All right, let's get our Bibles and turn back to Titus chapter two, and we'll read there again tonight. We'll read verses one through five. We're gonna talk about biblical femininity or biblical womanhood tonight, and we're gonna, this is kind of a continuation from last week. We're gonna talk about some other things. I think it'll be very helpful to you if you'll listen It's not, I think it'd be helpful to men as well as women. There's a two-fold thing here, but we're focusing, like I said last week, on what the Bible says to women. And so we're talking to women tonight, so forget about the men. We'll get to that later. But let's read. Titus chapter two, verses one through five. But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, and charity in patience. Now, notice how it changes here. The aged women also, likewise, I took my eyes off the page. The aged women likewise, likewise. that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, so likewise like the men." All of those things there apply to the women also. Not false accusers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." All right. Now, sometimes I wonder what the point is in teaching because most people won't learn. They'll only learn from teachers on the Internet. There's the teacher for everything. Anything you want, there's hundreds of them on there that'll teach that. And it doesn't matter what the Bible says. People listen to people nowadays instead of what the Bible says. Now this is plain language and it's simple, straightforward, ain't no interpretation necessary. It's plain out, straight out, like it is. Women have a responsibility to each other. Older women have a responsibility to the younger women. And the young women have a responsibility to listen to the older women, to take the good counsel from the good older women. Good women. The women that are godly, that are what they're supposed to be, that are living a life. have lived long enough to learn some things. I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but women have different dangers and different duties according to their age. They're not all the same. They're not all in the same stage of life. They're not all in the same period where they need to do different things. There's different duties and there's different dangers. Aged women, are to be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience, just as the aged men are. So by the time they're properly called aged, which women don't like that. They don't like it to be called old women. They don't like to be classed as aged. You know, that's something that everybody kind of resists, which they shouldn't. Shouldn't be no shame. It's a natural thing. It should be full of honor, and it should be full of wisdom to share with those coming along behind you. Because that's what the Bible teaches all the way through, isn't it? I mean, there's an example to follow, and there's an example not to follow. You learn from the aged. Look at them. Go to a nursing home. There's quite a variety in there of aged people. You can see the ones who've lived a foolish life, who've lived a selfish life, who've lived a godless life, and they're easily identified by what they turn into when they get to those golden years of their life. By the time they're properly aged though, properly called aged, both men and women should have learned to be sober and grave Boy, that just sounds boring, don't it? To be sober and grave. Here's what sober means. Open your dictionary, read it. It means not mad or insane, not wild, visionary, or heated with passion, having the regular exercise of cool, dispassionate reasoning. Sober means you're not that that youthful dreamer anymore. You're not that visionary that's always gonna do something and never gets it done. You're not that rash person that just is always dreaming and imagining things. Grave, again in the dictionary, it means honest and honorable. Grave, now that don't sound too boring to me. Sounds like the kind of person that you would want to sit down and listen to. Somebody knows something that's been there, that's done those things, that's experienced the things that you want to avoid, and experienced the things that you want to experience in your life. Soberness is obviously a quality that's seldom found in young people. But by the time someone is aged, it should be one of their main character traits. So we're talking about aged women here. Aged women shouldn't be dreamers and romanticists and all of that. They ought to be sober. They ought to have their head on straight. You ought to be able to talk to them. They ought to be able to talk sense and not foolishness. They ought to be able to share with you wisdom from their experience that will help you, young women, to make it without the heartache and the trouble and the misery that so many fall into. Aged means just what you think it does. It means old. Having lived long. Now that's the main definition. Old. having lived long. You know, that's worth something. It's worth a whole lot of somethings. You know, you just count up how many days, how many sunrises and sunsets more that a aged person has seen than a young person has seen. How many more roads have they traveled? How many more people have they known? How many more disasters have they witnessed? How many more situations have they seen than what you can even imagine? So they're a well of gold for life. And God fixed it that way and give us these instructions. The older women, the aged women have a responsibility to help the younger women, to teach them these things that we're going to talk about. And the younger women have a responsibility before God. before God. This is not church rules and church doctrine. This is God's counsel, God's order for life. They have a responsibility to listen, not only to listen, but to seek, to seek counsel and wisdom and help and wisdom in raising their children and being a good wife and loving their husband and in all these things that it tells us here. A long life results in a measure of wisdom in all but the most stubborn fools. You live long, you're going to get a little bit of some wisdom, lost or saved, whatever, unless you are really one of the most stubborn fools that walk the earth. You're going to learn some things. But the aged women, the aged women have their own set of dangers and temptations that are mostly different than what they dealt with in their youth and in their middle age, so to speak, their adulthood. Women, they have their problems. They have their challenges. They have their temptations. They have their weaknesses. And they're different when they're young than they are when they're old. The aged women, it says here, likewise, that they be in behaviors becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, and teachers of good things. So that's what God chose to have written down in the Bible for the ages about the weaknesses, the temptations, the problems, the challenges, whatever, that older women face. So the aged women are instructed here in the things with which they're most prone to ruin their life and their testimony with. Are you listening? That they be in behavior as becometh holiness. Well, let's just talk about that for a minute. I've got several points, so I'm gonna just try to hurry through them here. But make note of it. Take heed to these things. This is important. That they be in behavior as becometh holiness. So there must certainly be a particular danger of an aged woman behaving in ways that are not holy. I wonder what they could be. Well, let's just think a minute. Well, the first thing that came to my mind was that many women don't accept the fact that they're aged very well. And they try to hide that fact with their clothes and with paint and with foolish girly talk. And when I say that, names and faces come to mind that I see. You know, aged women dressing, talking, and acting like they're 20-year-old or a teenager. That's not holy. That sure doesn't become a holiness. It's not appropriate. Is it? No, it's not. I know women that are so vain that they are absolutely determined that they're not going to have a gray hair. Well, a hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness. A gray hair is nothing to be ashamed of. Why would you hide it? Why would you avoid it at all cost? I know women in their 60s and even 70s who dye their hair so often because they are not about to let anybody see a gray hair in their head. Well, that ain't a very good example to the younger women. I'm just going to tell you that. It's not a good example to anybody. It says a whole lot about you and about your soul, in my opinion, and I believe it's right. God turns your hair gray, why do you want to change it? Why? I mean, just think about it. Why? Do you want to be attractive? Are you trying to maintain your attractiveness to men? Or who? I mean, what? What? What? Why? Why are you shamed of it? Why do you want to change it so bad? What's the deal? Oh, I know. I could get hung for this. But I mean, it's just a fact. Just think. All you got to do is just think. I think. And I ask questions. They come right up to the top. Why do they do that? The children ask questions. Why? Well, so do I. Why would you do that? Why don't you just age gracefully? Why don't you embrace every season of life that God gives you? And fulfill the role there in that season of life that God very clearly tells us to do in the Word of God here. When you're an aged woman, you have a responsibility. Yeah, you have a ministry. You have something to do. You have a job to do. Teach the young women. Teach with your words. Teach with your example. Teach with your experience that you've had. But teach them right as becometh holiness. Well, that's not honest, and it's not honorable, and it's, That's the definition of grave, and they're supposed to be grave. So if you're not honest, and you're not honorable, you're not grave, right? Is it honest? When your hair is white as snow, but you make sure it's red, or blonde, or black, or blue, you know, they got that too. These old ladies used to dye their hair and it'd turn blue. Remember that? It's supposed to be black, but it had that blue tint to it. Kind of like a dirt dauber, you know. It is also not sober because it's acting out of passion rather than clear thinking. All right, we'll move on. Not false accusers. Older women have more of a tendency to talk about others. and know their business. That's right. Why is that stereotype there? What do you call them? A young gossip? You know these old young gossips around town. Well now the young might gossip some too, but who's got the reputation for it? Who was it that used to stay on the party lines all the time talking? when we had party lines. Well, a lot of you don't remember, but I do. And it was always old women talking about people. Did you hear what so-and-so did and what they said? I tell you, I couldn't believe it when I heard it. Well, that's the way it is. Older women have more of a tendency to talk about others and to know all their business, be a gossip or a tail bearer as the Bible uses, that's the word the Bible uses for it. Now that can't be done without being false accusers because gossip is tail bearing and tattling and it's always exaggerated as it's passed along, isn't it? It never goes three or four levels there, passed to three or four different people and come out the other end the same, does it? So it ain't honest. And it ain't honorable. And it ain't pleasing to God. And it's not edifying to other people. It's something that's wrong. And it's something that the Bible right here talks about older women having a problem with. You don't like it? Take it up with God. He's the one that put it in the Bible, not me. But I can observe through life as long as I've lived and God's right. That's exactly right. It is a problem among older women. They're not all gossips, no. But this is what their weaknesses are. Not all young women are immoral, but it is a problem with them. It's a problem they have to deal with, and I'm jumping ahead of myself here. But I'm just trying to get across to you that not all old women are gossips, and not all old women are painting themselves up and trying to be young and all of that. This is just the way it is. So it's not honorable, and it's not honest, and it's not becoming of holiness. It says, not given to much wine. First of all, let me say it again, wine does not always mean liquor in the Bible. There is strong drink, and there is wine, and this is wine. Now, Jesus turned the water into wine, and all of the whiskey-drinking Christian people that want to call themselves Christians, they claim it was Fermented wine that would make you drunk. I do not believe that for one minute and I don't believe that you can have the truth of God in you and believe such nonsense as that. Why would Jesus, the Son of God, tell us that wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise and then feed a whole wedding crowd with it? Why would he say woe unto him that giveth his neighbor to drink and then do it himself? Give it to a whole bunch of people. It's nonsense. I get so tired of hearing these experts on everything, and they don't know the Bible. You know? I don't want to chase rabbits, because I've got too much of this to say tonight. Now, wine doesn't always mean liquor in the Bible, but we must acknowledge that there is a temptation to older women to use that stuff. the strong drink because of their aches and their pains and their rheumatism and all of that. I mean, remember Granny Clampett? Yeah, that's a stereotype. That's a concept that people have and always have had of older women. That's how come they can put it in a TV show like that and it fits. And everybody thinks it's funny. because it speaks of a truth that's there, and here it is, in God's Word. Older women, aged women, not given to much wine. They just have a lot of rheumatism, so they need a lot of it. But the main idea here, I think, is that older women have more of a tendency to overindulge themselves. That's why so many of them get overweight, even to the point of destroying their health. After children are grown and gone and the pace of life slows down, they're faced with the temptation to just sit back, be lazy, need all they want. It's a poor example to the younger women and it's not becoming to holiness. Teachers of good things. Why did he say it like that? I say because he meant us to understand that they are to be teachers of good things. Now this is a positive thing, not a negative. Not giving too much wine, you know, this other stuff. This is positive. Teachers of good things. Not teachers of bad things. Old women shouldn't go around teaching the young women and the young girls bad things. How abominable and how wrong for an old grandma to teach her young grandchildren or her daughters bad things. It's very unbecoming of holiness. It is very unbecoming of a woman to do that. It's common for older women to give terrible advice to young women and girls, focusing on the bad experiences of their life or the lives of others they've watched. I've seen this so much and I've heard so much of it. What about what God says? Now this is what God says. Like it or not, this is what God said. This is the way that works. This is the way that brings happiness and joy and fulfillment and peace in life. It's what produces good children and good people that go on to the next generation and carry the message of God and righteousness. This is what does it. Teach them good things. Not bad things, no matter what you've seen. You know, I get so sick of this thing nowadays where everybody, no matter what you say, if you say the Bible says this, well, they immediately got a hypothetical situation or maybe one they've known about that just null and voids that. I mean, I don't care if the Bible says that, I know better, I've seen it, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that's a light word for it, fools. God is God. Don't tell me you believe in God and don't tell me you're a Christian and don't tell me you're expecting to go to heaven when you die and live with God eternally in heaven when you don't agree with the very basic things that he gave us to live by in this book. Now it's common for older women to speak evil of men in general and teach young women to be independent and empowered and self-sustaining so they don't need a man. Even in churches I've heard this said. I've had it told me. I'm teaching my granddaughter, you know, to live so that she don't need a man. Well, I don't know how you could get any more contrary to the Word of God than that. How could you know anything about it? How could you understand anything about God's order and the way He set things up? Just because you've had bad experiences, don't you go dogging on God's ways. Don't you go contradicting God's ways and God's words just because you know of some bad situation or because you've had some bad situation. It's the right way, regardless. It's common for older women to teach younger women how to manage and manipulate their husbands. They still do. They have women's conferences. I know what that's about from my younger days. Every time that my wife went off to one of them, it took a week or more for us to get squared back away again because she came home with her head full of ideas on how to manipulate me. That's right. Is that right? So she knows it now. She knew it then, really. But that was where we were at, and that's what everybody did. And everybody said it was good, and everybody thought it was wonderful. And no, older women teach young women how to manipulate their husbands. And that's wrong. That is not good things. That's not what they're supposed to teach them. We're going to get to it in a minute here. None of this is becoming to holiness, and none of these things are of God, or his word, or his spirit. They don't get it out of the word of God. An old woman can't pull up verses in scripture and justify her counseling young women like that. She's dead against God. And all that comes from the devil, who would destroy every marriage and family if he could. Now the young women, have another set of things to deal with in which the aged women are to give them good advice and set a proper example for them. So they're better able to overcome and succeed and not shipwreck their lives and their family. Titus chapter 2 verse 4 and 5, we've already read it, I'm gonna read it again real quick, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blaspheme. So, teach the young women to be sober. The old women, I shouldn't say old, I should say aging, help me to say that. Aged women should teach the young women to be sober. They ought to teach them not to live in fantasy and romanticism and be in a fairyland all the time from the time they're little girls. But living in the real world, in real life as it really is, and that don't have to be bad, and downer, and tough, and rough. Is that all you think life is? Living life is just, it's either living in a fantasy or it's just living in misery, just dirty clothes. A living reality. You know little girls wouldn't grow up and be miserable women if they didn't have their expectations for something that wasn't ever gonna be there and it's impossible. And so if they're taught from the time they're little girls what a wife and a mother and what being a keeper at home is about and that that's what God made them for and if they were taught that and that it's a good thing, it's a positive thing, it's the best role, it's the best job God has provided for men and women. Women got it. I mean, they got the best job. They got the most important job. Teaching that. They won't grow up and be all dissatisfied with it and discontent. Young women now are generally doted on when they're small. It's hard not to, ain't it? It's hard not to dote on them. Little girls are pretty, you know, I mean, they're made out of sugar and spice and everything, nice. They get doted on. And then when they're small. And then live in Disney fantasies. And then taught to dress like a prostitute when they're teenagers. And have expectations of marriage that are completely unrealistic and untrue. God has commanded that the aged women have a responsibility to deal with these obstacles that other people put in the way of young women as they grow up. They wouldn't grow up and be that way if everybody would fulfill their role, their God-given role and responsibility in teaching them. Teaching them God's ways teaching them the right way instead of putting all this nonsense in their head That's gonna put them in a different place than God meant for them to be and make a miserable Man III Heard a woman not very long ago She retired from the military and she said this she said I've got my pension she said I had my career just like I wanted and But she said to you young women, let me tell you, don't choose this. Said, you know, I may be comfortable, but I have nobody to hug at night. I have no children or grandchildren. I have no life. Amen. Wonder who encouraged her to do that. You don't have to follow the old stereotypes, and you don't have to follow that old-fashioned way of thinking. No, you don't. Never have had to. You can have it your way. But you're going to have a price to pay at the other end. And plus, other people are going to pay a price for your unwillingness to submit yourself to God and live according to His ways. God's commanded. the older women, the aged women, to do this. Now, to love their husbands. The older women, supposed to teach young women to love your husbands. Love is an action word. It's not an emotion, primarily. Emotion comes with love, but emotion is not love, and love is not emotion. Love is a decision. It's a commitment. Love is something that develops. It's not this falling in love. That's of the world and that's a modern thing, idea that's been pushed on everybody. It's part of that. We think of romantic, that's what you think of, isn't it? But romantic just means fantasy, false, a lie. That's what romantic means. So it's a lie. Women, young women, love your husbands. Men are commanded by God to love their wives. Now that's what men, I mean, we've got a direct command from God. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. And wives are to be taught by the older women to love their husbands. There's not a direct command from God, but there's the command right there. They're to be taught to love their husbands. Hmm. Say, well, what if he's unlovable? Well, what if you're unlovable? Hmm? What about that? What's he supposed to do? God commanded him to love you. And you say, well, I can't love him. He's just too rotten. Men are commanded by God to love their husbands. To love your husband, now listen to me, is to do the very essence of what love is, and that's to put him first before yourself, just as he's supposed to do for you. Isn't that what love is? Real love is when you care more for somebody else than you do for yourself, another person. You would die for them. The Bible tells us that. No man ever hated his own flesh but loveth and cherisheth it. That's how he's supposed to love his wife. And what man who loves his wife wouldn't do that? Wouldn't put himself in peril protecting her whatever. A woman ought to love her husband the same way. Older women are supposed to teach them to do that. Well, now, how in the world they do that? To love your husband is to be his help like God created you to be, and to meet those needs that only his wife can meet. He needs you to love him, young woman. He needs to feel your soft touch. He don't want to feel your hand and feel callouses and rough like he's holding a logger's hand. He needs that. It's what God made you for. That's why he made that need in the man. He needs your soft touch, your soft voice, and to know that you desire and need him. And we're not just talking about bedroom stuff here. I'm talking about just like when you come home from work. When he comes home from work, he ought to have a warm welcome. Yes. Well, older women supposed to teach younger women to do that. How to treat your husband, how to love him, how to have a happy home for him. He needs you to keep the home in order and not chaos. I read this. Let me read this to you. This come out of a commentary. He said, then they're to love their husbands for without this, the house will become a pandemonium. And prolific, I can't see, profligacy. and in purity fill the land. Their love to their husband should be ardent and unchangeable, yielding neither to seduction of strangers nor to the husband's coldness in neglected home." So the house will become a pandemonium. If she doesn't love her husband, it's going to become a pandemonium. Well, I looked that up. Do you know what it means? This is gonna shock you, but it shouldn't shock you. All you gotta do is look at that word and dissect it and you can tell what it means. It means, number one, the great hall or council chamber of demons or evil spirits. An utterly lawless, riotous place or assemblage. Number three, a condition of unrestrained disorder and chaotic riotous uproar. Sound like any place you've ever been? Sound like your house once in a while? Well, he needs to come home to a haven of happiness and peace and not to a house full of confusion and chaos where the devil reigns. That's the point. The older women should teach the young women how to do that. Make home a happy place. Happy place for him, happy place for the children. A happy place for mother who lives there too. You can do that. Everybody can do that. It is within the realm of possibility and the reach of our abilities. We can do that if we want to. We can have peace in our home. Young women have to deal with the attention of other men. Listen to me. Even if they're married. Now, we all know that, don't we? Don't we know that young women have to deal with the attention of other men even if they're married? It used to not be so much this way, but it's always been that way. But it is very much that way now. Nobody pays attention to a wedding ring. They still attract attention and desire of other men, and they know this. They know it. They know they do. They know other men are looking at them. They see the looks. They hear the remarks. They, you know, they get passes made at them. This is part of life. And they know this, so if their heart is not truly pure, they inwardly have some delight in that fact. Now, I believe that's right. I know that's right. This is where chastity comes in that we talked about last week, chaste. We get to that in a minute, I'm just gonna brush past it, but she's gotta have a pure heart because there's lots of adversaries. Especially after the honeymoon is over and children come and life becomes about dirty dishes and dirty laundry and dirty diapers and sleepless nights with babies and her fairy tale ideas about romance have all flown away with the wind. then all this stuff is there to deal with. She's still young. She's still attractive and so she draws attention and she knows that. The aged women have a responsibility to teach the young women to love their husbands and not to be discontent and not be fantasizing about some new life with someone else or with some job or career. It's not their place, it's not what God made them for. And young men would be wise to be aware of these dangers that their young wives face and to deal with it and not be oblivious about it. I wish some young man would take that advice right there. To love their children. The aged women teach young women to love their children. Now, it can't be taken for granted that women will naturally love their children because it's very obvious that many, if not most, do not love their children. No, sir. Otherwise, abortion would not be legal and women would not drown their children in bathtubs and lakes and starve them to death. like we see in the news so often. And on top of that, if women naturally loved their children, we'd see more women staying at home with their children and more women being diligent about training their children and teaching them discipline and bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. If you spare the rod, he that spareth the rod hateth his son. It's not love when you won't discipline. It's love when you do. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. And if you're not chastened, you're not, you know what it says about that? You're not his children. The aged women are able and are charged by God with teaching the young women to love their children and not leave them to themselves or to a TV or some device, but to truly love and nurture them. All right, to be discreet and chaste. The older women, the aged women, and teach young women to be discreet and chaste. Discreet means to be prudent, wise, not rash, not impulsive, and avoiding errors and trouble. She isn't always making messes and problems. Proverbs 19, verse 14, house and riches are the inheritance of fathers, and a prudent wife is from the Lord. She's wise. She's not always doing crazy things. She's not impulsive, and she's not just going off on tangents all the time, and she's not always just making a big mess for somebody to clean up. And I'm not talking about a mess now, just a mess. Socially or whatever. The aged women ought to excel in being able to teach young women in that point how to be prudent, how to be chaste, All right, chaste is what we talked about last week, and a young woman must work on being pure in heart and mind, even and especially when she's married, because of the opportunities she knows she can find to be unfaithful. What do you think about me saying that? You're not living in reality if you think that ain't true. It is true. And there'd be a lot less divorces and a lot less calamities and disasters if everybody'd live in reality instead of fantasy concerning all of these things. The greatest influence, the age, it's so easy. I mean, it's so easy for her from when she's young. And if she is attractive, it's so easy for her. I mean, it doesn't take any Effort hardly at all on her part to initiate something. And from there it just goes like wildfire. And she knows that. So, you know, we're talking to women tonight, but husband, beware. Husband, be aware. Don't be off drinking your beer and with your buddies and being stupid. Leaving your wife at home to carry the whole load and not taking care of your business you got Responsibilities and you're gonna it's gonna cost you cost you everything If you don't wake up and quit living like a fool and spending all your money on toys you The greatest influence that aged women can have on the younger women concerning chastity is the testimony of their own faithfulness to their husbands and their behavior that becometh holiness. Nothing will help a younger woman more in this matter than an older woman who has been faithful and has that testimony and has a testimony of a life lived for 50, 60 years with her husband. But they should also talk to them and watch them and warn them and protect them from any potential failure or compromise in this matter. Of course, we're living in a world where nobody accepts any kind of rebuke or instruction or reproof or anything, so older women are reluctant to say anything because they just, you know, just get blamed and cursed and everything else because of the foolishness of the young people. You better listen, young people. You better seek the counsel where it can be found. All right, to be keepers at home. Now, it means exactly what it says. You look it up, it means to stay at home and keep the house and train the children. Now, this is not a lower station in life, but truly the highest, with the most influence and the most potential to change the world. You really do. A woman has children. has more potential to make a difference in this world than any man or anybody else. She can raise children and she will be godly and chaste and pure and focused on what her duty is in life. Man, she can raise, my goodness. Charles Wesley's mother raised 25 children, and among them were Charles and John Wesley. They changed the world. We still sing his songs. We still read the sermons. We still see the effect of their ministry from hundreds of years ago. So don't tell me that a woman that that's some lower calling or something. It is not. Nothing will have as much effect on the lives of the children as the constant care and attention of a godly mother. Nothing can give them the security their souls need like their mother can. That's easily observable. Whatever the cost or sacrifice, it's worth it to obey what God has said about this. Her children, Proverbs 31 verse 28, her children arise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praiseth her. Now we all realize that there are circumstances and situations where this just isn't possible. Now, you know, I know of several right now. that is where it just ain't possible. You know, I've known of women, lots of women getting left alone, widowed with children. Then what's she gonna do? What's she gonna do? I mean, I've known of women that were abandoned by their husband and left with the children to raise by herself. I've known of men whose wife abandoned their children in him and left. I've known more than one like that. So it happens both ways, and it's just not possible. But what has to happen in those cases when a single mother or father is left in that situation, they should do all they can to seek God's help and wisdom in how they deal with it. There's just a lot of things you can do to fill in the empty places that are left when one or the other is missing. And you can do it. Other people can step in. I knew somebody here recently And their dad died. We'll come to find out it wasn't really their dad, it was their stepdad. But he had raised them from the time they were a child, and their own dad was gone. I don't know what happened to him, but he wasn't there. But this boy, this son, was talking about his dad. He said he was the only dad I ever knew. He was the biggest blessing that I ever had in my life. He taught me about Christ. He taught me the Bible. He taught me to be a man. So, it worked. Now, the aged women are to teach young women that this is God's way and not teach them and encourage them to abandon their children to go make money or seek a career or go gallivanting around the country. There was a movie, man, decades ago, they called it Mr. Mom. Remember, he stayed at home and she went off on her career. And everybody laughed, thought it was funny. They had a time there, there was a class of men called house husbands. They stayed home. Well, what's the deal there? I mean, if somebody's got to stay home, it ought to be mother. That's what God said. Oh well. Obedient to their own husbands. Well, what about that? The age of women are to teach the young women to be in submission to their husbands. I remember we went to church one time and I preached a meeting there and everything and there was this old lady there and she, I remember her coming up and boy, she was acting so spiritual and you better watch, I've learned this, you better watch an older woman especially that's acting so spiritual. But she couldn't say nothing good about her husband. He was just rotten, no good, but he wasn't saved, and she wanted us to pray for him. And she'd been trying to get him to come to church for years, but he wouldn't come. Well, I could figure that out right away, that she wasn't in submission to her husband, and she wasn't. The aged women are to teach the young women to be in submission to their husbands. Oh, nobody likes that. Everybody thinks that's wrong nowadays because they're godless and they don't believe God. If you believe God, you'd believe that because that's what the Bible says. Makes it very plain. There's no interpretation about it. There's no controversy about it. You either believe the Bible and what it says or you don't. And when you reject stuff like that, you're just not a Bible believer at all. And I don't know how you can trust God and believe Him on other things when you can't believe Him on stuff like this. Not to live as if they're an independent person with no responsibilities or accountability to anyone else, spending money, making plans and decision without his knowledge or approval." Well, it would be, well, I could not live like that. I would not live like that. I will not live like that because it is wrong. It is wrong. It's ungodly. It's out of God's order. It's not to be that way. The older woman is supposed to teach younger women this, not to teach his children that he is not smart enough or worthy enough to listen to or be respected. Not to obey others and refuse to obey him. such as a job or if she's easily influenced by friends or other people. It's pretty rotten when she rejects everything he says, but anything anybody else says, she'll take it right down. She'll run laps for anybody else, but not for him. Older women are supposed to teach them better than that. One more thing, this is the sum of it, that the word of God be not blasphemed. All of that is so that the Word of God be not blasphemed. What is at stake here? Besides all of the blessings and the curses that can come from obeying or not obeying what God has said here in His order, what else is there at stake? It's God's Word, yeah. that God's honor, His word, His reputation be not blasphemed. This shows us that these things that the aged women are supposed to teach the young women are exactly what the world expects of people who call themselves Christians. You still listening to me? If the lost world and family members watching our lives see these things turned around backwards in our lives, then they feel justified in their contempt for God and His people. They said, just look at that. Supposed to be Christians and look at how she treats him. Look at how she runs around. Look at how she treats her children. The world knows. They consider us hypocrites when our lives are not ordered after the word of God. Because everyone seems to know these things are right, except the reprobates who sit in churches but are of the world. That's right. We went to a wedding here a few weeks ago and at the wedding we saw, I noticed this young woman and her children all around her. She was different than everybody else around. She wasn't dressed in Mennonite clothes. She wasn't, had no kind of uniform on to identify her as a Christian. But she just was different. She just had a look about her that was, you know, you just couldn't help but think, well, man, that looks like a nice person. Yeah, she was lovely. Well, I found out who she was, and it was interesting. But that's, what is wrong with that? Why does everybody avoid that so much? It's so pleasing. It's so encouraging to other people. It's an example that you can live higher than you're living. You can be happier than you are. There is a better way. And this world has corrupted His way, just like in Noah's day, the world has corrupted His way in all the earth. Everything about God's ordering has been corrupted and we, if we're His children, we ought to strive to know and to walk in God's ways and do the best we can. And if difficulties come and complicate things, then we just need to look to God and to show us a way around. Amen. Father, thank you for the Word of God. Pray you bless it now. Pray to find a place to land in good ground. And I pray to help somebody to help us here. And Lord, it would help somebody to avoid catastrophe at all. The health and the worth of these things that we read here tonight, there's no estimate to their value or their potential for good. I just pray that you'd bless your word as it goes forth. The right people will find it, then it'll help them in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.