Men, in Colossians 3:21, we are ordered by God to not provoke our children to wrath.  This happens sometimes so inadvertently, but it’s so crucial if we’re talking about a godly husband.  There’s no way we can look past this particular passage of Scripture.  We saw, in verse 19, that the husband was to love the wife and be not bitter against her.  And we saw that that word meant to be “cutting” or be “sharp.”  Not to be harsh or lording it over them, but representing the lordship of Jesus; amen?  Men, we’re to treat our wives the same way the Lord Jesus treats us.  We saw in the book of Ephesians that we, the church, are the bride of Christ, so the way He treats His church is the way you, men, are to treat your wives.  To be merciful, to be kind, to be loving, to lay your life down, the Scripture says (1 John 3:16).  This woman is the object of your love.  We saw that love is expressed in seeking every possible way to bring the total wellbeing of the object of love to pass, whatever we can do.  It’s interesting how in the early stages of courting, you just can’t get enough of that person.  Thank God for the revelation we’ve gotten in the Scriptures of not touching a woman. Many of us, back in the old days, can remember the times when you were both on the telephone not saying a word, just minutes going by with nobody saying anything, but you were in touch with them.  Any moment you could take to be with them.  Just to be in their presence, whatever.  The little gifts, the compliments, those shouldn’t stop.  And all the ladies said, “Amen.”  Where are all the compliments?  Many of you do a great job.  We can all do better.
 
We’re not to be sharp or harsh or lord things over our wives.  Especially, don’t irritate them.  We know how to press each other’s buttons, don’t we?  Stop being a button presser.  That’s one of the greatest expressions of love.  In fact, practice 1 Corinthians 13.  Show kindness, patience, and think no evil.  You see, we project evil on our spouses, many times.  We’re suspicious or we bring up their past.  We may not speak of any specific incident, but we’re holding them guilty because we still believe that’s what they are.  No, they are not!  We are new creatures; amen?  Those sins have been cast behind the back of God, forgotten.  Love thinks, imagines, expresses no evil.

He goes down in this chapter, and then He makes this comment about the “children obeying parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.  Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Colossians 3:20-21).  That word “discourage” in the Greek means to be “without spirit.”  We all know what it means.  We’ve heard the phrase, “They’ve broken his spirit.”  Have you ever seen an animal or a person with their spirit broken?  They’re just a shell of themselves, just going through the motions.  The brightness, the life, has gone out of their eyes.  Hope is lost.  This is one of the things that causes this.  I think it’s so important for us, men, to remind ourselves of these things.  The tragedy is the provocation that comes. Again, it may not be in harshness, though it could be.  It doesn’t have to be in words, though most of the time it is.  But fathers, if you represent to your children that they can never be good enough for you, this will break their spirit.  “You can’t ever do it quite right.”  This provocation comes when we expect them to produce more than what we’ve prepared them to produce.  We expect them to produce beyond their instruction.  We all know how provoking it is when we’re asked to do jobs that nobody has shown us how to do and then we get criticized when it’s done.  Does anybody get irritated when you find stuff like that going on?