Phil Howard Marriage Session 2 (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, my name is Mike Gabendroth. I feel like I have pretty good lungs these days, riding the bike some, but extremely tired with the cancer medicine. As the months go on, I think we're in about month seven out of maybe 24.

Good thing I know how to ride the bike a long ways. Today, again, a special treat for you. We had Pastor Phil Howard here, I call him my pastor. He was here doing a marriage conference, and today is part two of session two that he did Saturday, I don't know, May 19th or something like that, May 14th, here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

And so today, Pastor Phil Howard is doing part two of his marriage session.

Eight Principles of Communication and Conflict Resolution

Let me give you eight principles of communication, and I would also, let's say, it would overlap to conflict resolution. Eight things that I use often from Ephesians 4, we used to say, a fair way to have a fight.

So it's very, so applicable. Okay, let's see. Ephesians 4, we'll pick them up. Verse 15, truthing in love, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him. Then it goes on down in verse 23, therefore laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Communication, can you speak the truth in love? I think my mother could speak the truth, but you wouldn't feel loved. She could, my dad was better at it. I would look at different people to blend the two.

It's hard, isn't it just hard not to be a good liar? How you doing? Man, you're doing great. No, you don't, they look like a disaster. Just not to accommodate everybody, the truth in love, it's a challenge, but be committed to it, don't lie to each other.

And don't be harsh when you're telling the truth. I think of children, I mean, that boy said he was nine before he found out his name wasn't shut up. You know, I mean, be boxed or call names, truth in love.

Anger Without Sin and the Danger of Unresolved Conflict

Two, anger is allowed without sin. If you can pull that off, if you can pull that off, what does he say? Be angry, verse 26, and yet do not sin and do not let the sun go down on your anger. James chapter 1 says we seldom do anything right when we're angry.

He warns us, be quick to hear, slow to speak, beware of anger, because usually sin is close at hand when you allow the emotions to go to anger. And look at old dear brother Moses, kept out of the land, God said, speak to the rock, he hid it.

God was mad at Israel, but he didn't want Moses to get so mad he disobeyed. So be careful. Anger, and I think especially as men, a 220 pound man talking to a 120 pound wife can be a bit scary if he gets angry.

I mean, don't intimidate our mate with our anger and with our physical advantage. No, no. Be angry, but you don't have to get angry. Will the anger make it any better? If anger moves you to action, that's good, but if it's just an emotion, I think this is what's the problem in child discipline.

Everybody's afraid of the rod, because the rod is perceived, someone's out of control, and they're venting their anger on the child. Wrong, wrong. The rod is to teach the child not to vent the parent's anger, because the tongue is the main teacher in raising children, how we're shaping them.

But the rod is to reinforce, but the picture that I think has been out there, I'm angry that boy did it again, I'm going to, you know. No, it's the wrong use of the rod. Use the rod in love to reinforce, not for anger.

Three, try to solve conflict as soon as possible. Don't let the sun go down on your raft. Sometimes you can't do that, you're too tired. Midnight arguments aren't fun. You need your rest. So the issue is solve it as soon as you can.

And here's one that I alluded to. Beware of satanic influence in that marriage. Do not give the devil an opportunity, and it's in the context of this anger and this unresolved conflict. Now, something's interesting to me.

Here, the devil gets involved with this anger that's being held over. Bitterness. And when you go to 1 Corinthians 7, where he's talking about conjugal rights within marriage, and that we owe each other our affection and conjugal privilege.

He said, don't withhold the body, lest Satan take advantage of you and tempt you for your lack of self-control. So I've seen it this way. Unresolved conflict in this context will wind up in the bedroom, and pretty soon there's no sex in the marriage.

And you say, why has that been shut down? And many times it goes right back here. They've got an unresolved conflict, and the person feels used in the bedroom instead of giving themselves because they've not dealt with the heart issue.

We've got to deal with it, which sometimes is hard on one person or the other. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to deal with it. But they want to show up for this. And so you've got to keep both in balance.

We don't want the devil in our marriage. There's enough struggles with just you two. We don't need the devil. Oh boy, here's one that is so, so convicting. Look at here, verse 29. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth.

And that word is rotten. The Greek word is translated rotten, foul, worthless. I'm amazed at how many Christians still cuss. I mean, I know in the church, once in a while in counseling, I've used hell and damn because it just fit.

It just felt good. So I've cussed more as a pastor than any other time. But it wasn't cussing anybody out. It doesn't matter. He's mean as hell, something like that. I don't think they grew up around bad language on the streets, for sure.

But man, when did you start quit cussing? I mean, just as a way of life. Let's see, saved at 14, started the ninth grade, standing at the gate at Walter T. Helms with my old buddies. A guy came in, and I MF'd him.

That meant we were still friends. And something went off in me because we were all cussers and fighters and scrappers. And so I had to get away from the guys, and the Lord just says, we can't use that anymore.

I thought, how dare you talk to me this way? And then pretty soon, I knew it was serious. I knew it was the Holy Spirit. He said, go apologize to that boy. I said, oh man, I can't do that. He'll think, you know, I've got problems.

I had to go. I apologized. Never used the word again in my life. Starts cleaning up your mouth. If your mouth isn't clean, your heart's dirty. Don't be using cussing language in your home. Don't use it anywhere.

We're people that got a new vocabulary. We don't cuss people. We don't damn people. Just cut it out. And don't be saying, well, that's right, man. Oh, now then I want to say, oh, hell, we were all that way at one time.

God saved us to change us. He says, Carol and I used to sing. One thing when you're married to a person, we know all the same songs. We've been in church together over 60 years. We know them. He says, oh, say, but I'm glad, I'm glad.

Jesus has come and my cups overrun. Oh, say, but I'm glad. I grew up with singing Christians, happy Christians. Joy was the mark. It wasn't being tough. No, we were moved. We had joy unspeakable and full of glory.

And if you don't have that dose, keep the kind you've got. I want mine. Because it made us happy in sorrow, happy in life. We buried our loved ones. When we buried my father and buried my sister, we're singing at the cemetery, and we're defying death because we got joy.

We're not there to cuss. We're there to praise the living God. Don't use bad language with your home, especially with your mate. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Say, okay.

Boy, the necks are stiff around here. It's just pitiful. If you get someone to preach the word around here. Oh, I'm just kind of carrying on. Verse 29, use words that build up the hearer. You ought to practice that going to church.

My dad said, don't ever go to church. I call my dad a lot because I was young. He died by the time I was in my 20s. But he said, don't ever go to church without a verse to encourage the saint. So before we went to church, you would have a verse say, hey, brother, be strong in the Lord.

Rejoice in the Lord again. Philippians 4 .4. And I said, what? He said, you've been exhorted. And the Fernandez boys learned this and people came to me and said, we don't want to be ambushed at the door with a bunch of kids quoting Scripture.

I said, you need it. Get it. They were just saved, just got out of drugs. And now they're quoting Scripture and some of the old saints were a little disturbed. But praise the Lord anyhow. I love what he says.

If we just had verse 29 as your communication style, only words that build up the hearer, only words that meet the need of the moment. My, I was this church and my church was full of people. I don't want to hear the baseball score.

Not at church. I had to tell our deacons, don't let any problematic people get to me on Sunday. I want to be free to worship. We'll settle problems six days a week. Sunday is vertical. I had guys attack me at times.

Get me right before the pulpit. Tell me off, do this, do that. And I told them, you must protect me. I came to worship. I have no complaints on Sunday. I used to sit on the platform at our church, but you know what I did?

I was there with my associate and I said, boy, the answers aren't doing the job here. They ought to be over this. And one day he said, you know what? You're going to lose the service. You're so busy critiquing.

And so busy watching what ought to happen. You know, micromanager, you can't worship the living God. You don't see him high and lifted up. You're seeing us who's not doing his job. So I quit sitting on the platform.

I sat down there. I didn't really come to see you, especially. Tomorrow, I'm going to have a haze over my eyes when I look out at you. I'm hoping to see the Lord. And I'm hoping something more than my preaching happens.

God actually could flood our hearts. That's my dream. Nothing is boring as church apart from God. Just a bunch of bodies trying to stay awake. No, I want to be engaged, engaged. Finally, he says, conduct yourself in such a way that the spirit is engraved.

Verse 30. And we had an argument one time. We were living in Fresno, California, I remember. And whatever the issue was, isn't it amazing? As the years go on, you forget the issue. You just remember you had a fight.

Don't even know the issue. But we're laying in bed. And when you go to bed on a fight, I mean, it's like the Berlin Wall is erected down right there. I mean, if a toenail was to touch you, it would break out the Cold War.

I don't want to feel anything get over. That's why king-sized beds help.

You know?

But those days, they were twin. But over there, and the spirit of God just dealt with me that I'd have to apologize or something. But I became aware the Holy Spirit is the empire. And if he calls you out at first base, you're out.

I don't care if you thought you were right in the argument. The Holy Spirit is in the Christian's marriage. And don't grieve him. Don't grieve him. You can't fool him. He knows both sides. And he never has led anyone to a divorce.

When God joins together, he doesn't separate. Sin separates, not God. You know what? By the way, I throw this in free. And say you first heard it with Dr. Phil. Not Donahue. Howard Phil. The word irreconcilable is only used one time in Scripture.

One time. Second Timothy 3 .3. And the word means, I will submit to no terms for a truce. I will submit to no terms for a truce. I'm irreconcilable. So you hear all the time, irreconcilable differences.

That should never be in a Christian marriage. Conflict resolution. How do we solve conflict? That's not an easy question to answer, is it? It's nice in a seminar. It's not nice in the heat of a conflict.

I think a good place for you to start is to read James 3 about how heavenly wisdom acts. And let me just give you some of the characteristics taken right out of James. It's pure. It's peaceable. Blessed are peacemakers.

It's gentle. And this is an interesting word. It's gentle. You know, Jesus was said to be gentle and humble. But the word gentle here, or rather the word reasonable, is a word that means willing to yield.

And that was a great help to Caroline. When she heard that definition, she said that really gave her insight. Are you willing to yield in the clash? Willing to be reconciled? Or say, you better never do that again.

I had a daughter that was being disciplined by the church. And I'll never forget these three men said, And you must promise us you'll never basically sin again or we won't take you back. Can you promise us that?

A couple of elders spoke up and said, Not a man in this room can promise that. Why make a 19-year-old girl promise she won't fail again? We are so conditional in our love. While we want unconditional forgiveness.

Be willing to forgive. Reasonable, full of mercy. Conflict is not sin. But how we respond to it might be. The conflict isn't the sin. It's how we respond to it. Something I think would be good for you in your conflicts is to learn.

And I first saw this in Covey. Stephen Covey's book, Seven Principles of Effective Leaders. Is that in conflict, you want to get away. Let's say husband and wife. Usually they come in. And usually we just see this going back and forth.

But you want to move it to from who is right to what is right. And you want to go to the issue. And the most common things we were discussing this last. The most common arguments in a marriage center around money and children.

One will be a saver, let's say. And another will be a spender.

Okay.

And Mike and I are savers. And we think one dress a decade for a wife should be enough. Sackcloth is in. And so, you know. And my wife feels like, you know what? Jesus could come any moment. And what good will money be in the bank?

It needs to be spent now. But honey, we don't need to go to Disney World. We're too old to stand in those lines. I feel it in my spirit. Oh, yes. Common ground. How to raise the children. One be disciplinarian.

Another one be Mother Teresa. You know? How are we going to do this? So the child winds up growing up a brat because neither one do anything. They need to be trained. They need to be guided. How are we going to do it?

But what we do, we go in. She's wrong. He's wrong. You know what? What's the issue? Move it to the what. And get away from who. You, you, you. Get away from that. I think get away from win-lose strategies for solving.

Most men are very competitive. And they're used to win-lose. Somebody's got to win. Somebody's got to lose.

You know?

And you go into marriage that way. And she's the combatant. She's the opposition. I got to win. Well, you're not going to win unless you both win. Because she's part of you now. But if you keep that egomania going, okay?

Have you ever won the argument but you lost the battle? I hear no amens. Could I hear a groan? Could I hear a groan? I'm going to get through this so we can have a lively discussion as I have Carolyn take the question-answer period.

Well, I think that there's some things we've got to learn to overlook in marriage. Every couple, they'll have their faults. But if their fault doesn't dishonor God, if they're not damaging the relationship, if it's not hurting other people, cut some slack.

Quit building on every little thing that you cannot. Would you be quiet? I don't mean to, but I want you to get there safely. I can if you'll hush. Did you just tell me to shut up? I think I did. I mean, driving, our marriage is nearly perfect until we decide to go somewhere.

By the time we get there, I mean, forget the meal. I had made reservations, candles lit. I told them, blow them out. I'm going to driving school. We can nag ourselves to death and second guess. Don't do it.

Forgiveness, Bitterness, and Emptying the Garbage Can

Final thing, and we could be here all day. I feel like it is skipping over, is forgiveness. That Ephesians says it so beautiful. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed until the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness, and I understand bitterness to be anger held overnight, primarily. It's like the fermenting of the wine. The issue is, but it's like garbage. I've got to tell you this story on garbage, but let me read this verse.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, loud speaking. Slander be put away from you, along with all malice, just evil, bad. And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Every day, Jesus said, pray, Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive. Matthew 18, the story, you've been forgiven billions of dollars in the illustration, and then the guy that's forgiven can't go forgive a fellow servant some minor little debt.

Colossians 3, bear with one another. 313, forgiving one, it's a way of life. Forgiving, forgiving, forgiving. Lewis said it greatly, the only place safe from the risk of love is hell. Because to love always, if you love a puppy, that puppy can die.

If you love a child, they can break your heart. If you love a man or a woman, they can break your heart. There are no safe risks to love. God, if we made him so human, and he wasn't in charge on the human side, we say, you risk loving a world that would reject you.

But he said, I planned it from the foundation of the world to slay my son. Because I knew sinners would never, never get to heaven without a slain son. There's no safe. So you must learn what God has done to forgive, to send it away, to not charge.

And without that, a hard heart takes over and never grants forgiveness, never grants forgiveness. I'll give you a story that our oldest girl got pregnant. Our family was really going through it. Carolyn couldn't sleep, had to put her under doctor's care so she could sleep at night.

I was in depression. I resigned from the church. I was too brokenhearted to go on. And so the elder said, you need professional counseling. They sent us to one man that was a total incompetent. And I got away.

He was just ineffective. Finally, someone said, we know of a pastor's wife in Pleasanton, California. You need to go to her.

Okay.

We go. Families were leaving the church. Basically, you don't know how to raise children, all kinds of stuff. And I took my wife and the three daughters. We went to see this counselor. And so she was asking stuff.

And she's more of a pastor's wife that just knew the Bible and had a good way about her. And talking to my daughters, talking to Carolyn, talked a little bit to me. And all of a sudden, she did something that was a shocker to me.

She said, Pastor, I want to ask you something. Yeah, we're here. What do you need to know? She said, when was the last time you emptied the garbage? And I thought, I'm here for counseling, not for sanitation direction.

And I said, what do you mean? She said, I mean your heart. You've been collecting grievances. This family hurt us. This family disappointed us. This guy didn't say the right word to my daughter. Where was the help for my girl?

Where was this? Where was that? And I'm just, she said, you got your garbage cans running over. So I got on my knees. When I got alone, read Jeremiah, where he would tell God off. And I had an assassin on a rug, where I groaned for weeks because I couldn't pray.

And I proceeded, I tried to tell God off. It's hard to tell such a God off. But I said, I cussed, where in the hell were you? You should have protected my girl, just for Carolyn's sake. Her dad might be an SOB.

This is where I talked to him. I might be a failure, but I married an angelic mother, wife. Why didn't you protect her? Why did, and then all of a sudden he said, and why didn't I protect my son on the cross?

I pour my wrath on him just for you.

He broke me, and I emptied.

It enabled me to go another 26 years in that church. When I thought I was finished. Unless you empty the garbage can, and you forgive, and put the past. Regrets never does the past, never eliminates it.

And anxiety never improves the future. Regret will not change the past. Anxiety will not improve the future. So empty the garbage can. If you didn't do anything but give up your Saturday to get the garbage can of your heart empty.

And start afresh. And do it God's way. Whatever is causing the gridlock, or whatever may be going on in your heart. Empty the garbage can. Get in his presence. He's a wonderful reviver. He's given up the most to have the relationship with you.

He wants you to succeed.

Let's take a break.

Well, that wraps up No Compromise Radio Ministries presentation of Pastor Phil Howard at the marriage conference held at Bethlehem Bible Church. What else do I want to say for closing? My brother Pat is taking a group to Greece, Paul's missionary journeys, Ephesus, Patmos next year.

You can email me if you want to get more information on that. And then Pat and I are hoping to have some people go with us to Israel if things calm down in April-ish of 2026. So you can write me on that too.

Mike Ebendroth, Milco Radio.