tion so that your husbands may observe your lives, seeing your chaste behaviour. As a result, this will be the strongest reason for them wanting Christ as their Sav iour. Be constantly on guard! The trouble is that our children see so much in the home that confuses them. No wonder they hold mar riage vows in contempt and worth less, living in open sin. Vance Havner pointed out that we train our dogs with the utmost care and then we let our children go to the dogs, and wonder why. He has a good point there. The fact of the matter is that a child is impressed a long time before he even has the power to express himself. The dif ficulty in the Christian home is that so many times, so far as Scriptural teaching is concerned, we live such subnormal lives that when we see that which is normal, it appears to us to be abnormal. We are never exhorted even to be satisfied with mediocrity. "To be won" means in the Greek "to gain something of great value"; "to acquire with rejoic ing." There are people who can be won to Christ by showing, even if they cannot be touched by telling. Words are sometimes empty, whereas actions of love can never be misinterpreted. I am sure you have heard the observation that a wife who uses good horse sense never turns out to be a nag. Ac cording to a national survey con ducted by a leading magazine, it was discovered that the thing which irritates most men more than any thing else is nagging. This is sup posedly the worst habit any wife could ever possibly have. Prov erbs 21:9 rightly explains, "It is better to dwell in a corner of the
housetop than with a brawling (you could substitute the word "nag ging") woman in a wide house." Notice verse two which defines this situation a little further. The Apostle suggests how this all fits together, "While they (that is, the unsaved husbands) behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." Now, the word "behold" is an interesting one. It means to "narrowly inspect." There are countless numbers who do not know Christ. Whether you realize it or not, they are very carefully looking into your life, viewing you intently, inspecting you thorough ly, up and down, that they may be aware of just how real these truths of eternal life are to you! Notice also here in verse two, how they look intently at your chaste or pure behaviour. No one could possibly be blind to the large number of publications slanted toward the basic sexual passions of men. Pornographic magazines and books abound on every hand. While we are opposed to such ma terials it is unfortunate that women have some of these just as well as men. Movies and even some tele vision programs as well are down right immoral and degrading. How sad that some who name the name of Christ are caught up in the in terest of this type of thing rather than in the Word of God. No won der there are so many problems within the home! Have you ever thought what an odd day it is we are living in? We work so hard to pay for labor- saving devices. Basically, the diffi culty is not so much the high cost of living as it is the cost of high living. And this is just exactly what we are faced with. The pressure is
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