Remain standing for our sermon lesson this morning. Come with us from 1 Peter 3 as we make our way through the book of 1 Peter. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear. but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please join me in prayer. Almighty God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O God and Father. We ask, our Lord, as Your Word is opened and proclaimed to Your people this morning, that Your Spirit would strengthen us in power, that You would grant me Your Spirit, that I would preach truth. I would preach with conviction and real belief. I pray for your people gathered here today that as we meditate on your word, as we consider the truth of what Peter has written to us, that it would reside deeply within us, that we would be ever more willing and entirely delighted to believe what you have spoken to us, that we would be eager to live it out. And above all, your Son Jesus Christ would be glorified in all that we say, all that we hear, and all that we think and meditate upon as we hear this sermon. Lord, yours is the power. And who is sufficient for these things? Not me, not any man who could stand behind this pulpit. But if your Spirit would be granted to us as your people, then we would receive, and then I would be able to speak your word. with great effect. And so instruct your people this morning and light our hearts for you. We pray this with desperation and pleading in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. I was about seven years old when the Transformers were introduced. They came on the world. I had a number of toy cars at the time. I love toy cars. And who doesn't? I may have had one or two robots as well. I don't remember that. But the idea that you could have a toy that was a toy car and also a toy robot was just, in those early, heady days, almost too good to be true. Now, one thing that had never occurred to me as a kid is that you could play with the toy as a robot and a car in the same scenario. Like, the robot would say, you know, I'm going to turn into a car now, and then I'm going to drive over here, and then I'll turn back into a robot. That just never really occurred to me. It was like, OK, let's play cars. And now let's stop playing cars, and now let's play robots. And we make the robots, and then we'd play with that. It didn't occur to me that the two could kind of come together. Listen, I was not a particularly creative child. I just did what the cartoons told me. So then the cartoons came out, and I'm like, oh, the cars can talk. This is even better. It wasn't one. It wasn't the other. It was actually kind of both of these things here together. We see this theologically, certainly more advanced, and a transformer is not a great metaphor for the nature of Christ because Christ was both God and man at the same time. He didn't go from one to the other. But we see this entirely in our symbol of Chalcedon this morning, that Christ was both God and man, consubstantial with us in His humanity at the same time, consubstantial with the Father in His divinity. So having two things, and of course there were a lot of heresies on the topic, there was a lot of ink spilled. on the topic of the nature of Christ. So it's very difficult for us to hold two separate things together at the same time, and that's actually kind of our task today. This text that we have before us in Wives and Husbands is really a tremendous text, and you might be thinking this is one of the Bible's classic marriage texts, and it certainly is. But there's something greater here than a mere text on marriage. What we're seeing here is how Christ shapes our character and then through that character enables us to produce something for him that is good and beautiful and useful to the world. It goes beyond wives and husbands. It applies to all of you, irrespectable of your marital status. I understand that not all of you are wives, of course. Roughly half of you are men and boys. But I wouldn't ever want to stand here and say, listen, so guys, you know, this one's for the ladies, so ladies, pay attention here, and guys, I'm going to get you next week. We don't flip-flop like that. All Scripture is useful, including this text. even for unmarried men. And one of the advantages of going through the Word of God as we do, starting with chapter 1 verse 1 and ending at the end of the book, is that we get to see how the entire Word of God is useful for all of God's people. So you might be divorced. Many of you have yet to be married. Some might never marry. But set your heart on this, that the Word of God is going to be as applicable to you here as in any other place that we could find in Scripture, particularly if you're someone who interacts with non-Christians. if you're someone who has an atheist in your school study group, or you have non-Christian co-workers and you want to show them what it means to follow Christ. But even beyond that, all of us need to hear and to see the gospel of Christ lived out in front of us. All of us have this inner atheist The most faithful Christian has this inner atheist deep inside his heart that is the source of this unbelief. We don't fully believe the word of God, not like the Lord Jesus did. We don't fully act on the word of God, not like the Lord Jesus did. And so we need to speak and to live the gospel before one another. And so what we're gonna try to do, and we're gonna have to do this over the course of two weeks because we don't have an hour and 45 minutes for a sermon. It's just not gonna work. But so we're gonna have to do this over two weeks, and we're gonna look at the principles, and then we're gonna look at some of the specifics. And that's really important here. If we just look at the principles, behind submission in marriage. Then we end up with some vague ideas, most of which we'd be willing to dismiss as cultural conventions. But if we only look at the specifics, we miss the grand picture of what Peter's trying to do, the great scope of the proclamation of the gospel that this is all intended to pursue. And it just becomes a marital checklist, a list of do's and don'ts. So over two weeks, we're going to have to address this. And if you're just visiting this Sunday, you'll just have to go and download the one next week. And once again, if you're time-traveling from next week, welcome. So our larger section starts in 213. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. So this submission is always about the Lord and for his sake. This is just one of several times that Peter is addressing people in positions of weakness over and against people in positions of strength. He addressed Christians in their role as citizens, remembering that citizens at the time are at the complete mercy of the empire, and he told them to submit themselves to the empire even if the empire was cruel. as Christ submitted himself to the empire and to the will of God the Father. He then addresses servants or slaves and told them that they ought to submit themselves to their masters, even if they were unjust, that they should serve well with respect and count on God's justice on their behalf, just as Christ submitted himself, dying not just a death, but a slave's death. only slaves and the very worst criminals were crucified. That he died a slave's death on the cross and trusted that God's justice would be complete and full on his behalf. And indeed, it was that very slave's death that saved and healed their souls. So in both cases, as citizens and as slaves, there was absolutely nothing that they could do to improve their lot in life. There's no appeal for a slave. There's no appeal to the empire. If Caesar says this is what you're going to do, that's what you're doing. Very little recourse in any case. And it seems like there was even less for this group of relocated Christians in Asia Minor. So in both cases, the overall premise to us is clear. We should be submissive to those who have authority over us. We should recognize when those in power have no obligation to move on our behalf. So this doesn't mean that you have to act exactly as Peter's Roman audience did. We should be in submission to those in authority over us, but we have various means of appeal that they did not enjoy. If the U.S. government says, we're going to relocate you, you have got to pick up and move to another state. Well, we have the courts. We have representatives in Congress and various levels of government. There are many means of appeal that are built right into our system. It doesn't mean that if somebody grabs you by the arm and says, I claim you as my slave, you're like, well, the Bible does say slaves obey your master. So what would you have me do, master? It doesn't work like that. You have the ability to resist that sort of thing. In your situation, of course, as an employee, for example, you have the right to find a new job or just to quit. You can take your own government to court. What a remarkable system that you can certainly, far, far from perfect, but you can actually take your own government to court. Can you imagine Peter saying, I'm going to be suing Caesar? Well, that wouldn't have worked. So we are able to use the means that we find ourselves in. It doesn't make us abject slaves of the government, of our employers, and it doesn't make wives abject slaves of husbands either. on my committee and the Presbytery. They decided some time ago that they were going to have us, just our committee, thank you, I'm running out of water here, believe it or not. They were going to have our committee listen to sermons that our new candidates preach, and that used to be done on the floor of Presbytery. So the entire Presbytery would hear those sermons, and they made a rule that said that my committee would make the final decision on those sermons. It was just up to us. We would hear it. The whole floor didn't have to hear it. Well, we did that for a few years, and we decided, really, we don't like this at all. We're not fond of this. And so, much to our benefit, when they first made that rule, they included a little provision. And that little provision said that if one-third of the committee, which is sometimes as little as two men, if one-third of that committee thinks that this sermon should go to the whole floor of Presbytery, then it goes to the floor automatically. It doesn't even take a majority, just one-third. So, we decided instead of trying to change the rule, we're just going to use that. And we explained this to the Presbytery. And they said, somebody raised his hand and said, well, this sounds somewhat unsubmissive of your committee to do this. And fortunately, we had a number of men stand up to our defense and say, no, no, no. This is the rule that we gave them. They're working within the rules. It can't be wrong if we said, well, here's the rule. And then you say, well, we want to use the rule. If you didn't want them to do that, don't give them the rule in the first place. Well, we live in a society governed by certain rules. And of course, the word of God gives us certain rules. And so at the outset, It's probably important in this day and age to say that this text does not mean that wives should submit themselves to abusive husbands. It's been often, sadly, preached that way, and it's a travesty of not just marriage, but a travesty of the Word of God. Even the pagans at the time did not allow for wives to be beaten. It was not permitted in pagan Roman society. How little should that even be an argument on the lips of any Christian? I've never heard it said that it's acceptable for a man to beat his wife, simply that she should submit to that. There are recourses available in the government of the church or the civil government as well. If a man is abusing his children, that doesn't mean a submissive wife says, well, that's his will, I just submit to that. Nothing of the sort. We'll examine this in greater depth next week, but in essence, this is all a way of saying a wife doesn't submit to sin. As we'll see, at the time, a wife was disobeying her husband simply by being a Christian. And so it can't be that a wife must commit herself to sinning for her husband's sake. Our focus this week, though, is on this eternal truth of wives and husbands. We see that in the beginning, it was not Eve who was given direct instruction from God about the tree. But it was Adam, and then Adam, it's implied, was to instruct his wife in this. Peter cites the example of Sarah and Abraham to show that this principle of a wife submitting herself in a godly way has applied to the entirety of biblical history. As an eternal principle, then, given in the Word of God, along with every eternal principle, it's going to be entirely useful in order to show the world the glory of God. Obedience to the Word of God always results in glory for God. And that's the ultimate purpose of Peter's instruction here. This is not a manual on how to have a happy marriage. I don't deny that Peer's instructions here, combined with the further instructions to men, do actually produce great joy in a marriage. But that's not actually his point here. That's not what he's after. He's after what we see in verses one and two. Wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Peter is giving us what might seem like another version of that phrase so often and so wrongly attributed to St. Francis. Preach the gospel, and if you must, use words. Francis never said that. Peter isn't saying that either. The gospel must be preached. It's a message. It has to be read or heard or spoken. It doesn't just absorb. But let's imagine this. Let's imagine you've got a bunch of friends and none of them have any muscles at all. You've just got a bunch of scrawny friends. I don't know, maybe you're part of the the vegan chess club or something, I don't know. And they're all king to pawn eight. You know what? I thought I should join a gym. And they all decide, I think joining a gym would be a good idea. Let's pack on some muscle. And so they divide. Half the group of your scrawny 98-pound friends goes to a gym down the street, down here. And at this gym, they use heavy bars and iron weights, that sort of thing. And the other half joins this gym that does gymnastics and push-ups and pull-ups, body weight, actually, that sort of thing. And six months later, let's say, I know some of you are already like, oh, no, I think it's that one. No, no, I think it's that one there. I don't know. I'm not an exercise coach. But let's just imagine this one over here. These guys over here, half of them have dropped out. The others that have stayed, they're complaining about it. Oh, I really hate it. I just go. I don't know why. And they've maybe gotten a little bit stronger, but not a whole lot. And then this group over here, they just can't wait to go. They're recruiting new friends. They're having a great time. And they're getting stronger. They're like, look, I'm doing one-arm pull-ups now. They're flexing. They're ripping through their t-shirts. And they've got to buy bigger clothes just to cover those muscles that they're getting. And you're thinking, you know, I should join a gym. Which gym do I join? It's a pretty easy decision here, right? Think about what a woman in 1st century Rome was expected to be like. First of all, she was expected to worship whatever god or gods her husband worshipped. Pagans at the time would typically have a primary deity from the Roman pantheon and so that would be kind of like a patron saint or even like a denomination. So a woman might come from a house where they had a, you didn't have all, I mean there were so many gods in Roman mythology, you couldn't have all of them, so they would have a shrine to Apollos, perhaps. And she might come from an Apollos house and then go to marry a husband who's in his house. They primarily worship Zeus or Aphrodite. And my grandmother likes to point out that she was born a Methodist, and then when she married my grandfather, the Presbyterian, she too became a Presbyterian. And so that's how the Roman household was ordered. They don't bring both gods in. A wife would simply worship her husband's gods. Plutarch, a very well-known Roman writer, he wasn't actually a philosopher in the technical sense. He was just a writer. He died in 120 AD, so he was actually a contemporary of Peter. And he wrote a document called Advice on Marriage. And this is what he said. It is becoming for a wife to worship and to know only the gods that her husband believes in, and to shut the front door tight upon all queer rituals and outlandish superstitions. For with no god do stealthy and secret rites performed by a woman find any favor. So for a Christian woman to refuse to worship her husband's gods, And to worship instead the triune God of the Apostle's message would have been seen as essentially treasonous to her marriage. And of course, so think about which gym now is looking like the attractive one, which one is producing the sort of people that you want to follow. Thus far, it doesn't seem to be Christianity. Christianity looks like this one over here. And then, of course, the woman is going to worship with fellow believers. And there is inevitably and always the fellowship among the people of God, what we call the koinonia of the people of God. It's one of the primary characteristics of the Church. It was, it still is today. Bound together by a common Lord, believers become family with one another. We love one another. And if we don't, if we lack in this, then something is seriously wrong. in a body of believers, a body without love, may it never be. It's really not a Christian church in any sense if there's no love. It's clanging gongs and resounding cymbals. But again, here's Plutarch. Same document. He says, a wife ought not to make friends of her own, but to enjoy her husband's friends in common with him. The gods are the first and most important friends. So here's Plutarch saying, listen, if you're a wife, you don't have your own independent friendships. Your friends are the friends of your husband. You get to know them. There's a sense that you even abandon that which you've known. Not only your former gods, but your former friends. You cleave entirely to your husband, abandoning everything. Now, does Christianity, if you're a Roman pagan man, does Christianity look like the sort of thing that you want your wife to be involved with? She's gonna deny your gods, she's gonna get her own friends, and start worshiping some other god that you don't worship. This does not look like a good religion in the Roman world. But since marriage is God's creation, and it has the purpose of unity, then how does that Christian woman in that situation with a pagan husband, how does she improve her marriage? How does she actually demonstrate that her God and her religion is more attractive than all of those voiceless, deaf, and dumb Roman gods that only exist as statues and stones? by applying the truth of marriage to her present situation, which means, just like Sarah did, that she's in submission to her husband. Now, again, we'll talk about next week some specifics of what this looks like and doesn't look like, but suffice to say at this point that what Peter is trying to do here is he's trying to demonstrate that the people coming out of this gym are actually stronger and healthier than those who do otherwise. He's saying that through your conduct in marriage, you can demonstrate the beauty of Christ, and so you can make your own marriage beautiful. So that even your husbands might be one to faith, even your unbelieving pagan husbands, even though it looks like you're unsubmissive because you're not worshiping his gods, even though it looks like you've got your own friends, you go on against everything that Plutarch said. Actually, you're not. If you read the whole thing, there's all kinds of good advice from Plutarch. And there's all kinds of terrible advice. You need to be discerning. But what Peter is saying is everything that you can, everything that you can affirm, everything that you can do in your culture, do that because those things that you can do, they're actually biblical. And in doing so, there is a deep evangelical purpose behind your submission to the point that a man can actually be one to faith. Now again, does this mean that the gospel goes forward without words? No. It clears the path. It builds the road so that the message can be delivered easier. Right? Remember our gyms. If I go to this, the gym that all my friends hate, all my skinny friends hate. I don't know how I got skinny friends. They hate this gym. It's going to take a real good salesman here to get me to join. This guy, they don't even need a salesman. The results have done the sales for me. I just want to walk in and say, where do I sign? This is what Peter's saying, is so adorn your marriage, that even though there's some things that you don't like, that he won't like, that he's going to say in the end result, this is far more attractive. And what that does is that clears the way so that when the gospel is preached, he's already practically just waiting to hear it. Picture a Roman husband speaking with his friends or his business partners, and they say, is it true that your wife has become a Christian? How would he respond? He says, well, yes, my wife is one of the Christians. At first, I was very unhappy. She had met some of the other Christian women down at the laundry, and as they worked together, they gossiped about this Christ. A man, they say, has died, and then he rose again from the dead, more like a god as he did." That's what they teach. She has new friends now, not people I know. I have met some. They're very eager to have me come and worship their god. They're pleasant and hardworking people, respectful in all ways, but they're her friends, not mine. And I was not happy at first. She would no longer bow to the family shrine, to Artemis. She didn't complain. She simply sat quietly. But never another prayer has she made to Artemis, the patron of our house. I would catch her speaking sometimes to her god in private, in no particular room. They have no shrine or idol. It seems to be, from what I understand, the same God that the Jews have, but she calls it Father and prays to His Son, Jesus, perhaps like Zeus and Hermes, but it seems different, I'm not sure. What's different about it? I don't know, it's hard to say. I don't know about her God, but she is different, and I don't know how else to say it other than that she is now a better wife. There's far less bickering than there used to be. She was always going on about her interests. She didn't like what I was doing, that her father did things differently than I do in the home. She even once told me that her father, if she could go back to her father's house, she would. And then it all stopped. She started worshiping these people of the way, this Jesus. And now there's no more complaining. I feel respected in my own home and honored as a husband. She's become actually the sort of wife that I had always hoped that she would be when we married. The truth is I would far prefer this kind of wife who worships some other God than a wife who prays to Artemis and seeks her own way. Would I become a Christian? Well, I hardly think so. But the God of the Jews must have some kind of great power for her to act this way. You see what that is? See what that produces? That produces real adornment. This is what Peter is talking about here in verse 3. Your adornment is not to be external in gold jewelry or the clothing you wear. In similar passages, Paul mentions pearls as well. Now, does that mean take off your gold right away, take out your braids, comb your hair out? I certainly hope. If you want to be literalistic with this and say, I mean, does that mean, oh, Gold's not okay, but silver's fine. If you want to be literal with this, I advise you not to simply because unlike Paul says in 1 Timothy, Peter does not say costly attire, he just says clothing. So obviously our literal sense has hit a wall here. It's an error of short-sightedness to think that this is merely a matter of gold, as if ostentatious silver jewelry would be fine. No braids, but buns are OK. But it's equally short-sighted to say that this means actually any gold jewelry or any braid. Of course, there's many cultures in which braids are the most humble and modest means that a lady can do her hair. It's not about the nature or the value of the metal. It's about the nature of the heart that would put that on in the first place. What he's saying is, of course, ladies, there's ways that you can get decked out. There's ways that you can seek to find your husband's approval in an ostentatious show, in a great appearance of putting on fancy clothing, of appearing to be rich, of trying to make everything external. And that's not what you're supposed to do. Instead, You're supposed to make sure that what's really beautiful about you is your respectful and pure conduct. If you think back to our psalm that we read this morning, hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear, forget your people and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty. What makes the king desire her beauty? The psalmist doesn't say put on lots of makeup and make sure you've got fancy clothes. It has to do with the condition of her heart. Commit yourself fully to him. Forget your old ways. Join to your husband's house, and then he will see you beautiful. And that is essentially what Peter is saying here. Again, the New Testament is not so new as it's simply an extended and very high quality Bible study on the old. Adorn yourself in your heart. Knit yourself to your husband. Fulfill the role that wives have been given by God in relation to their husbands. Show your respect. Show your purity. Show your delight. That's imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. This can be difficult, of course, for any woman. This can be difficult for any, a Christian woman trying to submit herself to her husband, trying to follow his lead. How much more difficult is it if you're married to a non-Christian? But look again at the context that Peter is giving us. He's saying, don't just follow your husband, but joyfully follow him. Delight in his leadership, even if he's a pagan. And what does this produce? This produces something beautiful for the kingdom of God because it's done for his sake and in his power. Think about the work that a missionary does. They move to some country which may be a very unpleasant place to live, with foreign diseases and food that is not enjoyable to someone with a Western palate. Apart from Christ, all of that would be drudgery. All of that would be just a chore. It would be the sort of place you would want to get out of. But for the sake of Christ, that His name would be known, His glory would be proclaimed, that His gospel would be preached, hearts transformed, knees bent in worship of Him. Joy is found in the midst of those trials. So how are you going to find joy in submission to a pagan husband? Simply because of this. And this is again where you have to look back in your Bibles a little bit. For to this you have been called, Peter says, to slaves, equally applicable both in the grammatic structure of this section and quite obviously in theory. You have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. And when you see, when you understand the surpassing excellence Christ bearing your sins when you stand before God and say I'm no longer burdened with my guilt or my sin my terrible record My unpretty pleasant my un unpretty and unpleasant present even all the ways that I have failed God That I have broken his laws all the ways that I continue to do that all of those dealt with in his body on the tree Now you find something of such surpassing value that no suffering can undo that, and in fact, makes all of that difficulty worth it. Submitting to your husband, ladies, I know that's hard. I know it's hard for my wife. I'm not even joking about that, it actually is. And that's not a defect in her, that's a defect in me. That's because of my weakness as a person. Peter sending these wives to their pagan husbands saying, honor him, respect him. Of course, that was hard. But it makes perfect sense when you see and treasure Jesus Christ bearing your sins on the tree. What you have before you here in this text is that your submission to your husband brings glory to Christ. And even if he's the only one who sees it, it's a gracious thing in the sight of God. Remember that from verse 20 last week. It is a gracious thing in the sight of God. Lastly, we're tempted to think that that's not going to be enough, that we need really some other kind of program or system or value. But as we're reading about marriage, you might have thought that Judges 4 is kind of an odd text for a sermon like this. What is this text about a woman who tricks a man and then drives a tent peg through his skull have to do with submitting to your husbands? This is an odd turn of events. The tent peg, of course, is a big, big metal spike. It went right through his head and into the ground, essentially pinning him there after it killed him. Well, we're tempted to think that the ways that God has provided are not enough, that if I really submit to my husband, but you don't know what my husband is like, you don't know the kind of, now again, this is not permission to sin. Sometimes husbands want their wives to sin in some particular way, especially in their intimate life. I'm not gonna go into details there, but that is actually a reality in the lives of Christian people. This should not be. You don't submit to your husband in abject sin, but that's not a free card to say, well, I just don't feel like God is guiding me that way. Well, God hasn't spoken to you. It's not about the God. I really feel like God is telling us that we should move to Milwaukee and it would be sinful for me to disobey God. Not sin defined as you want to define your own personal sense of God, sin defined in scripture, clearly an unmistakably rebellion against God. Of course, let's reiterate, that's not what we're talking about. But insofar as we are talking about a godly submission, even then we think that's not going to do it. I really do need to harangue him. I really do need to let him know that he's making stupid decisions. And I'm going to do that by belittling him, or by talking down to him, or by talking about him to other people, by letting all my friends know that I know we're doing this, but it's totally stupid because my husband is stupid. That's the rebellion in the flesh, is it not? Well, look at what Jael does here. She does not go out into the battlefield. We don't read about Jael putting on her armor and taking up her sword and going to fight. That would be a rebellion against the word of God. Women are not to serve in the military. Sorry, Eowyn. That's not where God has assigned them. But instead, here's Jael serving the Lord in her home through hospitality. And note that it is a particularly feminine assassination. He says, I'm thirsty. Can I have some? She says, please come in. and rest." She's providing hospitality just like you would expect a woman at the time to do. He says, can I have some water? She says, no, have some milk, have some food, relax yourself, lay down, don't worry, I'll cover for you here. Have a carpet over you, have a blanket, stay warm, get some sleep, just be at rest. And if that was a man, he would say, wait, it's the king, I take out his sword, they fight on the ground or something. But instead, in the most feminine way, she says, rest your head. And you can imagine she was maybe singing to him and stroking his hair with that big tent spike in her hand as she lined it up and put an end to the enemy of God in the most feminine way. Listen. if through this feminine quality of hospitality. Have you ever defeated an enemy through hospitality? You wouldn't expect the army to say, we've asked Isis to tea. It's kind of crazy, but here is a woman using that which she had been appointed by God, her femininity, and that defeated the enemy of God. What is the enemy of God now? It's not Sisera. It's not even ISIS. It's sin and death. It's wickedness and evil. How is God defeating that? He's defeating that in His Son, Jesus Christ, who triumphed over evil on the cross. And how is He laying that out? Through His people? even through your submission to an unjust husband. If jail can put an end to Israel's greatest enemy, God can use you through your submission, through your femininity, to put an end to the evil in your own house as an unjust husband might rule over you. How much more effective is this in a Christian home where a husband is dedicated to the Lord and simply dealing with the weakness of His own flesh. That's the power of the Gospel. And that's the power of our own obedience in light of that Gospel. Join me in prayer. Holy Father, in many ways a challenging and difficult text. We certainly pray for all those in marriages and in relationships that might even echo this. We certainly pray for those Christian women married to non-Christian men and we pray that you would grant them a heart of submission that they would obey their husbands as did Sarah submit herself to Abraham and that through that seeming weakness your gospel would go forward and we pray that you would bring conversion to those husbands. We pray for all wives, in fact, that they would be granted the grace for the sake of Christ to proclaim Christ to their husbands as they submit, not out of slavish fear, but out of the power of Jesus Christ. We understand that for those outside of Christ, this is impossible to understand, but for those of us who know the power and the joy and the glory of what it is that Christ would take our sins to the tree, We pray that that would reside deeply in our hearts and that we would find that there is no cost too high to be paid for the sake of the glory of our Lord Christ, who paid everything for us. And we pray in His name. Amen.