Calvary Road Baptist Church

“THE CASE OF THE CHRISTIAN MAN MARRIED TO AN UNSAVED WOMAN”

Proverbs 31.3

This may be the most difficult sermon I have ever delivered. It is the only sermon I have ever preached after asking my wife for her permission since she figures so prominently in it. This message began to form in my mind and heart on the day we celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary. When I asked her about bringing the message, she replied without hesitation, saying, “Sometimes things that need to be done are hard to do.” That was an “All clear.”

I will make no attempt to present my wife’s thoughts during the course of the message, and I do not pretend to read her mind. I can only bear witness to my own thoughts, frustrations, and shortcomings. My life partner will always be in the picture, but this sermon will unfold in the first person.

This is an autobiographical sermon, a topical exposition, a biblical counseling session for Christian men, and a testimony of God’s goodness, grace, mercy, wisdom, and sovereignty. My goal is to diminish me while glorifying God and exalting Christ. Pray that I succeed. 

First, AN OVERVIEW OF MY LIFE TO FORTY-SIX YEARS OF MARRIAGE 

For the sake of convenience and order in telling my story, I will unevenly divide my life into seven parts:

First, my birth and upbringing. I am the firstborn of two sons to an Army Air Corps veteran of World War Two who graduated from college and married a Texas farm girl. Though we vacationed in Texas every summer growing up, I lived twelve of my first seventeen years on Indian reservations, the other five years near Indian reservations, in a non-Christian home environment that never featured Bible reading or prayer, and with conversations always dominated by profanity. We attended Baptist Churches two or three or four times in three different states.

Next, my conversion. My initial exposure to the Gospel occurred in a Vacation Bible School on an Indian reservation in North Dakota in 1956. My second exposure to the Gospel occurred at home in Oregon in 1965 during a visit by my newly converted uncle, Leon Waldrip. My conversion took place on March 31, 1974, in my Torrance apartment late one night after reading the book of Genesis the night before, and shortly after reading Exodus chapters one through twelve, with God bringing together in my mind the VBS lesson I had been taught as a child with the Passover narrative in Exodus chapter twelve I had just read. No one was more surprised than I was to have become a Christian. God is both gracious and sovereign. For me, everything changed.

Third, my Church membership. I immediately began attending Bible studies where I worked and Charismatic gatherings I was invited to, but I did not attend Church for weeks after my conversion. I had no awareness of the incredible Scriptural importance of the congregation in every Christian’s life. When I was invited to Church, I attended, was baptized, and began to attend faithfully. No one ever attempted to persuade me to involve myself in Church activities and ministry, and they didn’t need to.

Fourth, my marriage. As a single professional in the congregation, everyone was a matchmaker. The pastor wanted me to marry his oldest daughter, then his middle daughter, with his youngest daughter too young to even think about it. Others in the Church tried to pair me off with different friends, without much interest on my part in those particular women. Then, one Sunday evening, a Church member told me she had led a young woman to Christ and invited her to Church. That same evening Pam Franco rolled into the parking lot. We met. We dated. She was subsequently baptized. We discussed everything related to couples, marriage, spiritual leadership, etc. I was very forthright about my personality and my understanding of the husband and wife relationship in marriage, and we married on October 18, 1975.

Fifth, my calling and preparation. I indicated to Pam before our marriage that God was working in my life and that I had no idea what He had in mind. I committed to her that whatever God had in store for me, I intended to comply. She agreed with that approach. A month or two after our honeymoon, after doing some door-to-door visitation with a partner on a Saturday morning, I told my pastor that I was convinced God wanted me in the Gospel ministry. We followed the pastor’s counsel to enroll in the school he recommended, relocated to the other side of Los Angeles, and joined Bethany Baptist Church in Whittier, where we were all in. When Bethany’s pastor scheduled a team of preachers for a conference, someone gave a personal testimony about his false hope and subsequent conversion. That is when Pam began to sob, telling me that she was not saved. I took her to a counseling room where someone dealt with her about her salvation, and she was soon after baptized again.

Sixth, my first pastorate. Graduating from the school recommended by my first pastor, I then enrolled in a graduate school for a year before accepting a call to the Church in Brawley, California. We were there for seven years, coming to know Mike and Toni, Mike’s dad, Toni’s clan, and several other people who are friends to this day. During that time, my wife caused me no trouble whatsoever. She was better than just about any wife I could have imagined. But I felt something was wrong. I could not express my feelings or concerns at the time, but something was not right. Only, I could not imagine what it might be.

Finally, my second pastorate, here at Calvary Road Baptist Church. Next month will be the 36th anniversary of my call to serve as the pastor of this Church. The growth of the congregation during the early part of my tenure here was phenomenal. At one point, we had Saturday night preaching services, two Sunday morning preaching services, and a Sunday night preaching service. Then the Church suffered a split. Shortly before the split, I hosted a week of preaching here at the Church, with two preachers preaching each night. Somewhere in that jumbled mess of memories, I remember standing next to Pam while someone preached, and, you guessed it, she began sobbing once more. When I asked her what was wrong, she said, “I am lost.” When I urged her to deal with it, she said, “But I’m the pastor’s wife.” I said, “So what?”

Once again, she made a profession of faith. Once again, she was baptized. Once again, over time, it was obvious that she was still lost. My wife had made three different professions of faith in Jesus Christ and was subsequently baptized on three separate occasions. What was I to do? That I endured torturous agony would be an understatement. That I served God in an understanding congregation was incredible. The deacons had the discernment to recognize what was happening; the pastor’s wife is not a Christian. My daughter had the discernment to know something was amiss, and she would sometimes look at me with questioning eyes as if to ask, “Dad. What’s going on?” I returned her looks but said nothing.

Throughout our marriage, Pam and I always got along quite well, though from time to time, it became apparent to me that I played too prominent a role in the matter of her spiritual condition. Her issue was not with me but with God. I also realized she had been exposed to the Gospel enough times to save the whole world. My decision was twofold, based on my understanding of God’s Word and the fact that I am not a coward by God’s grace. I take no credit for not being a coward. It is the way God constructed me. I cannot be a coward, although I know and love men who are cowards. I determined to continue to strive to be an unwavering spiritual leader while at the same time dialing back my repeated urgings to her to comply with what I wanted her to do, which was trust Christ. I continued to lead but stopped telling her what I thought she should do. I would lead and trust God to take care of who follows me. What else could I do since I had tried everything else to no avail? Not leading is never an option for a husband who is a believer in Christ.

Over time, with a great deal of praying, with Sarah fervently praying, and with numerous Church members praying (especially Shirley French, God bless her), Pam seemed to experience a Lydia-type conversion. The Lord opened her heart to Christ.[1] Wary that she might experience yet another false hope, I and others were very patient with her, giving her a lot of time and space. Eventually, the congregation was persuaded she had trusted Christ, and she was baptized. I am happy to report what I think Sarah and many others will attest to, that my partner for life is a growing in grace Christian woman. I am thrilled to be her husband.

Upon reflection, I cannot imagine another Church where this scenario would have unfolded as it did. The members who were here at the time, and who the Lord gave the eyes to see what was unfolding, conducted themselves as nearly as I can tell flawlessly. I am so grateful, yet I am only a secondary beneficiary of God’s great grace through all of this. Pam is the one God graciously saved in this narrative, with her series of false hopes important steps along the way. 

Next, A REVIEW OF WHAT GOD WAS DOING IN MY LIFE THROUGH ALL OF THIS 

Again, I must remind you that I am not a qualified spokesman for what God was doing in Pam’s life through all of these years or what He was doing in our daughter’s life at the same time. Let me now turn to Scripture to provide some doctrinal context for the details of this narrative:

First, allow me to admit that I did not enter into my marriage with anything like wisdom or insight. We met and married quickly, too quickly, and with no advice available to us. My parents were not Christians and provided no template for me in that regard. That said, I admired my mother’s absolute disgust for women who berated their husbands. No matter the cause, and she had cause, she never ridiculed her husband to anyone. Pam was always the same way in that respect.

I benefited greatly from my marriage to a woman who never publicly dishonored me to my knowledge. However, I know of women who have devastated their marriages and destroyed their children with the comments they have aired and their actions toward their husbands. God spared me that. As well, my first pastor was not inclined to study God’s Word so that he might readily respond to questions posed by Church members. He was not a man anyone could go to for counsel about anything, be it insight into God’s Word or practical advice.

At no time was my conversion testimony or Pam’s reviewed by anyone. I just assumed anyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian, not realizing as a new Christian how thoroughly the Savior disabused that foolish notion.[2] Every Christian’s conversion testimony needs scrutiny.

Second, the reality of false hopes is so neglected in American Christianity that I had never heard of it before observing it with my wife. It took me decades of knowing there was a profound spiritual issue before I could articulate what that issue was. However sincerely, my wife had embraced a series of false hopes that left her sins unforgiven and her soul unsaved. Not an uncommon problem, the Savior told His men.[3]

Third, I was, therefore, not only driven to my knees in prayer countless times for years, but my study of God’s Word related to a Christian married to a non-Christian was motivated by a deeply felt personal need. I learned along the way that more Scripture is devoted to a Christian woman with an unsaved husband than with a Christian husband married to a lost woman.[4] And the stakes are much higher with regard to a Christian woman’s conduct than with a Christian man’s.[5] Paul advised the Corinthians that “if the unbelieving depart, let him depart.”[6] I found this very liberating because it showed me that there was no expectation that I should control Pam and permit her or deny her liberty as an adult to do what she wanted to do. That was up to her. So, my unsaved wife would stay and could stay with me, if she wanted to. Coercion is not appropriate in marriage ... ever. Complimentary to that truth is Proverbs 31.3: 

“Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.” 

This verse does not suggest that a husband should not submit to his wife since Spirit-filled believers are directed to submit to each other whenever possible.[7] What this verse demands is that no adult male cave to the demands of any woman.

Sadly, that was the pattern Pam saw in the home she grew up in, a loud bullying mother who pushed her husband around and ridiculed him in front of his children. And her dad let her mom get away with that insanity. I am constitutionally incapable of such cowardice, so it is no credit to me that I am not that way and that my wife would never dream of doing that to me. God providentially demonstrated the catastrophe of a husband disrespected by his wife with her parents. So, I realized that my love for her, my provision for and protection of her, required me to be a man she could and would respect. She did not have to follow me. That was her choice. She did not have to agree with me. That, too, was her choice.

Not that she didn’t try me out. Less than a year after we married, she pushed me very hard. I pushed back, harder. Not physically. And without intimidation. She does not intimidate. From about 10:00 PM one night to about 6:00 AM the following day, eight solid hours of heated and animated exchange. That was the supreme contest of wills in our marriage. I showed her that I was not her dad, a weak sister after all. She had wanted to marry a man she could not do that to, and she found out she had. So long as I was striving to be the respectable man God wanted me to be, perhaps her attention would come to be focused on her disobedience to God and not her issues with me. She had established in her mind that she was not married to someone she could have no respect for.

I began to realize, more and more, that my wife was not so much a problem for me to solve as she was the means God used to work in my life. It took me years to recognize that God was using my wife to bless me in ways I could not understand. Through it all, I came to realize the importance of not squabbling with her, not needlessly provoking her rebellious heart by doing things I should just let slide while being steadfast in my determination to do what God wanted me to do whether she agreed with me or not, whether she was willing to follow me or not, and making sure I honored her and encouraging Sarah to honor her mother even knowing there was a serious problem of some kind.

So you see, God used my circumstance to motivate me to pray, to motivate me to study God’s Word, and to learn some things about marriage, family, and leadership that I would not otherwise have discovered. I praise God for the insights He has given to me about marriage and family. That was the direct result of my pressing need to study and understand what I was dealing with. As well, I am thrilled that I have a daughter with fierce loyalties that I think God formed in her as she observed her Christian dad treating her mother respectfully and tenderly in the hopes she would someday come to Christ.

I am by no means a perfect man, husband, father, or pastor. But I am excited to look back on the tender care and mercy God has exercised toward me, my partner for life, my daughter, and my ministry. 

Third, AN OPINION ABOUT WHAT I AM CONVINCED IS A LARGE SCALE PROBLEM 

I am by no means a unique individual in most respects. Paul was spot on when he wrote, 

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful.”[8] 

The problem I found myself dealing with in my marriage took me years and years to begin to understand, to be able to articulate, and then to deal with however imperfectly. I cannot be the only pastor married to an unsaved woman, and Pam has expressed agreement with me about this. And for every pastor married to an unsaved woman, how many of those pastors do not realize that their wives are lost? Perhaps more than we can imagine. What percentage of the pastors who are married to unsaved women and do not know they are married to unsaved women end up yielding to unreasonable and unscriptural demands such wives inevitably place upon their pastor husbands?

I am reminded of a preacher who has twice preached here. The first time he preached for us, he was a brilliant and articulate man. He was dynamic, manly, challenging, and every bit the preacher. When he preached for us a second time three years later, no one in the Church recognized that he had preached for us before, so different was he in appearance, so different was he in personality, so different was he in the delivery of his sermon.

Taking him to lunch after his message, I mentioned that his preaching style was tremendously different than it had been just a few years before. It was significant that a man as experienced would change so dramatically toward effeminacy so deep into his ministry. He looked at me and smiled, saying, “Yes, my wife doesn’t like it when I preach hard. She likes me much better now.” What was I to think of that? Was that just a weak preacher succumbing to the urgings of his wife? Or was that an example of a man married to an unsaved woman, unable to come to an understanding of what he was dealing with, and finally giving up and yielding to her demands?

Three other pastors come to mind, none of whom have ever preached here, none of whom will ever preach here:

The first pastor is a fella about my age, a very nice man I went to school with. I had occasion to attend services and meetings in his auditorium several times. I well remember the first instance I noticed the distinctive pattern. After walking around the auditorium and speaking to several different people, he walked down one of the aisles to the front and suddenly stopped before ascending to the platform, turned to meet the eye of his wife, and proceeded to begin the service only after she nodded what seemed to be her approval. I was stunned. Each time I have been back to that Church and sat in that auditorium I have looked for and seen that pattern repeated. Sure enough, before he proceeds to the platform, he looks around for his wife and will not proceed until her eyes have met his, and she nods. Is that her giving him permission to proceed? It looks like it. I hope it is not, for that betrays who the real leader is and who decides when the Church service begins.

The second pastor is a whole generation older than me. Perhaps he is no longer with us. What I describe happened only one time in my viewing, during a well-attended preachers meeting one summer. All of the preachers were outside eating a great meal, with me and one or two other guys having eaten and enjoying the air-conditioned comfort of the auditorium. Through one of the doors at the front of the auditorium comes the pastor’s wife, at which point she extends her right hand to begin snapping her fingers to get the attention of the Church’s associate pastor at the back of the auditorium. She was abrupt, rude, demanding, and displaying an authority she ought not to have had. The associate pastor, a very nice fellow of my approximate age, was embarrassed beyond description. Could a woman her age know nothing about men? He had been publicly humiliated, his face turning crimson. That pastor’s wife did not reflect well on her husband, or that Church, or the Gospel ministry, or the cause of Christ.

The third pastor is not a friend that I know well but a younger acquaintance. The pattern that I observed with this younger man is one I have seen before and will relate to you in a moment. He has attended several conferences that I have sponsored, with an interesting pattern of significance to men who are men and without significance to too many women and men who are not men. Minutes into the conference he receives a call on his cell phone steps away to take the call and returns to apologize for having to leave. His wife has once again summoned him home. Really? Really?

Two alarming examples related to men not in the ministry:

The first was a man at my first pastorate. Every time the men of the Church gathered on a Saturday morning for fellowship or to work on a project, the Church phone would ring. I would then go to my office to answer the phone, knowing full well whose predictable wife was making the call. When I answered the phone, she was always very nice to me, before asking for her husband. When I informed her husband that the phone call was for him, he invariably got an embarrassed look on his face because his wife was summoning him. The men and boys would always glance at each other. When he picked up the phone, we could all hear her shrieking at him. Moments later, he put the phone down and sheepishly excused himself before returning home. Once again, she had publicly humiliated him.

My final example is yet another friend whose wife continues to hold a decades-old offense over her husband’s head. She has never let it go. She will never let it go. It is the leverage she will use to manipulate him for the rest of his life. This stuff does not stop unless it is stopped. And what about Ephesians 4.32? 

“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” 

Wonderful if the person you’re dealing with is a Christian. 

Finally, MY OBSERVATIONS AND MINISTRY TO OTHER SIMILARLY SITUATED MEN 

Many different scenarios result in a Christian man being married to an unsaved woman. Sometimes two unsaved people get married, and then the husband comes to Christ, finding himself with the challenging issue of dealing with an unsaved wife. He needs great wisdom and grace. Sometimes two Christians get married, with the later discovery that the wife entertained a false hope and isn’t really a Christian at all. He needs great wisdom and grace. Sometimes two Christians get married, and it turns out that the wife entertained the false hope, but neither the husband nor the wife ever becomes aware or is willing to admit that she is an unsaved professing believer in Christ. He needs great wisdom, grace, and courage. Sometimes two unsaved people get married, and both become Christians, but the wife was raised to be such a strident feminist that she behaves much like an unsaved woman. He needs great wisdom and grace. Of course, women, too, need wisdom and grace. But what is the Christian husband to do?

As one might expect, God has given me something of a ministry to men who find themselves in these kinds of predicaments. Here is my advice, advice that I have given, and advice that I have seen followed with great success:

First, humble yourself. Pride gets you nowhere. Humble yourself enough to approach your pastor prepared for full disclosure. “Pastor, I think my wife is unsaved. What do I do? How do I deal with the children? How do I respond to her insults and ridiculous demands? Do you have any recommendations?” Of course, you can address the problem yourself or go to another Church hoping that the problem will evaporate. Just use your experience in dealing with such problems. What? Don’t you have any experience in dealing with such problems? I guess you will have to reinvent the wheel. I hope it turns out well for you both.

Second, attend carefully to your own soul’s salvation. It may very well be that, whether your wife is a Christian or not, the real problem is you and not her. The first step in making sure you are not the problem is attending to your spiritual condition, being confident that your relationship with Christ is real and vital, as demonstrated by your obedience.[9] So long as you are not willing to obey God’s Word, there is a question about your relationship with Christ, not only in her mind but also in mine.

Third, you and the pastor need to devise a plan that will accomplish several things:

#1 Especially if there are children in the home, you must strongly assert yourself to ensure that you are treated respectfully, that you treat your wife respectfully, and that your children are made to honor both you and their mother. Honoring parents does not come naturally. Children must be trained and reinforced to honor their parents.[10] I think there should be thunder and lightning when children dishonor their parents.

#2 You should quietly and without argumentation establish your ground as a man who will attend Church faithfully and serve God. Attempts will be made to influence you in a variety of ways, but you should maintain the overriding principle of Proverbs 31.3: 

“Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.” 

This is difficult for any husband whose own father was a wimp or promiscuous. Both excesses depart from this norm. Wives should be influential with their husbands, but not via bullying, or manipulation, or shrieking.

#3 You should calmly provide leadership in your home without yelling, without arguing, without contention, and without cajoling. Your wife is an adult and has the absolute right to do what she wants, how she wants, where she wants. You cannot make her do anything and should not attempt to coerce her into anything. Her relationship with you is, and always should in every respect be, voluntary.

#4 Of course, you must love her with sacrificial love, rather than being the kind of husband who seems only to make demands on others. And, of course, pray, pray, pray, pray, that she, too, will humble herself before God and receive Christ as her Savior. Much of a woman’s resistance to the Gospel is her fear that the man she is married to cannot be trusted to not take advantage of her as a Christian wife. Show her over time that the advantage of being a Christian is hers far more than yours. 

I must conclude. There are no guarantees in life other than the promises God makes to His own, and those promises do not include the certainty that your spouse will eventually come to Christ, and she may not.

God always keeps His promises, but He only keeps the promises He makes. I am thankful God was so very gracious to me and my partner for life.

Should your marriage end in shambles and wreckage, keep in mind that the only thing you might be left with is the memory that you did not compromise your Christian convictions and you did not give your strength to women.

It has not turned out so pleasantly for far better men than me and far better women. But God is faithful, and He knows what He is doing.

That does not excuse our refusal to employ God’s means of accomplishing His will, nor does it justify cowardice. Be we Christian husbands or wives; we must quit ourselves like men.[11]

__________

[1] Acts 16.14

[2] Matthew 7.21-23

[3] Matthew 7.21-23

[4] 1 Corinthians 7.10-16; 1 Peter 3.17

[5] Titus 2.5

[6] 1 Corinthians 7.15

[7] Ephesians 5.21

[8] 1 Corinthians 10.13

[9] 1 Thessalonians 1.3-4; 1 John 2.3

[10] Exodus 20.12; Ephesians 6.2-3

[11] 1 Corinthians 16.13

Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.

Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church