Genesis chapter two, starting in verse 18 again. And the Lord said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. Whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to all, to the birds of the air, to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, he made into a woman. and he brought her to the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. You may be seated. All right, again, the likeness of essence of the man and wife is important, the equality of essence, and we have the authority of the husband indicated by the fact of the naming. These are all indicated before the fall. We have the purpose of marriage on page two, a reminder that mutual help, according to station, the man is the head and the wife is the body, to work, worship, and have the enjoyment of blessings together. And then we are reminded of the fact that there's a need for the increase of mankind by a legitimate issue, in other words, lawful heirs. There's also a need for a holy seat of the church, those who are raised under the teaching of the word of God and the ordinances, the law order that God has appointed in his word, and to prevent sexual sin and cleanness. Now, go to page three. Reminder of the basic duties here and what I find is that there's a duty, there's a need to be grateful for leaders and there's a duty also for a recognition of what those things are that leaders are to do. And what happens oftentimes is the duties of leaders are viewed as things that are merely owed and there's an ingratitude for the service of leaders And what we need to do is to recognize those things. Wives need to be grateful to their husbands for those things, view the acts of leadership as a type of service, view the provision as gift, and to view that as acts of love that make it so that there's a deep gratitude. So here are the duties of superiors towards inferiors. In the larger catechism, it's required of superiors, according to that power they receive from God and that relation wherein they stand, to love, pray for, and bless their inferiors. Love, pray for, and bless. Remember, loving is having a desire for the well-being of the object and applying the law to understand how to accomplish that. praying for the inferior, asking for the blessing of God, and blessing in terms of the giving of material provision, providing in situations that are improved, doing things to help Then there's a duty to instruct, counsel, and admonish. Instruction involves the teaching and training. Counseling is giving teaching that applies to the particular circumstances of the person's life. It is an act of service to give counsel. And one of the things that's important, we've talked about this, but I want to reemphasize this, the idea of merely expressing feelings It's saying, here's stuff that's happened that I want you to emote with me, is an inappropriate request, wives. It is important that what you do is when you bring things to the husband and he gives counsel, it's an opportunity for the exercise of his service and authority. And so the giving of counsel into situations in the life is a part of the way that the man instructs and teaches the wife, applying the general principles of the word of God or the particulars of the circumstances as they are explained and discussed between the man and wife. And so counsel, is a part of the service of the husband. Now, that also the husband speaking in and not just listening helps to prevent the idea of the wife merely helping to set the husband's perspective but allows for the engagement together. Admonishing is rebuking or telling to stop and telling to do something else, right? So we have this idea of what to put off and what to put on. Those are things that are done. Those are burdens of leadership that are borne by the husband. They need to be viewed as acts of service and self-sacrificing. And we'll get to that more as we move on later. But one of the big reasons for husbands not doing the type of leading they need to do, the kind of rebuking they need to do, is because of the cost. There's a cost. And that cost is something we'll talk about as we go on later, but the need to reduce that cost. Remember, you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize. And it's a general principle that Christians need to encourage others to bring to them counsel and rebuke for sin, and especially those who are under authority, not penalizing it for those who are over them in authority. And so this idea of taking well instruction, counsel, and admonition. The one in authority needs to deal justly with those under authority, treating those who do well with positive countenance, commendation, and reward, treating those who do ill with discountencing, reproving, and chastisement. Now, the leadership of the husband and the husband's ability to engage with ill behavior, now there's a mildness of the husband to the wife that is distinct from other relationships. but there's also a need to deal with things and to properly deal with the countenance, words, and the response of what needs to be done. Now, here's one thing I want to point out as we have this category of chastisement, and I've mentioned this, and I want to reiterate this. The husband has no authority to issue a physical discipline, a physical punishment on the wife. The husband can command the wife to study, can command the wife to do some work to reform, can require her to read, write, and do those sorts of things in order to seek reformation. So I want to encourage you husbands to apply that. Now, the duty of protection and provision for all things necessary for soul and body. Protection from harms to the soul and harms to the body. Provision for things for the soul and things for the body. These are things that are needful that the husband provide and that he protect. And these are things that need to be viewed as valuable. And it's important that women not throw off the warnings of husbands, that husbands understand predatory men better than you do. I guarantee it. Did you hear me, women? Your husbands understand the minds of predatory men more than you do. You do not understand men the way that men understand men. and you do not understand the evil men that are far more vicious and wicked than your husbands, but your husbands understand them better than you do. And their duty to protect you is a part of the exercise of their authority and for you to heed instruction about risks to avoid, places to avoid, behaviors to avoid, things that provide you for your protection. Daughters, it is your duty to heed your patriarch and hear that out too. There is a care that a man who protects you will give to you that you can understand if you're taught. But here's the deal. It is not fruitful for your husband or father to tell you all the things he understands about the darkness of the hearts of men. It is more fruitful for you to simply heed the instruction and not have your mind polluted with the darkness that he understands and has to engage with. Men are meant to engage with the world and fight evil in a way that is different from how women are supposed to. There is a desire that we should have to see women be feminine and to see them be protected. And so there's a distinction of mind that we want men to have a better ability to combat the evil of the world, and they have to confront the world, they have to go out into the world, they have to deal with government, they have to deal with positions of authority, and they have to deal with restraining the wicked. And that restraint and punishment of the wicked by men is something that God has designed them for. And there is a way in which we want women to be softer, gentler, weaker than men. And we want them to be able to beautify and to care about the details of things. And the types of things that men sometimes know about and have to confront are the kinds of things that make it difficult for women to function while doing and being what God has designed them to do and be. So heeding the warnings of your patriarch. Now, the other thing a husband, a patriarch, an authority is called to do is to have grave or serious bearing, to be wise and holy, and to carry himself in an exemplary manner. So we've spent a lot of time on the exemplary carriage, and we'll spend a little bit more time on that today. And this is a general thing that encourages the preservation of the authority that God has put upon you. that procures glory to God, honor to yourself, and preserves the authority. So carrying yourself in an exemplary way preserves your authority, and it gives glory to God. Now, the sins of superiors are the neglect of the positive duties. Now, real quick, the positive duties, loving, praying, blessing, instructing, counseling, admonishing, these are major things. These are major things. They need to be properly valued. These are major things. behaving justly to those who do well and those who do ill, protecting and providing, and being a good example. Those are the major categories. Those things need to be properly appreciated. Those things need to be viewed as worthy of honor, and those things need to be things that are not belittled. So the sins of superiors are a neglect of all that, seeking your own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure in an inordinate way. There's nothing wrong with seeking glory in terms of honor or good name. But inordinately, seeking your own fame, your own glory, sin. Your own ease, everyone would prefer some ease, some ability to relax, not having to grind it out all the time. But an inordinate seeking of ease by piling on labors to your subordinates and without taking any work yourself is sin. And it leads to wickedness. Taking the profits and not sharing, not rewarding, not blessing, not with justice, giving to those who are worthy of reward, not sharing in the pleasures, but simply hoarding it all to yourself. These are things that are inappropriate for leaders. And so those are things that will destroy the respect you would otherwise have. Commanding unlawful things, commanding people to do things that they don't have the resources, time, power to do. rewarding evil, punishing good, correcting unnecessarily, frequently, exposing without care, or leaving the wrong temptation in danger, provoking the wrath, and dishonoring yourself and lessening your own authority by unjust, indiscreet, rigorous, or remiss behavior. These are the things to be avoided by superiors. And these are worthy of study because There needs to be an appreciation and respect for the positive leadership, and there needs to be a care to make it so that it's not impossible for a husband to be praiseworthy. Page four, duties of wives to husbands. What is the honor that inferiors owe to their superiors? The honor which inferiors owe to their superiors is due reverence and heart, word, and behavior, prayer and thanksgiving for them, imitation of their virtues and graces, willing obedience to their lawful commands and counsels, due submission to their corrections, fidelity to defense and maintenance of their persons and authority, according to their several ranks and the nature of their places, bearing with their infirmities and covering them in love, that so they may be an honor to them and to their government. Okay, so generally speaking, You, as a person under authority, want to be an honor to the person who governs you and to their government. What does that mean? It means their reputation is enhanced by the way you follow them, and their government is viewed as honorable by the way you follow them. That behavior is the kind of thing that every man desires from his family, and especially from his wife. And so we think about the duties of reverence and the duties of responding properly to commands, counsels, and corrections, and there's a loyalty to the person who holds that station, the husband. There's a defense of his authority, and that includes against those who would undermine your husband, undermine the respect you owe to him, and the maintaining of that authority by your own acknowledgement and encouragement. So there is this bearing with infirmities. The husband's not going to be perfect, covering them in love. And you want the husband to not correct you about every little thing. The other thing is you need to recognize that not every little thing is something that you need to go to him about. Remember, there is an order for correction. Who should correct more? The person who's under authority? Should they correct the authority more often? Or should the person who's in authority correct the person under authority more often? The person in authority is the one that God has given authority to. And that authority is for the purpose of correction. It's a big part of that purpose. And so the person in authority is the person who should be giving more correction, and that's why the nagging wife is a sort of twisting of the order that God has designed. It's a taking, it's a type of usurpation. So there's a duty to seek to cover and bear with infirmities of superiors. And here's the other thing. The service of superiors to inferiors is something where they carry out burdens, they do work, they provide things, They have an obligation to give. They give of the surplus of their strength to serve the person under authority. And that giving of the surplus of their strength makes it so they have less that they can use to advance themselves. And so an appreciation for that looks like trying to give your strength and to help to avoid unnecessarily changing the focus of the wisdom of the one who's in authority. So the bearing with infirmities and the covering in love is a part of helping the government of the one in authority to advance. Now as we look at these, one of the best ways for you to be able to bear with infirmities and to cover infirmities in love is to pray for your superior, your husband, and to give thanks to God for them. So when you go, well, what should I give thanks for? Well, you can go back to page three. And you can say, does my husband love me? Does my husband pray for me? Does he provide blessings of any sort? List those things. If there's weaknesses there, pray that God would bless and give strength to do better. Seek to cover in love and consider if it's so bad that you need to bring it up. Does my husband instruct me? Does he give me counsel? Does he rebuke me and tell me what to put off and what to put on? Does my husband seek to countenance, commend and reward me when I do well? Does my husband seek to discountenance, reprove and chastise me when I do ill? Does my husband seek to protect me in body and soul? Does my husband seek to provide for me, body and soul? Does he seek to be serious in doing his duties, wise in the performance of it, holy in focusing the family? Does he seek to carry himself in an exemplary way? And especially this, here's one of the things I'd ask you to consider. Does your husband carry himself in a more exemplary manner than the father he had? If that's the case, that's like striving beyond the going, the multi-generational improvement is something to give special thanks for. The rising above the inheritance that was received. And so this idea of the multi-generational advance, we should give thanks for the progressive improvement that we see in our own lives, in the history of the church, across generations. And so this giving thanks, does your husband seek to preserve his authority? Is he dreadfully negligent? of His provisions for you in body and soul? If not, give thanks for that. Does He command you to do unlawful things? Does He tell you to make bricks without straw all the time? So there's this extreme burdens of rigor that He imposes upon you? If not, give thanks for it. Does He seek to persuade you to do all sorts of evil by counseling, encouraging, and favoring you when you do evil? If not, give thanks for that. Does he seek to dissuade, discourage, and discount in its good works? If not, give thanks for that. These are things, you look through this, what do I expect? If we have all sorts of made up expectations and do not value the expectations from the law of God, we're going to be ungrateful. And that might give you some sense of why people in authority are tempted to bitterness. is because of the ingratitude for the stuff that they do. It's just assumed. It's just assumed. Of course they're going to do that. It's his job. Of course the husband is going to provide day in and day out if he doesn't feel like it. He's just going to go to work. He's just going to do the thing. It's his job. Okay. Is that the response that you want? Where you say, wife, it's your job to submit and to be reverent in all things. And should there be no gratitude, you just need to submit and be reverent in all things. It's your job. That idea is something that we have to get rid of that. We have to have an appreciation and respect for husbands, a thanking for the performance of the work. And husbands, you should be grateful, kind to your wives. You should thank them for the performance of their work. You should gratefully accept and honor the work that they do. But these things, the way that we need to deal with this in terms of the idea of gratitude for the work is we need to look at the performance of a superior as something that is worthy of giving thanks for. Now, as we continue back on page four, what are the sins of inferiors? They're wives to husbands. The sins of inferiors against their superiors are, all neglect of the duties required. So neglecting to honor, give reverence, pray for, and thank God for, to imitate their virtues, the failure to obey lawful commands and counsels, the failure to give due submission to corrections, the failure to be faithful to defend and maintain their person in power, the failure to bear with infirmities, the failure to cover with love, the failure to be an honor to them and to their government. That's sin. There's a sin of envying at the person in place. This is the temptation of Eve since the fall, the desire to rule over the husband. The desire to rule over the husband is the great temptation since the fall. So that envying at the station of the husband is the desire to be the one who is the head. When that happens, the result is a domineering counter-push by man. That's the temptation. So women, if you want men to lead, and you want them to lead well and in a godly manner, you show them respect. If you want them to dominate, to domineer, to oppress, to be tyrants, you try to usurp them and you will reap the whirlwind. There will be a lightning response. The dominating effect that is going to come in our culture from the feminist cultural milieu will be horrifying. You're already seeing pieces of it. The pagan man movement, masculinity movement, will turn into a horrific, domineering wickedness. It is on the rise, and it is the response, and we will need very strong Christian men to oppose these Viking barbarian pagans. The kinds of men that killed the Vikings are the kinds of men who can build Christian civilization in the face of that kind of pagan raider mentality. Do you understand the kind of men that you need? The kind of respect that is necessary to encourage these men to be the kind of men that can break the charge of Viking pagans. That's the level of strength that you need to see in your men. Those are the sons you must raise. Those are the men that you must encourage as your patriarchs. That's the kind of strength you need to see. We are on the tottering edge of the ending of an old era where all things were tolerated. and a rage is boiling in society. And I will tell you what. Girlbosses do not face well against Viking barbarians. They are incapable of restraining it. You will need strong men. So the kind of respect that's necessary is something that you have not seen an example of. You haven't seen it. You haven't seen it. There's no art that I can point you to. You're going to have to go and read things like Gouge. We don't have the examples of it. The old women that would have taught you this are dead. The examples of it are not here. The kinds of level of respect you have to show are things that you will only learn from the Bible and from the writings of men long dead. So that study, the careful study, it is necessary to see these men be strengthened and encouraged by you. The Lord can give them strength without your encouragement. The Lord can give us victory without our women properly supporting us. But what a holy and blessed thing it would be if the women did. And if the men had the strength necessary and were encouraged on by their women. And if there was a manifestation of that Christian strength, to tear down the strength of barbarism. So that's what we want to see. We want to see strength from our men. And respect from women is a part of that strength. It's a part of what gives motivation to defend, to do the hard work, to face down the barbarians. A contempt of the person in place of the husband is the kind of thing that shatters the motivation of men, contempt for it. You have to honor it, to praise it, to appreciate it. One of the things that's been mocked is the fragility of the male ego, fragility of the male ego. I'll tell you what, if you want a man who's going to go conquer the world for you, you need to encourage and praise it. The idea of the fragility of the male ego is silly. Men continue to carry on. They continue to work and grind it out. But the motivation to charge, the motivation to scream like furies as you seek to storm the gates of hell, that's the kind of thing that respect helps. Holding the line against the charge and trying not to break, that's one thing. But if you want to see fire in the belly, if you want to see the man be able to advance, there's a strength to morale. Men have morale and the great encouragers of morale are women who are godly. Now, the rebellion against the person in place makes it so that the husband has to turn his strength from outward against the world to subduing the woman, which is destructive and horrific for both. envying, contempt, or rebellion against the lawful counsels of the husband, lawful commands of the husband, corrections of the husband. Wife, how easy is it for your husband to give you counsel? How quick are you to take it? How easy is it for him to give you commands? How desirous are you to obey them? How easy is it for him to correct you? And how swift are you to turn, to do the things he tells you to do? If he has to wrestle you for that, then what's happening is an envy, contempt, or rebellion against the person in place of the husband. Other things that are more manifest versions of rebellion are cursing or mocking of the husband and his place. Cursing your husband, by the way, is a capital offense. Cursing your husband unjustly is a capital offense. Parents being cursed by their children, masters being cursed by slaves or servants, husbands being cursed by wives. These are a type of capital crime. Mocking the husband is, in part, especially if you mock the authority, is a mocking of God. And refractory carriage is being hard to correct, being hard to correct. Scandalous carriage is when you're Sins are manifest in a way that bring shame externally. And so the shame or dishonor of the government of your husband should be something that you should be very concerned to avoid. So going back, page five, the duties of husbands. We talked about the duty of love and how love is the thing that is necessary to shape all of the duties of the husband. Go to page six, maintenance of authority. You teach your wife to support your authority. You have her be under the preaching of the word. You have managing the authority well, so as to maintain and encourage it. Your example, being loving to your wife, being faithful and not breaking covenant. Talk about the qualities of an elder or the types of things you want to chase down to be a great example. We don't have time to go into all that right now. And so I've given you a list of things to pursue. Wisdom, holiness, righteousness, peace, purity, unity and order, joy, gravity, honesty, piety. These are things worthy of being meditated upon. Each of them. And I've just flown over them in a list there. But each of them is worthy of deep meditation as a virtue to be pursued. And these are things that if you focus your mind on it, as a man, if you focus your mind on the duties here of wisdom, holiness, righteousness, This idea of being renewed after the image of Christ. Your desire to have a joyful home. Carrying yourself in a grave, honest, and pious way. These things are the duties of a lifetime. And men, you are called to be more virtuous than your wife. You think it's hard to lead your wife. You go, well, I'll tell you what. You have a greater burden than she does. You were made to be stronger than she was. You were made to carry more than she was. You have a position of authority. Your responsibility is to be better than her. If your wife is not as good as you, praise the Lord for the strength you've received. Be better and try to raise her up. There's a duty to strive for excellence here. And your example is the kind of thing that helps her to rise. The other thing that maintains your authority is to not diminish her place or person, but to recognize her as the chief lieutenant. You recognize that she is to add to your labors from her position as the mistress of the estate, as your chief lieutenant, a high calling, where she takes what you are working on and she improves it to produce more. She improves it to be more beautiful and pleasant. She works to fulfill goals that you've given and priorities that you've given. She works to give people under her charge that are given to her to make them be useful, the development of children and so forth, and you want to provide those things to her. Make her station and calling high. Give her something to rule. Work hard to make it so that she is the mistress of a real domain and the second command of something other than just a two-person team. This work of the wife is something that you should want to elevate so that she recognizes the glory of being your helpmate. Make it so that it's an honor to her to be your helpmate. So we talked about the Proverbs 31 woman and what's required, the work that's required, it takes time. Wives, be patient and be content with the state of your husbands as they work hard and work hard with them to build it. So next, on the bottom of page six, the maintenance of the authority by the tender respect for the wife as external actions of love. And this is both, I want to commend you men to give love and I want you women to see the work they do as love. We have a romanticized, absurd, cartoonish, anime version of love that has made it so it's hard for any man to do anything while maintaining manliness that is viewed as an act of love. And so it's important that what we do is that we respect and appreciate the gentle, subtle, consistent work of love that husbands provide. Words of affection, including titles of affection that are given. Consistent statements of love to the wife. These sorts of things are words of affection. Time spent in companionship, the desire to pull the wife in. When you deal with recreation, one of the ways that a wife can show reverence to the husband is to seek to understand his recreations and to seek to be an enjoyable part of it. Women are designed to be flexible in the ability to come in to find things interesting based upon the man. Women were designed to find relationships more interesting. And as a result, they find the relationship in whatever activity to be a significant part of the enjoyment of the activity. And when you seek to make your interests in your husband align with pursuing the interests that he has, you will find that the relationship improves and is more enjoyable, and you will find that the recreation that you once thought less enjoyable than you wanted it to be will become more enjoyable. And so the husband needs to try to pull you in and lead you gently in that, and the wife needs to try to be an enjoyable part of that recreation and to appreciate the working together in that recreation to be able to have time together in companionship and the enjoyment of good things. The idea of gifts that are given is an act of love. When the husband grants authority or property, either in capital to be managed or a consumptive budget to be used, The grant of a budget increase, the one-time gift of cash to be able to do something, some project, hand it over. These are all gifts of the husband of some grant of domain. It's a giving of blessing and resource and respect. And it's an act of love. These are things to be appreciated. When a husband gives these things, these are acts of love. Affectionate touch of the husband, sexual in its time and place, and non-sexual in dignified ways to show affection, familiarity, closeness, in modest ways at other times and places. These are that sort of behavior. Acts of love. Acts of service. You know, there's complaints about husbands not doing things that wives want sometimes. I'll tell you what, the husband can, as an act of service, condescend to do work that would ordinarily fall on the wife. The husband can choose to do that, he can choose to do little things that are not acts of service in terms of leadership or his ordinary daily grind, but to demand that as an act of love and to view no other service as an act of service is ingratitude. The husband's work should be principally to serve in leading well, exercising authority with provident care. Act of doing something like washing the dishes, or doing the laundry, or doing something else that's helpful in the housework or whatever. The husband can do that. It's an act of condescension. It should be especially appreciated, and a special thanks should be given for it. But, his general work and care is the provision for the family, the leadership of the family, the performance of his duties as prophet, priest, and king. How often do you give thanks to God for that, and thank Him for that? These are things that ought to be given. Now, as we think about the husband seeking to maintain his authority, a regard for her station is important. I've emphasized that. C, go to the end of C. Hearing out her humble requests with provident care and kindness. Husbands, you will not stay in your position long if you provoke your wives to anger by making it hard for them to bring requests to you. It is your duty to show your special love for her by hearing out her suits and requests. This spending the time to hear her humble requests and petitions, to patiently listen to her, to give care and attention, not ignoring, not failing to listen, giving your attention. care on it. And then this idea of kindly considering it and seeking to grant things that you can to her as a kindness. These are things that are acts of love and giving you time. Especially as your duties become numerous, a grant of time is a great gift. A grant of time is a great gift, and your special care and attention to your wife is a gift, an act of love, a service, a self-sacrificing thing when you're hearing out her request about something she wants that is not your concern. You go, I don't care about this. Why am I giving it my attention? Because I love you. That idea of the love of the wife being the reason you're thinking about this thing is itself an act of love. So that should be viewed that way by the wife. And wives, when you come with petitions, you need to recognize this. So I have principles here to help you wives to approach your husbands with humble requests. If you approach your husband in a proud way with a request or even demand, he no longer gets to focus on merely whether to grant your request or not. He now has to go, is it my job to say no just to stop this pride? Is it my job to say no just as an act of discipline to get your behavior to change? Is it my job to not give this to you, though I desire to bless you because of your behavior? So wives, being very careful in private to honor your husbands, when you approach the husband, approaching him as the supplicant. I think you know what that means. The idea that he's the decider and you're asking him for his approval. He's the decider and you're asking him for his approval. And if he says no, that's the answer. A fear for his office is a recognition that he can say yes, he can say no. And so approaching him as a supplicant. Also, when you're approaching and it's something where it relates to failings that have occurred, you're asking for something admitting those failings, committing to amend those failings and improve them in the portion of the request, the acknowledgement of those failings so the husband can hear that as a part of your humble petition. Seeking to do your job even when you don't feel like it is a part of helping to make it so your husband can hear your requests and not feel as though you're in rebellion. He often goes to work and provides when he does not feel like it. And if he does not, then he needs to be brought under discipline of the church because he's worse than an unbeliever. If your husband won't go to work when he doesn't feel like it, he's worse than an unbeliever. Okay, so the duty of the wife is to do the same thing, is to do the work even when you don't feel like it. You don't feel like submitting, you don't feel like honoring, you don't feel like doing the work that he's been assigned to you. The husband has a duty to do that and he does it day in and day out. And if he doesn't, he'll be disciplined. A woman who does not do her job just because she does not feel like it is worse than an unbeliever too. Same principle. Now, when you come to the husband and ask for something, you're asking and not demanding. If you demand, you're not humbly requesting, you're demanding. Titles of honor, requests as opposed to demands, expressions of appreciation, praise, gratitude. These are the kinds of things that can be done to show honor. And we feel like those things are silly because we live in a culture that thinks honor is silly, because we live in a scoffers paradise. The scornful laugh and rage here. Giving heed to honor is a thing we find Hilarious. We have been trained to think that all acts of honor are flattery. We have been trained to think that any effort to give titles or to express honor in any way is silly. We have been catechized by the scoffer to hate honor. Acts of honor are things that we almost laugh at instinctively. And we need to repent of that. And women in particular feel silly offering that to their husbands. And so you need to repent of that. Seek to put that false belief away. And to train yourself to make it feel natural. It only feels natural after you've been doing it for a long time. It only feels natural after you've been doing it for a long time. Anything that's new, any good thing, any virtue that's new feels unnatural until you've been doing it for a long time. So if you wait for it to feel natural, guess when you'll start? Never. Husbands, when your wives come to you with a respectful request, even if they don't do it perfectly, if they simply approach it with a question, not providing all the other things, not doing everything else really well, as a stumbling, halting effort to acknowledge your authority, coming to you and asking for a thing. That's the first step of acknowledging of authority and it's something that you should accept graciously. When she comes, you evaluate the request, you evaluate the reasons, consider if there's other reasons that she didn't present for or against a request, express your decision in a non-provoking way, And you look for an opportunity to instruct her as to why your decision is a certain way or to tell her that this decision is only for a time and she can ask again after some set time that you give. And you want to have rules that you start to establish for how much discussion you want. When you make a decision, do you want your wife to say nothing else? Do you want to say you can, you can explain some things or depending on how important it is. Okay, you set rules for that. You are the one who sets those rules. If your wife is particularly contentious, I would advise you to clamp down on that and reduce the amount of talking back you allow. If your wife is someone you need to encourage to give you your counsel, I would encourage you to figure out how do you draw out her counsel. And you have to evaluate that with your own wife. That's your job. You have to figure it out. You have to evaluate that woman. She was given to you by God. It's your job to evaluate your own wife, her own strengths, her own weaknesses, and you set those rules. Do your job. And so that duty of setting those rules and figuring out how you're going to set order in your own house to make it so there's peaceable interaction and encouraging the ability to come and ask makes it so that your authority is respected. If it's hard to ask you for things, the temptation is to just do and ask for forgiveness later. What you want is to make it so that your wife can talk to you and to make it so that she's not tempted to just do and ask for forgiveness later. Now, the same with children. Now, regarding response to this, the avoiding of harshness and testiness, we've talked about that some, forbearing to command and exact everything that you could. Remember, you're a human being too. If you were in her place, how would you want to be led? Try to lead in that manner. If you were being wisely led, if you could choose wisely to have somebody lead you, how would you want them to lead you? Okay, you try to apply that as regards the wife. Now, Avoiding over rigor involves, look at F on page eight. Avoiding over rigor, to avoid the destruction of your own authority, involves being careful to think about duties from the more basic to the less basic. Basic time management is the key thing to any set of duties. If you're thinking about failures of your wife, you need to ask yourself, okay, how's the schedule going? How's the budget being kept? Is she doing her duties towards me? Is she doing tasks that I assign her? If there's children, is there discipline of children that's being maintained? Is there teaching of children that's being maintained? Is there any capital I've given to her to manage? Is that being wasted? Is that going into rot? Or is that something that's being managed? How beautiful is the home being kept? How is our hospitality compared to what I desire? How is our mercy towards other people? And the question, that's sort of the order, okay? If your things aren't going well, you don't have the resources to manage your own home, there's no resources to go into mercy ministry outside. There's no resources to go into hospitality. There's no resources to go into beauty until you've figured out how to make it so that your house is functioning well, staying in budget, having the basic duties done. You plant your fields first, then you build your home. That's what Proverbs says. There's an order of operation. and making sure that things are functioning to do the basic duties precedes the performance of work to make things beautiful. If you try to make everything beautiful while you're unproductive, guess what? You'll go bankrupt. So what you try to figure out how to do is how to be productive, and then you put resources into beauty, into mercy, into hospitality. And so there's this desire of the inward things. And so this is an effort to think about how to lead your wife. Where is the breakdown here? This is more basic duties to less basic duties. With regard to doctrine, if you're teaching your wife to avoid over rigor there, I've written out some stuff, but basically the Shorter Catechism is a great tool if you feel like there's weaknesses in your wife's doctrine. Is there at least a laying out of the shorter catechisms doctrine? If you go through that, are you in agreement about those things? Does she understand them? If that's the case, then you can go into more depth and you can go look at like our discipleship plan for novice, that kind of stuff. But there's this ability to find more basic to less basic. If you try to run before you can walk, all you will see is falling. There's a need to go in order. So this is what good leadership looks like. It's thinking about how to avoid exasperation by provident care to go from more basic to less basic. Now, mild replies to the wife. I talked a little bit about that already and the use of titles for the wife. How do you show her affection and respect for her station? Your goal is to not be too high, not too low, and to be focused on a special duty of love. So then we talked about the idea of the opinion of the wife, not having a fond admiration where you think she's always right, or where you think she's always wrong, scornful contempt, being careful to be just there. Now, when we talk about provident care, go to page nine, bottom of page nine. Provident care for the wife. You have a duty, first and foremost, to provide the doctrine from the word of God, which means you're going to make sure that the Sabbath is being kept, you're gonna have private worship and family worship, and you're going to look for opportunities to teach. Provident care, your duty is to make sure that you are in a sound church and to make sure that you are providing these other things. This duty of giving instruction and teaching is key. And there's a need to teach the wife about things where she's personally ignorant. And when you confront that ignorance, one of the things you want to do is to not dishonor your wife in front of the children or in front of other people unnecessarily. You pull aside. You can use your private worship sometimes as a married couple to go in and try to say, okay, I want to teach you about stuff that I think you might be ignorant of. And your goal is to not expose the ignorance of your wife unnecessarily to other people, including the children, in order to see her station honored. You want her to be honored. Her honor is your honor. And so your goal is to redress places of weakness in ways that helps to reduce her shame. Now, one of the things that also happens with commands is commands, if they're given in every detail, if you're constantly commanding your wife and you're not requesting, it makes her look low. And so one of the things that you try to figure out how to do is to give principles of command that you've taught and that you've laid down as rules of the house so that she can operate off of principles to reduce the amount of commanding that you're doing. If you're constantly giving a command, it lessens the familiarity and closeness. And what you want to do is to have principles that she's well drilled in so that she knows your will and does your will without you having to issue an imperative all the time, which will also help the relationship. If you never command, you're failing, and if you have to give explicit commands at every moment, you're not leading well by giving principles of operation. The duty of the husband is to carry out a responsibility to organize a household. If you think about the duty of being well organized in leadership, if you have to give a command for every single thing to be done, as opposed to laying out principles, as a business owner, you would not be able to function long. As a business owner, you have to give jurisdictions, principles of operation, boundaries of how far somebody can act without permission. Doing that with a wife when she's in a higher station than any servant you'll ever have is the kind of thing that's necessary to be able to lead a wife well. You give her a budget. You give her principles. You tell her, don't do this ever. If you want to do this, ask my permission. This thing, do all the time. If you think it's not wise, come and let me know. You know, these are the kinds of principles you lay out. And the more systematic and organized it is, the easier it is for her to follow and the easier it is for you to hold her accountable. If it's the same thing over and over and over time, it becomes obvious and easy. If you're always changing your rules, it will be impossible to remember and stick with. If there's variation all the time, if you're constantly changing the rules, you're gonna make it impossible for there to be competent following of the commands you give. So general rules that are stable based upon what you prefer and based upon the principles you draw out of the Word of God helps you to avoid the need for continuous detailed commands. In order to do that well, husbands, your duty to providently care for your wife. Remember, provident care is looking forward and saying, how do I care to accomplish goals? How do I get to this? How do I look into the future and say, this is the way I want the future to be, as opposed to where things are now? What actions are necessary to accomplish that goal? What actions need to be taken to improve the situation? Provident care is concerned to see the future be better than the present. And so that effort to give provident care involves thinking about goals that are not just long-term goals. All right, wife, we're going to fill the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. Do it. All right, well, are there any intermediate objectives besides boiling the ocean? Is there anything else we can do? There are little steps that might advance the speed at which we can go do these things. Are there accelerators? Are there key objectives? Are there hills we can take that will make our position better? The selecting of goals. Husbands, that is your strategic role. You must choose goals to focus the efforts of your family on. The choice of goals. Intermediate objectives, things to do. If we do this, things will be better. It'll make it easier for us to do the next thing. The choice of goals is the principal strategic activity of the husband. He sets moral rules by teaching, catechizing to help to say, we're going to try to accomplish this, but not in this way. We want to build a certain amount of wealth, not by robbing a bank. These are the things that are laid out. You say, here are restrictions on how we're going to do it. You can say, here's the process I want you to follow. Here's the specific things I want you to do. Those are things you can say. You can say, do this on a regular basis. The directing of labor is the tactical maneuvering of the husband. That's the leadership. and wives, this is where the temptation to rebellion comes in. You say, that doesn't seem like the best intermediate objective. That doesn't seem like the best way to accomplish this intermediate objective. And so you give counsel, the counsel's not heated, and you go, well, fine. The mopey following, or the half-hearted following, or the not really putting the energy in, that is destructive to your house. The duty is to wholeheartedly do your best to counsel your husband, and when he decides against your counsel, you salute and you try hard to do what he's commanded. That is the special duty of the subordinate. Counsel well, salute, execute. That duty of seeking to do that It can be hard because the more you give counsel, the more there's temptation to say, well, I'm more persuaded of why there's a need to do it the way I've said. And so that idea of, of helping to not make your wife have to dig in too much, trying to get counsel and making a decision swiftly, the setting of goals, having moral principles for how you're going to carry out the accomplishment of those goals, setting process, giving budget and timelines. If you have dreams, those dreams can never be accomplished. That's fine. You can have a dream out there. It's a long ways away, but the difference between a goal and a dream is the goal has a budget and a timeline assigned. A dream is just a goal without a budget or a timeline. So if you want to actually get there, you assign resources and you set a timeline for the accomplishment. You can fail, but at least you'll have had some sort of pressure to do it, to make things happen. So as quickly as possible to free of other work, lesser work being performed by children is time that's freed up by the husband and by the wife to do higher levels of work. That's how you exercise dominion well. Men, marriage is for dominion. Wives, marriage is for dominion. This unit, the family, is for the division of labor. And that going further, and the work across time, the inheritance of wealth and wisdom, this is the work. These things you go, this is a lot of stuff that has to be done. But this is what life's about. This is what life's about. It's about honoring God by getting stuff done, spreading the knowledge of God, improving the material world. And there's so much work to do. So if we're diligent, if we work hard, if husbands lead and direct their wives, we can see ourselves in places of high resource and authority. And when we don't, and we let the pagans outwork us, and we let the pagans enslave us, then we will groan out to God, and that's where we are. That's where we are. Pagan bankers, pagan governors, Pagan bureaucrats, pagan legislators, pagan churches, pastors with rainbow flags, pastrixes. All this stuff. This is where we are. There's work to do. So this focus on ordering the house well is necessary. Now, when you're doing the work, what happens when you're taking things seriously, and when everybody's studying the Word of God, there's gonna be differences on scruples of right and wrong. And so I don't have time to walk through this, but I want you to look at this on page 10. This is for dealing with scruples. The idea that, look, if your wife disagrees with you, try to be careful with her conscience. If she thinks something is sin, be careful about that. If you think it's obvious that she's wrong and you've taught her and you think she's being obstinate, it becomes your duty to press because it becomes obvious that it's pride. And when it's obvious, it's obstinance. It's your duty to press in. When there's a weakness of mind and a scruple, you're gentle, patient, kind, and you work through it. There's sometimes when you have to start pressing in and stand on your authority. Page 11. When you give work to your wife, if you don't give your wife work, she'll be miserable. If you don't give your wife work, she'll be miserable. She was made to work. She was made to run hard. She was made to do useful things. If you don't give her work to do, she'll be miserable. Giving work that brings honor to your wife according to her station and your station is an important part of your thinking. The less resources you have, the more you basically just have to do everything and anything that happens. You and your wife divide it up. The more resources you have, the more station you have, the more ability you have to be able to give that to other people, The older your children get, the more you can have them do things. If I see my wife taking out the trash, I go, where's some son? Some son, come quickly and take that bag from her, or maybe whatever. So that whole idea that there are things that as your station rises, as your children increase, as they become older, as you have resources, you go, okay, what are the things that I want her to do in that scenario? The idea of approaching her when you're giving her commands There's an approach doing that with mildness rather than with pride. We are afraid sometimes to give commands. As you get used to the idea of directing your wife to accomplish things, there's a fear of coming off too harsh. As you get used to it, sometimes you become too harsh. And there's this need to be mild with the wife. But again, if we had to deal with men being a little bit too testy, and giving commands a little bit too harshly and we weren't being ruled by the pagans, I'd take that trade. And I think you would too. Okay. So if that's the case, let's have that world rather than this world. And then man, let's try to be better than that. But if we can just be awesome, then we can also be extra awesome. Okay. So let's, let's do that. Now with commands, the more you have principles, the more rarely you have to use a direct command and then There's an ability to use requests also. In wives, if you understand that the express will of your husband is something you should take as a command, he can more politely ask you for stuff. If he asks you for stuff and you treat it like it's something you don't have a duty to seek to provide, then he's going to have to command. So there's a way that there are forms of lightness of speech that are able to be given where there's kindness and more pleasantness in all of that. If there's an acknowledgement of roles and responsibilities, And we seek to simply deal with those details in a way where we all just carry out the effort of honoring each other properly. When there's resistance to leadership, leadership has to become harsher. And that makes the man tempted towards abdication because he wants peace. He wants peace. He doesn't have to command you to do something little and silly in a harsh way. Now men, You have to overcome that sometimes. Point three on page 11. There's a need to press your authority in weighty matters. If there's an issue of serious doctrine, if it's a matter of worship, if there's some dispute between you and your wife about the need to deal with some sort of government in the state or the church or the way you're running things in the home, you've got to press through those things. The management of significant property, a health issue with you or the kids, you've got to press through. You use your authority, you press through. When there's duties outside of the house to other people, you have to press through and make a decision there. You can't let your wife do something you think is unjust out of laziness. Men, here are the three things that make it so you're very tempted to not exercise your authority. One, you desire peace. I don't care about justice, I just want peace. Leave me alone. The second thing is, I don't want to get in a fight with my wife because then we're not going to have sex right now. That problem of saying, I don't want to deal with the loss of the pleasure of the relationship is a significant temptation, and I would suggest to you was a significant part of Adam's self-deception. When he went, my wife is going into spiritual death. My wife is breaking this covenant. If I don't go with her, I lose her in that way. There's also the temptation to the false view of unity. Oh, I don't want to disrupt our unity. The unity has been disrupted by the disagreement. The argument is what solves the problem of unity. You leading and commanding and pushing in and teaching are the things that resolve the disunity. One of the things that makes it necessary as regards to duties of others that the man step in and he exercises authority and tell the wife no or say no we're going to do this anyways is the danger of one of the virtues of women being misplaced. Women were designed to deal with smaller spheres. Women were designed to have a zealous loyalty And if the zealous loyalty of the woman for her husband results in an undue exercise of immoderate expression of passion or zeal towards enemies or difficult people, there is this danger of immoderate behavior. Injustice towards those outside the home or towards servants in particular. And the man has to, make sure that he leads his wife to avoid excesses of this passion towards those outside of the household or towards servants. The government of the man is necessary in terms of pressing his authority as regards duties towards others. So, the temptation for peace, the temptation for sexual pleasure, the temptation to maintain a false sense of unity, and the failure to recognize the zealous loyalty of women. These are things that men need to recognize They do not properly look at stopping that zealous loyalty from becoming excessive passion. They do not push in and say, I'm going to lose peace, I'm going to lose sex, I'm going to lose This false unity, this fake form of peace or unity that exists, the willingness to sacrifice those things, that's a self-sacrifice. And that's a big part of the willingness to die for your wife. It's the willingness to sacrifice those things to lead her well. The willingness to sacrifice those things, those temporary pleasures, it's a delayed gratification for her good and for your good. This does not provide an excuse to make every fight into a huge thing and to make your life and your wife's life miserable. You have to intelligently pick your battles. But when you have to press on these things, it becomes your duty to give reproof. And I am, I don't have time to go through all this reproof section. I have given to you Googe's section here on reproof and the reproof of wives, but there's a great deal. If you go to page 12.35, of neglecting reproof. Here's a danger, especially for modern American men. Contrary is a servile and timorous mind of many husbands who are loathe to offend, and as they think, to provoke their wives, and thereupon choose rather to let them continue in sin than to tell them of their sin, wherein they both dishonor their place and the image of God, which by virtue of their place they carry, and also in effect and in truth, hate their wives. If you will not rebuke your wife for her sin, you are hating her. And remember, your principal call is to love your wife. Which the law implies where it says, you shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you'll plainly rebuke your neighbor and not suffer sin upon him. Leviticus 19, 17. Now, you can go, well, I don't want to just walk up to my wife and rebuke her harshly all the time. I didn't tell you to go rebuke her harshly all the time. I said to rebuke her. And there's a section here on mildness and all that kind of stuff, and you can read that, and you can do it with all the sweetness and light that you want. Page 13. You're not authorized to physically chastise your wife. You don't have the power of the rod over your wife. If you want to talk about that further, read Gouge, then talk to me. I'll growl at you. reproof of things the husband's guilty of. So husbands, here's the deal. You know it, I know it, we all know it, we all have failings. And sometimes you're gonna have some sins you see in your wife and you're gonna go, oh man, I'm guilty of that sin. If I tell her to stop doing that sin, she's gonna say, but you are doing that sin. And you gotta be ready to suck it up and go, yep, and I shouldn't do it. But here's the deal, wife, you shouldn't do it either. So I get it. But you need to stop. So you gotta be ready for that. Wives, if you use your husband's sin as a reason to not hear a rebuke for your sin, that is unjust. Your husband can be sinning and still tell you that you're sinning. He shouldn't sin, he should stop the sin, he should put it off, but here's my advice to you. He rebukes you for some sin, you know it's sin, and you think, and you do the same thing. Here's what you do. Now listen to me carefully. You don't say that. You hold your tongue. And what you do is you accept the rebuke. And you put down in the notebook that exists in your mind that all women have, the iron trap that is the memory of conflicts, and what you do is you bring it up later. You bring it up later. And when you bring it up at a later time, You do it in a respectful and treating way. And here's the other thing you do. You consider, is this worth bringing up? If you think it was too small of a thing for your husband to rebuke you over, guess what you should do? Cross it off the list and forget about it and not bring it up. If you think your husband rebuked you for something that was too small, then it's definitely too small for you to rebuke him for. And if he brought it up and he thought it was bigger than you think it is, show him the honor of hearing it and amending it. Now, husbands, you need to apply discretion about when to approve, where to approve, how to do that. I encourage you to read Gogue. As you provide provident care, as you work through things, the Sabbath and family worship are key. Preparing the physical things. Go to point 11. Here's a bunch of things that are things you provide that are physical, okay? There's the childbearing and raising. There's resources for the safe performance of both. The study of how to deal with childbearing is something that men have generally not done. And if you want to have a wife, you want to have a childbearing person. And if you want a childbearing person, you have to recognize that that's something that's going to be very dangerous for them. And you need to think about how to take care of them with that. And so a study of it is useful. And spending some time talking to your wife about the things that she wants and how to provide that well is something that's useful in marriage. If you're still in a place where you're having children, where the age is such that that's occurring. And if you're not having children and you're in that age, then the question you need to ask is why? Why am I not leading my wife through having more children? Having more children is one of the best things you can do for yourself, for the glory of God, and for your wife's station. So this providing of wealth involves the idea of setting a budget, and it includes things like having resources for having children and raising them. But the setting of a budget and making it so that there's not constant overspending or cheapness is one of the key elements of management. A husband has a duty to lead as regards property with the form of a budget. If you don't want to set a budget because you think a budget means that the money will get spent, I have a secret for you husbands. The money gets spent whether you set a budget or not. There's a budget whether you've set the budget or not. The money gets spent. Food somehow appears. The things somehow happen. And so there's resources being spent. And so the care of engaging with a budget is a key part of thinking about how to make it so that your wife has room to operate and to make it so that your leadership is useful for setting her station to be distinct from a person with simply low-level instructions. Now, connected to the budget is rules for how to give for mercy, for liberality, for hospitality. talking through how you want those things to be done, this is a part of the leadership. And you don't have to have a plan where you sat down and thought through all of these things, but as things happen, use them as occasions to apply the thought and try to capture it. A leader recognizes problems as they're occurring and tries to stop them from being consistent things. You recognize and you improve. So the leader's activity to recognize problems and to set rules and to improve things makes it so that there's a continuous growth in the improvement of the house. And these are the things worth doing. Hospitality, liberality, mercy ministry, building up your estate, having children and raising them, making sure the worship is going on. These are the key activities and thinking about how to organize them well, provide for them well, order things well, and have your wife know her role in them is a way of organizing and running your house in a provident manner. Now, big things besides the care during your life is the danger that you will die. Men, you are mortal. I know you don't feel like it. I understand. You are mortal. Building up an estate to provide, having life insurance, having disability insurance, these are basic things. The church has a duty to care for your orphan and widow, but I'll tell you what, having a good insurance policy with a significant money left over, building up an estate, these are things that will make it so they are receiving a better standard of living than if they have to rely upon the mere mercy ministry of a diaconate. And so, provident care involves thinking about those things, thinking about how to leave an inheritance not just to your wife to be okay if you die, but thinking about your children too. There is a duty to think about physical security, which is a part of the protection. So thinking about arms, training, rules of behavior for thinking about avoiding dangerous situations. These are things that sometimes women think are silly. They are very important. There are rules for relationships and defending your wife from children and servants and their dishonor. These are a very important part of caring for your wife, especially if you have disrespectful daughter, you have sons that get older, there's temptation to disrespect the authority of the wife, and there's a need to guard against that. The other thing is, outside of the home, there's a duty of making sure her reputation is cared for. So you be willing to go and deal with things that are a burden to her relationally. 19, page 14 here. Love of the husband is a powerful source for the wife's reformation and steadiness. If you love her and she sees that love, it will benefit her soul, help her to feel stable, and the example will be a benefit for her to follow. Wives, if your husband is loving you and you don't view it as love and you denigrate it, then you won't benefit from the example and you will also feel unstable. Oftentimes, when counseling women, I find their view of love is bogus. They think the husband doesn't love them because they're not fulfilling some weird cultural expectation. The Bible, and not the culture, defines love. And so we need to look to the biblical definition of love and appreciate it in men. Men, final thing here. The example of Christ in sacrificing himself for you is the example you are to look to to motivate you to care for your wife. This is a lot of duties. Your position is a position with heavy burdens. There's a lot to do here. You were called to a high station. You're a prophet, priest, and king of your home. You must do this work. And the example of Christ, the diligent man, the conquering hero, the man on a white horse, that example of Christ, who smashed the head of the serpent, is the example you need to follow. His victory came at cost of his life, and you will not escape this world without dying. Not being the case, make sure that you live your life in such a way as to pour out your life for the blessing of your wife, and make these acts of provision for her good, and to see that her labors and her loyalty to you, her coming and giving you the great honor of swearing to obey you for the whole of her life. Think about the great honor your wife has given you. She has chosen to be your companion, to hitch her wagon to you, to do what you direct, and to do that until you die. That honor is a great honor. And so the example of Christ dying for his bride should be something that motivates you. This is your self-interest. This is for your good. This is the way of advancing your own station in life and hers. And so I commend to you this service of provident care in your leadership to advance your own government and the station of you both. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members and those with speaking rights. Let's pray. Father, I ask that you would bless us, that you would teach us out of your word that you would help us to think about these roles properly, that the heavy burdens laid upon husbands would be something that causes wives to see Thus, there is a need to submit and honor. There is a need to carefully obey my husband and to put my strength into supporting his work and to seeking to see him renewed and refreshed, to make the house beautiful, and to see that my respect is the thing that I am most known for in terms of how I interact with my husband. And Father, I ask that you'd bless the men to say that I want to serve and bless my wife, to love her, to sacrificially do these things, to carry the weight, to accomplish the goals, and to advance our station and to see our children in a better place than what we received. And so Father, I ask that you would give strength to the husbands to do these things. and that you would cause them to lead well and wisely, that they would lead their wives and teach them at home, and cause the wives to desire to follow their leadership. And so, Father, I pray that you would give strength for the performance of all these duties, that the high calling of husband and wife would be honored, that marriage would be honored by all, and that we would see this culture which despises true marriage and despises the Christian religion to say, how beautiful is the Christian religion and marriage according to the Bible, that we would have homes that produce lovely children, lovely atmospheres, and that we would see the church resplendent in glory. We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.