Conflict is an inevitable part of any relationship, yet many couples find themselves trapped in common pitfalls. These challenges can lead to a cycle of frustration and distance, making it difficult to achieve a harmonious marriage. Part 2 focuses on the essential biblical principles that foster a culture of love and reconciliation.

Takeaways:

• Conflict in marriage should not be ignored; resolution is essential for harmony.
• Both partners should actively pursue reconciliation and not wait for the other to initiate.
• Reflecting on the positive qualities of your spouse can help resolve conflicts constructively.
• Husbands are encouraged to be the first to seek resolution in conflicts.
• Communication and forgiveness are critical in maintaining a solid marriage relationship.
• A healthy marriage requires both partners to prioritize their relationship above all else.

Welcome to the fortifying your family podcast.

It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

And now here's this week's teaching from Sam Wooden.

No husband or wife should ever be content to leave your marriage in a state of conflict.

She correctly desires resolution.

She wants to resolve the problem.

She wants to reconcile with her husband.

Now listen to the words of Jesus in Luke chapter 17 and verse three.

I preached a message on this about being offended, I don't know, a year or so ago, here, Jesus said this, take heed to yourself that thy brother trespass against thee.

The next word is rebuke him.

And if you repent, forgive him.

That word rebuke there means to seek them out.

Go to them.

Even if they were wrong.

You go to them with the intention to reconcile and resolve the situation.

So you present the facts.

You try to reconcile the relationship with your brother or with your sister.

Paul says it this way in Ephesians chapter four and verse 26.

Let not the son go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil.

Now, when you don't resolve your conflict, what you're doing is giving place to the devil.

The devil loves to sneak into your marriage.

He loves a conflict, and he will take that conflict and build a strong household out of that in your marriage, and he'll use that to destroy your marriage relationship.

Now let me stop and say something to you.

Husbands too.

The husband is the head of his wife.

And as being the designated head of your wife, loving your wife, as Christ loves the church, you should be the one who takes the first step to make sure this is resolved.

Some of you men will say, well, my wife is a problem.

She ought to resolve it.

She ought to come to me.

Listen, what Jesus says is, we ought to go to each other.

Amen.

But if your wife didn't come to you, you as a husband, as a head, you shouldn't run away.

You should make sure that you try to resolve this situation, and you need to do it before the sun goes down.

Don't go to bed at night with conflict in your marriage relationship.

But not only does she pursue him, but look with me in these next verses.

This is beautiful, beautiful section of scripture.

In these next verses, she begins to think on him.

And through thinking, pausing to think on him, she begins to praise him.

Look at verse nine.

What is thy beloved more than another?

Beloved, o thou fairest among women.

What is thy beloved more than another?

Beloved, that thou dost so charge us.

She has just charged as daughters of Jerusalem and saying, listen, I want you to go out and help me find Solomon.

And they respond to her and say, well, what's so hot about your guy that you want us to go out and look for him with you?

I mean, what's so good about him anyway?

And she takes time here and let's look at these verses.

She takes time to reflect on the good qualities, the good traits about her husband.

Look at verse ten.

She says, my beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among 10,000.

Now, guys, this is probably what you hear every night from your wife.

His head is as the most fine gold.

His locks are bushy and black as a raven.

Debbie doesn't tell me that.

His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters washed with milk and fitly set.

His cheeks are a bed of spices as sweet flowers.

His lips like lilies dropping, sweet smelling myrrh.

His hands are as gold rings set with burl.

His belly is bright ivory overlaying.

His belt, excuse me, overlaid with sapphires.

That would probably be a good translation for today.

His legs are as pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold.

His countenances has leaven an excellent cedars.

His mouth is most sweet.

Yea, he is altogether lovely.

Wow.

You know what she's saying?

She's saying, my man is a hunk.

She's saying, I want to tell you my man, he's ripped.

I mean, he's got good hair, he's got a good body.

He's a good looking dude.

I'm going to tell you.

I told you this is a romantic couple.

You read the song of Solomon, you can't help but realize this is the most romantic couple in the Bible.

And she begins to think on him.

She begins to meditate upon all the good qualities of her husband.

This is very, very important.

Now, Debbie likes to teach ladies at this point.

She likes to say what she's doing is Philippians four a her husband.

I think that's good because Philippians four eight says, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are a good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise.

Would he do what church?

Think on these things.

Think on these things.

And she takes time to think on the right things.

She begins to start thinking about all the things that are attracted to her.

Him to her.

To begin with, she thinks about him as a young man.

She thinks about him and his look.

She thinks about his character.

She thinks about all these good qualities about him.

And so she begins to pause in her pursuit of him.

She pauses.

She begins to meditate.

She begins to think about the wonderful characteristics of her husband.

When conflict occurs in marriage, one of the things you need to do most is review in your mind why you marry that person to begin with.

Why did I marry him?

Why did I marry her?

What attracted me to her?

What attracted me to him?

Begin to think on these things.

Now, what Satan wants you to think on the is all the negative things about them.

He wants you to make a list in your mind of all the wrong things they've done.

He wants you to make a list in your mind of all the negative qualities they have.

I mean, she could have thought, well, he's bald.

You know, he smells.

He's always throwing his clothes down in the floor.

You know, he never brushes his teeth.

You know, he doesn't put on deodorant.

He doesn't have time for me.

He's critical to me.

She could have thought on all these things, but she didn't.

She began to think on the positive things.

Now, the Bible says it this way.

It says, listen, we're to take every thought obedient and captive to Christ, and there's a battle in our mind, and we need to realize that.

And you need to think the right things.

Certainly doing these times, she caps it off with saying, he is altogether lovely.

She thinks, wow, I'm really blessed that God gave me this husband.

Wow, I'm really blessed that God gave me a.

Now, notice at the end of verse 16, she adds something else here, and this is very significant, too.

She says, this is my beloved, and this is my.

What's the next word there?

Church friend.

This is my friend.

Oh, daughters of Jerusalem.

She said, listen, my husband is my friend.

Now, ladies, one thing you need to know, too, is your husband needs a friend.

Men need a friend.

There's not many men that have many friends.

There's a lot of men that have no friends.

And ladies, you need to be your husband's best friend.

I'm glad to say here tonight that Debbie is my best friend.

There's nobody that I'm closer to.

There's nobody I'm more intimate with.

I mean, after all, we are married and we are to be physical, emotional and spiritual companions.

And nobody can be a physical, emotional and spiritual companion like my wife in marriage.

And they shouldn't be.

She is my best friend.

Ladies, your husband needs to be your best friend, he needs a friend.

But don't be upset if he has some men friends.

Don't be upset if sometimes he needs to get away with the guys.

Maybe go play golf or go hunting or do something.

Sometimes a guy needs to do that.

And guys, don't get upset if your wife needs to get away with some lady friends and go shopping or she wants to do some lady things.

We need that sometimes.

But we need to make sure that our mate is the number one priority in our life behind our relationship with Jesus Christ.

They need to be number one.

That's why the Bible says that a husband is to leave his mother and father.

The parents are no longer the priority.

Listen, your job isn't to be your priority.

Your wife is to be your priority.

Your husband is to be.

Is to be the priority relationship in your marriage relationship.

And listen, your children are not to be the priority either, because you won't get your parenting right until you get your marriage right.

And so it's very, very important what we see here.

Now, notice in chapter six, in verse one through three, she continues to pursue him.

It says, whither is thy beloved gone, o fairest among women?

Whither is thy beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with thee.

And notice in verse two, she says, I know where he went.

She says, listen, my beloved has gone down into the garden to the bed of spices to feed in the gardens, to gather lilies.

And then she reflects on this again.

She says, listen, I am my beloved, so my beloved is mine.

She says, I feel secure in this relationship.

I know he loves me and I love him.

And she's reminding herself of that.

He feedeth, she says, among the lilies.

What a wonderful, wonderful, beautiful statement that is.

And we see her continually pursuing him.

She knows where he is.

She knows him like a book.

Listen, if you live with each other long enough, you can read each other and know each other like a book.

You can almost, in a marriage, you can almost tell what that other person is thinking before they think it or do it.

I mean, you know what I'm talking about here.

We can predict almost their behavior.

She says, listen, I know where he is.

He's down in one of his favorite gardens.

That's where he's at.

I know a lot of times when things aren't going well and when he needs to get by himself, he retreats there and that's where I can find him.

So when conflict occurs in your marriage, you probably need to understand and think and meditate and pause and think.

I wonder if this were to happen.

I wonder where they are.

And you say, well, I know where they went.

And you go and you try to reconcile this relationship.

You might say to yourself, well, he's back here working on the car.

That's what he did.

He goes up there.

He's downstairs with his tools, or he's downstairs watching something on television.

That's what he does.

That's where he retreats, or that's where she retreats.

What she's doing is something I think is very beautiful.

She's pursuing Solomon.

She's aware that he has withdrawn from her, but she's initiating reconciliation and resolution to this conflict.

Now, so far, we've seen the shulamite's method of resolving the conflict.

Now she's about to get together with Solomon.

So let's look at Solomon's response.

How does he respond to all of this?

What is he going to do?

How is he going to handle the situation?

Is he going to be angry?

Is he going to be bitter?

Is he going to leave again when she finds a Mary, just take off and go somewhere else?

Or maybe he's going to give her the silent treatment and just not talk to her at all.

I heard about a man and his wife who were having a little misunderstanding and they were giving one another the silent treatment.

Suddenly dawned on him that he needed to get up early on Monday morning to catch an early plane to Chicago.

He didn't want to ask her to wake him up because he would lose the pout bout that he was in.

He rolled over and on the table there was a note that she had written.

Well, I guess he got what he deserved.

Don't give her the silent treatment now.

She didn't know how he's going to respond between verses three and four here in chapter six.

She's evidently found him.

She's there with him.

She's standing there.

Maybe she's a little bit nervous.

Maybe she's anticipating a little bit.

She's a little bit scared.

How he responded.

Maybe she thinks, well, he may tell me how awful I acted or how I mistreated him, how I should have let him in the bridal chamber, how insensitive and how selfish and what's, how snobbish that I was.

You might have been thinking some of these things, but notice how he does respond in verse four.

And look at this.

Another beautiful section of scripture.

He says, thou art beautiful.

Just starts out and saying, honey, you're so beautiful.

Oh, my love, as Tirzah.

Now, this is.

Turns out it's a beautiful city where royalty was known to live and stay.

It's one of those beautiful cities around.

And then he goes on to say, and it's comely as Jerusalem.

If you were to go back and you want to jot this down, go back to psalm, chapter 52.

And it talks about Jerusalem, one of the most beautiful and perfect, perfectly beautiful cities in the world.

He said, you're like, gazing on what's most beautiful.

And he says, terrible as an army with banners.

You say, preacher, what in the world does he mean by that?

Well, she's saying, listen, you're as awesome.

You're as awesome as an army to me.

You enrapture me.

You capture me.

You enslave me by how you look at me.

You take power over me.

And that's why he says what he does in verse five.

He says, turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me.

He says, don't look at me with those eyes.

I can't quite take it.

Your eyes are so beautiful.

Perhaps if he lived today and he had heard the rascal flats song, he would have sung it and said, I melt when you look at me that way.

And that's exactly what he's doing.

He's saying, listen, I melt.

I can't take it.

You're looking at me with those eyes, and they're so beautiful, I can't quite take it.

And then he turns from her eyes and he says, thy hair is.

There's a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead.

You say, preacher, that doesn't sound very nice, but it really was.

I mean, the goats of Gilead were beautiful black goats.

And their hair shined and glistened in the sun.

He says, listen, honey, you've got beautiful black hair like those goats that glisten in the sun on Mount Gilead.

He's looking in her eyes.

He looks and turns to her hair and looks at her hair.

And then he turns to her teeth.

He's moving down her face.

And he says, like teeth, there is a flock of sheep which go up by the washing whereof Everyone beareth twins.

And there is none.

There is not one barren among them.

I told you, this guy's romantic.

He's a romantic dude.

He looks at her teeth and he says, honey, you've got a good set of teeth, too.

I mean, they're all white.

They're even shorn.

And listen, none of them are missing.

I mean, you got a pretty set of teeth.

He looks at her eyes, looks at her hair, looks at her teeth.

Compliments those.

And then he says, as a piece of pomegranate, are thy temples within thy locks?

If you were to take a pomegranate and cut it in half, it's rosy inside.

He says, you've just got beautiful, rosy temples.

Now, guys, this is something you ought to do.

When you get home tonight.

Get your wife sat there beside her and say, honey, let me look in your eyes.

I can't quite take it.

Your eyes.

You enslave me with your beauty.

And your hair is so gorgeous.

And, honey, you got such beautiful white teeth.

And your temples, they're rosy like pomegranates.

Hey, it can't hurt.

That's what he did.

There are three score queens and fourscore.

Concubines and virgins without number.

My dove, my undefiled is but one.

She is the only one of her mother.

She is the choice one of her that bear her.

The daughters saw her and blessed her.

Yea, the queens and the concubines and they praised her.

You know what he's saying?

Listen, I know we're in the palace, and I know we got all these other women all around.

He says, but I want to tell you, honey, there's no other woman that is beautiful as you.

There's no one around the palace, none of these women.

You may feel insecure.

And his wife did feel insecure.

She was just a farm girl.

She worked out in the vineyard.

She didn't feel very secure about herself.

But he reassures her of her love for her.

And he says, listen, you're just gorgeous.

You're just beautiful.

Now, listen, guys.

It doesn't hurt to tell your wife once in a while how beautiful she is.

I mean, she must be beautiful till you married.

Now, let me stop and say this.

Your wife is your standard of beauty.

If you didn't get that, let me say it again.

Your wife is your standard of beauty.

Not another woman.

No man should compare his wife to another woman.

You married her.

She is your standard of beauty.

Job said it this way.

He said, I made a covenant with my eyes.

Why should I think upon another maid?

I made a covenant with my eyes.

This is my wife.

This is my beauty queen.

She is the one whom God has given to me.

She is my beautiful one.

That's exactly what Solomon says here.

Look at verse ten.

He says, who is she?

That looketh forth as a mourning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.

Solomon saying, darling, let me just wrap it up this way.

You're all the world of me.

You're the most influential person in my life.

I love you so much.

So we see that Solomon responds, really in two ways.

He praises her.

When he went off and he went to his garden, he didn't sit there and fester and start to think about all the things she had done wrong.

I believe God began to move in his heart and began to think, you know, I didn't react to this, right?

If I get back with her, I'm gonna let her know just how much I love her.

So he begins to praise her, and then he pardons her.

Notice when she showed up, he had already forgiven her.

He didn't give her the fifth degree.

Solomon has forgotten what she's done.

Solomon does what Paul says that we should do in Ephesians 432, and be ye kind, one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.

Friends, our forgiveness ought to be modeled after God's forgiveness.

You say, well, preacher, how does God forgive me?

God forgives me by saying, I will remember your sins no more.

I'm going to put your sins as far as the east are from the west.

I'm going to bury them in the depths of the ocean.

Forgiveness is a promise not to remember.

Solomon chose to forgive her.

Now, listen, as a child of God, as someone who has been pardoned by God, we should model our forgiveness after the forgiveness of God.

How could we not forgive our wife, our husband, whom we're in covenant with, whom we dearly love?

How could we not forgive a brother and sister in Christ in this church, if we know the love of God?

God is a forgiving God.

And God says in one John, if you say that you love me and you hate your brother, you're a liar.

Then don't get mad with me.

That's what God says.

God says, if you have the love of God in you and you know the grace of God, then you will forgive your brother, you will forgive your sister, you will forgive, even as I have forgiven.

So Solomon praises her.

Solomon pardons her.

Solomon chose to forgive her.

What a beautiful scene it is.

We don't have time tonight.

If you read these following verses, you go back to chapter seven.

They're back in the bridal chamber together, and they're kissing and they're making up.

It's a beautiful, beautiful scene.

Certainly in this portion of scripture.

So when conflict comes, and let me just wrap it up this way, when conflict comes, you really have three ways that you can respond.

You can hide from it, you can suppress it, listen and run from it.

You can do those things.

And that's what a lot of people do.

You can retaliate and get even with your husband or wife.

You can have verbal abuse.

You can say harsh and horrible things.

But, you know, the Bible says in one Peter three nine that we're not to render evil for evil, accusation for accusation, but contrary wise, we're to give a blessing.

That is, when somebody rails you and somebody curses you, the Bible says, don't rail them back, don't curse them back, bless them.

I can remember times when Debbie and I would start to get in a fight, start to talk about something, have a little bit of conflict, and I would be kind of harsh or say something harsh, and Debbie would say something very nice and sweet back to me.

That's Debbie.

And when she did, I think to myself, how in the world can you be so nice?

Why don't you say something mean back to me so we can fight?

But she says something nice back to me.

You know what that does?

It opens the door for the Holy Spirit of God to convict me.

It opens the door and says, and the Holy Spirit of God begins to convict me and say, sam, see there how Debbie responded?

See how she responded?

She responded as Christ, and you responded wrongly.

And so it opens the door for her to receive a blessing back.

What a wonderful thing that is.

How beautiful that is.

So you can hide from it, you can run from it, or you can retaliate.

Number two, or number three, you can humbly seek to reconcile with your spouse.

You can do what God wants you to do.

You can have a forgiving heart.

You can take time to think to yourself, how have I been selfish?

How have I tried to put myself before my wife or my husband?

What caused this?

Then when God shows you, you confess it, repent of it, get it right with your spouse, ask God to forgive you, ask your spouse to forgive you, and get things right with each other.

You see, today, I know Brother Martin knows this.

I've dealt with a lot of couples continually, all the time.

And many couples think today when you have conflict, the answer is to get a divorce.

The answer is just to get another spouse, that the grass is greener on the other side.

But, friend, I want to tell you what, the grass is not greener on the other side.

And if you carry that, if somebody doesn't resolve that conflict.

And they carry that stronghold and get a divorce into this next marriage.

They're going to end up getting a divorce there, too.

They haven't solved the problem.

And certainly that isn't glorifying to God, because our marriage, and I say this often, I try to remind christians often your marriage is a picture in miniature of Christianity.

I really believe, listen, folks, I really believe if we could really grasp that in our hearts, it would really change our marriage relationships.

Paul said in Ephesians five about marriage, it's a mystery, and a mystery is something you can't understand unless you have the divine enlightenment of the Holy Spirit of God.

He said, I'm going to unveil the mystery of marriage for you.

I'm talking about Christ in the church.

Your marriage is an earthly manifestation of the heavenly relationship of Jesus Christ and his bride.

And when people look at your marriage relationship, they ought to see a picture of Christ and his church.

When your children look at your marriage relationship, they ought to see a beautiful picture of a husband, a daddy who's loving their mother as Christ loves the church, and a mom or a wife who's submitting unto her husband as unto the Lord.

And when the world looks at it outside and they look at your marriage, listen, there's marriages all around this community that are falling apart.

And they know you go to Faith Baptist Church.

They know you claim to be a Christian.

They need to see that your marriage is different than theirs.

And when they look at your marriage and they can see the joy of the Lord in it, and they ask you and say, how is it you can have such a wonderful marriage?

You can say, it's all because of Jesus.

It's all because of Jesus Christ.

Praise his name, folks.

Tonight, as I close out, I pray that you'll take these things to heart.

I often say, even as Pastor Fred said, to begin with, it's so easy to be a hearer of the word, but it's not so easy to apply it.

Sometimes.

Sometimes we can think about it and say, you know, that sounds good, but it's a difference in hearing it and doing it.

And I pray tonight, if you're here tonight and maybe you've had a conflict of you're in a great valley, in your marriage relationship, I pray that you would lay that marriage before the throne of God and that you would humble yourself before God and you would ask God to heal that marriage relationship.

You would humble yourself before God, humble yourself before each other.

If there's forgiveness that needs to be given then you would grant it.

That's what God wants you to do.

May God help us do that.

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