Romans chapter 1 verse number 26 and I say we're gonna start here because this is our text but we're gonna use this to get right back to where we were so I'm not gonna spend a lot of time in it because we've already been talking about it and so that'll mean we'll go right back to Isaiah 47 where we left off at. So Romans chapter 1 in verse number 26 says, for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which was against nature. All right, let us pray. Father, we thank you and praise you, God, for all that you do. We pray that you watch over us, help us to serve you. Thank you for your goodness, your blessings. I pray that you just take care of us, Lord, and all that's said and done here today, that you'd use it to speak to the heart of every person. I pray that, God, you'd bless the church. I pray that, God, you'd strengthen us through this message and through the series as a whole, that, Lord, as we're now 51 messages into it, that, God, you'd just use it to speak to hearts and help us, Lord. We thank you God for all that you do and we ask it in your son Jesus name. Amen Alright, as we come to this passage, I'll give a small recap to it. I won't go deep into it because we're really trying to get right back to where we were. And that is just to say that we're getting into the part of the passage now where we're seeing the consequences of somebody saying, I don't want God in my life. And so that leads first to him allowing them to go love whatever thing they want. And he says, when that happens, because the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, that men will love things that are vile. Their affection will be vile. And his example of what vile affection looks like is to go into feminism and homosexuality. That's the things that he's going into. Primarily he focused on homosexuality, but there is some notes here about women going against the very nature and design that God has for them that he then contrasts that and uses that in the next verse to compare it to homosexuality. and men going against what's natural, and that is that they should be attracted to women. That's very natural. Anything else is unnatural. And so that's what he's getting into in the passage, but what we've talked about is when he says leaving the natural use of women, that is not as offensive a term as it sounds like. When you say somebody has a use, it sounds offensive to us because it sounds like you're treating them as a item and not as a person. The Bible was the first written book to really put any emphasis on treating women as more than just property of their husband. The first law, at least. There have been other laws that existed and had things, and those laws that had rules in it that are similar to the Bible and actually gave things to help women. But as far as a law that was written down, put down for a country, and said, this is your law, the first one we can go back to would be the Bible that really defended women and their rights. Prior to that, any law you would find treats women as the property of their husband to some degree or another. far more than anything that could ever be considered reasonable. So when God says natural use, He's not talking about natural use in the idea of you are a property to be used. He's saying natural use in the sense that everyone has a use or purpose. We have a design, we have a way that we are made to function, and this is how we are supposed to go. And so, yes, He uses a term that may sound derogatory, may sound negative, But it's not intended that way. It may sound like that because, yes, if I say you misuse something, it means you used it for a use that is not natural and therefore you have abused it and you have caused damage to it. That's why he uses the phrase, even though it may sound derogatory, it's not to say that women are property to be used. It is to say that by going against the grain, by going against the natural design for which God has imposed upon you, you are damaging yourself. The same way that if I use my car as a car and I ride it down the road and take care of it, it's fine. If I use it as a battering ram to try to knock down a wall, it will not be fine. You know, there's things that if you use it properly, it can last a lifetime. But if you misuse it once, it's gone forever. And the reason why he uses this phrasing, which again is meant to imply the idea of an abomination, it's meant to take us back to that language where you're going against nature and the natural use of things. But the other reason he uses this specific terminology as opposed to something like, say, abomination, is to get you to understand that it's not just that you're going against nature, but by going against the nature of how you are designed, by going against your natural use, your natural purpose, the way God made you to function, you are damaging yourself. You are hurting yourself by doing that. And again, the focus in this passage is on women, but that's true of anybody. Men, women, children, anybody, when we go against God's natural design and purpose for our lives, doesn't matter where you come from, doesn't matter anything about you, when you start going against God's natural purpose and doing things in any other way, you are damaging yourself. Because you are using yourself in a way that is unnatural. You're using yourself in a way that you're not intended for. And so again, a hammer is very good at being a hammer. It's not very good for other things. You wouldn't want to use a hammer in a situation where you're trying to be delicate. You want to take and clean your phone. You typically don't smack it with a hammer. You want to change a child's diaper. You don't typically incorporate a hammer into that job. Maybe Safania, I don't know. Jeremiah can be a little rough sometimes, so he may have to. No, but the point is that You use tools for what they're made for and they work and they do their job. But when you start using things for something other than what it's designed for, you hurt it. You hurt it or you hurt something else. And the reason why he uses what seems like strong language, and this is the only part of this I'm going to harp on a little bit and then we move on. The only reason he uses what seems like strong or hurtful language in the way he describes women in the passage is to get you to understand that concept. that when you go against God's natural design for how He has made you to be, you are hurting yourself, you are not helping yourself. Society says you're freeing yourself from bondage and all of this, but the same people who are telling you you're freeing yourself from bondage are trying to put you into bondage to something else. The people who say religion and God put you in bondage try to get you to get addicted to drugs and medicines and all this stuff that are literally putting you in bondage. The people who tell you that God is putting you in bondage and His rules are taking the fun out of your life are the people who want you to trade away your life and your purity and everything for one night of fun and then suffer for the rest of your life because you got something that cannot be cured from that. That's the people who are trying to give you the advice that God is bondage. Christ says that he that is made free shall be free indeed. And so in Christ there is freedom because when you start being what God made you to be, life gets a lot easier than when you're trying to be something else. Life is a lot easier when you will be what God designed you to be instead of trying to be something else because of the fact that when you are trying to put something in the... you're trying to take the square and put it in the round hole, it doesn't fit. And the only way you're ever going to make it fit is you have to break one of them. And when society tells women you need to be like men, that's the idea they're imposing upon you. Is that you either have to break yourself or you have to break the definition of what it means to be a man. And going back to what we said about transgender stuff the other week, that's the same thing you're seeing. Is they're telling this man that he is a woman because he likes girly stuff and now he has to try to fit into that role. And so in order to take something that is not a woman and make it a woman, you have to break one of them. Either you have to change the definition of a woman so that he can fit inside of that, or you have to completely destroy him so that the only semblance that he wasn't supposed to fit in that is in his DNA. You have to get rid of everything that can be seen on the outside so that what's on the inside still tells the story. like cutting the corners off of the square to make it fit inside the hole. And so that's what they are trying to do to you in society. Instead of letting you go the easy, natural path of least resistance and be what God made you to be, they're wanting you to be imposed upon you that to be a man or to be a woman has to mean something else and you should be more, you should be different, you should be something other than what God designed. So saying that, we left off last week in Isaiah 47. Isaiah 47 in verse 1, this was the verse that all of the study about Romans 1, 26 had brought us to. So we're going to go back to it, because it's a verse that deserves to be spoken about more. We've touched on it briefly in two messages, but we've not really actually talked about it enough. So Isaiah 47 in verse 1, we want to go back and see where we left off at. I'm not going to do a whole message on it, but just to get us back on our feet, Because actually we're going to use 1 Timothy 2 as our text more so, since we've already touched on Romans 1 and 26 quite a bit. But Isaiah 47 in verse 1 says, Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground. There is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. So understand that he's explaining to a woman what happens when she's no longer tender or delicate. So according to God, what she naturally was before whatever happened in the story was tender and delicate. And you understand that while it may be offensive to be told that as a woman, it shouldn't be, God is saying that by comparison to men, when we're looking at you, you are tender, you are delicate. There is a beauty about women. There is something about you that you're not rough and grimy and all this stuff that men are. You shouldn't have as many calluses as us. Sometimes you do because you've had to do a lot of stuff you shouldn't have to. But in general, I like the fact that my wife, her skin's a lot softer than mine. She smells a lot nicer than me. She typically is a lot cleaner than I am. All of those things are stuff that I like about her. If she was more like me, I wouldn't like her so much. And the reality of it is, it's natural, it's beautiful, it's proper that a woman is that way. There's nothing wrong with that. You shouldn't be shamed by society for being different than a man, because you're not a man. Any more than a man should feel ashamed for being a man. Like, I understand that masculinity is called toxin nowadays, and men are supposed to be ashamed of it, but it's not shameful to be a man. Being a jerk and all that stuff, yeah, that's shameful. But to be a man is not shameful. To be masculine, to have masculine characteristics and all that stuff, it's not shameful. I'm trying to stay away from it, because we will eventually get to it when we get into the list of sins. But when we talk about this from the woman's perspective, God says that your natural state, when everything's in order and everything's decent, that's what he's describing here. He's talking about the fall of a society. He's telling the Babylonians that your kingdom is falling. The governors are not going to be there. The rules are out the window. Everything's crumbling in front of you. That's what he just described in verse one. And as the rules are going out the window and everything's crumbling, he says to the women that as this crumbles and society falls apart, you're not going to be called tender or delicate anymore. You're not going to be allowed to be seen that way. And if you maybe struggle with that language, consider it's similar to what he means when he tells the man to give honor unto his wife as unto a weaker vessel. He's not calling you something inferior or bad. He's saying weaker vessel in the sense that if you had a precious vase or a precious jewel or a precious cup, I say cup because a vase or a cup is closer to a vessel and idea, but he's saying if you had something like that that's precious, it's like the fine china, it's thin, it's fragile, but it's beautiful and it has its value in the fact that it has this tenderness about it, you would treat it properly. You wouldn't be cold and callous to you. You wouldn't treat that the same way you would treat something that is not so easily broken. You know, I have cups that are not so easily broken. I'm not so worried about them. I have some that are precious to me and they're not so strong and I'm very careful with them because of it. But the plastic cups from the kids that can be beaten up and thrown in every direction, that's fine. We beat them, we throw them, all that stuff. And so the idea is simple. You would not treat, talking to men, you would not treat your wife the same way you would treat your male friends. You can be a lot rougher with them, you can talk rough to them and all that stuff, and most time you'll get by with it. Some men don't handle it as well as others, but with your wife, you're supposed to treat her as like that precious thing, like that vase that you would put on the pedestal and treat it with great care. And be careful not to scratch it, not to break it, not to harm it. And God says if you don't do that, your prayers will be hindered. So you can choose what you want from that. But God tells a man that he has to treat his wife with that kind of delicateness because of the fact that she's precious to God and supposed to be precious to him. So society is telling you you can't do that. And he says when the rules start going out the window, there's nobody in charge anymore and everybody does what's right in his own mind, then what starts to happen is you're not going to be called as women tender or delicate anymore. You're going to be treated on a different level. they're going to start to treat you the same way they do men. And if you want an example of what that looks like in a very straightforward sense, is all my life I grew up in a society where we were told that you don't hit women. A man, I can go punch him right in the nose and nobody cares. Glasses still doesn't matter, one arm crippled doesn't matter, and a wheelchair maybe doesn't matter. But I can go punch a man in the nose and nobody really looks down on me. But if I would have hit a woman growing up, other men around would have jumped on me for that and defended her. You don't see that anymore. You see women getting attacked in the streets. I mean, and I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to pretend like women are not instigating and attacking men in the streets, but even when that happened historically, it was understood that as a man, if you got attacked by a woman, you restrain her, you don't hit her. I grew up in the world. I grew up without morals and decency that come from the Bible. I grew up in a public school and all this kind of stuff without biblical morals being imposed upon me, and I had enough decency about me to know that if a woman hits me, I don't hit her back. I'm bigger than her, I'm stronger than her. That's just the difference in the way we are designed. That my wife thinks sometimes she's strong enough to fight with me and so we'll pass each other in the hallway and she, instead of being the one to give right away, tries to take right away and she bounces off of me. Because I... I don't know. I mean, there's several men in this room. You're big enough. We probably can do that, and you have a good chance. But not a lot of people run into me and push me the other direction. Josiah and me both are kind of like buffalo sometimes. He's worse than me. But I don't even pay attention. I'm so used to the fact that if I run into walls, they just about move out the way. So I don't even pay attention sometimes where I'm going. And some of you guys who are bigger than me are probably worse than me about that, that you're just used to it, that when stuff hits you, it goes. You don't have to go anywhere. And I don't know why Josiah feels that way, because he's little, but he thinks everything. He knocks down children, he knocks down everything. He knocks down little old ladies on the street if you don't watch him. But no, the point is that Every once in a while, she may think that she's, you know, able to push me out the way, but for the most part, if we're honest, she knows this of herself, that she would never be as strong as me. Like, I mean, thankfully for her, she doesn't have to worry about that. I'm not gonna lay hands on her. She's more violent than me, so that probably helps. I mean, my biggest threat to her is that I might restrain her. Her biggest threat to me is she would pour boiling oil on me while I sleep, so. Between the two of us, one of us is more dangerous, but one of us is stronger. So I don't want to get sidetracked in all of that. It's normal, it's natural that a man is stronger than a woman. And so when you have power, you are supposed to take responsibility for that. You're supposed to be responsible for what strength you have. Anything you have, any advantage, any ability, anything you have, you are expected to be responsible for that. The very fact that you have individual soul liberty cannot be talked about in the Bible without also expressing that you have responsibility for that liberty. So anywhere in the Bible you have a privilege, a power, anything that you have like that, you are also expected to be responsible for that. You're supposed to use it with responsibility. And so as a man, the fact that you are stronger than a woman physically, mentally that's not always true, but physically because you are stronger than your wife, God expects you to be responsible for that. to never yield that against her, to never rule her in terror that you're going to beat her one day or something. And you'll find out if you ever try that some of them will put boiling oil on you or some of them have threatened even worse stuff. I'm not going to get into the kind of stuff that Joe makes threats about. But we won't even ask about what Gail says. I wouldn't even want to try to. I've heard some bad stuff about Filipino ladies. All right, but anyways, all joking aside, now that I got you back awake again, what you have to understand is that as a man, God expects you to rule over yourself and keep yourself in submission and have respect to the fact that your wife is the weaker vessel. To understand that between the two of you, she is the weaker vessel physically, and so God expects you to keep responsibility for that. And so it's not strange that women would be treated as the tender one, as the one who needs to be treated with delicateness and needs to be treated in a different way because we are different. And so you see that even before this day we live in right now, wherever you grew up, you probably had the same war and conviction about it that I did, that a man doesn't hit a woman. We would always say it like this, a real man never hits a woman. Now, some of you are young enough, you starting in that age where they don't have that anymore. But most of us here that are adults grew up being told a real man never hits a woman. And yet how many videos on YouTube is a man hitting a woman? How many videos on YouTube is a woman, she got in his face, and used to be it was you restrain her, but instead now he just hits her and knocks her down on the ground and people celebrate him because that's what she gets. And if you look at the logic behind it, their logic is that if men and women are perfectly equal in every way, and you want equal ability to do all this stuff, then this is equality. Equality is that if a man gets in my face, I knock him down. So if you get in my face, I do it to you, too. Now, I don't agree with that. I don't think it's right. But you see it in society in front of you, exactly what he's describing. That women are no longer being treated as delicate or tender or anything precious in that sense. Women are being treated as an item to be used. And that's the irony of the fact that God says you leave your natural use and it's not God who wants to use or misuse or abuse you. It's society that wants to do that. So that you are now being subject to things you were never supposed to be subject to. things that God had protected you from in His law, and things that God wants you to be protected from in society, you have now, as women, not you personally, hopefully, but as women, have embraced this and taken it on you to where now you're finding that equality, if men and women are not different and we're all just the same, is not what it sounds like. It's not simply equal pay, there's a whole lot of bad stuff that comes with it. And I'm not against equal pay, I'm not against any of that, I'm in favor of it. If somebody can do the same job, they deserve the same pay. That's not my issue. My issue I'm talking about is that when you only want the good of equality, you have to know that the bad comes with it too. And when society starts going down the road that it has, where there is a division between men and women that has been removed, and gender roles are being removed. And women are expected to be the providers for the home and all this stuff that men were supposed to be. And women are supposed to be doing the things that men were supposed to do. And women are now having to step up and take a role that God didn't design you to do it. There is damage that's going to come. And the first thing he mentions here in the passage is that you'll no longer be called tender or delicate. Then in verse number two, it says, So when we talk about this passage, it's easy to see what we already talked about it, this is the part we spoke about more last week, is that when he says, take the millstones and grind thy mill, I mean, It's not something you expect a woman to be the one turning the millstone. I mean, that's something you strap a donkey to it. You don't even ask men to do that most of the time. You strapped a beast of burden to it, and if it's a man, it needs to be a strong man. That's not like you're talking about somebody letting the windmill turn it for them or letting the water turn it. This is the idea of somebody getting there to the grinder by their hands and pushing the stone and grinding it. And as a man, if I'm asked to do that, that's not so strange or foreign an idea to me that I have to get in there and I have to work and I have to provide and I have to do these things. But it's not natural that a woman should have to be in a job that is so physically demanding and was meant for a man. Honestly, that job most times not even meant for a man, it's meant for an animal. But it's not natural that you should have to take such jobs upon yourself. And this is where we're going to start to get more into what the message is really about, is that God designed roles in the home and in the family. It's not just about clothing and things like we talked about last week, although we're going to get into that some more, because we didn't say much about modesty as I would like to have. But it's not just about looking like a woman. It's not just about dressing like a woman. It's not just those kind of things. There are roles within the home that God has designed in terms of who's supposed to stress over certain things, and who's supposed to bear certain burdens. And that's why men and women are so different. Because as a man, it is much more natural, you are designed, that's one reason you are physically stronger, you are designed to be the beast of burden, so to speak, for your home. You are the one who is meant to be able to carry the weight of providing, the weight of making sure the bills are paid, the stress of working countless hours to make sure that your family doesn't go hungry. God designed you to do that. That is where you are supposed to excel. That's not supposed to be, it should never be natural that you have men setting home and their wives are working countless hours at a job to provide for them. And I understand that this may be hurtful to some, but I'm not targeting anyone with this message. That is not God's design though. God designed men that we're the ones who are supposed to excel at being the one in the workforce. God never in the Bible one time, and if you don't know this, this may be an offensive thing to hear, but God never one time in the entirety of the Scriptures tells a woman to be the provider. It's always upon the men. Now, in terms of whether women can work or not in the workforce, you see that there's women working in the Bible. And you see that there's jobs given and stuff. And the woman in Proverbs 31 has her business, she does from her home. I'm not telling you that you can't have a job. I'm saying that if in your home, The wife is the one who is the breadwinner. If she misses work because she got sick, the bills are going to go unpaid. If she has to stress over that, your home is out of balance. And the same way He tells a woman, you are damaging and hurting yourself because you've left the natural use, the same thing happens in your home. Your relationship is going to suffer because it's supposed to be that you're the provider. You have the heart for that as men. And I know there's supposed to be a message for women, but I can't preach to the women about this without preaching to the men about this. that you're supposed to have that heart that you want to provide for her. You want to give her safety. You want to give her her basic needs. You want to give her a place to live. You want to give her all this stuff. And if a man doesn't have that, there's something wrong inside. There should be a burning motivation that you have to do that. And every man has to subscribe to that because that's the natural use that God gave you. And if that's the natural use God gave to the man, then it's not the natural use that He gave to the woman. That's not the way He designed women to be. So while if I take you as a man and I plug you into that position, that you're the breadwinner, you're the provider, you're going to bear the stress, you're going to bear the burdens, you're going to be the one who works overtime and whatever you have to to make sure that the family eats and the lights stay on and all this kind of stuff. You'll do just fine. You will not burn out at the same rate that your wife would. You'll not burn out at the same way she would because you were supposed to be for that. That's literally what you were designed for. She wasn't designed for that. And you will burn her out, and you'll wear her out, and you'll weary her, and you'll tire her. And I always think about what Christ said concerning His bride. He said He wants to present her to Himself without spot or wrinkle. Spots come because you took her somewhere she should not be. The bride should never be in her dress out in the field, in the mud getting dirty, or out in the world getting dirty. That dress should be taken care of pristine and prime. So if she's got spots on her, it's because you took her somewhere she's not supposed to be. If she's got wrinkles on her, it's because you put stress on her she was not supposed to have. So when you look at the ladies around this church, the ones that have to dye the hair and the ones that have the wrinkles and all that kind of stuff, you can understand that they either have a lot of children or they have a husband who may be more stressful than we're supposed to be. No, the thing is, some of you just age less gracefully than others do. You can't point fingers at me. No, the reality of the matter is that as a husband, your goal should be that the way you lead your home doesn't have your wife anywhere that's going to leave spots on her. You want to keep her pure from this world. You want to keep her out of this world. You want to keep her out of the things that would defile or hurt her spiritually or in any way. and you want to keep her from the stress of this world. You don't want to be the cause of those wrinkles on her. You don't want to be the reason why she's getting stressed out and years are ticking off of her life. If one of you has to go to an early grave, it should be you. And you may not, that may sound like the worst thing I've ever said to you, but Christ says you're supposed to love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And I'm pretty sure that's pretty well in line with what I just said. That if somebody's going to bear the cross, somebody's going to suffer, somebody's going to go to the grave, somebody's going to do all of that to make sure that it succeeds. He said, you're supposed to love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. So if we understand that that's the natural use of men, that you're supposed to be the provider, you're supposed to be the one working, you're supposed to be the tough one who's bearing the burdens and keeping the home going, then what's her natural use? What's she supposed to be doing? Not that. Honestly, if you look biblically, the wife's natural use, the thing that she was designed for from Genesis, from the beginning, and I know this is offensive territory to get into, but we're already in it, is that she was designed to be a help to her husband. So she's supposed to come in and fill in the gaps of everything that he's missing. She's supposed to be the help that is natural and proper and meat for him, is what that means when he says that. Many times what you'll notice is that God gives a man a wife who balances him out in every way that he needs. That's not always true. Sometimes the husband is the one who balances out the wife. I'm looking at somebody, I just won't say who I'm talking about. Sometimes the husband balances out his wife, but normally the wife is there to balance you out and fill in those gaps of what you need. And if you're the provider, then that means that's not what she's there to do. That's not the gap that God gave her to fill. That's why you'll notice many times that she is the one who's better at the small details. She's better with the children. She's better with the home. She's better with all of that. Because while the Bible does not tell a woman you can't be out working, you can't have a job, you're not supposed to be a provider. You're the one who's supposed to take care of the home. That's why he talks about in Timothy to be keepers at home. He says to teach the young women how to be keepers at home, how to take care of their home, how to make a nice place to live, how to make that house a beautiful place. That's why in Proverbs, when he's talking about women, he says, the wise woman buildeth up her home, but the foolish woman plucketh it down with her hands. It's because you are the one who's preparing. If he's going to go outside and he's going to work and he's going to get the spots and the wrinkles and all that from doing the job, then you're going to be the one who gives Him a place to come back to where He can have peace. And that means you can't be contentious when He comes home. You can't be wanting to argue about everything. There's balance in all of that. And when you don't have that balance, when you're both out there trying to provide and make a way, instead of learning how to live more simply so you can get by on less, then what happens is you are wearing down the person who's supposed to be there to pick you up. The person who's supposed to keep you from drowning under all the pressure and weight is drowning with you. And so now you're both going to drown under all the pressure and weight of this life. You're supposed to be there to prop one another up. One of you is going to provide and take all of that, and the other one is going to take all the things that you can't do because you're out doing that. But then what happens is, instead, you're both trying to do both jobs. And I'm not the smartest person around, I understand that. But I know this, if I'm trying to do two different jobs at the same time, I'm not going to do either one of them well. If I'm trying to do two different jobs and try to be two different people at the same time, I'm not going to be good at either one of those. But if I focus on my job and I do the thing that I'm supposed to do, I might actually be okay at that. I might do a pretty decent job at it. But on the other hand, I can tell you this, if I start trying to be Laurie and I start trying to think about the things that she would think about and do the things she would do in the home, I'm not going to do a good job at it, because I don't see the details she sees even when I try. When I try to, oh, I'm going to help out today. I'm going to clean. I'm going to do some stuff. Whatever I do is not good enough. She doesn't say it, but I know the standards, that it's not good enough. She's learned that if you want help, you can't complain about it. So she never says it, but I know what she expects, and I know what she sees, and I know what she does, and I'm not on that level. Because that's not my thing and I don't have that focus. And yes, men can go against the natural use and they can reprogram themselves and get to where they do that. And that's why you have a society where it's becoming common for the men to stay at home and take care of the kids while the wife goes out and works the full time job and provides. But it's against the natural use. And there's a reason why most of those marriages are ending in divorce. and those families are falling apart, and those children are being raised in broken homes, is because somebody decided, I know better than God, and I'm going to do it differently than what He designed. And what I'm telling to you today, and you may not like it, and you can be mad at me for the next three months, by the time I come back, you'll be over it probably. And if not, I don't know. But the point is, what I'm telling you right now is this. You may feel like you have to do this because society told you, you need this much money coming in, you need this much stuff, but you can live off of much less. I can guarantee you most everybody in this room can live off of much less than what they already live off of. Most of us are not even close to the limit of what we can do. Some of you are, but most of you are single women who are having to work and provide for yourself because you haven't come to that point in your life. Most everybody who's in a marriage or in a family and most of the single men, you're living well above what you need to. You're living above whatever standards should be required of you. And you could live much more simple than what you do. And so the reality isn't that you can't afford to get your life in line and do it the way God says. The reality is you can't afford to get your life in line and do it the way God says and have all the things you like, but you have to start asking the question, is your marriage worth more than those things? Is your home and your family worth more than those things? Whatever it is you're telling me, I have to work this much hours, we have to have this much income, we have to have both of us providing, we both have to take the responsibility so that we can do this. you have to ask, is it worth it? Is it worth having a wife who's stressed out, who's bent out of shape, who's hurting and suffering all the time so you can have those things? So I'm telling you, you could have a few less comforts, a few less enjoyments in life, and you would enjoy a peaceful and quiet home much more. God tells you, and this isn't really the direction my message is supposed to go, but we're here now, that God tells you in Proverbs many times, not just once, but many times, that a house where all you have is dry bread and herbs, is better if you have quietness and peace than having a house full of feasting and strife in it. So you may not agree with me, you may not even fully believe what I'm telling to you, that you need to get the order and the balance right and the other stuff will start to fix itself, but ask yourself the question, is the method you're using right now producing a life that is quiet and peaceful? Is there peace in your home, or is your wife stressed out most of the time? Is there peace in your home, or are you stressed out all the time because you're taking care of kids and all this kind of stuff, and you don't know how to do it, and you don't know where all this stuff is, and you get tired of them because they're annoying to you and all of these things? Is there peace in your home because you're trying to play a role other than the one God made for you, or is there stress in your home because you're doing that? You don't have to agree with me, just be honest with yourselves, and I'm pretty sure you'll come to the conclusion that the Bible knows better than you. That the Bible knows what's best. Again, I'm not telling you that your wife can't work. That's between you and her. But I'm telling you the less you put that burden on her and the less you put that stress on her, the more peace you'll have in your home. The more your home will be better, the more it'll be cared for, the more your children, your family will be cared for, the more everything will fall decently in order in its proper place, the less the stress of providing falls upon her. And so you make the decision where the line is for you and what you're willing to sacrifice to give more peace. For me, I'll be honest, I'm willing to sacrifice. I'm willing to work two jobs, three jobs if I have to. And I've worked more than my fair share of hours most of my life. But honestly, we never have to worry much because we've learned how to sacrifice and how to get by. But we made the decision in the very beginning, if we have to sacrifice, if we have to eat beans and rice every day, we'll do it. We never had to. But we made the decision that that's what we have to do to have peace in the home and me never have to stress out because I need her to take care of the kids while I go to work and she's not home and we have to find somebody else to come do it. We didn't want that. And so from the very beginning, we never had that and we've had peace because of that. And you can do it your way, you can do it however you want, but you have to ask the question, is it producing spots and wrinkles? Is it producing stress that should not be in your home? Or is it producing peace? And then you have to come between you and God and make the answer. You have to come between you and God and make the decisions. Not between me and you. I'm not going to pay the bills because you still want to live at a certain standard and can't do it anymore. You have to talk to God about what has to be sacrificed and what has to be done. Now, so he says that the woman, when they leave this, when they go against the natural use, when they go against the design, and when everything's out the window, not only will they no longer be tender and delicate, but he also says that they'll have to go to the jobs that aren't even for men, they're for beyond that, to the beast. He says, then also they'll uncover their locks, and they'll make bare their legs, and uncover their thigh, and pass over the rivers. When you think about what he's saying to you in this passage, he says what happens when society no longer lets women be women, is first they cease to be delicate and tender, at least we won't call them that anymore, we don't want to see them that way. They have to go to the work and be the providers and they have to do jobs that they were never meant to do. Even if you believe that it's good for her to be doing something, there's some jobs that no man should ever want his wife to have to bear do. I mean, I know what it was like for me as a welder. I know what it was like as a machinist. I know how hard I had to work in a lot of those jobs. And I would never want my wife to be at that job. I love her too much to let her do that. I'd rather take two shifts at it than let her do one. And so what I'm saying to you is that's what happens when society goes this direction. And he says also what happens when women have to start playing the role of men, when they can no longer be tender and delicate and they have to start doing the work, it's going to start to become more and more common that you see them start shaving their head to be a little more like men. And you'll see that as they do this, and morality and modesty and all this goes out the window, it's also very common that the legs start to show and the belly and the body and everything else. That neckiness becomes common, and that's why verse 3 talks about neckiness as being defined again with uncovering the thigh and so forth. But it says, Thy neckiness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. He said, you may start to act like a man, you may start to look like a man, you may start to work like a man, but I'm not going to come to you like that. He said, I'm still going to meet you as God meeting with you as one of the women that he's designed and created. That's what he means in that. But he's telling women that if you start going down this road and you don't want to play into the natural design, the natural use that God has given for you, then what's going to happen in society, and if you open your eyes for more than three seconds when you step out this building, you will see that God is exactly right. That the farther you go away from this, the more women start to try to cut their hair to look more like men. It becomes more and more common, more and more accepted in society. And the more naked they get. And you want to see anything that proves the Bible, you just start looking. That when God tells you to go this way, this is what happens. You see it over and over again in the Bible. And that's exactly what He describes here. So go with me now to 1 Timothy chapter 2. That's where we're actually supposed to be at throughout this message. We just haven't made it there. 1 Timothy chapter number 2. And I'm going to tackle another very controversial passage to see who else I can offend here. 1 Timothy chapter number 2, verse number 8. It says, I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. In like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered hair or gold or pearls or costly array. And we'll get into the rest of the passages in just a moment, but I want you to notice something before we do. Because we talked a lot about clothing, we talked a lot about modesty, we talked a lot about that stuff last week. But I want you to notice that he puts it upon a woman that she dresses herself modestly and focuses on making her heart beautiful more so than drawing attention to her physical appearance. And he likens it to a man lifting up his hands in prayer to God. You know what he means? He's saying you being beautiful and modest as a woman, you covering your body with modesty and decency and focusing on having a good spiritual heart, having the right heart towards God, is worship just like a man sitting here in the service and raising his hands in praise and worship to God. You want to know how you can worship God as a woman according to Him? focused on having a modest apparel and a right spirit towards God. That's what he's saying in the verse, if you pay attention. I mean, think about that. It says, verse 8, I will read it again. I will, therefore, that men everywhere pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. So he says, I want men to get past their anger, because that's our problem. I want you to get past your anger, and I want you to stop doubting, and I want you to lift up your hands and praise God in prayer. And then what does he say? in like manner also that women adorn themselves in modest apparel." So in like manner means in the same way. So he says, in the same way I want a man to worship me by letting go of his anger and stop doubting and lifting up his hands in prayer, I want a woman to worship me by how? That they adorn themselves in modest apparel. He says, you want to know how to worship God? You want to know something that's more beautiful to Him than you setting in the service and shouting amen or crying or any of that before Him? It's that you dress yourself in modest apparel and that you adorn yourself with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broided hair, gold or pearls or costly race. So God says, you want to be beautiful to Him? It's not going to be because you put on nice jewelry today. Again, it's not a sin to wear jewelry. We're not Pentecostal. We didn't make up stuff that's not in the Bible. The fact that they use this passage to teach that you can't wear jewelry shows that they're misusing it on purpose, because the sister passage to this is 1 Peter chapter 3. And I'm going to read it to you real quick, but I'm going to shorten the message a little bit by taking and just reading that one to you very quickly. 1 Timothy chapter 3. Read it with me real quick, but hold your place. We're coming back to 1 Peter 3. Hold your place in 1 Timothy 2. We're coming back to this, because this is the passage we wanted to study and understand. But I want to show you something in 1 Peter. For anybody who's ever had friends who tell them it's a sin to wear jewelry, because they'll use this verse and say, God doesn't want you to wear jewelry, and He doesn't want you to fix your hair fancy, and all that stuff. It's a sin to have those things. But let me show you the sister passage of this in 1 Peter 3 verse 1. Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husband, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning." So you see he's talking about the same thing. of plating the hair, and of wearing of gold, and of putting on of apparel." So the last passage he mentioned costly apparel. He said, I don't want you to think that you're beautiful just because your clothes cost a lot. I don't want you to think you're beautiful just because you have the nice jewelry out today. And I don't want you to think you're beautiful just because you fixed your hair really good. That's what he's saying. Now, there is entire denominations who come to that and say, well, you can't wear jewelry. It's a sin to wear jewelry, because he said, I don't want your outward adorning to be jewelry and nice hair and fancy clothes. But in first Peter, he just says clothes. He says, don't think that putting on clothes and fixing your hair and wearing jewelry makes you beautiful in the eyes of God. That's what he's saying. If you try to say this is a forbidding of wearing jewelry and a forbidding of fixing your hair, then it's also a forbidding of wearing clothes. And I don't think God wants any woman to be sitting in a church house naked today. So the Pentecostals can take that lie straight back to where it came from. It's not the Word of God. God is not against jewelry. He talks about His bride wearing jewelry throughout multiple passages of Scripture. God describes many times people wearing jewelry in the positive throughout the Bible. He's not against you having jewelry. He's against you thinking that God's going to look at you and smile and say, Oh, she really fixed up her hair today. She must love me. She put on the most expensive dress she's got. She must really love me. Oh man, she's really worshiping me today because she put on some jewelry. No, he says, you want to know how to dress to please God? Dress modestly. You want to know how to dress to please God? You dress in a way where you're not drawing attention to the curves and shapes of your body. You dress in a way where you're not drawing attention to the flesh. so that what can radiate and shine and beauty can be seen is that inner man, that heart, that soul that is inside of you, that is shame-faced, that is sober, that is meek, that is submissive, all those things that you're supposed to be as a woman, that's what he's talking about in this passage. So don't let anybody tell you he's saying you cannot wear jewelry, because if you cannot wear jewelry, you cannot wear clothes. Don't let somebody tell you he's saying you cannot fix your hair, because again, if you cannot do that, you cannot do the other. It's a lie to say that. But don't miss the point of the passage, because that's what they've done. They spent so much time lying to you about what the passage says, that they distracted you from what it says. What it says is, if you want to worship God, Be modest and have the right heart. And he says God will look at that as worship the same way if a man lets his anger go and lets his pride go and starts putting his faith in God and comes to church praying to Him with his hands lifted up in praise. God will see that worship the same way He sees that. The same way He'll see a man here in this service singing his whole heart out, tears flowing down his face, crying. You think God's any more pleased with that than He is with you having the right spirit and the right modest clothing? No. God says both of those things are worship in His eyes, because you've chosen to cover yourself with the way He's asked you to. You've chosen to have the heart and the spirit He's asked you to. You didn't come to Him offering strange sacrifices and all this kind of stuff. You didn't come offering the works of your hand. You came offering Him what He asked for. And what He asked for is to come to Him modestly, with shamefacedness, sobriety, with meekness. That's what He's asked of you as a woman. And you want to know what the first and foremost way you'll worship Him, it's that way. And I'll tell you something, if you come raising your hands and you're shouting, you're crying and all this, but you don't have modest clothing on, you have not worshipped God. You got emotional, and I'm not going to say that the Holy Spirit didn't touch you, I'm not saying that. But I'm saying you didn't start worshipping God until you started doing it the way He asked for it. I can't stand here as a man and just offer to God whatever I want and call it worship. I can't get up here and sing songs about the world and call it worship. And I can't sing songs of worldly music and call it worship. And I can't sit here and roll around on the floor and get down on my knees and bark like a dog and you think I'm crazy but there's denominations that do that and call it worship. I can't just say whatever I want is worship just because there's a little bit of worship somewhere around it. And as a woman, He's telling you, if you want to worship God, you start by coming the way He asked you to. You start by putting the emphasis where He asked you to. Not on making the outside appealing to everybody, but on making the spirit right, making the heart right, the soul right, all the inner parts of who you are, making those things right. And then you can worry about how you decorate the body. So that's the idea He's presenting to you as women that He expects from you. So that was 1 Timothy 2.8-9. 1 Timothy 2.10 says, "...but which becometh women professing godliness with good works." See what that means? He says this is natural of a godly woman. You want to see what good works and naturally what godliness looks like in a woman's life? It's that. She covers herself in modesty. That's why when you see a woman dressed modestly, you automatically assume that she might be a Christian. Or she's at least religious. When you see a woman dressed modestly, and all the world's out there with everything on show and display, and you see a woman dressed in modesty, it affects your opinion of her. You assume that she might just be a Christian. And it affects you because of that. Because you see that there's something about her. And God's saying that this is natural, it's becoming, it's beautiful of a woman, when you have this right spirit about you, and the right attitude in your clothes. Then you see also that He says in verse number 11, It says, let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach nor usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. And this is where you really get to where all of society nowadays will turn against you. I've had people leave the church over this, but it's still in the Bible and I can't change that for them. The Bible teaches that God made men and women to serve different roles. And we understand that. We've talked about that as provider and caretaker. We've talked about that in terms of the different strengths and abilities we have. And whether it's about strength or ability is irrelevant. God's designed so that in leadership, men are supposed to be taking those roles. And I will say, part of it goes back to the fact that God designed men to handle stress in a different way than women. And that's part of it. But God says it's not even about that. He says that it's been that way from the very beginning. That it's in the natural design that God made the man first, and then He made the woman to be His help. And He didn't mean that in a way that you're less than Him. God puts them on the same plane. It's just that somebody has to be the leader. And if you don't know what I mean, let's keep reading. For Adam, so this means this is the reason why he says you're supposed to do this. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression. So, God says that Adam, when he sinned, he made a decision, he thought about what he had in front of him, and he chose to go along with his wife, regardless of the eternal consequences, for whatever reason. You can speculate he didn't want to lose her, I've heard all kinds of stories, but ultimately it doesn't matter because God doesn't get into that. She was deceived by the devil being told that she would be like unto God. She could be her own God, essentially, and she went after that. But honestly, I don't even think that's entirely the intention. I think people get distracted by that. The point he's making is this. Adam was already supposed to be the head of his home before Eve was ever created. God created Adam and gave him dominion over the whole earth and told him to rule over it before he ever had a wife. Adam had already named every creature in the entire world before he ever had a wife. He had already exercised his dominion in deciding that we're going to call this one this and we're going to call that one that and so forth. It was that process that God used to open his heart and help him see that he needed a wife. Because God said it's not good for him to be alone and said, well, I'm not going to force him to have a wife. I'll give him an appetite, a hunger for that. So he paraded all the animals in front of him and let him see that all the male animals have a female animal. None of them are alone. And he said, well, you know, that looks nice. I don't have a help this meat for me. God, why don't I have that? And God said, OK, no problem. Go to sleep. And then he took his rib and he made a wife for him. But my point is Adam was already the head of the world. God had given him dominion over the whole world before his wife was ever created. And he had already exercised and done some of that. So what God's trying to tell you is it's not about abilities. Because honestly, there are some women in this church that you're probably a lot smarter than your husband. I'm not going to point fingers and name who that is. But there's some of you that your wife's a lot smarter than you in some stuff. but that's not the point. There's some of you, your wife may be better at making decisions than you, but that's not the point. There's some of you that she's more financially, I mean, Lori's more financially responsible than me, but that's not the point. You understand the point he's saying is that this is the choice God made, the design he established from the first man and the first woman, is that this man was supposed to have that leadership responsibility put upon him, and he was supposed to take that role, and she was supposed to come along and support him and help him to be successful in that role. And that's why any man I talk to in this church, I tell you that you should be leading your home in a family to where there are better Christians, not in spite of you, but because of you. Because God's given you a leadership responsibility in your home. God designed that. But if I can say that to the men, then what does that mean for the women? That God didn't give you the position to be the head of your home. God didn't tell you to be the one who wears the pants in your house. God told your husband to do that. And I understand he's going to make mistakes. I understand that he's not going to get everything right. But that's still the way God designed it. And when you fight against that, it's like somebody going to a company and they don't like their supervisor because they think they're smarter than them. And so they are constantly sabotaging themselves and the company because they'd rather fight to prove the point that they're smarter than their supervisor than do the job they were given. And so many women are sabotaging their homes today. They are the foolish woman plucking it down with their hands because they're too busy trying to prove that they're smarter than their husband than doing the job that God gave them. And I don't say that callously or cruel or anything else. I'm telling you as a woman, you are hurting yourself by going against the design and the job God's given to you. And you can answer to him, not to me. But you have to understand that. That you are hurting your marriage and you're hurting yourself every time you're going behind your husband and second-guessing him and doubting him and all this kind of stuff. And I'm not telling you that there shouldn't be accountability and openness. All that stuff should be in a marriage. If you were here for the marriage conference thing we did, you know that. I'm not telling you to keep secrets or anything like that. I'm saying that you have to let Him make decisions, and if He's dumb and He makes dumb decisions, you have to let Him learn from dumb decisions sometimes. That's just the way it's designed. Because God set this in order, and the more you fight against it, the more you're kicking against God's design, and stressing you, yourself, your marriage, your husband, and everything else around you, because you're not doing the job you were given. And so that's why God told her her desire would be to her husband, and that wasn't part of the curse, that was something that was always for her. She was made that way, that her desire would be to her husband, that she would submit herself to him. That's why I could take you to passage after passage, wives, submit yourself to your own husband as unto the Lord. Wives, submit yourself to your own husbands. This is the will of God for you to do that. It's over and over again. Almost every passage that talks about a wife in the Bible has a part of it where it says, submit yourselves to your husbands. So if you're asking how God designed you, that's what he designed you for. And I understand it's not always easy, but as hard as it may feel to do that, it's less destructive than fighting against it. It's less destructive than trying to do it another way. And that's the decision you have to make for your home. That's what you have to make for your family, is that you're not going to fight against God's design. Now, honestly, though, this verse is not about your home. It's about the church. And he's saying in a church that God doesn't call women to preach, He calls men to preach. That's a job He's given to men and He's put them in that position. And when a woman tries to usurp authority to be the leader in the church, she's going outside of God's design and will for her life. And a church that does that is going outside of God's design and will for that church. And I'll be honest, you can tell this almost everywhere in the world. I've been in hundreds of churches. I've preached in probably 700 churches in my lifetime. And I can tell you the thing that I can see every time is a testament that that church is going to go contemporary, it's going to fall apart, it's going to close the doors, is when the men are not stepping up to be leaders. It's just like this statement that you can always tell when a home is going to have problems and when there's not male leadership. There's not a father in that home. The children are far more likely to get into crime and all this stuff. The same thing is true of a church. When the men are not willing to be leaders, not going to step up and get in the front and do the work and do the jobs and take responsibility, and the women are the one having to do all of that. I thank God that women are oftentimes the ones willing to do that. There's so many times you jump faster than the men to do jobs you shouldn't have to do. And I thank God for you being willing to get out there and do stuff, but it's not your job many times. And that's why as men, you have to understand, this must be a message on the women, but as men, you have to understand this. If you as men are not willing to step up and take the authority and you let the women come in and usurp authority, you have signed the death warrant for this church. Every church I have ever been in, again, about 700 churches at least I've stepped foot in in my lifetime. And every time when I go in there and it's women meeting me at the door to greet me and it's women leading everything in the service, women doing all that. I don't have anything against those women because I know many times they're just women who stepped in because the men wouldn't do it. But I can tell you something, that church ain't going to last very long. And if it does, it's not going to last anything good. It'll stop being a church that's honoring God very fast. And I'm telling you that that's something you have to understand for our church. And if you don't believe that, here's the argument everybody will always give you. Well, that was for a different time. God didn't let women preach because back then women weren't allowed to be educated. That's the Quran, not the Bible. You're talking about the wrong religion. Jewish women were always allowed to be educated. Christian women have always been allowed to be educated. If you think that the problem is education, you have to go talk to the Muslims about that. You won't find that in the Bible. Women in Israel had a fine education as good as anybody else because there was no schools in Israel. Everybody was educated at home. Their parents told them the stuff they needed to do and gave them the things that they needed to have. The only school you'll ever find in Israel in the Bible is the School of the Prophets, and that was for grown adult men to go study about the Bible and being preachers and so forth. It's a Bible college, essentially. You won't find any other school being attributed to the Jewish people who are in the Bible. Now, I'm not going to get into homeschool versus public school through that, but I'll let you make of that what you want. But what I'm saying to you is this, the problem wasn't education. And even if you don't agree with what I just said, the problem still wasn't education, and I'll tell you why. Give me one verse in the entire Bible where the requirement to be a pastor has anything to do with education. He said not to be a novice, but novice is not education, novice is experience. To not be a novice means you've been doing the work. You've been involved in ministry and doing some form of ministry and work to get some experience in all of this. So you show me any requirement. I mean, you've got two different passages that tell you the requirement for a pastor. Show me anywhere in those requirements where it says he has to have a certain level of education to be able to do it. And you won't find it. You won't find where Bible college is required of someone to go and be a pastor. So it wasn't education that was the problem. is that God designed things to be a certain way, and God designed that men be the leaders in the church and in society and in all these places. And whether you like it or not, that's what God says. And that's why He even uses that as an example in 1 Corinthians 14. He attacks the church at Corinth because when they got into tongues and started being so carnal, the women were the ones getting up in the service speaking in tongues many times. And God says, one, you're missing the point because you're supposed to be talking about, you know, giving the Word of God and teaching the Word of God. This is not a display of getting up and showing some ability you think you have. But two, God said a woman is not supposed to get up and teach in a church, so how is she going to get up and talk in tongues in a church? And so that's why he forbids it in 1 Corinthians 14, he condemns their church for that. Because God still says to let the woman learn in silence, that's 1 Corinthians 14, let the woman learn in silence, and if she has a question, ask her husband when she gets home. That's the idea, because what God designed for you as women, and this is where society is against me, society will hate this, a lot of Christians will hate when I say this. God designed that a woman would be under the authority of her father until she gets married. And that when she gets married, she goes to her husband and throughout her lifetime, she's never supposed to carry certain responsibilities or burdens or all that stuff. She's supposed to have a man who's willing to help take care of her and provide for her. Honestly, that's what God designed for you. Some of you don't have that because you don't have a father, you don't have these kind of influences, but that's what it was supposed to be like. But that's not what society is anymore. And then we wonder why so many young ladies ruin their life before they ever get married. Before they ever walk down the aisle, they've already messed up their life so many ways, they'll hardly ever recover from it. We wonder why so many ladies grow up to then marry broken men who have broken homes, who raise broken children, and the cycle just keeps repeating itself over and over again. You might think it has something to do with going against God's design. I mean, that would be the most easy answer to find in all of this. that God has designed a certain thing for each of us. That's what we saw in 1 Corinthians 11, that He compared it to Christ being in subjection to the Father. God the Father and God the Son are equal, but God the Son put Himself in subjection to the Father because that's the natural way in which the relationship works. And God says, you want your home, your marriage, your relationship to work? This is how it's supposed to be. You want a church to work? This is how it's supposed to be. God designed for the man to take those roles of responsibility and leadership. One of the strangest things he says in this passage is when he says that she will be saved, yet is by childbearing, here in 1 Timothy chapter 2, in verse number 15. It says, Notwithstanding, she shall be saved and childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. What does he mean by that though? Because we know he's not talking about salvation in terms of heaven or hell, because salvation by grace or faith has nothing to do with any of that. I'll give you the passage that I believe answers that very plainly. 1 Timothy 5, verse number 11, it's in the context, it's the same book. God didn't put the chapter divisions in there, we did, so it's actually the same passage. 1 Timothy chapter 5 and verse number 11 says this, But the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. And with all they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not, I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, non-occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan." You know what he wants you to be saved from? It's the devil wrecking your life. And he says for a young lady, if you're not under the authority of a father, in this case he's using a widow's example, that she's married, her husband died, she's not under her father anymore, she's all on her own. He says the best thing a young widow can do is go ahead and get married, have a family, and have that family to keep you responsible and focused so that you don't get pulled aside in this world and gossip and idleness and all this kind of stuff and you can stay focused on serving God in the role He's given you. And I'm not telling the young ladies to go rush and get married. You find the godly man and you get married right or else you're going to have all the problems I just talked about. But He's saying to save yourself from being turned aside from Satan, That's why God put a authority there to help, to govern and guide your life. And understand he's not perfect and it doesn't always work because some men are not godly men. But it's a system that works better than anything else the world's ever given you. It's a system that works better than anything else anybody else has ever come up with. It's to follow the rules that God gave. God designed this and wants it to be this way. And the last passage I want to give you, the one honestly I want to talk about a lot more. I maybe offended people too much and God doesn't want me to run you the rest of the way off. So I'm only going to briefly mention this, but it's Isaiah 3. Isaiah 3 and verse number 12. It says, As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee calls thee to err and destroy the way of thy paths. He's describing Israel, up to this point he's describing their sin and how they got in this condition, why their country is so broken, so vile, and so evil. And now he's telling them, you know what your problem is? The people who are leading you have led you to a place. Chapter 1 talks about being head to foot sick with sin. So this isn't the first thing in the list. But he says the people who are leading you have led you to a place where children are your oppressors and women rule over you. He says, you can't go to the store because your child is too rebellious and wild, and you can't control them, so you can't go to the store anymore. They oppress you. You can't go to the store because children in the store are now throwing tantrums and beating their parents and all this kind of stuff. You have to stop in the store and wait your turn to go buy the item you want off the shelf. because somebody's in the middle of getting beat by an eight-year-old, because they didn't teach their child how to listen to them. They are being oppressed by children. You have to be afraid how you leave your stuff outside of your house at night, because a bunch of vagabond teenagers are going to come by and mess up your house in the night while you're sleeping, if you leave something outside. They're going to steal your bicycle or whatever else. Children are your oppressors. That's what that means. You are being oppressed by people who are supposed to be afraid of you. Your child is supposed to be afraid of you. You're not supposed to be letting them govern and dictate your life that I can't do stuff because little Johnny or little Susie, they can't handle that. It's too much for them. They're going to cause problems for me. I would love to come eat with you. I'd love to come visit you. I'd love to come do this, but I can't do that because of my child. You are being oppressed by someone who is supposed to be afraid of you. That's what he's describing happened to Israel because they didn't do it God's way, they listened to the world. And then he says your wives, the women are ruling over you in your society. You're afraid to be a man. You're afraid to go out there and do what you have to do and do the things that God's given you to do. You're afraid to show any sign of strength or masculinity of any kind because somebody might accuse you of something. A woman might say you hit her and your whole life is ruined. A woman might say that you did something inappropriate and your whole life is ruined. You're afraid that you're going to be accused of something and it's going to mess up your life. And women are ruling over you so that you're afraid that if I don't give my wife everything she wants, if mama's not happy, nobody's happy. You understand, like, what he's describing to you is, you see it every day. Like, I don't really promote using Facebook, but for those of you who use it, you have not opened your Facebook one day and not seen something of that nature, where a parent's life is being dictated and oppressed because of their child, or a man is being ruled over by his wife because if mama's not happy, nobody's happy. And I'm not telling men to be, you understand, I spent a whole lot of this message telling men to treat their wife tender, delicately, treat her as the weaker vessel or your prayers will be hindered. So I'm in no way telling men to mistreat their wives or be unfailing or uncaring towards them. God said if you don't treat her right, He's not going to listen to you. So you better be very serious about how you treat her. But I'm telling you, if your home is so messed up that you can't have peace and happiness, if you're not bending over backwards and kissing your wife's feet, and she's ruling over you, and you can't have peace and quiet in your house because your children oppress you, and you have to change your habits, and you have to replace all the cups so that the kids don't break them, you have to replace everything so the kids don't destroy that, you have to dictate your home by that, God says, you've got your life out of order. Something has to be changed. That's why when parents start asking me, why don't you put up a safety gate here? Why don't you do this here? Because children are not going to oppress me here at this church. You can get another pastor, but I'm not going to be oppressed by them. believe very firmly, and you teach your child. If you have to take them out and you give them the rod of correction, you deal with them, because it's not my job to teach them. They should know before they ever get here, and I'm not going to have to change the way the church is structured for that. I have no problem with putting a closure on the door upstairs. That's good. I'm fine with that. So don't feel, I'm not talking about that. But I'm talking about sometimes people ask me, why don't you put a gate to keep them from going behind the counter? Why don't you put a gate to keep them from there? Why don't you put, sometimes you want to put a whole fence around the pulpit almost to keep a child off of it. And I'm just going to be honest, my children don't oppress me and I'm not going to be oppressed by anybody else's. I'm not trying to attack you or be rude to you or hurt anybody's feelings when I say stuff like that. I'm saying that as a grown man, if your child's oppressing you and you have to dictate your life because you don't want to offend him, you don't want to get him upset, there's something wrong. Something is out of order. It's not right. And if the pastor can't get up and preach because he's afraid he's going to offend your wife and everybody else's wife and all this kind of stuff, something's wrong in the church. And if in your home you're afraid to make decisions and lead because your wife does not support you, instead you have to come to her and get permission on how to do stuff. You have to ask her, honey can I please have the debit card so I can go buy something. Your house is out of order. Something is wrong. And you need to fix it. If you're being oppressed by your children and ruled over by your wife, something is wrong. And the flip side of that, because this is mostly focused for ladies, is ladies, if you're trying to rule over your husband instead of submitting to him, you are so far out of the will of God, I can't even begin to express it. Because every verse in the Bible tells you to submit. Every verse about a wife almost tells her to submit to her husband. And if he has to submit to you, you're in the wrong. If your children, almost every verse for children in the Bible says obey your parents, I mean, God, if a child tried to oppress his parents in Israel, they were allowed to have him stoned to death. I mean, normally, we're not talking about small children here. We're talking about, you know, big kids. But you understand that God was so much against it that if Jared, you know, by that age, you could have him stoned to death. If he's going to try to oppress his parents, and he's a rebellious, stubborn, wicked child, then you shouldn't have to shape your life around. I'm not talking about you personally. I'm just using an example of age. Some of those things may have fit, but I don't mean it that way. But the point is that if that's the way your life is, you have gotten out of the will of God. And there's a reason why you don't have peace in your home. There's a reason why you don't have contentment in your home. There's a reason why you come home to fighting and bickering every day. There's a reason why you're always stressed out and overwhelmed. And every woman who has a... has a Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or any of that kind of stuff. I don't even know what they actually put them on most of the time. But any woman who has those kind of things, most of her posts are about being over-exhilarated, over-stressed, over all this stuff because there's just too much going on. And why? Because instead of doing the design and job God gave to you, you're trying to do your husband's job and yours, and trying to let children tell you what to do and make all them happy instead of leading and ruling over your children. Because husband and wife are both supposed to have rule over children. They're not supposed to oppress either one of you. And I'm telling you, when it comes to all this stuff, you can do whatever you want to. I mean, you don't have to listen to me preach about this for three more months, or six more months, probably, by the time I come back to this. And you may have moved on to another pastor by then, so you may never have to hear me talk about this again. So you have to bear with me that this is a long message, but we're not going to come back to this again for a while. You have to make the decision for your home and for your family. And you young ladies and you young men have to make the right decision for your future. If you're going to marry a woman, you need to be willing to, she needs to be willing to be the kind of woman who's going to submit to you as a husband and follow you and support you even when you're dumb sometimes. And ladies, if you've got a man that you're interested in and he's not going to provide for you and he's not going to take care of you, you don't need to be interested in him. If he's not going to be a godly man who's going to make you a more godly woman through his leadership, you don't need to pursue that relationship. It's not of God. I'm not saying it never could be, but I'm saying it's not. If that man is not willing to be the man God wants him to be, and if she's not willing to be the woman God wants her to be, it's not God's will. I don't care how pretty she is. God said it's like having a jewel of gold in a swine snout if she's beautiful and has no discretion. I don't care how beautiful she is. I don't care how nice she does whatever. If she's not willing to be the woman God made her to be, she's not for you. And if you're not willing to be the man that God made you to be, you're not for her. You have no business getting married and wrecking somebody else's life until you're willing to be the man or woman God made you to be. And until then, you need to work on yourself and fix yourself and find a godly spouse who will lead your home in a godly way or submit in your home in a godly way, whichever role they're supposed to play. And for everyone who is married, you need to go home and evaluate your home. I can't tell you what you're doing wrong. I probably could if I really want to, but I'm not going to try. You know what the Bible says about this. You've heard it. You know it. You probably knew it well before I ever said it today. But sometimes we need to be hit in the face with some things and be reminded that peace cannot be bought. It's worth far more to have a peaceful, quiet home, stress, without all that stress and all that bickering and fighting. It's worth more than any vacation. It's worth more than any extra luxuries or privileges you have in this life to have that peace in your home and have a wife who's able to be there to support you and not be each other's cause of stress. So you have to make the decisions and decide for your house if you're really ruling it the way God would have you to. And we didn't get really much into children, but if your children's oppressing you, you also need to look at that, too, and ask, what am I doing wrong? And I'll tell you, go to Proverbs, look at every verse about chastisement, the rod of reproof, correction, all of that, and you'll figure out real quick what you're probably doing wrong. But we'll save that for another time. Father, we thank you and praise you, God, for all that you do. We pray that you'll watch over us, help us to serve you, Lord. Thank you for your blessings, your goodness. I pray that, God, you'd help us to be faithful to you in all things. We thank you, Lord, for all this and ask you, Lord, just to work in our homes and our families. We ask it in your son Jesus' name. Amen.