Elisabeth Elliot: She says, "If I should let him make all the decisions, wouldn't he become a tyrant, much like a child who is never told no? And how can he be the leader of our family when he would never lead us toward God?"

Lisa Barry: That sounds like a very logical concern, doesn't it? After all, how can God be happy about a husband who tries to pull a family away from Him? So the wife takes control. Is that God's will? Will God honor her choice, even if she disobeys God's Word?

That's just one of the situations that will be discussed on today's program. And if you haven't had a chance to listen each day this week, Elisabeth Elliot has been featuring bits and pieces of a book called ME? OBEY HIM? Written by Elizabeth Rice Handford. Stay with us for yet another gem of wisdom next on Gateway to Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: "It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not be afraid or dismayed." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, reading some more today from Elizabeth Rice Handford's book, ME? OBEY HIM? I had a letter from one of my listeners, who said that she benefits most from the shows on which I emphasize submission.

She says, "It's a skill sadly lacking today, and I must admit I have not mastered it." But her problem, she says, is that she's married to an unsaved man. "I have not learned how to submit to him." Listen to this. She says, "I know I need to be submissive, but how? The practical, everyday working out of this eludes me. Of course, I've heard many times not to submit when the husband's decisions interfere with our relationship with God. But wouldn't that be almost all of them?"

I wonder where she heard that? Well, I've heard that, too, but that's not what we find in the Scriptures, is it? She says, "If I should let him make all the decisions, wouldn't he become a tyrant, much like a child who is never told no? And how can he be the leader of our family when he would never lead us toward God? He has no discernment. So it is I that overrides him and forbids certain movies or books. Here again, I am not being submissive.

Elisabeth, it just seems so difficult in the practical, everyday working out of a marriage. When you've been married, you've always had a Christian husband. And although they wouldn't have been perfect, you could at least have known that the Holy Spirit was in the relationship, working out the difficulties and working towards God's highest good."

This dear woman of course is assuming that because her husband is not a Christian, that the Holy Spirit is not in their relationship and can't work out the highest good. Well, God is not going to work out the highest good as long as the wife believes those lies that she has heard--that she need not be submissive. There are no exceptions, remember?

Back to this little book, ME? OBEY HIM? "I feel very deeply for a godly woman married to an unregenerate husband, who seems to delight in torturing her in mocking her faith. I cannot say that the Scriptures guarantee that a man will be saved if the wife wholeheartedly obeys him. I can assure you that there is no other way to win an unsaved husband, except the way God has ordained through a wife's loving, God-fearing obedience.

1 Peter 3:1 says, ?Likewise, ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the behavior of their wives.?

1 Corinthians 7:13 tells a woman who is married to an unsaved man, ?If he is pleased to dwell with her, not to leave him. For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?? So the Scriptures indicate the one way to win an unsaved husband is to obey him cheerfully, from the heart, guarding the spiritual life.

A man always has the choice of saying yes or no to God. He can reject the pleadings of the Spirit, the pleas of the loving wife. If he does and goes his own wicked way, then I have seen God reach down and take that man's life, rather than make a wife choose between two wrongs.

There's a striking example of this in the story of Nabal and Abigail, recorded in 1 Samuel 25. Nabal was a wicked, churlish man, evil in his doings, disagreeable, ungrateful to David for what he had done in protecting his livestock. David had asked him, in exchange, for food. Nabal, drunk and surly as usual, berated him and David vowed to kill him and his family.

Abigail took upon herself Nabal's protection and quickly gave David what he asked. There is no evidence that she disobeyed Nabal. He was so drunk he didn't know what he was doing. She reported to him what she had done as soon as he was sober enough to understand it.

She did not berate her husband, but when she told him what she had done, he suffered a stroke of God. In ten days, he was dead. Did God, looking down, see Nabal's unyielding heart and take his life to spare Abigail any more heartache? Surely so.

So it will be, the Scripture seems to indicate, for any godly woman who obeys lovingly from the heart every command of God and her husband. If he will not change his ways and be worthy of such devotion, then God it seems will remove the obstruction. God never gives two commands impossible to obey. He will never make a woman choose between two wrongs, if she wholeheartedly follows the Scriptures.

Does God really mean it when He commands a wife to be in subjection to her husband? Without a doubt. It is a positive direct command that God expects to be obeyed in faith, knowing and doing the will of God regardless of the consequences."

Then there's a whole chapter on biblical examples. She's already given us quite a few. Then she tells us, "After I led Arlene to the Lord, she asked me to pray with her about her husband's salvation. I showed her the Bible's principle of submission, using 1 Peter 3.

Later, she told me she went home and said to her husband, half joking, half complaining, 'Okay, you're my lord and master, you big, fat slob. What do you want me to do?'

As you guessed, that isn't the meek and quiet spirit the Lord had in mind. Arlene really did take to heart the lesson, and later her husband was saved.

Sarah truly was an obedient wife. Abraham in Egypt, fearing for his life because of his beautiful wife, asked her to say that she was his sister, not his wife. That was a half-truth. She was his half-sister. When Abraham told his story, she didn't contradict him. She had a right to be uneasy about the whole affair, because Pharaoh took her into his household and might have taken her for a wife.

But Sarah let God take care of it in His own good way. God did the needed miracle--a plague on the Pharaoh's house to warn him. Sarah, in her obedience, was not subjected to the humiliation of being made a heathen king's concubine.

There's a great difference in Sarah's obedience and the behavior of Sapphira in Acts 5. Sapphira did not simply obey her husband when he decided to sell the land and give a part to the Lord, claiming to give it all, she actively conspired with him to tempt the Holy Spirit. They agreed together to lie. God killed Sapphira, not because she obeyed her husband, but because she wanted to do wrong--wanted the praise of man and conspired with her husband to get it.

The word 'privy' in verse 2 means hidden or clandestine, furtive, secretly cognizant, privately aware as a party to the act. She did not lie because her husband commanded her to; she wanted to lie and God held her accountable for it.

Michel, daughter of King Saul, David's first passionate love, is an example of God's punishment on a rebellious wife. David was still only a shepherd boy, though anointed king, when word came that Saul would be pleased for him to ask for Michel. He risked death by killing 200 Philistines for her dowry, and she gladly went to be his wife. She saved his life and risked her father's paranoid anger when Saul tried to kill him.

After David fled to the wilderness, Saul betrothed Michel to another man. It was ten long years before David could reclaim her. After the kingdom was established, David brought back the ark of God, which had been at the house of Obed-Edom for 20 long sad years. It was an exhilarating day when David brought back the ark to Jerusalem, the manifest presence of God Himself with His people.

David could not contain his delight. He danced before the Lord with all his might. Michel watched from the window and despised him. Why? We can only guess. But many a woman has been jealous of her husband's love for God. When David came to his own home to bless his own family, fulfilling his high priestly obligation to his own, Michel reviled him. The sin of her rebellion was compounded, because she hated him for his goodness, for his joy in the Lord, and not for wickedness.

The result? 'Therefore, Michel, the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of her death.' But God's punishment was not ended. She adopted the five sons of a kinsmen. All five of them were slain to atone for King Saul's breaking an oath made to the Gibeonites. God does not lightly regard a woman's rebellion against her husband.

Is there any instance in the Bible where a woman disobeyed her husband and was rewarded for it? Many Bible scholars say yes in the disobedience of Queen Vashti toward King Ahasuerus. Since the theory is so widespread and since fools rush in where angels fear to tread, for who am I to question the interpretation of godly Bible students, let's look at the Scripture and see if God did approve Vashti's disobedience. You'll find the story in Esther 1,2.

The three reasons some Bible teachers use for commending Vashti are 1) Ahasuerus commanded Vashti to do something sinful. It was the custom in those days for women to be veiled in the presence of men. 2) The name of God is not found in the book of Esther. It is a book of men's acts, not God's. 3) If Mordecai and Esther had been godly, they would have been back in the land of Judah, with the spiritually-minded returnees after the captivity. Therefore, they say it was right for Vashti to disobey her husband. A careful reading of the entire book of Esther will not support this, it seems to me."

Then she goes on to give her own reasons why it was not right for Vashti to disobey her husband. I will skip that part and go on to chapter 5, which I will be reading on Monday, "Don't I Have any Rights?"

Lisa Barry: We're midway through this series on submission called "Me? Obey him?" And I want to give you one more chance before the weekend to purchase your own copy of this tape series. The cost is $11.50. And I'll give you that address in just a minute.

But I also want to tell you about a new line of greeting cards that feature the writing of Elisabeth Elliot. I don't have time to say much more than that, but for more information you can give us a call at 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our mailing address is Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. That's Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Our Web address is gatewaytojoy.org. Today's program has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Monday we'll pick up where we left off, so I hope you'll join us then for another Gateway to Joy.