In Peter Allison's sermon titled 'Words, Wives and White Knights,' he expounds on Proverbs 18, emphasizing the profound influence of words, the divine favor found in a wife, and the significance of true friendship. The sermon begins by highlighting the power of words to bring life or death, particularly in the context of marriage, where husbands are urged to honor and praise their wives publicly. Allison then elaborates on Proverbs 18:22, which states that finding a wife is finding good and obtaining favor from the Lord, underscoring the biblical view that wives are a divine gift and integral to the strength of a home. He critiques modern dating culture, contrasting it with a biblical approach to relationships focused on marriage preparation. The sermon also addresses the theme of friendship, using the metaphor of a 'white knight' to describe Christ's role as a friend who is closer than a brother, offering comfort, support, and salvation. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a return to biblical principles in marriages and friendships, emphasizing mutual honor, respect, and the central role of Christ as the ultimate friend and savior.

Our scripture reading Proverbs 18. I like to read verses 20 to the end. Proverbs 18 verse 20, A man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth, from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

The poor man uses entreaties, but the rich answers roughly. A man who has friends must himself be friendly, and there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." Almighty Heavenly Father, please open our eyes this morning that we might behold wonderful things out of Your Word. Word. Cause us to rejoice at the beauty, the truth, and the glory that is yours and that is expressed in your word. In Jesus name we pray, amen.

Now means seated. Words, wives, and white nights. Words, wives, and white nights. That is the message of this passage. Deals with our words, wives, and friends.

Those who rescue, those who deliver. A white knight is used in the corporate world to speak of a company that takes over another company in a friendly and a helpful way, but it is also in general a term for somebody who comes along and rescues to deliver. And such is the characteristic of the friend that is described in our text. But I'd like to start this morning with the middle verse, what I think is the focus of this passage, and that is the wives. He who finds a wife finds a good thing, the New King James says, but really the word thing isn't there.

It's really He who finds a wife finds a good thing the New King James says, but really the word thing isn't there, it's really he who finds a wife finds good. It's not, it's almost in one sense a demeaning thing to say it that way, but what the text says is that he who finds a wife finds good, finds good, and obtains favor from the Lord. So wives this morning come from the Lord. God made a woman out of man and gave her to man. God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.

He took a rib from Adam's side, fashioned this rib into a woman and God himself walked her down the aisle and gave this woman that he had made to Adam to be his wife. What greater honor could be bestowed upon a woman than that she should be given in marriage by God Himself? God the Father, Jehovah, is the one who made her and gave her. So wives come from the Lord. Woman was made for man.

That is what the Bible says. The man was not made for the woman, the woman was made for the man. That is the created order. That is something that predates even the fall. The fall has corrupted and twisted that relationship, that created order, and it has brought chaos and it has brought sorrow into what originally God created very good.

But this created order, this is something that goes back before the fall. The woman was created for the man. She was created to be somebody who was uniquely suited to the man, to Adam. Adam was given the task of ruling over the creation, of subduing the earth. And he began that task by something that is very important and foundational to all of life, and that is taxonomy.

He went about naming the animals, classifying them. The names that he gave them showed, yes, his dominion over them, but they also were describing them, they were classifying them. And this is something that is very, very fundamental to our life. How do you know what to pet and what to cut up and eat? You know these things because of taxonomy.

We're able to classify. This goes in this class. This is a fruit is a vegetable. This is an animal and so forth And you cut up the carrot and you pet the cat And so Adam began this task of taxonomy That of exercising dominion over the earth. And yet in all of his work he did not find anyone that was suited to him.

There was nobody in all of what God had created to that point that was suited to Adam. And he was lonely. And God said, it's not good that man should be alone and he made Eve and brought her. He brought her to Adam and gave her to Adam as his wife. The Bible says that we can inherit houses and riches from our parents, but can only inherit a home and a family from God.

It's God that gives homes to us. God gave homes to the Hebrew midwives, Shifra and Puah, because they feared Him. God gave them homes. So, if you have a wife, praise her every day. Appreciate her every day.

She is from the Lord. She is God's good gift. And if you don't, and you desire that, then pray for the Lord to provide you with a spouse. We'll talk more about that later. The point here, though, also to remember is that the headship of the husband, the fact that the woman was made for the man, not man for the woman, doesn't take anything away from the mutual dependence and the mutual honor that husbands and wives, men and women, have for each other.

In the same place that speaks of a man not being made for the woman, a woman being made for the man. It also reminds the man that every man here on earth today and that you will ever meet was born of a woman. So your very existence man is only because of a woman and a woman who gave birth in travail and labor. And so a woman is of man, so also man is from the woman. Wives then are from the Lord.

But more than just being from the Lord, wives are especially God's favor. Wives are God's favor. I thought long and hard about the fact that it doesn't say a good wife. It doesn't say he who finds a good wife finds a good thing, or finds good, and obtains favor from God. It says he who finds a wife, a wife.

Now Many commentators add good in there. They say he who finds a virtuous wife finds good and finds favor from the Lord. And that's true. But the text doesn't say that. So I wrestled with that.

But first let's just look at the fact that a wife is, one who finds a wife has found favor from God. You know that, do you realize, do you remember that nearly identical statement is made of wisdom as is made of wives? Speaking of wisdom, Proverbs 8 says, Who so finds me finds life and obtains favor from God. So what is said of wisdom in Proverbs 8 is said of wives in our text that they are God's favor. And remember, everything that is said of wisdom in Proverbs 8 is also said of Jesus Christ, one place or another in the Scriptures.

Everything that is said of wisdom is said of Christ. That is the comparison, That is the example that is used when the Bible speaks of wives. They are on the same plane with wisdom, this thing that is to be sought out, which is equal to Jesus Christ, or comparable. What a strong and stinging rebuke to the notion that women are chattel. This is not a Christian idea at all.

It doesn't come from the Bible, it doesn't come from the Spirit of the Lord, it doesn't come from men who are filled with the Spirit of the Lord. Women's liberation and feminism of the modern era has not erased the concept that women are chattel. Don't thank them if that isn't the case in your life. Rather these errors, women's liberation and feminism, these errors and deviations from God's Word have only strengthened and reinforced the idea that women are chattel. The dating culture that dominates today, arose as a direct result of men regarding women as chattel, a toy to be used for selfish pleasures and then tossed aside when they are no longer interested and they have lost their interest, they have become bored, throw it aside.

That is the height of selfishness. That is the height of the idea that women are just a chattel. A dating culture treats women as a pleasurable activity, a nice company for Friday night or Saturday night, without regard for the life and the heart that is being played with. Now before I say any more, I want to define dating and dating culture. Joshua Harris wrote a book a number of years ago as a young man called, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and He has recently come out with a full documentary on why he believes that many things in that book are wrong.

Without discussing that whole question, I think a lot of the problem is really a misunderstanding of what dating is. And when he talked about kissing it goodbye, he may not have understood properly what he should have been kissing goodbye. But by a dating culture, I want to distinguish that from a biblical pattern of preparation for marriage. Dating And a dating culture is engaging in a one-to-one male-female relationship without the express and instated intention of marriage. By dating and a dating culture I mean engaging in a one-to-one, male-to-female relationship that is apart from or separate from, devoid of the express and stated intention of preparing for marriage.

A one-to-one male-female relationship is not a young man and a young woman talking to each other. It is not them being together in group settings of either the family or the church or other contexts of work, and working side by side, talking, fellowshiping, eating together, that's not what I'm talking about. That's not a one to one male-female relationship. If you walk into a room, as somebody in that documentary described, and all the men are on one side and all the women are on the other side, that's not what we're talking about. That's not kissing a dating culture goodbye.

That's something totally different. The dating culture, what I'm talking about with dating, is not just mere friendship, it's not just mere conversation in the context of larger groups and settings. It's not having male and female friends, But it's building a one-to-one relationship that goes beyond the friendships and relationships of others in that group or in the context in which you know each other. Where there is no intention, no specific intention of preparing for marriage. That's a difference.

And it's recognizable to everybody. One of the most obvious things is when you see a young man and a young woman pairing off and establishing a one-to-one male-female relationship. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's a beautiful thing when it is done with the intent of preparing for marriage. But it is a selfish thing.

And it comes directly from the view, and the selfish view that women are chattel. That a woman is there for the enjoyment of a man, to have pleasure with, to enjoy her company, Because it is a delightful thing to be in the company of a virtuous woman. That is a delightful thing. But to have that, to seek to enjoy that, without the preparation for marriage is selfish. It's treating a woman as an object.

It's treating her as a chattel. Something to be enjoyed without regard to her life and her soul, and then to be tossed aside and moved on when you're bored, when you're done with that. You see a more biblical pattern of preparation for marriage only engages in this one-to-one male-female relationship, which is a date. There's nothing wrong with a date, going out, a man and a woman in a one-to-one relationship, as long as it is in marriage or directly preparatory to marriage. It's not a one-to-many relationship that puts high value on women.

It is not a one to many, it is a one to one male-female relationship. So the idea that you are going to go on dates with many different women, that's not the right idea either. Going on dates with one person for the express intention of preparing for marriage. That's what puts high esteem on someone made in the image of God. Someone whose worth is far above rubies.

Someone who is a very gift of God. Someone who is good, and who having them means that we have obtained favor from God. See the casual selfishness of the dating culture, the idea that I'm going to enjoy this wonderful thing and then toss it aside when I'm done with it, that casual selfishness of the dating culture leads to the calloused selfishness of the trafficking culture, trafficking women for fornication, something that's becoming endemic, something of a pandemic in our country today. In fact, the FBI apparently says that the I-10 corridor that goes right through Houston is one of the most highly trafficked corridors where women are trafficked for fornication in the country. The Super Bowl, which has become an icon that has, that vies for the church because they play their game on the Lord's Day, has become one of the occasions of some of the most intense trafficking of women for fornication.

Women's liberation and feminism have produced that. They haven't prevented it. A wife is someone who is highly honored, given by God. And to have a wife, the Bible says, the man who has a wife obtains favor from God. A wife is significant and a prudent wife is the blessing of Jehovah himself.

The kingdom of God is strengthened through godly marriages. It's strengthened as man and a woman live together in harmony. It's a sanctifying experience to live with another sinner, for two sinners to live together. It's a sanctifying experience. What's that mean?

Does that mean as we count these trials a joy, as we honor, as husbands honor their wives and dwell with them in an understanding way, and as wives fear and reverence their husbands, Calling them Lord as Sarah did. It is as we learn to do these things, not in our own strength, but because we can't. We would fail every time. But as we do these things through the grace of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us. Because we are united to Christ, then you see the kingdom is strengthened.

And a beautiful picture emerges of Christ's love for his bride. And not only that, it is through this union of a man and a woman that children are born and a godly seed is raised up. Children who fear the Lord. Children who take the Lord's name, Jehovah's name, to themselves. Call him by their name, by his name.

Call themselves by his name. This is God's kingdom growing. It is in homes where husbands love their wives and wives obey their husbands that children are raised who go out into foreign lands, who conquer kingdoms for Christ, and who do so at home as well. A wife is a partner in raising of children. Proverbs 1, 8 begins with, "...Those who hear the instruction of their father and don't depart from the law of their mother.

Husbands and wives together raise their children. A wife, as every man knows, is the key to either his making or his undoing. Proverbs 12 says, A worthy woman is the crown of her husband, but she who causes shame is rottenness in his bones. You see, a wife affects the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual life of her husband more than anything else. A wife does.

A wife is key to the stability and the strength of a home. So a wife, a man who finds a wife, does indeed find favor from God. Now, it says he who finds a wife, that implies a third thing. Wives are from the Lord, Wives are God's favor, but wives must be sought. A man who finds a wife.

A man must seek a wife. He who finds a wife implies there is a search going on, a deliberate search. Just like Ezra set himself to study the law of God, to learn it and to know it and to be able to teach it, so a man must set himself to seek a wife. If you don't set yourself to find a wife, you have no more expectation that the Lord will provide a wife than the lazy man who won't work can expect the Lord to provide his food. We pray to the Lord, we thank the Lord for our food, we acknowledge that he gives it to us, but at the same time we go to work because it's through our labor that God provides it.

So the Lord does provide a wife, but a young man must seek a wife. This is an important thing. It is one of the most important jobs that you can do, one of the more important decisions that you will make. Abraham was so concerned over this that he sent his most trusted servant upon a long mission back to the land where he came from to find a wife for his son Isaac. And There is a whole chapter in Genesis that is devoted to this one simple question of finding a wife for Isaac.

It was something that Abraham put much effort and thought into, Dedicated resources to it. He sent his most trusted servant on an expedition to find a wife for Isaac. Finding a wife means a number of things. It is ultimately leading to asking a lady to leave her father's house and to be part of your house if you are a young man. To leave the comfort, the security, the protection of her father and to strike out with you.

And so there are some prerequisites. It implies that there is an ability to support a wife and children if the Lord should provide them. In order to be qualified to seek a wife or find a wife, a man must dedicate himself to acquiring the necessary skills to provide. Proverbs 24, 27 says, prepare your work outside, get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house. You have no right to take a wife that you cannot support.

This secondly implies a character worthy of being followed. No virtuous woman would want to be in union with a man who lacks virtue himself. It also implies a purpose worth following. A character worthy of being followed but a purpose worth following. No virtuous woman will want to follow someone who doesn't know where he is going, who has no sense of calling, no sense of God's call upon his life, no sense of his purpose, and what his station is, and what God is calling him to do in the labor in this world.

Because that is what we are called to do, we are called to work. Six days a week we are called to work. If a young man has no idea about God's call on his life for his work, no virtuous woman would want to follow him. Now, wives can fail to be virtuous. Think of Eve.

Eve is the one who was deceived by the lie of Satan, who questioned what God had said, caused her to question what God had said. She took the fruit of this tree that looked good to her eyes that God had said, shall not eat it, For in the day that you eat it, you will die." And Satan said, has God said, surely, that you will die? She looked at it and thought it looked good and she ate it. And in so doing, she gave it to Adam and he ate it. And her deception and Adam's sin proved to be the downfall of the entire human race, brought the entire human race under God's wrath and condemnation.

But God worked good through that. It was because of that that God promised to them that He would send one who would crush the head of Satan. And it is through that fall that the grace of God is exemplified. It is through the fall. If there was not a fall, God's grace in loving his enemies, in dying for those who were set at enmity against him, would not have happened.

And so, make no mistake about it, God ordained the fall. He ordained the fall that through the church his manifold wisdom might be And so, we've produced a whole generation of a whole country of people who proved to be troubling to Israel. And yet God will redeem that as well. Or Job's wife, who in his moment of deepest despair, in his moment of greatest desperation, greatest loneliness, of abandonment, he had lost everything, all his wealth, all his children, and He himself was struck with painful sickness. His wife said, just curse God and die.

He said to her, you speak as a foolish woman. Yet God blessed Job, and through that wife Job had more children. And God restored his wealth. His daughters, through that very wife, were the fairest of the land. And so The Lord is able to bring good as He promises to bring good even from failures of wives.

And wives, just as much as husbands, will fail. But God has promised to bring good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose. He has promised to bring glory to Himself. Well there are two other topics that are in this text. One deals with words.

It says that, a man's stomach will be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth and from the produce of his lips he will be filled." Doesn't that sound backwards? Normally you think your belly being satisfied with what you take in, but this is saying that what comes out of your lips is going to satisfy your belly. Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit." But in the context of marriage this is especially meaningful. Praise your wife publicly and sincerely. Speak with tenderness and with gentleness.

Dwelling with her in an understanding way. Honoring her. And all of These things have a lot to do with the words that we say to our wives. Do we praise her? Proverbs 31 speaks of a husband praising his wife in the gates, that means in the courts of the land, in the prominent places.

That's saying publicly. Publicly praise your wife, speaking with tenderness and gentleness, honoring her as a fellow heir of the grace of life together. The words that come out of your mouth, husbands, towards your wife have the power of death and life. And so husbands are exhorted to live with their wives, to live with them in an understanding way, with knowledge, showing honor to them as the weaker vessel so that your prayers might not be hindered. There is also another topic that is spoken of here, a man who has friends.

Now This first line of verse 24 is a very difficult line. If you look at different translations, it is radically different. One translation, New King James says, �A man who has friends must himself be friendly. Other translations say a man of many companions may come to ruin. Or Bruce Walkie's own translation is, a man of unreliable companions may come to ruin.

But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. I don't know exactly how to translate this. I don't know that there's much agreement on how to translate it. But I think that this sense of a man of unreliable companions coming to ruin fits the grammar and it can fit the grammar and it is the closest to completing this couplet Because it follows then to say, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. That fits.

It fits the couplet. And so I think that is the best sense that we can understand it and the one I will follow this morning. A man who has a man of companions, of many companions, or unreliable companions may come to ruin. But There is a friend who sticks closer than the brother. That word for friend is the word for love.

In fact, most of the time it's used in the Old Testament, it's used of love. It's translated love or even a lover. It can refer to friends, it can refer to a friend. It's actually a verb that means to love and it includes sexual love of a husband and a wife. Or it can be a lover.

And so there And so there is a friend, there is a lover, there is a companion who sticks closer than a brother. Certainly, a good wife and a good husband fit into that description. That they do stick closer together than a brother. That is the closest human relationship, but it is not the closest relationship. The closest bond is that which unites us to Christ.

And the marriage relationship is to be a picture of that relationship. Christ is the highest, the closest, and the best friend that we have or that we ever could have. Christ stuck with his disciples, calling them his friends, even when they all deserted him. He sticks with us when we fail him. He brings us back.

He calls us his brothers, for both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one, Paul wrote to the Hebrews, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also, himself likewise, took part of the same, that is flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage, for verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved, it was necessary for him to be made like unto his brothers, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of His people. Christ, brothers and sisters, is our brother. He is our friend.

He told in His high priestly prayer, He called His disciples His friends, those with whom He shared the things that He was about to do. Christ is our friend, he is loved at all times. He is a father to the fatherless, he is a friend to those who have no one else. He is a friend even to those of us who once hated him as an enemy. He shares his plans with us.

He is a tried and true friend who enters with us into our deepest afflictions, rescuing us and providing a way of escape. He is a friend who remains even when everyone else leaves us. He is with us in the valley of the shadow of death. He sustains us with his rod and his staff. As a friend, he is the God of all comfort who comforts us in our distress.

That's what friends are for, right? God is the God of all comfort. As our friend, He comforts us. As our friend, He defends us against the attacks of the accuser of the brethren. That is what friends are for, to defend each other, to protect, to help.

Christ, our friend, defends us against the attacks of the Satan. As our friends, he receives us into his home in glory. That's what friends do, right? You invite one another into your house. Not to entertain, there's a place for entertaining, but to show hospitality.

To share with someone that you love, someone that you're close to, someone with whom you have affection, to Share with them what you have, whatever that is, whether it's a crust of bread or a feast for a king. A brother invites into his home. Christ invites us to his home. In fact, he told his disciples that he has gone to prepare a place for us and he will bring us to that home as our friend. Consider the love of Christ.

It is free. It is very costly for Him. It perseveres. His love is faithful even when we are not. And so if you are single this morning, this relationship is yours.

It's available to you. And it is a relationship that a marriage relationship is only seeking to model. Paul said that as a single person you have the ability to cultivate this relationship to a deeper level. And for that reason he said it was good for those who were single and those who had the gift of singleness. It hasn't been given to everybody, but to those to whom that gift has been given, the gift of continence, the gift of being free from the burning desire for a sexual relationship.

This relationship with Christ our friend can be yours in an ever deeper way. You are free from the burdens of marriage, married life, To pursue this relationship, Paul said. You can be more wholly devoted. And so who did God call to watch for him at the temple? Remember he called Anna, someone who was unmarried, I believe for a long time, eighty-four years unmarried.

So remember then, if you are single, that you have this friendship, this lover, as the text says, a friend who is a lover, who sticks closer than a brother. Be found in the places where God meets with His people. Make Him the subject of your conversation. Avoid what is displeasing to Him. Testify to all around Him that this is your beloved." The Song of Solomon, which speaks of this.

It speaks of this, I'm looking for the text and I've got to go past my bulletin. In chapter 5 verse 16. In chapter 5 verse 16, This his mouth is most sweet, yes he is altogether lovely, this is my beloved and this is my friend." And who is this said to? O daughters of Jerusalem, this is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. Now whether this Song of Solomon is written to speak of husbands and wives or to speak of our relationship to Christ, it really doesn't matter because if you believe that it speaks of Christ, of the marriage relationship, well what is the marriage relationship to be typical of Christ's relationship to his bride?

If you believe it speaks of Christ's relationship to his church, well, what is a marriage supposed to be like? Who are we supposed to love? How is a husband supposed to love his wife? Let's Christ love the church. And so this describes then a relationship of speaking and praising the beloved as a friend to others, O daughters of Jerusalem.

Christ is our friend even to those of us who are married. This is one day we will no longer be married. One day Lord willing we will be received into glory and there will be no marriage. There our relationship will be with Christ. And so we can say, Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is none upon earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. He is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for our friend Jesus Christ. What a friend we have in him.

All of our needs and wants he bears. All of our cares we can cast upon him. You know Lord, our pains, our sufferings, our joys, our trials, our travails and sorrows. And as a friend, you comfort us, you uphold us, you even bring rebuke where that is needed, as a friend, for you love us. And we thank you for your love to us, we thank you for that friendship, and ask that you might, that you might make us worthy of that That we may daily say whom do I have in heaven but you And there is none upon earth that I desire besides you.

Our heart and our flesh may fail, but you Lord are the strength and the portion of our heart forever. In Jesus' name, Amen.