In the sermon titled 'God's Special Providence' by Peter Allison, the speaker examines Proverbs 19:13-14, focusing on the contrasts between a foolish son and a wise son, and a contentious wife versus a prudent wife. The sermon underscores the impact of these relationships on a family, emphasizing the chaos and destruction a contentious wife can bring, likened to a leaky roof that slowly ruins a home. Conversely, a prudent wife, a gift from the Lord, brings stability and blessing far beyond material wealth. Biblical examples, such as Abigail and Ruth, illustrate the virtues of prudence and godliness in a wife. The sermon also touches on modern challenges, like the role of Child Protective Services in Christian families, suggesting that a united family under God is resilient against external threats. Furthermore, the sermon highlights the importance of a godly man in recognizing and winning a godly woman, supported by daily prayer and personal piety. Ultimately, it emphasizes that a prudent wife is a direct blessing from God, requiring gratitude and acknowledgment of divine providence.

Please turn in your copy of God's Word to Proverbs 19. I'd like to read just two verses this morning that we will be looking at verses 13 and 14. A foolish son is the ruin of his father, and the contentions of a wife are a continual dripping. Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord. Thus far the reading of God's Word.

May He write its truth upon our hearts and seal it to us. Heavenly Father, Your Word is truth, and your Word endures forever. It is established in the heavens and upon the earth. There is nothing that can move or alter it. Lord, we bow before you this morning.

We submit ourselves to your word. We would submit our thinking to your word and our actions. And we ask Lord that you would sanctify us, set us apart to be vessels for your service. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, our families can be the source of the greatest sorrows and also the source of the greatest blessings in our lives.

These two verses speak of the two closest relationships that a man might ever have The closest relationship that a man will have with a woman is with his wife and the closest relationship that a man may have with another man is with is with a son a son who loves his father and a father who loves his son. A foolish son and a contentious wife versus a wise son and a prudent wife. These two are two great contrasts, and they are put together in these two verses. A son, a foolish son, is one who squanders his father's inheritance. He is somebody who destroys the house and the family wealth.

A foolish son ultimately is somebody who doesn't listen to instruction. Somebody who refuses to accept correction. And a contentious wife likewise is somebody who destroys the family home. Who destroys it in a way that no one else could destroy it. It can be destroyed through laziness, unwillingness to take pains, to have diligence, to learn skills, to learn a trade.

You can ruin a family, you can fritter away the spiritual capital of a family by ignorance and bad decisions. You can bring shame and dishonor and ruin to a family through lust, through the strange woman. And so what is necessary is a discipline. Next week we will look at the rest of this chapter or the next couple of weeks, but there are two chiasms that we will look at in the remainder of this chapter that speak about the laziness and the need for instruction. Both of these chiasms point to this need for instruction, the need for listening to instruction, the need for discipline and correction that go with instruction.

But these two elements of the family, one's sons, one's children, and wife are key parts to the family. We live in a day, and I don't suppose that we are that much different from many other days in other eras. There is nothing in the sense that there is nothing new under the sun and that the problems that we face today have been faced by the generations that have gone before us. There are certainly differences of the day, and we need to be able to discern those, but the big problems are essentially very similar. One of the problems that we deal with today is an arm of the civil government, the Child Protective Services, whose existence has been a thorn in the flesh of many Christian families seeking to raise their children in the fear of the Lord.

Because This is an organization whose primary purpose is to destroy the Christian family. But it's been interesting to see, to make an observation, that they are very limited in what they can do. Where the husband and the wife are united and where the children are in union with the family. Where there is wisdom in the children. When that family unit is whole, there is very little that they are able to do to attack that family.

But as soon as there is a break, as soon as there is a division between the husband and wife, or As soon as there is a division between the husband and wife, or as soon as there is a foolish child in the family, then the threat of their destructive powers becomes very real. They are able to take advantage of that breach in the family unit. But where the Lord preserves that unit, the family is largely preserved against their destructive power. Against their destructive power. So a contentious wife and a foolish son.

A contentious wife, a contentious person, is someone who is given to arguing, someone who is given to provoking arguments. It's often someone who has to prove themselves to others, has to prove themselves to be right, always needing to be Proving to everybody around them that they are correct it results in Arguments it results in strife it results in contention A contentious person is often an angry person, and they are often fighting. They're argumentative. And a contentious wife then, Solomon says, destroys the sanctuary, the comfort of the home. It's the exact opposite of the woman that, the Godly wife that Peter describes as having a meek and a gentle and quiet spirit.

Contentious wife is the opposite. It is said that a contentious wife is like a leaky roof. If you have ever had a leaky roof, you can understand and really appreciate what Solomon is saying here. A leaky roof is a roof that when it rains, The water will gradually make its way into the comfort and the sanctity and the dryness of your home. And it will do so in a hidden way until it suddenly appears.

And When it appears, it's really hard to know where it came from exactly. You can't exactly always go out onto the roof and say, oh, there's the hole, let me plug it. Because it follows a very tortuous, complicated path. All you see is this general effect of wet and damp. If it's been going on a while, you get mildew and you get rot.

If it comes down into your home, it wets the drywall and it gets all soggy. Maybe the first indication you have it is that the roof collapses. You know, we used to live in a mobile home that was rather old, and when it rained for a little while until we could get it fixed, there was, I guess, some kind of sheet of plastic on the roof of this mobile home, but there was a hole and the plaster ceiling had fallen down right where the chandelier or the light hung over top of the kitchen table. So when it rained, that water would just collect in that low spot where it would hang down and drip down right onto the table. No way you could find out where that was coming from, but it was a very big annoyance when you're trying to eat to have something dripping onto the middle of your table.

But that's what's being described here. This drip that just wets the ceiling and maybe causes it to collapse and then just drips, drips, drips. It can keep dripping long after it stops raining. It keeps dripping. You can't find exactly where it is.

You have to sometimes, if you really want to fix it, you have to sometimes re-roof your whole house. You have to change out the decking. It's a difficult thing to fix, a leaky roof like that, one that's dripping. And it can drip in the most inconvenient of places. You want to have a dry bed to get some rest in, but if it's dripping on top of there, it's going to ruin any chance you have of having any kind of restful sleep.

You can't sleep in a wet mattress. You can't dry out a wet mattress very quickly. And so This leaky roof doesn't seem like a big thing. The house, if you take a picture from the outside, it looks okay. It looks not too bad.

You really don't notice it until it's been raining and then you start looking around and you just see all the effects that this leaky roof has. So Solomon compares his contentious wife to this leaky roof. She just destroys the harmony, the fabric and the sanctity of the home. And does it in a way that it's not a simple thing to address. Because it's a demeanor, it's a disposition of someone who is just given to argument.

A contentious wife, or these contentions can arise from a lack of respect that a wife has for her husband. A good wife reverences. Bible actually uses the word fear, But it's a sense of reverence, honor, it's a sense of respect. A good wife respects, and so a contentious wife, that may arise from a lack of respect. And so everything, when there's a lack of respect, a wife has a lack of respect for her husband, everything the husband does is not good enough.

He finds fault with it. It could arise from selfishness, wanting what we want when we want it, wanting to control the situation. God created Eve the situation. God created Eve and brought her to Adam to be a helper who was suited to him in a way none of the other animals were. But in the fall, God in the sin of Adam and Eve, God brought judgment upon them.

And that judgment came in the form of a sorrow. The man would have sorrow in his labor. He would have sorrow in his work. What used to be a joy and pleasant and a delight would become toil, would become arduous, wearisome, Joy and pleasure and delight would become arduous, wearisome, and filled with sorrow. He would eat by the sweat of his brow.

In the wife Eve, God said that her desire would be for her husband. She would desire to control him, to rule over him, but God said he would rule her. So in the fall then we have wives who want to control. Want to control their husbands, want to control their homes, They want what they want when they want it. They want that control.

They think that if they only had the control, then they could escape their sorrow. Just like husbands who think that if only they didn't have to work, if only they could just forget their responsibilities, abdicate, then they could escape their sorrows. But we can't. Doing those things only adds to our sorrows. The husband who wants to abdicate his position of headship for the good of his family, when he advocates that he only brings more sorrow upon his head.

And the wife who thinks that she can escape her sorrow by controlling her situation only adds to her sorrow when she does so. See a contentious wife who wants what she wants when she wants it is the opposite of a church like wife who waits upon the Lord to provide, waiting for the Lord for his timing and for his provision. A contentious spirit can also arise from a lack of grace, a lack of forgiveness, a lack of mercy. Brings an unwillingness to forgive a mistake, an unwillingness to overlook a fault that it can be overlooked, an unwillingness to see things in the best possible light, and a continual seeing things in the worst possible light. These are the sorts of ways a contentious woman, a contentious wife, can destroy the home, being a continual dripping of a leaky roof.

That contention can be communicated in a number of different ways. It can be communicated by tone of voice, a tone of voice that is disrespectful, condescending. It can be communicated non-verbally by simply one's facial expressions, by one's emotional intensity, Or by a constant barrage of questions. A contentious woman can be a continual dripping. It's something that goes on, continuous.

A drip is something that happens monotonously, on and on and on. A continual dripping. You know, a dripping isn't too bad if it's just a short time. It's the continual drip. If you've ever been in a room where water is dropping out of a faucet, you know how disrupting that can be.

Drip, drip, drip. If you stop, it just keeps going, keeps going, keeps going. It can drive to distraction a dripping faucet. Solomon says that's what a contentious woman is like. It continues with no end in sight.

There's no end to the questions. There's no end to the tone of voice, there is no end to the facial expressions. And when there is an end in sight you can hang on, you can say there is the end, I can make it that far, but when there's no end in sight, it's natural to the human condition to give up. To just give up. Proverbs describes this in a number of other places actually.

Here, they are all in later chapters. In 21.9 it says, better to live in the corner of a roof than a house with a quarrelsome, or contentious wife. It is better to live in the corner of a roof than a house with a quarrelsome or contentious wife. It is better to live in a desert than with a contentious and a nagging wife. It is better to live in the corner of a house top than in a house shared with a contentious wife.

A contentious wife in Proverbs 27, 15 is like a constant dripping on a rainy day. The leaky roof. The leaky roof that just drips onto the sofas and makes them uninhabitable, it drips onto the beds, makes it uninhabitable, it drips onto your dining room table and makes that lunch uninhabitable, unendurable. And unlike a foolish son, there is no simple solution. Just like the leaky roof.

Because a contentious son can be put out. Ishmael was put out of the house when he started creating division, when he started mocking Isaac. He was put out of the house. Sons grow up and leave, they can be put out. Egregiously, gluttons and drunkards can be taken to the elders.

Those who are violent to their parents, who attack them, curse them, can be taken to the elders and committed to civil punishment. But for a wife, there is no easy solution. A husband can't change that wife. A husband needs to pray that he not become bitter. He needs to ask in a time like this, is there a log in my eye?

Has God maybe embittered my lot because of my sins? He needs to ask and examine himself if his spiritual leadership is being exercised in the home, if it is a good leadership, if it is conducive to the sanctification of his wife, If he is washing her with the water of the word, these are the responses of a godly man when faced with a contentious wife. But ultimately, As the next verse says, a prudent wife is from the Lord. Prudent wives, like wise sons, are the grace and the particular blessing of God. A prudent wife, by contrast in verse 14, a prudent wife is someone who is circumspect, somebody who is practically wise.

And that means that she has an understanding of the consequences of her actions. Somebody who is constantly finding fault may think that they are smart, they can see what's wrong with the situation in front of them when their dumb husband doesn't. They may think that they are smart and wise, but They are not because they are not seeing the consequence of their continual finding of fault, their continual contention. A prudent wife is someone who is circumspect, someone who is wise in a practical way, someone who sees the consequences of what they are doing, who can see down the road, who can see around the corner. One of the greatest examples of a prudent wife in the scriptures is Abigail, the wife of Nabal, who then became later the wife of David.

You remember this story, David's men had protected Nabal's flocks and herds when they were out throughout the year, protected them from wolves and thieves and so forth. And in the sheep sharing time of harvest, David sent some of his servants to Nabal to ask for some food. And simply to ask that in this time of plenty that Nabal might share a little with them, especially since they had been a help to him. And David expected even any sort of decent person would be glad to share a little bit out of their great plenty. I mean, even just a token amount.

But Nabal sent those servants away empty. And David became enraged when they came back empty. David was angry. How dare this man whom we've helped turn away our request for food. Now that wasn't righteous anger.

But you can understand where it came from. It's understandable. And David purposed harm. David became quick to anger at that point. Strapped on his sword, grabbed his soldiers, and he was off in a huff to do naebol in, to destroy naebol and his estate.

He didn't think about all the harm that he would do to the women and the children. And the fact that this food was navels after all, didn't have to give it to David. David had no right to it. And so Abigail recognized the consequence of her husband's actions. She didn't, it wasn't just her own actions, but she recognized the consequence of what her husband had done.

And she acted, she acted quickly. And she took some food and servants and had to put it on some animals, the donkeys, and set out to meet David. And she met David on his way there to their place. And she spoke soft words to him. And David was convicted in his heart of his unjust and impromptu, or unjust and rapid anger.

And he praised her right there because he recognized that she had foreseen the consequences of her husband's actions and she had acted to mitigate those consequences. And by her actions she saved David from a great folly. And David was rightfully grateful for her prudence. And a few days later, when Nabal died, David was very quick to send an offer of marriage to her. And she accepted and became his wife.

Now you might be thinking, well doesn't God give everything that we have? Isn't He the giver of every good and perfect gift that we have? Isn't God the one who gives us the power to get wealth? Why does it say that houses and riches are an inheritance from the Lord, but a prudent wife is from the Lord? Can it be said that there is nothing that we have that the Lord hasn't given us?

Why is it making a distinction here between houses and riches being from an inheritance of fathers, but a prudent wife being from the Lord? Then it's true. It is true that everything that we have comes from the Lord. There is nothing that we have that the Lord has not given us. He is the one who gives us the power to get wealth.

But there is an extra sense in which a prudent wife is from the Lord. First of all, a prudent wife is far more valuable than houses and riches. A prudent wife is described as far above riches, far above rubies. This is a gift on a whole other scale. It's not really to be compared.

It's far above, far greater gift than riches and inheritance of fathers. But also a prudent wife contributes far more to a man's comfort, to his well-being, to his reputation, to his esteem, and to the welfare of the family than all the money in the world, than any other external factor. A prudent wife is far more a factor in a man's life than how much money he has, how much money his father has given him, than the family name or the inheritance. You see the husband of a prudent wife sits in the gates of the city. He is held in esteem by the community.

He is a ruler. He is a leader in the community. That's the husband of a prudent wife. A prudent wife is often a greater token of God's favor and marvelous providence than riches. Riches are a blessing from the Lord.

Inheritance of fathers is indeed a great blessing. But a prudent wife is a far greater blessing and often a far more marvelous providence to a man. Providence to a man. Just consider Ruth. Here a man, a limanlac, takes his wife and two sons to Moab, a foreign land, a land where the gospel wasn't present, where they didn't have the law of God, they didn't know the Lord, they didn't worship Him down there.

But He's fleeing famine in their land. Now if you were going to go somewhere where you might expect to find a good wife, that wouldn't be it. You wouldn't go there. But he was going there just for a short time. He was going to go there because he was poor and maybe didn't have food or ability for whatever reason to eat in the land of Israel.

He goes down there and his sons grow up and marry Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. And then they all die, all the men die. And Naomi is left without husband or sons and in in her desperate condition because she would be in a very desperate condition in that in there having no sons to provide for her no no husband no kin down there no relatives she decides to go back to to Israel and lo and behold she when she tells her two daughter-in-laws or two Moabite daughter-in-laws you go back to your father's house, you have family here, they'll take care of you, I don't have any more sons, and I don't have a husband, there's no more sun that's going to come from my body for you to wait for." Orpah goes back. But Ruth doesn't. Ruth instead gives one of the most beautiful expressions of the Christian confession of faith.

She says, where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. And where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. And the Jehovah do so to me, and more also, if anything but death, parts me and you." And so Ruth comes back to the land of Israel.

Ruth is a Moabite woman who grew up in a pagan land and comes back to Israel. When not completely unexpected, a definite work of God's grace in her life that she recognized that Jehovah is the true God and His people are the blessed people and desire to be a part of that of that covenant and so she comes back Naomi says I have nothing nothing for you to go back to nothing to promise you she says I don't need anything else if I have your God and your people. She goes back and you know the story of how she begins to glean in the field, that's hard work, picking up a little bit of grain that's left over. She's out doing that to provide for herself and her mother-in-law. She happens to glean in the field of this guy called Boaz, of the tribe of Judah.

Her diligence and her cheerfulness under such circumstances attract the attention of Boaz. And of course with a little counsel, wise counsel from her mother-in-law about what to do. To attract that in a good way, she and Boaz are married. And Boaz begets Obed, and Obed begets Jesse, and Jesse begets David. And this woman is a prudent wife for Boaz and becomes part of the line from which Christ would come in the flesh.

A prudent wife is a marvelous providence that the Lord used to provide a wife for Boaz. Or the case of the other marriage that we have described in the Bible is Rachel and Isaac. How Abraham could provide everything for his son. He could provide wealth, he could provide unimaginable wealth, great wealth. He could defend his family from five kings.

He went out and attacked a consortium of five kings and beat them and took the spoil from them. I mean he was a, he had everything. He was completely, if you think about somebody who was self-sufficient, that was Abraham. 318 trained men in his household, hundreds and not thousands of flocks, wells, the resources to live, to provide for his needs. He was a prince in the land.

He was recognized. He was an equal of kings. When he went into nations, he spoke with them, dealt one-on-one with them. He was a great man. Abraham was a great man.

Yet he could not provide a wife for his son Isaac. He couldn't will that to Isaac in an inheritance. He called his servant Eliezer, his most trusted servant, and he said, I need you to go back to the land of our fathers. I don't want Isaac to get a wife from this area. I can provide food, I can provide security, I can provide everything else he needs, but I can't provide a wife from here.

And so Eliezer goes on this mission and that story is described in Genesis chapter 24. And Eliezer sets out, praying, Oh Lord, Oh Jehovah God of my Master Abraham, please give me success this day and show kindness to my Master Abraham. And then he asked for the Lord to show him who should be the wife, who should be the one. It would be the one who watered all his animals when he asked for water. And the Lord provided the very first woman that came, was the one who did exactly as he had asked of the Lord, amazing, marvelous providence that the Lord used to confirm to Eliezer that this was the wife that he was providing for Isaac.

But what's even more amazing, he then gives gifts to the family, but what's even more amazing is, I think, is that Rebecca is willing to go. He is wanting to get back after having a day or two of festivity, and they wanted him to stay longer, and they say, well, let's ask Rebecca, are you willing to go with this man? And she said, yes, I'm willing to go. The Lord worked in her heart, the Lord worked all these circumstances together in a marvelous way to provide a wife for Isaac. So a wife then is more so than lands and inheritance a greater token of God's favor and his marvelous providence.

A good estate can be inherited from fathers in the common course of providence, but no man has a good wife by an inheritance from a father." The special blessing of a man who fears the Lord, The special blessing of a man who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways, is that his wife will be a fruitful vine in his home. Fruitful. Think about all the things that come from a vine. You get a lot of vine. You can get grape juice, raisins, fresh grapes, grape seed extract, wine.

It's a very great blessing to have a fruitful vine. And this is the description of a prudent wife. It's a special blessing of one who fears the Lord and walks in his ways. And so if you have a prudent wife, don't ascribe it to your own wisdom, but from the Lord. But secondly, such a wife is obtained only by prayer.

God's blessing comes to those who ask for those blessings. We don't have often because we don't ask. We don't ask because we forget that We are utterly dependent upon God to provide for us, but especially for a prudent wife. This young man, if you are not yet married, this ought to be a matter of daily prayer that you ask the Lord to provide for you. A prudent wife, for such a woman is from the Lord, but it takes a godly man to recognize a godly wife It takes a godly man to recognize a prudent wife.

So if you are not, young man, if you are not developing, if you are not Disciplining yourself in those godly disciplines, growing in godliness. You're not going to recognize a godly woman standing in front of you. You will miss her. So one of the best ways to prepare to marry a godly woman is to be godly yourself. To daily exercise and practice and cultivate those habits and disciplines of piety.

Otherwise you will never recognize a good wife. But also it takes a godly man to win a godly woman. It takes a godly man to win a godly woman. You might find a godly woman, but if you are not yourself disciplined and growing in grace and in knowledge, if you yourself do not have those disciplines of piety in your life, no godly woman will ever consent to go with you, will never entrust herself to you. So it takes a godly man to win the heart of a godly woman.

There is a great promise in Scripture that is given to a prudent wife. To a wife who is the opposite of the contentious woman, the one who is always finding fault, the one who is always critical of her husband. The wife who has a meek and gentle spirit, Peter says that by that means you may win an unbelieving husband to the Lord. That is an amazing, amazing promise. It's not by your knowledge of the Scriptures and your ability to argue somebody under the table.

It's not by being able to teach your husband the ways of the Lord. It is not by being able to point out all the places where he is wrong, though he may be wrong and that sometimes is necessary. That is one of the blessings of a godly wife, if she's able to point out to a husband where he's gone astray and he doesn't realize it. But those aren't the things that God says may win an unbelieving husband. It is that meek, that quiet and a gentle spirit, that prudence that may win an unbelieving husband.

Augustine tells the story of his mother, Monica, How she won her pagan, unbelieving, violent husband to the Lord by her patient waiting for him, by her honoring of her husband, her prayers for her husband, and her meek and quiet spirit toward her husband, Philip. He was known among their community as a particularly angry man. And Augustine says that all of the women around her were just amazed that they suffered, they had far less angry husbands, and yet they suffered. And Monica never seemed to have any marks of being beaten or hurt. And they wonder how can that be because your husband is a violent man.

And Augustine says she would explain to them. Well this secret of God's word, They call it a secret, but it's written right there. And Augustine says, some people just laughed at her. You can't be a meek and quiet spirit. That won't work.

And She would just smile at them. But others listened to her and found to their amazement that this part of God's Word is also true. This is a great and precious promise to a wife who can have a meek and quiet spirit. A foolish son is the ruin of his father and the contentions of a wife are a continual dripping. Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.

She is the Lord's grace. She is His mercy. And if the Lord has given you such a woman, such a wife, I hope that you every day rise up and call her blessed and thank the Lord for His mercy and grace to you, for we don't deserve it. It is a blessing of the Lord. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your scriptures which are wise, which give us wisdom, which are able to make us wise unto salvation.

Father, we ask that where there is contention, we ask that for Your mercy, for Your grace, That you who are the God of all peace might bring peace instead of contention. It might bring blessing instead of sorrow. Lord, you are the giver of every good and perfect gift. We do look to you, thanking you for these blessings. Through Jesus Christ.

Amen.