alright so just very brief high-level overview we started with the fifth commandment in general the duties and sins of superiors in the second part the duties and sins excuse me of inferiors in the second part superiors in the third part and then making special application to parents and children in our fourth part and now special application to husbands and wives and having completed the application to husbands, we will now take up application to wives. Alright, so the first duty of a wife is to know the duties she owes to her husband. To know and to practice them. First among those duties is respect. Respect in heart, word, and behavior. So again, the heart is the mind, the will, and the affections. It's the inner man, as opposed to what may be heard from the lips. In the Bible, that's usually the contrast. Modern man will usually contrast erroneously between the head and the heart. The Bible usually contrasts between the lips and the heart, or the acts and the heart, because the actions or the lips can be observed by humans and the heart cannot. The heart entails the thoughts, which is why the Bible doesn't contrast the head and the heart, because literally part of the heart, the major part of the heart, is your thinking. And that's why it doesn't do that contrast. But it also entails your will and your affections. So respect in the heart, the thoughts, the will, and the affections. This is the inner man. Ephesians 5.33 talks about this very particularly, where it says that a wife is to see that she reverence her husband. And that word reverence is phobane in Greek, which is where we get our word phobia from. And it means to be afraid of something. It can be with the sense of the affection of fear or the emotion of fear. Or it can be with respect to the will that has reverence and fears to make choices that offend. or it can refer to the thoughts of the mind that they would be in a context of reverence. And this is what it's talking about when it says for wives to reverence or to fear their husbands is the same idea as fearing God. How you think about him should be respectful. The choices you make should be pleasing to him. and the affections you have should be respectful toward him. It's the same word used whether with respect to God or the husband or also to the master by the slave that he's supposed to have a reverent or a fearing attitude toward his master. Okay, so, heart or the inner man, words are the things that are said. And we looked at 1 Peter 3, 6, where it talks about Sarah calling her husband her Lord. So those were words that she spoke. She had an attitude of respect and fear, and she had words that matched it, which is the way that she called Abraham. And then behavior is the conduct, respectful conduct, the way that a husband is treated. And of course, in our day, if you watch movies or you watch situational comedies or anything that the demons in the media industry pump out to us, you'll find that the relationship between a wife and a husband is not respectful in the thoughts. the choices, the affections, the words, or the behavior. So he'll often be treated as a second-class person to be ignored or to be ridiculed or to go against his will with the conduct of a woman. That's often how the sort of demonic portrayal happens in the media of what people think should be normal. And then that becomes the cultural standard that people expect is disrespect in the thoughts, in the will and choices and the affections, in the things that are said to or about the husband, and in the conduct of the woman's life. She's supposed to ignore her husband in her conduct. She's supposed to pretend like he's not important. She's supposed to mock and ridicule him. She's supposed to do all these cutesy little demonic behaviors that are held forth as somewhat what you ought to be like as a woman or as a wife. So this is not what God says. God says respect in heart, word, and behavior. And then in the second place, know the duties you owe to your husband. Another would be prayer and thanksgiving for your husband. Now, Scripture talks about giving thanks in all circumstances, but there's a specific application. Because the respect of the heart is to be focused principally on one person, and that is on her husband, therefore her prayers should follow that. We're taught to pray for our magistrates, even if they're distant from us, even if they're heathens and they don't know us and we don't know them. yet we're to pray for them so much more for authorities that we know and love and are united to in this bond of covenant as well as a making of God which is marriage. So prayer and giving thanks remembering him his specific needs his specific strengths, giving thanks to God for those, giving thanks for the relationship that you have. This is a pretty solid antidote to failed marriages because on both sides if the parties are discontent and ungrateful and fault-finding, that sort of thing, not praying for one another, not seeking the spiritual benefit of the other party, that often leads to bitterness, it leads to distance, it leads to conflict, etc. So this is one of those ways God gives for a wife to remove that temptation toward wandering from her covenant with her husband. Okay, so respect in heart words and behavior, prayer and thanksgiving for your husband, and then imitation of your husband's virtues and graces. Whenever someone is in authority over us, if they have anything that's good, they have anything that's praiseworthy, any virtue, anything that pleases the Lord, our duty is to do those things anyways, but also to imitate them. The faith of the rulers of the church is supposed to be imitated, Hebrews 13, 7. And the same goes for all authorities. We talked about it with respect to parents previously, but also with respect to a husband. If there's any good thing, any virtue, any grace, any faith, or hope, or love, or any wisdom, or prudence, those are things that you should imitate. And then the fourth, a willing obedience to your husband's lawful commands and counsels. Now, Ephesians 5.22 talks about submitting to your husband. And this is the idea of willing obedience. And what's very interesting about that word submit is that there are three voices, active, passive, and middle in the Greek. Active is where a person acts on an object. So the boy threw the ball. That's him acting on the ball. Now, if the boy is hit with the ball, he's passive. He suffers something. It's thrown at him. He was hit by the ball. He was hit, right? He didn't act on the ball. The ball acted on him. The middle voice is where a person acts upon themselves. They do something to themselves. Like when God chose us, He chose him, a people, as you'll read that phrase a lot in the Bible. He chose him. That's middle voice. He chose with respect to himself. He acted upon himself. This verb, submit, is an imperative, it's a command, but it's in the middle voice. Submit yourself, in other words. Put yourself, willingly, in other words, under your husband's authority. And the word for submit is Hupotasso, which is a very interesting term. It originally was, if I remember correctly the history of it, it originally was a military term and it had reference to a commanding officer and his orders being followed, whatever he had laid out as the general idea of a battle or a war. And the order was issued. What do you expect? You expect people to bring themselves under the orders. Hupa is underneath and taso is a task. That's where we get that word task. So bring yourself under the tasks assigned to you is the idea. Subject yourself. In fact, Freiberg in his lexicon says it means to come under firm control, to subject oneself or to obey. And then it says, as unto the Lord. This is a very important phrase that Ephesians 5.22 uses. Because it means that the measure, just like we talked about with the husband, the measure of the sincerity of his faith is that he's going to imitate Christ toward his wife. Are you going to say, I love the Lord Jesus, and then you won't follow his order as to how you should treat your wife? Then it means that your faith is weak or hypocritical. So also for a wife, if she's going to say, I love the Lord Jesus, But I won't submit to my husband. What she's saying is, I don't love the Lord Jesus. So the actions and the words need to match up more and more. This isn't meaning to say husbands have to be perfect or wives have to be perfect. What this means is, is there a sincere desire and a repentance when you fail? And are you growing in the practice of it? That's the idea. That's true Christian sincerity. It's never perfection in this life. Do I long to do this? Do I repent when I fail? And do I grow in my practice of it? Those are the three measures of sincerity in the Christian life. So in this case, if a wife is willing to obey her husband, it's going to demonstrate that she loves the Lord Jesus as unto the Lord. How do you treat Christ? That's how you should treat your husband. Treat your husband badly? What does that mean about your relation to Christ? Well, it means you don't really love him. You won't listen to him. You won't submit to him. So the idea here is willing submission, but also just to, you know, Satan has ditches on both sides of the road. As unto the Lord means that there's a likeness to how you submit to him, but there's also a limit to how a wife should submit to her husband. Because Christ is the authority above the husband. So it has to be lawful commands and counsels. If a husband commands or counsels his wife to be sinful, to disobey the Lord Jesus Christ, then her submission to Christ being the prior thing, and her submission to her husband because of her prior submission to Christ, then of course he can't command her and she can't obey unlawful commands without sinning against the Lord. And so it adds that. And also you see that with children. Obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. The same applies to wives. It has to be a lawful command. No superior can command a sin or they lose that extent of their authority in that thing. They can't tell you to sin. And so the same idea here, lawful commands. Counsel just means the husband has not formulated it in the mandatory voice. Do this. Don't do this. That's the mandatory voice. Counsel is, well, you might want to think about these things. I don't think that's wise. He's not prohibiting it. He's not requiring something. He's counseling you. You can be disobedient to a counsel as well as to a command. And it's important for all authoritative structures to understand this. If you disregard pastoral counsel, parental counsel, your husband's counsel, your boss's counsel, your magistrate's counsel, if you disregard it, that's sinful. You ought to at least take it into consideration. And you ought to be willing to understand, okay, well, I should try as much as I can to follow that counsel. If there's a limit to the wisdom of it, or if it's sinful in some way, of course, you don't do that. Because again, it's lawful commands and counsels. But even if it's not put in mandatory voice, there still should be a willingness to submit to it and to obey it. All right, so know the duties you owe to your husband's respect and heart words and behavior, prayer and thanksgiving for your husband, imitation of your husband's virtues and graces, willing obedience to your husband's lawful commands and counsels, and then do submission to your husband's corrections. Now this is not popular in our day because, again, the demons in the media have trained everybody to think, well, marriage is an equal partnership, so who's the husband to correct his wife? That's demeaning. That's treating her like a child. No, it's recognizing that he has authority. That's all that's doing. So the goal of the devil is to get men to misuse their authority and to get women not to want to submit to authority. Those are the two goals of the devil for marriage, so that he can rupture marriages and destroy them. Now, it says in Ephesians 5.24 that the wife is to be subject to her husband as the church is subject to Christ. So imagine a church that will not be corrected by Christ. What sort of church is that? Well, it's an apostate church. Because if Christ comes to correct, we read this in the early part of Revelation 2 and 3 in particular. If Christ comes to correct a church and the church will not heed his voice, what does he say he'll do? Take away the candlestick, right? Be cautious, he'll say to them, about these things. You've done this well. You're doing these things well. You have these things I hold against you. repent of these things, or I'll come quickly and judge you." Pretty much, that's the summary of various letters in the book of Revelation. Okay. So, if a church says to Christ, sorry, you need to treat me with a little more respect, you know, who are you to tell me what to do, you know, where I'm wrong? Then that would be the same as a wife who says to her husband, no thanks, I'm not listening to you. Who are you to tell me what to do? Who are you to tell me I'm wrong? And this is very sinful on the part of the whole cultural system we live in. The idea of submission is a very bad word. And then the idea of submitting to the husband's correction. Oh my, what a cardinal sin of the patriarchy to oppress women with this idea that they have to be willing to submit to their husband's correction. And yet, this plain as day, if you're going to submit to Christ, And if you're going to say the church should submit to Christ when he corrects it, well then, should you not submit to your husband when he corrects you? Of course. I mean, logically, it makes perfect sense. But Satan is not overawed by the logic of scripture. He opposes it. Okay, so do submission to your husband's corrections. Then the next page. Again, the duties that a wife owes to her husband. Number six. Fidelity to, defense and maintenance of your husband's persons, husband's person and authority. Titus 2 verses 9 and 10 talks about servants showing all good fidelity. And if that's true of the servant, then it's true of anyone else who's under authority. Wife is to be faithful. In fact, Proverbs 31 gives this as the hallmark of the virtuous woman. It says that the heart of her husband does safely trust in her in verse 11 of Proverbs 31. Why is that? Well, because she's showing good fidelity. She's reliable. That's the idea of fidelity. She's faithful. And because she's worthy to be trusted, he trusts in her. So this is the virtuous woman. Now, the idea of defense. This is very interesting. We tend to think of defense as the man's job, which is very true, especially and principally in a very tangible physical way, is a duty of defending her life, providing specifically spiritually and physically for her, and warding off any threats of danger that might come against her. So we tend to think defense is like the man's job, but it's also the woman's job. Think about this. If women get together and speak ill of their husbands, is the woman defending her husband? No, she's not. She's exposing his name. Both his authority is at stake and his reputation is at stake when gossip circles form among women. And when they speak ill together of their husbands, they're all doing the exact opposite of what they're required to do. which is to defend their husband, to maintain his person, his good name, his authority, etc. So the idea of undercutting a husband's authority by gossip versus defending him, that's one way. Thankfulness, which we talked about earlier, that tends to cut off gossip because then what do you have to complain about if you're thankful for someone? It tends to reduce or eliminate your opportunities for grumbling and for undercutting. Now another interesting example in scripture is Abigail who, if you'll recall, David intends to destroy her husband and everybody in her house. And she, without the knowledge of her husband, goes and saves his life. So that's another case. It's an extreme case. It's an unusual case. The more usual is what I was talking about with gossip and some other things I'll talk about momentarily, but she goes and saves his skin. 1 Samuel 25 14 and following. She figures out we're all going to be dead because that's exactly what the servants tell her has occurred because of her husband's temperament and mistreatment of these men. Death is certain to come and so she saves his life. She defends her husband Nabal's life by going to David and speaking what she did and bringing the gift that she brought. It also says that a wife is to do good. She will do him good all of her days and not evil. Proverbs 31 verse 12. Well again, that's maintaining, that's defending his person and perhaps even his authority and his good name. His goods, his name, his body, You know, a wife who feeds her husband well, who Paul talks about the duty of managing the household, loving her husband, giving no occasion for the devil to slander the faith. Titus 2, 3, and 4, that includes these sorts of things. Maintaining and defending her husband's personal authority. Joseph, who was a son to Jacob, said he would nourish him in his old age in Egypt. Genesis 45, 11. So inferiors, though they do not defend in exactly the same way, they have lots of ways that they can maintain those who are their superiors, and wives in particular. Looking after his health, doing good to him, defending his good name, all these sorts of things, being filled with fidelity, reliability, and then defending and maintaining his person and his authority. All right, number seven, bearing with your husband's infirmities. Now, if you get a chance to read through 1 Peter 2 and 3. There's a context for the wife's duties. And if you look at it at chapter 3 of 1 Peter verse 1, it says likewise, or in the same way. And if you go back and read chapter 2, because that's the context that he's drawing from, you find that it starts with slaves, then moves on to Christ, then moves on to the wife. And the likewise brings us back to Christ and brings us back to the slave because the argument actually builds from the slave to Christ, if I'm remembering correctly. But in any case, the idea is. First Peter 2.18, how is a servant to respond to not just a good master, but to a bad master? One who is what it calls froward, who is absolutely unruly and wicked. What's the response of a slave? Well, Peter says, you are to submit yourself to him and be respectful, and you're to show honor to him. And then, on top of that, you have the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when He was spoken against, He did not return in kind. When He was reviled, He didn't revile in return. Was He treated well? Were His magistrates caring and loving and good to Him? No, just the opposite. So then, chapter 3, verse 1, likewise, if your husband is disobedient to the word, you still have these duties of submission. This is what the feminists totally toss out the window. If they can find any point where the husband is a jerk, or he's a narcissist, or he's angry, or he's verbally abusive, or he's psychologically abusive, they bring in all these terms, then they'll say, wives, you don't have to submit to your husband anymore. You don't have to cover over anything. You don't have to bear with anything. You can walk. You can leave your home. You can divorce your husband. And we'll give you all the therapeutic reasons why you need to do this. That's what they'll do. And this is a sickening trend, but it's all over the place. It's not just in one part of the country. It's not just in one part of the world. Well, it's majorly in the West. We've experienced this problem. But it's elsewhere as well. And the basic idea is... The women are considered to be like a demigod and they're infallible and sinless and the man's like an ogre. And so usually the church will come in and rescue the woman from this ogre. And the idea is, if he has any wicked mistreatment of his wife, Let's pounce on him and let's get her out of there. And you know, you better shut up about this man because you've been this awful person. Well, okay. That's not the Bible. That is humanistic psychology. It has nothing to do with scripture. Scripture says if your husband is like those wicked abusers of Christ or like that froward master over his slave, What is your duty to Him? And then you just read 1 Peter 3, 1 through 6, and you realize, well, she's not off the hook for anything. She still has the duty of submission. She has the duty of meekness. She has the duty of winning Him without a word. She has the duty of respect and reverence. She has the duty of words of respect and reverence, which we looked at before. All those things are still in play. It's not removed. Now, the other passage that we looked at was, despise not thy mother when she is old. So your mom is infirmed. Well, also, what about your husband? Does he have any infirmities? Does he have any weaknesses? We talked about physical and moral infirmities, both of which the Bible is very clear about. We're supposed to not think down upon our superiors in that case, or to bear with them, or to put up with them, in other words, and so also with the husband. and then covering the infirmities. Now, there's a very, very illustrative negative example of this, which David's coming back with the Ark. And everybody's super excited. They're rejoicing. David's rejoicing before the Lord. He has an ephod on. He's dancing. There's music. There's food and wine. And everybody's rejoicing at the return of the ark. Because before, when they did it, they did it the Philistine way. And Uzzah was killed. And David didn't understand. And he was afraid of God. Why is this happening? Why am I not supposed to bring up the ark? They finally did it the right way, God's way. Now he's rejoicing and he comes home to his family and what does he find? his wife Has been despising him looking out at the window And then she uses these mocking words these words that insinuate some kind of wrongdoing on his part now David's response is that Well, you haven't seen anything yet. Like, if you think I'm base right now, just wait till later. And those people, those women out there are honoring me and here you are despising me and you're my wife. You know, it's kind of like, what's wrong here? You're loony. And then God responds to Michal's disrespect of her husband and does not allow her to have any children for the rest of her life. Closes her womb entirely. That's it. She's cursed by God for disdaining her husband, for despising him now. What could she have done? Well, if she thinks he's doing wrong, did he do anything that was sinful? No, actually, and David explains that, that it was a zeal for God, and it was within the bounds of bringing the ark back. That wasn't sinful. But even if you might say, well, he kind of maybe had this moral infirmity where he walked right up to the line or maybe crossed it a little bit. Could you not, could my call not have said, well, I will overlook that. I'll let that, let that go. It's not, you know, this isn't Bathsheba we're talking about. That's obviously sinful. What she's doing is she's despising and disdaining her husband and finding fault where there really wasn't any because she had an attitude. that would not cover her husband's infirmities in love. It was rather a fault-finding spirit, much like, so you have Shem and Japheth covering, but her spirit is much like Ham's. Ham uncovers, Ham exposes, Ham finds fault with Noah and tells his brothers, look, come see this, you gotta see this, what dad is doing. And what happened to the children and descendants of Ham? Cursed. What happened to Michal? Cursed. So it's kind of a parallel in that sense. This is in 2 Samuel chapter 6 that you can read about Michal verses 16 and then verses 20 through 23 where God curses her for her fault-finding spirit. So this is a bad example. A good example would have been covering over If those aren't actual sins or peccadillo's small sins, if they're even just infirmities, if David is so zealous for God that he forgets himself a little bit, couldn't she have praised his zeal for God instead of finding fault with something that may or may not be sinful? But her attitude was not to cover the infirmities of her husband. Her attitude was to despise him. Okay. So, just to review, the wife is to know her duty to her husband, respect and heart word and behavior, prayer and thanksgiving for your husband, imitation of your husband's virtues and graces, willing obedience to your husband's lawful commands and counsels, due submission to your husband's corrections, Fidelity to defense and maintenance of your husband's person and authority. Bearing with your husband's infirmities. Covering your husband's infirmities in love. And then finally, being an honor to your husband and to his government. And this is huge. When you get to the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, it says that his fame is so great, where? in the gates. So his position of family government is promoted to a position of civil government, and then his position of civil government, his fame is increased among the civil magistrates. Why? Because of his wife. That's the whole point. Because of the way that she manages and governs the household, the way that she provides for her children and her servants, the way that she does good to her husband and not evil all the days of her life, because the heart of her husband can safely trust in her, they have no lack of spoils, and she's constantly doing good things to produce goods for the household. Because of all that, his fame increases. And this is very important. A lot of women miss sight of this. The more your husband's status elevates, guess who else gets an elevation in status? Well, the wife does, right? Kids do. Family does. They all kind of go up together. So women who tear their husbands down, Proverbs talk about this quite a bit. It's like they're tearing their own house down. Well, don't women like to have a nice house? Yeah. But a woman who's contentious with her husband tears down with her own hands the house that she wants to live in. In other words, if you would build your husband up and promote him, you would be raised up too. You would be lifted up in status. And this is exactly what Proverbs 31 is talking about. This woman lifts up her husband's status. Now, another thing Proverbs talks about, and this in several distinct passages, Proverbs 12, 4 being one instance, it says, a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband. Okay, well, who wears crowns? Kings do, right? And why do they wear crowns? Well, because it demonstrates their wealth and their power, their status, their wealth, their power. That's what a crown does. So the wife, he's saying, if you have a woman of virtue, she's going to be like status. She's going to show that you have power. That's what she's going to show. And actually, if you read that First Corinthians 11 where it talks about the woman as the glory of the man and having power on her head because of the angels. It kind of makes sense when you understand what Solomon has laid as a groundwork which is the status of the man dependent on the status of his wife, the two can either go up and rise up together or they can destroy each other and sink down together. But God's command for the woman is that she increase the honor of her husband and of his government. And that by doing that, she acts in her own best interest. Proverbs 14, one says that a wise woman buildeth her house. Whereas the foolish woman tears it down, the wise woman builds it up. So all of these have reference to a wife being an honor to her husband and to his government. Not tearing him down and dishonoring him. Not being foolish, disobedient, mouthy, feministic, all the garbage that women are constantly being fed is what they should be. If you get rid of that trash and that rabble and get it off of your mind, then you can realize, oh, well actually I'm acting in my own best interest if I build up my husband. Tearing down the patriarchy makes a lot of weak men. That's what feminists don't get. Tear down the patriarchy and all you're left with are a bunch of weak men who will not care about you. That's what they'll do. They'll be weak. They won't be able to uphold a household. They won't provide for you. They won't protect you. They won't keep you around when you've expired your usefulness to them. In this very interesting, if you get a chance to read R.L. Dabney's article, if anybody gets a chance to read this, very highly recommend it. Women's Rights Women. He predicts in the 1880s that the divorce rate is going to skyrocket if women get these rights that they're clamoring for. And the reason he says is, if a man sees a woman as his equal, then men try to compete to defeat their equals, to rise above their equals. If a man sees a woman as his inferior, that he has specific duties of loyalty and provision and protection, then he doesn't think of her as competition. But as soon as she's elevated to the status of his equal, he's like, I'm gonna smack you down, I'm gonna get rid of you. So he predicted very, very wisely and shrewdly that men would basically marry a woman while she's young, And once she got old enough and she was no longer, let's say, useful to him, what would he do? Divorce her, get a younger woman, prettier woman, whatever. And that's a bad idea because as men get older, they get wealthier. So it's easier for them to find someone who just wants money out of him, which are usually young ladies, right? Young women, they want some money. Older man's got money. So what he predicted was just massive divorce rates, which is what we see, because the man thinks of her as the equal and he's competing with her rather than as a subordinate that he's responsible for. And the whole sense of loyalty would be gone from marriage on the man's side. You just have a bunch of weak, self-serving men is what you'd have. Because they're going to have to, you know, compete. And then they can still overpower the woman. Even weak men can. That's a fact. You get a high school, let's say, tennis player. You get a high school tennis player. You put him up against the world champion of women's tennis. Who wins? What's the high school tennis player? He wins. He crushes these women. And they know that. The ones who have any sense, they know that. Even the weak men still have an advantage as a general rule. And there are exceptions to that, of course. But the idea here is by a woman honoring her husband's government and authority, by cherishing and preserving his person and his authority, by being faithful and reliable to him, All these things that women want out of life, security, provision, happiness, a sense of purpose, they end up getting. But foolish women who tear down the patriarchy and tear down their own house with their own hands, what do they get? No walls, no roof. Is that what you want? No food? You want to just be providing for yourself or the government's providing for you? Well, that's what we have. And it's a miserable existence. All right, so that is the duties that a wife owes to her husband. God willing, next time we'll pick up with the sins that God forbids to wives and then conclude our study. And then what I hope to do after that is maybe a study on psychology and the Bible, maybe a month or so, two months. And then after that, we'll pick up with the Sixth Commandment.