How Do I Pray for My Husband’s Salvation?

00:00:00.000 | (music)

00:00:04.000 | Good Monday morning and welcome back to the podcast.

00:00:07.000 | We have talked recently about the tensions inside of a home

00:00:11.000 | when a Christian is married to a non-Christian.

00:00:14.000 | This dynamic can happen for several reasons.

00:00:17.000 | Sometimes it's intentional.

00:00:19.000 | A Christian may sin and knowingly marry a non-Christian.

00:00:23.000 | We saw this in APJ 1560.

00:00:26.000 | Or two non-Christians marry and one of them eventually gets saved,

00:00:30.000 | as we saw this in APJ 1029.

00:00:33.000 | Or two professing Christians get married.

00:00:36.000 | One proves their faith over the years or is genuinely converted at some point,

00:00:40.000 | and the other falls away over time.

00:00:43.000 | We have seen this dynamic in APJs 1680, 1690, and in 1839.

00:00:49.000 | Just a couple of weeks ago we saw this.

00:00:51.000 | I don't know which category fits today.

00:00:54.000 | We have limited information, but Pastor John, six times over the years

00:00:57.000 | we've gotten an email from a woman named Rose.

00:01:00.000 | Her emails are always the same.

00:01:02.000 | They're always brief.

00:01:03.000 | They're always one sentence.

00:01:05.000 | The same sentence.

00:01:07.000 | This one.

00:01:08.000 | "Pastor John, how do I pray for my husband to be saved?"

00:01:13.000 | What would you say to Rose?

00:01:15.000 | Oh, how I wish I could see into Rose's sorrowful heart

00:01:23.000 | and pinpoint where does she feel the greatest difficulty

00:01:29.000 | in praying for her unbelieving husband.

00:01:33.000 | Is it how often she should pray?

00:01:35.000 | Is it how to avoid vain repetitions when you've been praying the same prayer

00:01:41.000 | for what, years and years, hundreds of times, thousands of times?

00:01:46.000 | Is it how to keep on praying after decades of seeing no evident change?

00:01:51.000 | Is it particular texts that she's struggling with and how to apply them?

00:01:55.000 | Is it loss of desire maybe or loss of hope or loss of love in her own heart?

00:02:02.000 | Is it the cooling of trust in God?

00:02:05.000 | Is it practicalities like do I pray out loud or do I pray in a closet

00:02:10.000 | or how many times a day?

00:02:12.000 | Is it whether it dishonors the husband to pray for him in groups maybe?

00:02:17.000 | I've had women ask me that.

00:02:19.000 | Is it whether to pray for him in his presence?

00:02:23.000 | Can I do that?

00:02:24.000 | Can I pray for him in his face?

00:02:26.000 | Is it whether to pray for others to reach out to him

00:02:30.000 | or should I pray directly for his soul?

00:02:33.000 | Oh, how I wish I could see where the point is that she is asking about.

00:02:40.000 | But maybe she just--it's just a heart cry.

00:02:43.000 | "Help!"

00:02:44.000 | Anything you can say, Pastor John, that might encourage me

00:02:48.000 | or keep me going.

00:02:49.000 | And so I don't know the details of her struggle,

00:02:54.000 | except that it's been a long time evidently because of her repeated requests.

00:02:58.000 | And what I'd like to do is suggest a way of praying

00:03:03.000 | for unbelieving loved ones that I have found hopeful.

00:03:10.000 | It's premised--I have to say this, it's really crucial to say--

00:03:15.000 | it's premised on the biblical conviction that God is sovereign

00:03:20.000 | and whenever he chooses, he can overcome all resistance

00:03:27.000 | and save the hardest sinner.

00:03:30.000 | I do not believe that human beings have final veto power

00:03:36.000 | over the sovereign will of God.

00:03:40.000 | Some might think that this kind of absolute sovereignty

00:03:44.000 | that I deeply believe is biblical,

00:03:47.000 | this sovereignty over the human will,

00:03:50.000 | would create a sense of fatalism, maybe,

00:03:54.000 | or discouragement that God may not choose to save our loved one in the end.

00:04:01.000 | But looked at another way, it actually creates hope, this sovereign God.

00:04:11.000 | It means God really can save.

00:04:15.000 | No matter what the unbeliever does or has done, nothing can stop him.

00:04:21.000 | This means no amount of passing time, no amount of accumulated sin,

00:04:27.000 | no degree of hardness of heart, no sneering antagonism,

00:04:32.000 | no public mockery, no angry resistance,

00:04:36.000 | nothing can hinder his salvation if God wills to take away the hardness and save.

00:04:43.000 | To me, that's the only hope we have, that unbelievers would be saved

00:04:50.000 | because they're all dead in their trespasses and sins, and dead is dead.

00:04:55.000 | There's nothing I can do.

00:04:57.000 | If God doesn't do it, people perish.

00:05:00.000 | I would have perished.

00:05:02.000 | Building on this conviction of God's hope-sustaining sovereignty,

00:05:08.000 | I love to pray the promises of God,

00:05:11.000 | especially the new covenant promises of salvation.

00:05:16.000 | But before I mention a few of those,

00:05:20.000 | I find it encouraging to remind myself, I must do this every week or so,

00:05:25.000 | from time to time, from Scripture,

00:05:28.000 | that God really does delight to answer the prayers of His children.

00:05:33.000 | I need to see that. I need to be reminded of that in His own words.

00:05:37.000 | He's not a begrudging Father.

00:05:40.000 | So, for example, I return often to Matthew 7, 9.

00:05:43.000 | "Which of you, if he has a son, who asks him for bread, would give him a stone?

00:05:49.000 | Or if he asks for a fish, would give him a serpent?

00:05:52.000 | If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

00:05:57.000 | how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?"

00:06:03.000 | Or Luke 12, 32, "Fear not, little flock.

00:06:08.000 | It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

00:06:13.000 | Surely Jesus told us these things to encourage us to pray,

00:06:18.000 | to remind us that we should think of Him this way,

00:06:21.000 | a generous Father to His children.

00:06:24.000 | He loves to see us pray, a shepherd eager to bless,

00:06:29.000 | a king eager to give to His subjects.

00:06:33.000 | And then, with that fresh reminder of God's eagerness to hear our prayers and answer them,

00:06:41.000 | I turn to the promises of the new covenant.

00:06:44.000 | Now, remember that the new covenant, according to Jeremiah 31,

00:06:49.000 | is different from the Mosaic covenant because it doesn't just come with demands from outside.

00:06:58.000 | It comes with enablement to do the commands from inside.

00:07:03.000 | He says, "I will cause you to walk in my statutes."

00:07:08.000 | I'm not just giving you statutes.

00:07:10.000 | I cause you to walk in my statutes.

00:07:13.000 | That's the key of the new covenant.

00:07:15.000 | And Jesus said that this new covenant was secured by Himself, by His own blood.

00:07:23.000 | He held up the cup at the Last Supper.

00:07:25.000 | This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

00:07:30.000 | He bought it, and so it is sure.

00:07:33.000 | So, here are some of the precious new covenant promises

00:07:38.000 | that I turn into prayers for beloved unbelievers.

00:07:43.000 | Ezekiel 1119.

00:07:46.000 | "I will give them one heart and a new spirit I will put within them.

00:07:51.000 | I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh

00:07:56.000 | that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them,

00:08:00.000 | and they shall be my people and I will be their God."

00:08:04.000 | So, pray like this for your husband.

00:08:08.000 | "Dear Father, I pray for my precious husband that you would, in your great mercy,

00:08:15.000 | bought by the blood of Jesus, take out the heart of stone

00:08:21.000 | and give him a tender, soft heart toward you.

00:08:26.000 | Put a new spirit in him.

00:08:28.000 | Give him a new disposition to love your word and keep it.

00:08:33.000 | Become his God.

00:08:35.000 | Make him your child."

00:08:38.000 | Or here's another one.

00:08:39.000 | New covenant promise from Deuteronomy 6, verse 30.

00:08:43.000 | God looks to the day when a prophet like Moses will arise, namely Jesus,

00:08:48.000 | and promises this for his chosen ones.

00:08:52.000 | "The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring

00:08:56.000 | so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul

00:09:01.000 | that you may live."

00:09:03.000 | So, you pray, "Oh, Father, none of us loves you first and turns your heart to love us.

00:09:13.000 | We can't love you unless you, in your great, free, gracious love,

00:09:19.000 | first circumcise our hearts.

00:09:22.000 | You must cut away the old nature of self-exaltation and self-rule.

00:09:29.000 | You did this for me.

00:09:31.000 | I didn't deserve that any more than my husband does.

00:09:37.000 | Oh, God, I plead with you.

00:09:40.000 | Circumcise his heart so that it is set free from resistance to your truth

00:09:47.000 | and goodness and beauty.

00:09:49.000 | Cause him, oh, Lord, to love you because of Christ."

00:09:54.000 | Or think of the instruction and the promise in 2 Timothy 2, 24 to 26.

00:10:01.000 | It applies, I think, to all of us who in any time use the word and prayer

00:10:06.000 | to try to lead an unbeliever out of darkness.

00:10:10.000 | It says this, "The Lord's servant," now that would be me, that would be this wife,

00:10:17.000 | "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone,

00:10:21.000 | able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

00:10:29.000 | God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth,

00:10:35.000 | and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil,

00:10:39.000 | having been captured by him to do his will."

00:10:42.000 | So we pray, Father, even though no one deserves to be saved,

00:10:47.000 | no one deserves the gift of repentance, no one deserves escape from the devil,

00:10:52.000 | nevertheless, you are a God of mercy.

00:10:55.000 | I know this because I escaped when I was just as blind and snared

00:11:00.000 | in deadness of heart as my husband.

00:11:05.000 | Here I am praying, loving you, trusting you, amazing grace in my life.

00:11:11.000 | So you are a God of mercy, and if you will, you can grant repentance

00:11:18.000 | and liberation and faith and life.

00:11:22.000 | I know you have mercy on whom you have mercy.

00:11:26.000 | I know you are free and all wise, and as your child,

00:11:31.000 | I am asking that for the glory of your grace,

00:11:35.000 | you would give repentance to my husband.

00:11:41.000 | And we could go on, of course, on and on, in fact,

00:11:44.000 | turning the promises and the works of God into prayers.

00:11:50.000 | We could turn Acts 16, 14 into, "Lord, open his heart like you did Lydia's,"

00:11:56.000 | or we could turn 2 Corinthians 4, 6 into, "Father, shine into their hearts

00:12:02.000 | with the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ,"

00:12:07.000 | or we could pray the words of Jesus in Luke 18, 27,

00:12:11.000 | "Lord Jesus, you said of the conversion of the rich man,

00:12:15.000 | 'What is impossible with man is possible with God.'

00:12:19.000 | So do the impossible, I pray. Convert my husband."

00:12:25.000 | So, Rose, we are with you in this great work of wrestling in prayer

00:12:33.000 | for your beloved unbeliever.

00:12:36.000 | Let's not forget the words of Jesus in Luke 18, 1,

00:12:42.000 | "Always pray and do not lose heart."

00:12:46.000 | Amen. Thank you. And thank you, Rose, for persisting in your APJ emails to us.

00:12:50.000 | I hope this was helpful to you as you persist in your prayers

00:12:54.000 | and find fresh motivation from that great parable in Luke 18.

00:12:59.000 | Always pray and don't lose heart.

00:13:02.000 | I was just thinking of this parable too, Pastor John, as you were talking.

00:13:05.000 | It's a memorable one, and it fits this episode so well for what Rose is facing.

00:13:10.000 | And it's also a very odd parable as well.

00:13:13.000 | God is the godless, unjust judge in the story, at least it seems.

00:13:19.000 | So how on earth do we make sense of that parable?

00:13:23.000 | We need to untangle some things to understand its implications for our prayer lives.

00:13:27.000 | In fact, let's do that. Let's do that next time.

00:13:30.000 | Let's look at Luke 18, verses 1-8 more closely.

00:13:34.000 | I'm your host, Tony Rehnke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday.

00:13:37.000 | Thanks for listening to the podcast.

00:13:39.000 | [Silence]

00:13:42.000 | [Silence]

00:13:45.000 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Pray for My Husband’s Salvation?

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