March 7, 2024 Show with Keith Allen on “Dating & Marriage God’s Way” (Part 2)

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this seventh day of March 2024.

Before I introduce my guest and topic for the day, I ask of you to please mark down on your calendar if you're a resident of Long Island or you're able to get there next

Friday. I would love to see you at the Coral House Catering Hall in Baldwin, Long Island, when

I am going to be emcee once again for the fundraising gala for Grace Christian Academy of Long Island.

And this is going to be not only a fun -filled night, but also an experience in education over the education system here in the

United States that is being overrun and corrupted by the radical left.

And the keynote speaker for this event is my dear friend Dr. Ernie Zara, who is a noted educator and prolific author on the subject of the decline of education in America.

And I hope that you will register to attend this event. You can go directly to the website of Grace Christian Academy, and the

Grace Christian Academy website is gcali .com. That's G -C -A for Grace Christian Academy, L -I for longisland .com,

forward slash G -A -L -A. That's G -C -A -L -I .com, forward slash

G -A -L -A for gala. And this is going to be, as I said, next week,

Friday, the 15th of March, 7 p .m. at the Coral House Catering Hall in Baldwin, Long Island.

I hope to see as many of you as possible there. And I know one person who plans to be there.

It's my guest today, my friend Pastor Keith Allen. Keith Allen is the senior pastor at Lindenbrook Baptist Church in Lindenbrook, Long Island.

And today we are going to be addressing part two of a discussion that we began last month,

Dating and Marriage God's Way. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trumpet's Iron Radio, Pastor Keith Allen.

Glad to be here again with you, Chris. Always enjoy chatting with you and getting into the wisdom of the word.

Amen. Well, why don't you, for the sake of our listeners who are unfamiliar with Lindenbrook Baptist Church, and that is actually highly unlikely that a listener in my audience would be unfamiliar with your fine congregation because we air ads for your church every day.

But there are people who tune in for the first time and they may be unfamiliar with that church.

Tell us about it. Well, we are a Baptistic, Christ -centered, gospel -centered church in Lindenbrook, Long Island, toward the

South Shore, not far from the border of Queens. We're a small but very diverse congregation.

We're seeking to grow in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and in our love for one another by careful attention to the

Scriptures and seeking to obey everything that the Lord has commanded. As in the

Great Commission, we're told to go and to make disciples and to teach them everything that He has commanded.

And it's our aim to take our part as a local congregation in fulfilling that commission, both through the testimony of the gospel and the witness of our lives in our neighborhoods, and also supporting and sending those who would go out across geography and across culture and across language to share the gospel and to live the life of the gospel elsewhere.

Amen. And if you want more details on Lindenbrook Baptist Church of Lindenbrook, Long Island, go to lynbrookbaptist .org.

lynbrookbaptist .org. And God willing, we'll be repeating that information later on in the show.

And you'll also be hearing the ads in the show. I actually made a mistake. It wasn't last month that we began this two -part series on Dating and Marriage God's Way.

It was actually in January when we had part one, January 22nd, which was a Monday.

And if anybody listening, after this live show is over, if you'd like to look up that first part of our two -part discussion on the audio archive, just type in Keith Allen, and he spells his last name

A -L -L -E -N, and that program will come up and you can hear part one of our two -part discussion on Dating and Marriage God's Way.

And that show primarily, if not exclusively, because we ran out of time, dealt with the dating aspect.

And our guest, Pastor Keith Allen, would include under that definition courtship or courting and that is the type of dating that he is in favor of, that he promotes, that he believes is the safest and most beneficial for Christians to be participating in.

And there are some who favor that view of courtship who don't like the word dating, but Keith has basically used dating as an umbrella title.

So we hope that you enjoy and are blessed by that program. And let me right away give our listeners our email address if they'd like to join us with a question of their own.

It's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Well, let's launch right into the marriage aspect of Marriage God's Way, Pastor Keith.

All right. Well, we can start in one of two places. We could start in Genesis or we could start in Ephesians.

Genesis quotes, or rather Ephesians quotes Genesis. Moses writes it in Genesis chapter 2, verse 24.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

This was enacted with the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve. And then later in history, under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

And therefore, that rules out same sex marriage. There are leftists who claim to be

Christian who approve of and even participate in so -called same sex marriage.

And they actually have the audacity to say that the Bible is silent on that. But it's not silent at all, is it?

The very definition of marriage involves two people of two opposite genders.

Correct. And it's a very glorious thing. The thing that I have been repeatedly struck by, by this revelation in Scripture, is that it seems to make very clear that even from the very beginning, the purpose why

God created man in his own image, male and female, the reason why he made a distinction between the two sexes, was for this very purpose of bringing them back together in this complementary relationship to reveal the glory of something that cannot be seen, which is the spiritual relationship between Christ and the church.

So from day one, or should I say day six, God intended for it to be this way, man and woman in marriage, for this purpose of revelation.

And continue about why this is a vital topic for the church today.

There's a lot of confusion, even amongst professing Christians, about the issue of marriage.

A lot of ignorance, a lot of tragically horrible marriages.

So we definitely want to be further equipped by you today. Well, it really ties into so many different things.

I think what you're referring to, or the thing that's coming to your mind most immediately, is sexual ethics and the understanding of how we should behave ourselves in that regard.

I think the Bible makes it clear that sexual relations are intended for marriage.

And so again, that ties back to even the purpose of sex, then being for this revelation of the union between Christ and his church, and a particular aspect of it.

The reason why I have studied it or thought about it so frequently is because one of the areas of ministry that the

Lord has given me to put my hand to is ministry to young adults, because marriage is such a common and normal and natural thing that God has intended for the spreading of image bearers throughout the earth.

Every young person of marriageable age is generally thinking about marriage, moving towards marriage, wishing for marriage or some aspect of it.

And in order to properly guide and disciple young people as to what to do with their

God -given desires, they must understand what those desires are for and what

God intends those desires to be driving them to.

I myself am also... My walk with the

Lord has been filled with this understanding because as God's providence would have it, when

I got saved, I was already in a dating relationship with my wife.

And as I was reading through the Bible, and I came to Ephesians chapter 5, the

Word just made so clear to me something that I had not understood.

Being a young man out there in the world, I knew all about sexual desire. I knew about the need or the desire to couple off and to find somebody of the opposite sex and to have joy and pleasure with them and maybe even something that you would call love.

These are all almost instinctive things that are within people in the world.

And so I followed those desires, but I didn't know what they were for.

And I had this woman who was close to me, but I didn't understand what marriage was all about.

I thought that it was a throwaway thing, like something you could do or not do.

Like people today, you find a woman you like or you find a man that you like and you get into a relationship and you share sexual relations and you might even move in with one another.

You might even have children. And marriage is just this thing that's out there that's like, well, you could do it or you couldn't do it.

And I would think to myself, why would anyone enter into this legal binding agreement by which if this ever doesn't work out, this lady could take half my stuff?

And I just didn't get it. Why do people do that? Why wouldn't you just enjoy all the benefits, but keep yourself free so that if any moment, if you need to split, you could split.

And then I read Ephesians five and it was as if like the heavens opened and a great light shone in on my understanding.

This is why marriage is so significant. This is why

God has preserved and promoted the institution of marriage across cultures, across history, across languages.

It's present everywhere. And what he was doing was setting up an abiding witness for himself of the relationship that he has wrought between his son, the savior, the redeemer,

Jesus Christ, and his chosen people, the church. And that just inflamed in me a strong desire to be married and to paint that picture with this woman that God had given me.

Now, I'm assuming you would agree, because what

I'm about to say is a very clear concept from the apostle Paul himself. But you believe that there is nothing at all wrong with a man or a woman who believes he or she has the gift of singleness to remain unmarried.

Absolutely. I love to say to young singles, nobody has to get married.

It's not a command. It's not a requirement. It doesn't make you more godly or more advanced.

There are blessings, great monumental blessings to be had in marriage.

There are great monumental blessings to be had in singleness. Paul himself would lean toward the singleness side, right?

He says, I wish that you all were as I am, but not everybody has the gift. As I'm reading further in the

Bible, so I get saved. I read Ephesians 5 through God's providence.

I end up with a ring that I didn't have to pay for from my mother. I end up proposing very quickly.

And now I'm engaged and I'm reading further and I'm walking through first Corinthians and I see

Paul sort of given these caveats about marriage. And I said, man, did

I make a mistake? Should I remain unmarried? Paul seems to think that there's something special there, right?

A married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, while a single man is anxious about the things of the

Lord. Man, don't I want to be anxious for the things of the Lord and not really worry about pleasing a wife?

But not everyone has the gift. And as I looked at my history and my tendencies,

I said before the Lord is very obvious that I don't have the gift, right?

Paul says better to be married than to burn with passion. I didn't feel that God had given me the constitution to be a content man in singleness.

And so I wholeheartedly embraced both the opportunity and the blessing that God gave me to get married.

Well, we already have a listener. We have

Clarence in Uniondale, Long Island, New York. Hey, Long Island.

By the way, just out of curiosity, I mean, I've lived in Long Island most of my life, but I can't remember exactly how far it would be from Uniondale to Lindbergh, but I know it wouldn't be far at all.

But do you have any guesstimates? I think

Uniondale is north of me, so it's probably in the range of 20 to 30 minutes.

That'd be my guess. But my geography is not airtight, brother. Okay, well,

Clarence says, I don't believe everything that Doug Wilson believes and teaches, but I found nothing wrong with a recent comment he made that seems to have created quite a stir amongst evangelicals, even

Reformed Christians. Doug Wilson said, I am beset by sexual temptations.

Does God have a solution for me? Yes, the love of a good woman who is willing to make love to you for the rest of your life.

And people seem to have found this to be not quite in the spirit of the

Christian cause of holiness. They have substituted his words, the love of a good woman, with the transformative power of the

Holy Spirit, and who is willing to make love to you as you address your sin, woundedness, and objectification of women.

What are your thoughts on this? Yeah, I heard about that, and I have echoed and amened a lot of things

Doug Wilson has said and written. And I also, I'm not 100 % in agreement with Doug on a number of things, but that particular statement did not trouble me.

I don't know if it troubles you. Now, the corrections that these people have sought to make are legitimate concepts, but when you are making a statement, it doesn't necessarily have to be exhaustive of every aspect of truth.

Correct. But do you find anything wrong with what he said? I just don't see it.

I don't see anything that would get me angry about this. One thing that I'm learning the more and more

I communicate with people is that you can't judge, you can't really judge a statement, you can't even really fully understand the thrust of a statement unless you have it in its context.

That's true of Bible verses, that's true of things that people say. And so already I'm imagining some of the criticisms that people might make, which if Doug Wilson was doing what they think that he's doing, they would be right.

I could also think of things that I would agree with, that if he's saying what

I think he's saying, then he would be right. So if you're looking in 1 Corinthians 7, and somebody had written to Paul and said, it is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.

So I think this is thought to be sort of from the Gnostic camp, no, probably not the

Gnostic camp, another camp, where the holiness was like to abstain from sexual interaction.

I think the Gnostics were big fans of that, that the physicality is always evil.

Yeah, and then sometimes it would go the other way, where it was like, yes, engage in sexual immorality because it doesn't matter, the body's always evil, roll with it.

I don't know what exactly camp would that be, but what's significant is the response that Paul makes.

He says, because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband, and the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and so on and so on.

Do not deprive one another, verse 5, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self -control.

So there is something that's being picked up in the statement that you quoted from Wilson, where the

Lord is aware of our sexual drive and our temptation, and one

God -given, God -glorifying way to satisfy sexual desire and to protect from temptation to sexual sin is to have a good woman, if you're a man, or a good man, if you're a woman, with whom you can share sexual pleasure and express your sexual desires.

So I say, from that standpoint, I agree with the statement.

What I would imagine the criticisms would be is that, well, what the cure for sexual temptation is not a pill called marriage.

And we often say to young people, when the

Lord says, for this reason, a man and woman, a man shall leave his father and mother cleaved to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh,

I say to you, this is profound. Well, this mystery is profound. I say to you, it refers to Christ in the church.

What he's not putting forward as the primary driver for getting married is sex. He's putting forward the primary driver should be to make this display of Christ in the church in this relationship.

There are marriage relationships where, because of infirmity or other difficulties, sexual relations are not possible or not enjoyable, and that doesn't denigrate at all the beauty or the meaning of that marriage.

Right. A man could be in an automobile accident and left to be a quadriplegic, unable to have sex, and a woman might have some kind of illness or injury that would do the same thing.

Yeah, that's right. And so a man or a woman, even if they're married, will still fight sexual temptation.

And the answer for them in any particular instance might not be, well, I can just go have sex with my wife or go have sex with my husband.

What really has to be the killer of sexual temptation is a deep and abiding love for Jesus Christ.

Amen. It's that and His power by His Spirit that is the primary defense against sexual temptation.

And one of the gifts that He gives to aid in that defense to some is a husband or a wife on whom they can spend their sexual desires.

Now, I would be, I mean, I don't know Doug very, very, very well.

He's not like a close personal friend. I've interviewed him and enjoyed conversations with him and fellowship with him.

But I would assume he would agree with every single word you said, and that's why sometimes it's unfair to take a statement by somebody.

And because it doesn't include every single truth about the particular subject, in a brief comment, people jump all over it.

Yeah, that's why our communication and our information age is very dangerous.

Now, but knowing what you know and with what you said as being the most important things in relation to this, would you have any problem with what

Doug said? If knowing that he likely agreed with everything else that you added to these comments, would you agree with him?

I mean, I'm not sure why people are outraged about saying, I am beset by sexual temptations. Does God have a solution for me?

Yes, the love of a good woman who is willing to make love to you for the rest of your life.

Obviously, that can't be the only thing that is involved in this subject, as you just said.

But is anything innately wrong with that statement? Again, it's a statement hanging in the air.

If all I saw was that statement, I probably would not have batted an eye about it. I might have had some thoughts about how it could be caveated or added to.

But if that's not a conversation that I was in, yeah, I wouldn't be up in arms over it.

Yeah, I haven't seen the entire context of his statement either, because I've only seen the excerpt.

But we are going to our first commercial break. If anybody wants to join us on the air with a question of your own, please submit it to ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

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I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, a

Christ -centered, Gospel -driven church looking to spread the Gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the

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At Lindbrook Baptist Church, we believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired

Word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation, and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.

We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.

Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern to all who bear

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Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit LindbrookBaptist .org.

That's L -Y -N -BrookBaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church, reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

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Mention Iron Trip and Zion Radio. We're now back with Keith Allen, pastor of Linbrook Baptist Church of Linbrook, Long Island, New York, faithful supporters of Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

We are discussing Part 2 of a two -part discussion that we began in January on dating and marriage

God's way, and today we are primarily focusing upon marriage, but we will accept questions about dating and so forth.

In fact, we have a question right now, which is obviously a joke question.

And I'm guessing that my guest, Keith Allen, is going to recognize pretty quickly who this is.

But our listener writes, Hi, Keith. Not all of us, in fact, many of us, are not nearly as handsome nor fit as you, and thus the idea of dating someone in the first place sounds impossible.

What are some tips that you would provide for wooing without good looks, muscular shoulders, and stunning hair?

And he signs this, Vevin Kinyo, and obviously that's Kevin Vinyo, pastor of Lakewood Baptist Church in Pewalkie, Wisconsin.

I love you, Kevin. He's a good brother. That's funny, but there is some reality to that question.

Not so much his reference to my own good looks, but more so to the question just generally.

Yeah, we live in a world where we think about attraction and compatibility, and much of that rests on fitness and appearance and dress and so on and so on.

That's not the point. I would tell any brother who was interested in getting in married, yeah, you should probably brush your teeth.

You should probably pay attention to how you, like, steward your body, you know, because we're imperfect sinners.

Every woman that we're going to want to date is an imperfect sinner. And yeah, it's going to be more difficult for a woman to get over her natural desires if you make it hard for her.

So don't. Whatever face or body or hair the

Lord has given you, take care of it. So it looks like you care about yourself, and you can manage that.

If you can't manage yourself, how are you going to manage somebody else? But recently, as I was teaching

Sunday school, and we were going through women in the church, and we landed in 1

Peter 3, where Scripture tells the woman, don't let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair, the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

So Scripture says directly and specifically to women who are the crown jewel of humanity, who, aesthetics -wise, blow us out of the water, brother.

And one of the temptations in being a woman is to be unhealthily focused on how good you look or to make that sort of the primary driver of what you conceive as your beauty before God and towards the world.

And Scripture says what is more important than that is your inner person.

What is precious in God's sight is a gentle and quiet spirit. What is precious in God's sight is godliness.

The holy women who hoped in God and did not fear anything that is frightening and I would say the same for brothers.

Your primary emphasis in trying to make yourself attractive to a woman, and particularly a

Christian woman, would be to be a godly guy. Love others, serve, be hospitable, be an encourager.

Don't give yourself over to sin and sinful habits. If that's the kind of life that you are living, particularly in the life of the local church, it won't matter as much how you look because women are perceptive and Christian women who want godly

Christian men are perceptive, and those are things that they will be looking for that are more significant than how you look.

By the way, were you trying, in quoting that biblical passage, were you trying to torpedo the success of royaldiadem .com's

advertising? Listen, Paul doesn't say don't put jewels on.

He just says don't make that how you pursue your beautification before your unsaved husband or before God.

Right, and it has amazed me throughout my life to see how many men have been blessed beyond the imaginations of those around them by marrying up, as they say.

You know, guys that, if you look at them, you'd never think, wow, that's a stunningly handsome person, and yet their wives are stunningly gorgeous, not only physically, but inwardly.

That does happen. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart, and often that's what godly people are looking at.

Everything about a person is not how they look, and we just tend to put so much weight on that, but we are often shown, even by the preferences of women who we would consider stunning and above certain guys.

One, what is our own perception of how good any other guy looks? And two, that's not the most important thing.

Hey, man, I'm just going to throw up a very quick joke here that was one of my favorite one -panel comics that I ever saw.

You see a husband and wife sitting on one side of a marriage counselor's desk, and the husband is very slovenly looking.

He is unkempt. He's unshaven. He's got a huge beer gut, and he's got a cigar hanging out of his mouth, and he's holding a can of beer, and the marriage counselor looks exactly like him, and the caption at the bottom says,

So what's your problem, lady? Sorry, I just had to throw that out there.

By the way, let me give a plug to our comical listener, Pastor Kevin Vigneault of Lakewood Baptist Church in Pewalkie, Wisconsin.

If anybody lives in or near Pewalkie, Wisconsin, or you're traveling through that area, you can visit the website, lakewoodbaptist .church,

lakewoodbaptist .church, and find out all the information that you need. By the way, I want to make sure you know that Pastor Kevin did not ask me to do that.

I just know that he's a solid brother, and I always like promoting the churches of solid men of God whenever I have the opportunity.

Amen. Before we go to our midway break, I would like you to summarize some of those things that we most need to know about the subject of marriage, and then we'll pick up on the discussion when we return from the break.

You have about five minutes or so to get to some major points that you want to address.

Well, where we came from, marriage is an institution designed by God to display

Christ and the Church, connecting to dating or courting or whatever you want to call it, intimate one -on -one relationship between a man and a woman should be leading towards marriage, should have marriage in view.

Marriage is not the solution to our sin problems, though some of our sin problems are helped in marriage.

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another, and nobody's going to sharpen you more effectively or more closely than somebody who lives with you and who has covenanted with you to be with you forever.

A wife or a husband is an excellent, effective, sanctifying tool in the hands of the

Lord and by His Spirit. It's a lifelong covenant. Marriage is not respected in our society.

People get married and they break marriage covenants, breaking the very vows that they gave, but that doesn't display

Christ and the Church. Christ will never leave or forsake His Church. Christ remains with His Church despite all of her flaws and failings, and the covenant of marriage is intended to display that very love.

Marriage is glorious and a picture of gospel love and commitment.

We have an anonymous listener who has a question for you, and the anonymous listener says,

I know that there is a lot of disagreement over the elements of my question that I'm about to ask, but I was wondering what your opinion is.

It is fairly well known that the core root of many adulterous affairs that have occurred in marriage have to do when the wife is either working outside the home or regularly attending a gym on her own.

Do you agree that wives should be doing this unaccompanied by their husband or unaccompanied by a sister in Christ?

The core root, if I understand the question, of adulterous relationships is women going to work or to the gym unaccompanied.

Again, offhand, I would disagree with that statement. The core root of adulterous relationships is a lack of satisfaction in Christ.

One of the ways certainly that you can prevent sin is not by putting yourself into situations where you might stumble into sin, but I wouldn't say that in these cases the solution to adulterous relationships is to tell women that they can't go to work or that they shouldn't go to gym without a friend.

I think that's maybe more of a burden than I could say is necessary or even prudent.

Though, yeah, Christian sister, if you've got a friend who wants to go to the gym with you, take her with you.

That could be a help in terms of accountability, but I wouldn't say that as a necessity or even as that should be the regular practice, that women should not go to work for that reason so they don't cheat on their wives or on their husbands.

I think it's a much deeper problem than that where adultery is coming from. And men for the same reason, right?

Don't men cheat? You're going to say men shouldn't go to work or go to the gym by themselves? The gym is a dangerous place.

I don't go there anymore. So maybe I'll divide it up and say maybe the gym thing is more wise and likely than the work thing.

Well, yeah, of course there are gyms that are just for women and just for men also. Sure, yeah.

And of course there is, there's definitely a debate amongst Christians that women should not be working outside of the home.

They can have jobs and careers where they are working from home, but there is an argument, especially when it comes to a woman letting someone else for great numbers of hours of the day care for the children.

And I'm not necessarily saying that I am a strong prohibitor of women working outside the home.

I'm just saying that I think that some of the arguments can't be easily written off. Well, that would be a different discussion.

If you want to talk about women working outside of the home with relation to children and their care and their education, right, that's a different discussion which we could have in which

I understand there's people that fall on different lines. That question was asked specifically with regard to adultery.

And specifically with regard to adultery, I don't think prohibiting women working outside of the home is the answer or a proper reaction to the problem of adultery.

Right. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now. If you would like to join the others that have already submitted questions by submitting one of your own, the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least. City and state and country of residence only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Please try to respond to as many of our advertisers as you can, knowing that their financial support is what is keeping us on the air.

And also send in your questions to Pastor Keith Allen. We'll be right back. Puritan Reformed is a

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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Send me an email to ChrisArnson at gmail .com, and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address you can send in a question to Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbrook Baptist Church as we continue our discussion on Dating and Marriage God's Way.

That's ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

And we do have another one of those anonymous questions. The anonymous listener says,

When you are providing marital counseling, how do you overcome that huge obstacle where you have a husband saying,

I will behave more like a biblical husband when my wife starts submitting properly, and the wife is saying,

I will start submitting properly when my husband starts to lead me and my family as he ought?

How do I overcome it? I think the first thing to point out is how ungodly or how un -God recognizing that position is.

When we think about Jesus, when he's talking about the hypocrites, why do you look at the log that's in your brother's, or the speck that's in your brother's eye, and you do not regard the log that's in your own eye?

First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

The primary job of a Christian is to regard their own behavior and to repent and to turn and act righteously in light of what

God has said to them. Our behavior before God and our obedience is not at all dependent on the behavior of the other person.

Right. You know what immediately popped into my head when I read that question was Adam and Eve, when

God is confronting them about their sin, Adam said, the woman you gave me, and Eve said, the serpent.

Yep. And that's, I mean, that's our tendency as sinners to try to minimize our own sin by blaming our sin on someone else.

Now, going back to that first Peter passage, I was just discussing this with some of the sisters recently in a

Sunday school, where they said, you know, as you're talking about submission of the wife, what about the husband?

And I think it's just so poignant that in 1 Peter 3, Peter makes it clear that he's talking to women who have unbelieving husbands, ungodly men, right?

Submit to your own husbands so that even if some don't obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives.

And so that says to me that if you're a wife, a Christian wife, married to an ungodly pagan man, the way that you can set him up for the receipt of the gospel is by doing what you're supposed to do before the

Lord and submitting to him in all ways that do not cause you to disobey the direct commandments of your

God. And that says to me, to a woman who's married to a Christian man, if you desire that he be more

Christ -like and a better leader, the best way that you can help him is being as Christ -like as you possibly can by living in the way that Christ has called you to live toward your husband, regardless of his own behavior or tendencies.

And same thing for a husband, right? You are the head of the wife, and you're supposed to give yourself up for your wife.

And there's no caveat that says if she's doing really good at submitting, which if that was the case,

Christ would be treating us very poorly because we are very bad at submitting to him. But what he does is he loves us and he cares for us and he pours himself out for us and he leads us sacrificially despite all of our faults and blemishes.

And so a Christian husband who is walking in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ ought to do the same regardless of the disposition or faults of his wife.

Excellent. We have a question from Wade in Wheeling, West Virginia.

And Wade asks, I am not asking for myself, which is why I did not remain anonymous, but I was wondering, is there anything else in the scriptures other than the prohibition to be unevenly yoked that would prevent a

Christian from dating, courting, and marrying an unbeliever? As far as command,

I think that is the clearest text. And what's significant there is not the command itself, but the reasons that are given for the command.

What fellowship has darkness with light? What accord does

Christ have with Belial? Why would you do that?

You're on two different sides of the fence. So a person whose aim is to glorify

Christ and whose aim for their family should and would be to glorify

Christ why would you want to date or marry a person whose inherent disposition is completely opposite to that which you desire?

When Christians, professing Christians, desire or argue for the right, so to speak, to date unbelievers,

I'm just baffled. And I think it reveals a lack of understanding of what the calling on their life is and a lack of significance of that calling in their life that they would feel comfortable wrapping up a large part of their life with someone who is not for Christ.

I think about Ephesians 5, which is sort of in the same vein.

He's talking about the behavior of believers. And he says, you know, sexual immorality and all impurity must not be named among you.

Then in verse 6, he says, let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

And then verse 7, and therefore do not become partners with them. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the

Lord. Walk as children of light. And so sons of disobedience, this is unbelievers, children of wrath.

And then those who are in Christ are the believers who are light. And Scripture says, don't become partners with them.

Now what that's saying in the context is don't become partners with them in their behavior.

Don't act like them. Don't sound like them. Don't think like them. But when you take what

Paul says, do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. And you're talking about linking your life and your time and your company to someone who is by nature ungodly and contrary to Christ.

And you think that you will somehow be able to uphold a profession for Christ or that this would be a wise decision to do.

I think much in Scripture, just in the fact of separating from the world, the children of God, it just becomes nonsensical at every turn of the page of Scripture, particularly in the

New Testament, to think that God would ever smile with favor upon a linking between a believer and an unbeliever.

Now, obviously, I'm not legitimizing any Christian marrying an unbeliever, but there are circumstances that would make the refusal of a

Christian to marry an unbeliever more difficult. And, for instance, probably the most compelling argument that I could even conceive of for a

Christian marrying an unbeliever is if you have a Christian, before he's saved, his girlfriend conceives because they have been fornicating, then he gets saved, and he wants to be a godly parent to these children, even though his girlfriend has not followed him in converting to Christ.

Do you think things like that are exceptions to the rule? Well, I wouldn't say things like that.

I would say that particular situation, which any of these would require wisdom,

I think wisdom would tell you that for a man who has become a Christian, yes, to yoke yourself to an unbeliever would be evil and contrary to Scripture, but also to abandon this child and not be the father to this child that was brought into the world through your sinful activity would also be wrong.

So I think in that case, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, and probably the right thing to do would be to marry that woman and to do the best you can to be a good witness to her and raise the child in the discipline and admonition of the

Lord. But again, generally when you're having this conversation, we're not talking about abstract, maybe hypotheticals, maybe there's an off chance.

We're usually talking about a single person who's interested in somebody else, and the answer is no. And they're like, oh, but what if?

And it's like, yeah, that's not your situation. Because sin begets messy situations, right?

The reason why you even would have to have that discussion is because the person's already been walking in a manner contrary to the

Word, and that makes things get messy when it's like, well, how do I get back in step with the

Word? Well, there's some things you can undo. There are some things you can never undo, and then it requires wisdom to figure out how to deal with those things that aren't where we need the principle of Scripture to guide us and the wisdom of the

Spirit to guide us rather than a particular letter of law. Just to give you an example,

I personally know a couple that were lost, living together, had several children together, and the woman got saved, and she said, you are going to move into another room.

I'm not going to continue to have marital relations with you without being married. And she did marry him.

I mean, he agreed to marry her. He wanted to marry her. They got married, but she was a believer and he was not, and she loved him and also did not want the father of the children to be removed from the household, if you follow what

I'm saying. So, from what you said, you seem to be concurring that what she did, marrying this unbelieving man, especially because they already had several children, was a legitimate action on her part.

Yeah, I mean, children are an indelible yoke. You know,

Scripture says don't yoke yourself to an unbeliever. Well, you've had children with somebody, you are forever yoked.

There you go. There's no undoing it. So, you're not yoking yourself more by getting married.

You're just legitimizing the yoke that already exists, which is really one of the saddest aspects of divorce, particularly, just as I'm watching it play out in a couple different scenarios in my personal life with different friends and so on.

You know, one, breaking the covenant before God is a terrible, terrible, terrible thing. You shouldn't do that.

You should keep your vows. When there's children involved, there's just another level of destruction that divorce brings because those children were meant to have their mother and their father raising them together, mother and father in loving relationship, displaying love before the children and showing love to the children in this committed covenant relationship.

And when that gets broken, like in the face of the children, like we're more concerned about us and our happiness, and therefore, we're going to break up this marriage and you're just going to have to deal with the consequences, getting shipped back and forth here and there, watching discord between the parents, so painful.

And again, that's just what sin does, particularly when people don't recognize the significance of the covenant of marriage and thereby the children that are produced rightly in the covenant of marriage.

Amen. Let's see here. We have Lemuel in Spanish Fork City, Utah.

And Lemuel says, there is disagreements in the body of Christ, even amongst very conservative and Reformed Christians, as to what are the requirements necessary for one to leave their spouse permanently in divorce.

There are some Christians who would teach that if a man is beating his wife, for instance, and unrepents, that there is nothing unbiblical about the wife leaving him.

Some would insist otherwise. How do you respond to this? That's such a hard conversation to have, particularly with people who are experiencing that kind of stuff.

The Bible doesn't mention abuse. In 1

Corinthians 7, we have death, which certainly frees you from the constraints of marriage.

And he talks in 7 .14, if a woman gets saved in a marriage, she shouldn't divorce her husband because he's an unbeliever.

She should consent to stay with him. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so.

In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace.

When I've talked to older, more experienced brothers about these abuse cases, sometimes this is the verse that they will come to to try to find some biblical grounding on this conversation of abuse, where essentially, if the person is physically abusing you, then that's sort of like an abandonment of the marriage covenant.

Maybe I could go along with that kind of interpretation. But again, I think there's a wisdom thing.

I think that like adultery, so adultery is mentioned as an absolute caveat.

If any of you divorces her wife except for the grounds of sexual immorality, he causes her to commit adultery.

I think adultery gives at least a legitimacy to divorce.

Not that divorce is being promoted, but it opens a door where a faithful Christian could divorce.

In other words, it's not mandatory that they divorce. No, no, not at all. Not at all.

I think generally speaking, the Lord is what God has put together.

Let no man ever separate. I think that's the baseline you have to work from. And then there are these really nasty situations where wisdom might say, either in effect, it's already been separated.

And so it wouldn't be a violation of God's wisdom to do so.

Sexual immorality, I think, is one. And I don't have an issue putting unrepented, repeated abuse, physical abuse, as in that category.

And I would think that you would agree with me that regardless of your pastors, your elders, your denominations' view of divorce, that couple needs to at least temporarily separate.

In fact, I have heard... I'm talking about in the area of beating. The police need to be called.

And I have heard from people who have demonstrated a lot of wisdom in this that the wife, when you're talking about physical violence, the wife should be the one that relocates to another housing situation.

And at first, I was like, hey, why should the wife be punished because of the man's sin?

But it made a lot of sense when it was further explained that the husband will know where she is if she remains in the house.

And if he's violent toward her, he may just return. He may break into the home. And so on.

And I'm assuming, if this man doesn't repent, that there would even be a possibility, even if a divorce never happens, a permanent separation until he repents.

Wouldn't that make sense if he was not repentant and violent and putting not only his wife's life at risk but the children?

Yeah, I think preservation of life is an important category to think about and something that is more significant than the marriage relationship.

Yeah, man, it's just a sad situation to even think about that people have to think about these things.

But I would agree that a person, one, we're supposed to submit to the governing authorities beating your wife or beating your husband, for that matter, is illegal.

And so the victim party would be well within their rights and well within godliness to get the authorities involved for their protection and to remove themselves from the situation where they or their children would be at risk of physical harm,

I think is incumbent upon them, not even sort of allowed, but I think they ought to.

Amen. And let's see here. We have Margarita in Cedar Crest, New Mexico.

And Margarita says, Isn't it a danger when people view a couple that disobeyed

God where a Christian married a non -Christian but then later on the non -Christian converted and became a

Christian and the couple has a wonderful marriage? Sometimes those things are viewed as a way to imitate them without violating the

Word of God because you have a hope and confidence that the person you want to marry will come to Christ.

This is my story. This is my song. Anyone who has talked to me and my wife about how we came together will soon hear the story of how she was a professing

Christian walking in a period of darkness when she met me. I was an unbeliever and by God's grace alone, apart from her interests, while we were still dating, he grabbed a hold of me and revealed

Christ to me. And our relationship completely changed. I completely changed.

She changed as I became not a force for darkness and temptation in her life but a force of light.

And we have a wonderful marriage and God has done wonderful things in us and through us and to us.

And there have been instances where we have been talking to single Christians wanting to date unbelievers and they'll point the finger right back at us and say, well, what about you guys?

You know, you turned out fine. And I think that's... We're not an example to follow.

To assume that that would happen would be to presume on the grace of God. That's right.

And just sort of to make that argument really stark, you could say, man, well,

Paul was on his way to Damascus to kill and imprison

Christians and he got saved. So maybe if I get on the road and go to kill and imprison some

Christians, I could be saved too. And it's like, yeah, you could.

But I wouldn't suggest doing that. Well, you know, something just popped into my head from the

Scriptures that wouldn't it be similar when

Jesus Christ himself was being tempted in the wilderness and he said to Satan, thou shalt not tempt the

Lord thy God or test the... thou shalt not test the Lord thy

God or put God to the test. Isn't that something similar when you're saying to yourself,

I'm just going to bank on this person getting saved so I'm marrying them. Isn't that somewhat like putting

God to the test? Yeah, or Romans 6, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

There you go. Yeah, grace could abound to this unbeliever if you marry them, but you're not to continue in sin for the fact that that could be the case.

That would be a very wrong -headed way of pursuing evangelism and conversion.

And I think if anybody would in that position would dig down into the root of their heart, what they are pursuing is not the glory of God in this person's conversion.

That hope is sort of giving them opportunity to remain in their sin against a clear prohibition in Scripture.

And that would never be right to do. Very unwise. Now, in my experience from people that I have met and listened to their stories and so on,

I hope that nobody thinks that what I'm about to say is a male chauvinist concept.

But they might. But I'm just talking about from personal experience witnessing things that have happened amongst the lives of my friends and acquaintances that women are more prone, they're not the only ones that do this, but women are more prone to have the idea,

I can change that man. That man may be a philanderer, he may be a serial fornicator with other women, but I can change him.

That kind of thing. Whereas a less frequent thing is a man who's dating some woman who's sleeping with every guy in town, he's less prone to say, you know,

I can change her and I want to marry her. I mean, that just seems to be from what

I've seen. I was just curious if you would agree with that as far as what you have witnessed and experienced as a pastor and counseling people and so on.

I think there are just some fundamental differences in the makeup of men and women that cause certain things to be prevalent.

I think because God created women by nature to have a disposition toward mothering and wifing, that that sort of...

It's a caring response. Like, this man's life is messed up, and yeah, it's hurting me.

There are things that I want from him which are going to cause me to be blind to his faults. But there is also,

I think, sort of this urge or impulse like yeah, I can be the one who helps him.

Men, while there is sort of the damsel in distress kind of thing,

I think men are far more prone to a kind of pride that wouldn't really number one want to deal with a woman who is disrespecting them in that way.

It's emasculating. Yeah, yeah. Less tolerance for that kind of thing.

Yeah. Well, anyway, we've got... So I won't say more on that, but interesting point.

And we are going to our final break. If you do have a question, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Welcome back. And before I continue my discussion with my guest today,

Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbergh Baptist Church, on Part 2 of Dating and Marriage God's Way, I just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

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www .gcali .com My biannual Iron Sharpens Iron Radio free pastor's luncheon, the next one is being held on Thursday June the 6th 11 a .m.

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. My featured keynote speaker for the very first time ever is my friend of many years and even decades,

Dr. Joel Beakey, founder and president of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Not only is this a free event, which is the brainchild of my precious late wife

Jewelry in the 1990s, I continue these free events in loving memory of her and in tribute and honor to her, but not only is the event free but every single person that attends will get a free heavy sack of brand new books personally selected by me and donated by Christian publishers all of the

United States and United Kingdom. So if you'd like to register for this free event send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line. And that's also the email address to submit a question in these final moments that we have with Pastor Keith Allen of Lindbergh Baptist Church on marriage.

Send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com and if you could I want to make sure before we go to any listener question if we can squeeze one in.

I want you to summarize Pastor Keith what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today on this topic before we go off the air.

Marriage is a glorious thing. Marriage is between a man and a woman and was instituted by God to display

Christ and the church. Marriage is meant to highlight the gospel. There was so much more that we could have talked about the role of man in marriage, the role of a woman in marriage, but all of these things that are given us in scripture for one purpose and is to point to the glory of Christ and his self -sacrificial death on her behalf for her life and the submission, the loving joyful submission of the church to its head in Jesus Christ.

That's what marriage is meant to put forward and so any of us are pursuing marriage, always recognize that that's the aim, that's the goal, that's the reason.

For those of us who are in marriage, as we think about the difficulties that we might be having in marriage, all of them come from us not recognizing what marriage is for and not operating in the way that we're supposed to.

Look to Jesus, look to Christ and the church, and thereby you will understand marriage and what it's for and its great, great importance in the eyes of God.

Well, we have time for at least one question from a listener in Mastic Beach, Long Island.

Maxwell in Mastic Beach, Long Island says, what advice do you have to the in -laws of a couple who is married to prevent themselves from getting too involved in the married couple's lives where they are overstepping their bounds, but also to the married couple themselves that they don't keep the in -laws out of the marriage too much?

And of course we don't really have time to have that an exhaustive answer to that deep question.

That's a lot to unpack. Scripture says a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

When you get married there is no greater human allegiance that you owe to anyone other than your wife.

Scripture says that the husband is the head of the wife and they are their own household. So ultimately a husband is the one who ought to determine the direction and the parameters and the function of his household.

With his wife as helper and counselor, he may receive counsel and help from people like in -laws, but ultimately they are not the determiners of the parameters and life of the family, but Scripture is.

And Scripture says love your neighbor as yourself. It gives importance to family.

Even if we're not obeying our parents as children and they're older, we should honor them, give them a certain degree of consideration and love, but we shouldn't make them the heads of our households when we are married.

And just to throw out there to see if you agree with me, the husband is the head of the household, but at the same time a husband would be a moron if he never listened to the godly counsel of his wife.

And one of those areas might be if the husband is being too harsh, keeping in -laws out of the marriage situations, where it's going way far beyond the restrictions that a normal God -honoring

Christian couple should have, if you follow what I'm saying. I know personally situations where you have godly

Christian in -laws and professing Christian couples who are keeping the in -laws out just because of disagreements that are comparatively minor.

Yeah, that's sad. Sin makes a mess of everything, brother, but I often tell my wife, you know,

I am the head of the household according to the Word, and she is the helper, and one of the ways that she is to help me is to help me be a good head.

There you go. And that is where the godly counsel of a wife certainly comes in.

Just because the man is the head doesn't mean that he has everything that he needs in himself to be the head.

He needs Christ and he needs help, and often a good and godly wife is a great help in that regard.

And by the way, I'm going to keep these folks completely anonymous, but please pray folks.

I heard some wonderful news that a wife, a godly

Christian wife with an unbelieving husband, was experiencing difficulties when the husband refused to quit drinking, a husband who has a serious drunkenness problem, and I was rejoicing with the mother -in -law when she said she got down on her hands and knees literally on the floor praying for this young man, this husband, to seek help at a rehabilitation facility.

The very next day he already has enrolled in and is presently physically at an alcohol recovery program.

Praise God. So please pray for this situation. I also want to thank you again, Pastor Keith, you are absolutely remarkable today.

In fact, if you want to do part three, where we go into the roles, I'm more than happy to do that.

That's up to you, but we'll discuss that later. And don't forget folks, the website for Lindbrook Baptist Church in Lindbrook, Long Island is lynbrookbaptist .org

lynbrookbaptist .org. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater