereof: subjection, meekness, and holy fear. The secret is simple this: to keep ourselves in the love of God. For the inevitable response is the containing of sacrificial unconditional love for our husbands. This love of God within the woman for her husband is of such a nature as having reckless abandon, unconscientious self-denial, overflowing tenderness, zealous compassion, the covering of a multitude of wrongs, exquisite discernment of his soul according to what the LORD reveals…. For was not the woman created of the man and for the man (1 Cor 11:8-9)?
So often we are testing ourselves, examining our behaviors towards our husbands, succeeding, failing, trying, falling, rising, critiquing our progress; we are so self-absorbed in our pursuit of being the excellent wife, so inward focused, so engrossed upon moral performance and success, sometimes to the extent that we are desiring our own well-performance above our husbands themselves! But oh sisters, there is a secret to overcoming all of these temptations, this internal Spiritual battle, this marital voyage, and this is to have the love of God for our husbands. To have the love of God for our husbands indicates that our heart is filled with the very same love and devotion of the LORD Jesus Christ towards our husband. What does this entail? The result of having this love, is that we no longer seek to perform well in our role as a wife simply for our own attainment of moral perfection, to acquire reciprocate charity, to reach our ideal of utopian marriage…but because we genuinely and sincerely desire the Spiritual prosperity of our husbands, and not just lightly, not just as a desire among many others, but as our sole desire under and for the sake of the will of God. Thus, for example we no longer desire to be subject to our husbands because we are supposed to, or because this makes us “good wives”, but because we have received a gift of heavenly wisdom to see how our subjection is necessary for him, empowers him, uplifts him, confirms him, establishes him… And we no longer are appalled at the thought of our insubjection simply because it means that we have failed personally as a wife, but because we behold in the heavenly realms how this weakens his hands, puts weight upon his ankles in his race, even destroys him altogether—God forbid! This type of Christ-like love for our husbands is proactive and freeing; self has been forgotten and tossed aside. You are wholeheartedly intentionally forwardly pursuing the Spiritual prosperity--the fulfillment of the LORD’s will--of your husband! Oh sisters, we can become so self-righteous, so self-performance based, and I am not speaking here of the righteous zeal and earnestness to obey our LORD Jesus Christ and to do His will. For indeed we do not please men, but God who tests our hearts (2 Thess 2:4) and if we keep His commandments, we shall abide in His love; even as He has kept His Father’s commandments, and abide in His love (John 15:10). But in the simplicity and selfishness of our flesh, we are so prone to make our progress in excellence as a wife “all-about-me”, and we end up being cast at our husbands’ feet in needy failure, having accomplished little for him—God forbid!
How I need the LORD’s wisdom to proceed! For I seek to prove to you in the Spirit and WORD that if you love your husband fervently from the heart you will, as a result, inevitably most-assuredly perform all things well! Are not we to teach one another to be sober, to love our husbands, to love our children (Tit 2:4).
Firstly, consider that the Scriptures make this clear. When a lawyer tempted Christ with a question asking “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22:36-40) All of the law and the messages of the prophets from the beginning of time were hung upon, born of, directly related from the wholehearted love for God and sacrificial selfless love for others! Similarly Paul tells the Romans to owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law (Rom 13:8) and love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Rom 13:10). For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Gal 5:14). Thus, let it be certain in your minds: if you have the true love of God in your hearts you will most certainly fulfill all things well pertaining to your role as a wife.
There is often some confusion as to the nature of this love of Christ which the Scriptures teach to be the fulfillment of the law. For in the carnal mind, when we consider carnal notions of love we deem it to be some kind of emotion which is devoid of reason and knowledge. Indeed the “love” of carnal men, which is no love at all, is devoid of reason and knowledge. It is a type of zeal without knowledge (Rom 10:2), a type of brutish beastly passion which is to no avail in the Spiritual prosperity of souls. But the love of Christ is of an exalted and strange nature: for contained therein is the wisdom and knowledge of God itself! In reality, the love of God grants us discernment, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of how we are to obey, and of the will of God itself! Consider the following Scriptures: “And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ. Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God” (Phil 1:9-11) When love abounds, it does so in KNOWLEDGE and JUDGMENT unto the ability to APPROVE things that are excellent! Consider the portion of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph 3:19). Love passes, supersedes knowledge itself! Consider the anointing which we have received and the result of this anointing: “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad [the anointing] in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom 5:5). What is the result of the anointing: the love of God shed abroad in our hearts! And what does this very anointing perform within us?: “But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” (1 John 2:27) The anointing of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts teaches us of all things! Thus, be certain dear sisters, that when you are containing the love of Christ within your hearts for your husbands you will have wisdom and understanding, of a Spiritual, practical, immediate, particular type, whatever type is necessary in any situation at any time to perform righteousness as a wife unto your husband! The LORD knows even when we have not learned the practical wisdom of meekness and subjection, but when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, possessed by the love of Christ, we will be meek and subject; we most certainly will, though we knew not how. We did not contain this wisdom aforehand. But His love teaches at those times. His love shed light upon the moral will of God!
When I embarked upon the narrow way of this marriage I knew not how to make strides
For in the ocean of righteous commands I was as a wife to him to perform I was lost in these tides
I sought His face earnestly that He might turn again unto me
That heart, soul, mind, and body may in the ocean of His perfect love be
It was there that my King showed me my lord’s soul, oh his dear soul, that might see its necessities
That my holy reverence, my fervent love, my soul’s subjection were unto him no mere amenities
For his tender wounds from the Almighty, the pains in his soul, the rejection by men
My meek and submissive love was to his panting soul a healing balm send
His love taught me the ways to speak, to behave, to perform
How I was for my lord’s sake my heart and will to his vision and purpose conform
Laying aside all within my members that stood in his way from running hard after my dearest King
I desire your success in His will, oh my lord, for this will I remain under your precious wing
King David speaking of his dear friend Jonathan said “thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (2 Sam 1:26), indicating that the love of women whom he knew was wonderful, surpassed by the love of Jonathan, but wonderful nonetheless. And the degree of the value of the woman’s love is directly related to her excellence in her walk before the LORD. Had the women in David’s lives been more stedfast before the LORD than Jonathan, perhaps David could not have made the statement above. Though I would scarcely have considered it in the flesh, there is something about the sacrificial selfless love of a woman for a man that is unto him a strength, a crown, a healing balm, an accelerator of Spiritual forces of his labor: His works of faith, labors of love, and patience of hope (1 Thess 1:3), an enhancer of running speed, a completer of certain weaknesses, for indeed, the LORD God has spoken that it is not good that the man should be alone and so He made him an help meet unto him (Gen 2:18). The LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said concerning the woman that she was now bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of the Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Gen 2:21-24) It is an unfathomable mystery: the LORD has taken from him and created for him what he cannot live without for which gives him just reason to leave his father and mother! And in the first man’s introduction to his help meet: his words that she was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh conveys that he possesses her and is the substance of her existence; that she has no independent entity, no substance of herself, no matter outside of that which was formed from him, of him, and for him! For him!
There is much that can be spoken of the Spiritual significance of the woman being created from the rib of a man, and not just any man, or “the man” in general, but from the man of God whom God has ordained from eternity past to be united with her in flesh and spirit. It is not any woman, even any Christian woman, that would be a help meet unto him, but only that particular woman who was created from his rib. Indeed in every marriage arranged by the LORD, the woman, her soul, her gifting, her strengths, her weaknesses, her foreknown course of progressive sanctification…is designed for the help of her husband! Furthermore, each man of God is a living stone in the house of God to be a vessel meet for the Master’s use, a soldier of the Commanding Officer, having a specific purpose, vision, and work prepared for Him by the LORD. In the manifold wisdom of God, a particular man of God is ordained for some special lot, some allotted course, some portion of His house to build and establish. And only the woman whom the LORD has Spiritually created from his rib, preparing of him, and for him is able to assist him in this eternal allotment of labour granted to Him. Even before she is brought unto him, she is Spiritually made of him, being imparted with necessary portions of this man’s spirit, that is like unto the LORD taking the spirit which was upon Moses and putting it upon the other male heads that they should bear the burden of the people with him, that he would bear it not alone (Num 11:17). As surely as the LORD was preparing the man for His role in the Kingdom of God He was taking of the spirit of the man and forming the woman’s soul as she is brought unto him! It is astounding! Oh sisters, forsake not such a precious miracle of the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, the Giver of every good and perfect gift; despise not Him who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (Jam 1:17, 2 Tim 1:9)!
Such a helper is gentle with him, as a nurse cherisheth her children: being so affectionately desirous of him, that she is willing to impart to him, not the Gospel of God only, but also her own soul, because he is dear unto her (1 Thess 2:7-8). Do the Scriptures not say that she will win him without word by the chaste conversation of her life coupled with fear (1 Pet 3:1-2)? She is as a Spiritual type of Abishag, standing before her king, cherishing him, lying in his bosom, that her king may be granted Spiritual heat: zeal, Spiritual affections, vision, intensifying the burning of his inner coals. She is very fair, and her king greatly desires her beauty for he is her lord, and she worships him (Ps 45:11). Her adornment is her hidden person of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price (1 Pet 3:3-4). She cherishes her king, and ministers to him, even aside from her making physical love to him. (1 Kings 1:2-4) Such Spiritual succouring that she performs unto him goes far beyond physical love making. LORD have mercy if her greatest help unto him is her lovemaking; she is in sin if this is the case! She must proactively recklessly love his soul and labour that he might finish his course, being a cherishing ministering angel unto him all the while! Her role is likened to that of wisdom, which was with the LORD, as one brought up with Him: and was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; Rejoicing in the habitable parts of His earth. (Prov 8:30-31). For whoso findeth wisdom findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD (Prov 8:35) and similarly whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD (Prov 18:22). Then will his fountain be blessed: and he will rejoice with the wife of his youth. She will be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; her breasts will satisfy him at all times; and he will always be ravished with his love. (Prov 5:18-19) His heart will safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life (Prov 31:11-12) She will be a comfort unto him as Rebekah was a comfort unto Issac after his mother’s death (Gen 24:67).
How is this love manifested when her husband is in vile sin? Consider Tamar’s response to Ammon when he tried to rape her: she answered him “Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in folly: do not thou this folly. And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? And as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me from thee” (2 Sam 13:12-13). She pleads with him in the fear of God, yet she is willing to surrender her life unto him, lest he destroy his own soul! When the woman follows in the footsteps of Christ, even without word, she will convert her husband’s disobedience, that he may return to the Shepherd and Bishop of his soul and be healed. When she performs this, she is performing the irresistible love of Christ unto him. How can he resist lest he be utterly hardened by the hand of God Himself?!
20 For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps:22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth:23 Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, he threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously:24 Who His own self bare our sins in hHs own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. (1 Pet 2:20-25)
Go to Chapter 12 Temptations and the Heart