It's a great privilege for me to be here with you. Coming to this meeting reminds me so much of things I remember in my childhood. Nowadays, and I try to remind young men in their 40s and under, that the Reformed theology and sovereign grace seems to be all the rage. Who would have ever believed that? But I tell them, of men like my grandfather and others who they believed in these doctrines when no one did. They believed in these doctrines when they were ridiculed, made fun of, isolated, accused of being full of hate, having no love for lost souls. And so I can just say that I know that there are men out here today who you believed these things when no one did. And I praise God for that. I praise God for you. And much of what's happening today, many of the absolutely incredible things that are happening with regard to the return Of the doctrines, I think it's because of that men like you held the course and were considered peculiar birds, strange doctrines. Praise God, Spurgeon in his last years being attacked and attacked, he he said, they'll tear me to pieces now, but the doctrines I preach will live on. And so it's been the case. Before I get started, I'd just like to mention something that's been on my heart. And then when Don shared this, it's something I just felt I needed to share today. And it's been on my heart for a long time. And that is to the pastors. Don was speaking about children. Pastors, is it possible that your Sunday school is doing more harm than good to the raising of children? Is your Sunday school providing a plan B, neglecting God's plan, which is plan A? Are you building something of a Christian socialism? What do I mean by that? Socialism basically begins to happen in a country, as it is beginning to happen in ours, because men give away their privileges because they no longer want the responsibility. I want you to ask yourself a question. How many men in your churches are daily catechizing, teaching their own children? Or have they given the privilege to a collective group, to an organization, to a church? Have they taken their responsibility in Scripture and turned it over to your local church? And now they are neglectful in their duties. Do you know that early Baptists were so against Sunday school? Now, I'm not against Sunday school. But they were. And this is one of the things that they said. If we bring this into the church, fathers will surrender their duties at home. Boast about your Sunday school. You may be boasting about a plan that's literally deterring God's plan. My question is, how many men in your congregations, how many are discipling their own wives in a love relationship and discipling their own children? That is the question. And it's a great and an important one. My primary calling when I was single was simply and only to preach the gospel. And if I chose, I could work 18 hours a day in the study of God's word and the preaching of his gospel. But when God in his providence brought a wife to me, My ministry was not limited, but the hours and duties of my ministry were changed. I now had a person drawn into me to be one flesh with me, and it was my obligation to care for her, to nourish her. But we were free to work together as a couple in the cause of Christ until a little boy was born. And then commandments that had nothing to do with us prior, begin to take hold of us, and we had to come under them, commandments of how to take care of children. Be careful that your local congregation is not assuming the duties that do not belong to it. Transfer the responsibility back to the biblical recipient, the father. Well, that's just a short word. I'm torn. I have to say, I'm really torn between two things today. One is an aspect of the work of the cross. The other thing is the family. As Don was speaking, my heart was just so overwhelmed by that. And I think I'm going to go ahead and go in that direction. I'm going to go ahead and talk about the family. And I want you to go to Ephesians. Now, you're saying, well, this is a sovereign grace conference and we've heard two sermons on family. We know one of the accusations against you guys is all you talk about is sovereign grace. So it might be good to speak much about the family. Go to Ephesians. Chapter five. Verse 22. Well, let's go to verse 21 first and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. But the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be subject to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ in the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife, even as himself. And the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. Now, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, Father, I come before you in the name of your son. I worship, I worship you, praise you, thank you. You are such a God. You are so good. Your mercies are never ending, new every morning. Honor and praise and glory be unto you, O God, forever and ever. Father, we thank you for your son. Lord, our greatest pain is our lack of devotion to him because he's worthy of everything. Father, help us to be more devoted to him. And father, with this passage before us, Lord, you know. How these words pierce my heart. how much I need to hear them. I pray, dear God, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you would impress these truths upon our heart so that we would, in fear of the Lord, conform to them. But Lord, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing. Lord, do a supernatural work in me, in my brethren, with regard to our families. In Jesus name, Amen. Man was created with a specific purpose. We can see that in the book of Genesis, that he was to take dominion, that he was to subject the earth to the will of God. Now, as we go on into the New Testament, we see that that seems to take another flavor. And that the attitude of a man, I'm talking about a masculine, a man, the attitude of a man ought to be the very words that we see in the prayer of Jesus Christ in Matthew 6. When you look in the eyes of a man, a Christian man, in the eyes of a husband, when a son or a daughter looks in the eyes of their father, this is what ought to be imprinted. upon them. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. The passion, the controlling passion of our lives must be that God's name be great among the nations. That the knowledge of God would cover the land as the waters cover the sea. that His kingdom would advance into all places, every nook and cranny of every heart, and that His will be done on this planet as it is done in heaven. That is what my wife should see when she looks at me. That should be what my children see whenever they gaze upon their father. They should see this. But now immediately, Especially pastors wives. They'll hear a word like this and almost begin to feel resentful. Why? Because this very truth has been used to promote an ungodly practice in ministry. the ungodly practice of neglecting your family for the sake of the kingdom, of sacrificing your relationship with your wife for the sake of the kingdom, of sacrificing your children, your family, your responsibilities, your time, everything for the sake of the kingdom. But that idea is more Catholic than it is Christian. Now, what do I mean by that in Catholicism? There is a although they may not say it, there is a way in which they have divided the world into secular and sacred. There are certain things that are secular, that are other things that are sacred. We in Christianity ought to be careful that we do not do the same, that the ministry is somehow sacred and everything else is, well, maybe not secular, but at least less sacred. That is a lie. You see, once you become a Christian, you are in Christ. Not only are you in Christ, but every activity of your life is in Christ. So that whether you eat or drink or do any other thing, you do it unto the glory of God. One of the great truths of the Reformation that was rediscovered was the fact that there is no such thing as secular employment or activity for the Christian. Even the pots and pans in our homes are sacred. So if I'm to be a man, a man of God, which doesn't mean just clergy, but a man belonging to God, obedient to God, then every aspect of my life has to be for His glory and every activity in my life subject to His will. And the activities of my life are determined not by the whims of culture or even the whims of contemporary Christianity, but the activities in my life must be determined by God's Word as it is set forth in Providence. What do I mean by that? What I said earlier. When I was a single missionary in Peru, if I wanted to, I could preach and minister 24 hours a day. And then in God's providence, what happened? A wife was brought to me, which meant a whole new set of commands that before were dead to me are now alive. The commands prior about wife and husband had nothing to do with me. I was single. But now those commands have become real. And will you stand up and say that there are some commands more important than others? I don't think so. So if those commands became alive to me on the day I wed, they're just as important as any other command. Do you say that a man has the right to determine what is more important in the will of God? You would not say that. So all of God's commands are important. And according to Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, since the will of God is perfect, complete, it means that in no way can I say I am going to neglect one aspect of God's will or I have to neglect one aspect of God's will in order to fulfill another aspect of God's will. So many ministers down through the years have basically said with their lives and practice, I do not have time for my wife. I do not have time for my children because I must do the ministry. They are accusing God of having a will less than perfect. They are saying that God has put them in a predicament where they must disobey one aspect of His will in order to fulfill another aspect of His will. That is not true. When I say that when my wife and my children look me in the eye, they ought to be able to hear this. Your name be sanctified, your kingdom come, your will be done. They know that their father, or they should know that their father, is not going to be neglectful in his husband and fatherly duties in order to fulfill some great commission. They are going to understand this, that I am passionate about being obedient to the will of God, and I will do that will of God according to His Scripture, according to that providence, and according to what I call concentric circles of concern. What do I mean? If I am serious about doing the will of God, it begins, first of all, with me. The greatest need in the world is a godly man. We have great speakers, eloquent teachers. We now have reformed and sovereign grace celebrities. But what we need is a godly man. The greatest need of my wife is a godly man. The greatest need of my sons and my daughter is a godly man. Leonard Ravenhill used to say, regarding the liberal theologians, he would say, all these men trying to give us a new definition of Christianity, what we need is a new and fresh demonstration of it. I can honestly tell you, I am so sick of proclaimers. eloquent speakers. I'm sick of it in my own life. I want to look in the mirror and see godliness, Christ likeness, the simplicity of the Christian life lived out in obedience to the smallest command. That's what validates Christianity. That's what makes it relevant. So first of all, my greatest concern is my own devotional life, my growing in Christ. I forfeit everything if I myself am not growing. I must grow. I must change. I must be broken. I must come under discipline. I must come under blessing and leading and teaching and everything else. My priority is to be like Christ. But then from there, I am not one flesh with the church. I am not even one flesh with my children. I am one flesh with a woman. And the greatest ministry in my life ought to be to her. Now, many men have accused me, they say, well, here you go, just giving all the priority to your family and thinking nothing about the Great Commission. That is one thing, sir, I do not think you can accuse me of. But I can tell you this. If I am neglectful in the important duties that the Lord has given me, I am no longer validated to be a worker in the Great Commission. I must care for my wife. And then comes my children. Yes, then comes my children. If your children are the most important people to you over your wife, you are terribly skewed. Sister, if you have that so-called romantic motherly love that surpasses your love for your husband, you are unbiblical. As a matter of fact, let me share this with you. And it's been a cause for great anger among some women. First of all, you say there's nothing like a mother's love. I have to dispute with you. The Bible says there's nothing like a father's love. Secondly, many mothers, the love they have for their children is nothing more than parasitic. Why? Their husbands have been neglectful of them. So all the nourishment, all the tenderness, all the sentiment, all the love and warmth and cherishing that they should be getting from a man, They have latched themselves onto their children and they're getting it from their children. And your children were not made for that. You see, gentlemen, when we drop the ball in the smallest thing, it has a chain effect that destroys everything. This is one of the reasons why sometimes when a daughter-in-law appears on the scene, the godly mother-in-law turns into a demon because here comes a little girl to steal her love. Because she's not being loved by the man who ought to, has the obligation to love her. So the wife, the children. And then the body of Christ. The body of Christ. To not just attend church to hear a sermon, but to be a vital part of Christ's body. One of the things that itinerant preachers like myself, but even pastors have to be careful of is you move yourself into a pastoral position and almost no longer function as a member of the body. Yes, yes. Preaching and prayer ought to be your priority, but not to the neglect of other things. You too, although it should not be your priority, you too can wait on tables. You too can practice hospitality. You too can be a servant of servants. And then from there, the world. Do good unto all men, but especially those of the household. But do good unto all men. To carry the gospel to every creature. To offer the gospel freely to every man, woman and child on the planet. It ought to be our obsession. But this thing you should do without neglecting the others. You say, well, this is just a lot of work. Yes. Welcome to manhood. You go to bed every night tired. You come home from work only to realize your work has just begun. The fact that you are the provider for your family means absolutely nothing. That is just one tiny aspect of a greater commission. If you're a young man, let me give you a rule. This is a rule we have in our home. The children, our children are homeschooled. While I am gone to the office, they belong to their mother. When I come home at five o'clock, they belong to me until they go to bed. a father's involvement in his family. Now, let's look at some things, first of all, about the wife. Let's go to verse 21. And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Verse 22, Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. This entire scheme here in Ephesians 5 and 6 is talking about how we are to interact in the different stages of our relationships. We are told, first of all, that believers ought to submit to one another. We are also told that wives ought to submit to their husbands. Then we are told, also in Ephesians 6, that children ought to submit to their parents. And finally, that slaves, in our case, employees should submit to their employers. We're also told in the book of Romans we should submit to the government when conscious permits it. And so we see that there is a way in which we are to act in society. Now, there is a real sense in which I am, must be, you must be, sir, the head of your home. But never forget that authority in the Scriptures is much different from the authority that governed Rome. Rome's authority was to gain more and more power, to step on, to trample, to swallow up. But our authority as husbands is authority to serve. Christ knowing that He had all authority, knowing where He had come from and where He was going, He took a towel and He wrapped Himself and He took the position of a lowest servant. We are granted authority only to serve inside the will of God. And it will result not in the suppression of our wives. But in their flowering, not in the legalistic suppression of our children, but in their promotion, their growth, their blooming. So when we talk about authority. It has been granted unto us to die. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it abideth alone. But if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit. You see, sir, you're granted authority, not so that you become the center of absolutely everything and your wife and children are nothing more than an extension of you. You are granted authority for their promotion in Christ. To take the place of a servant. Yes, it is your duty. to die to yourself, to die to your buddies, to even die to your hobbies, to die to absolutely everything in order to lay your life down. One of the wonderful things about marriage is it provides for us in our contemporary Western culture the opportunity to suffer for Christ. The opportunity to carry out some of the most demanding radical calls of discipleship. So do you really want to be a leader? Now, it says, he goes on, he says, for verse twenty three, the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. Christ is the only savior, the only mediator. But there is a sense in which the husband takes upon himself a saving role. As Christ is head of the church, the savior of the church, so the husband is to be, in a sense, a means through which Christ's saving work is carried out in his wife, primarily in the area of sanctification. He ought to be a demonstration of the love of Christ. He ought to be the tool in the hand of Christ used for the transformation of the wife. She ought to bloom and prosper and her life ought to be greater because of her relationship with this man. Let me say something that's very, very important before we go on. It's very, very hard for me to speak about headship because unconverted, unregenerate, religious Pharisees can grab a hold of these truths and use it to dominate their families, to subjugate their wives to some second place category, to make their children all walk in line like little animals. Listen, your wife is going to receive a stone with a name written on it that only she and Christ knows, not you. She's an individual in her own right. Do you see that? She is a daughter of the living God. You could come work in our mission and commit all sorts of failures, even immoralities, and we would forgive you. We may have to displace you, but we would forgive you. But I have a little daughter. If you hurt her. Well, I guess the closest I would ever come to murdering an individual would be the man who hurt my daughter. I think about that. Doesn't matter how valuable you think you may be in the kingdom of heaven, if you mistreat God's daughter, he will not even give regard to your prayers. It's amazing. Are you afraid? You should be. So should I. He goes on. Verse 25, Husbands, love your wives. Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. What do you do with that, men? Except read it and be broken on your face. What a high calling. I am called to love this woman as Christ loved the church? How? You need the power of the Holy Spirit to preach. You're quite out for the power of the Holy Spirit to do this, because my friend, preaching is much easier than this. Look at that. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now, I want you to realize something. Christ, and it has been so clearly stated in the first sermon, Christ did not die for just this beautiful, impeccable, flawless creature. He died for a bride who was crying out, crucify Him. Do you honestly think your wife is to come ready made? You'll give yourself to her in this way when she does what she's supposed to do. That's not what Christ did. When His own bride was calling out for His death, He died for her. Just hold your place for a moment and let's go to. Romans. Eight, I mean, after all, it's all about sovereign grace, so we've got to go to Romans 8. Verse 28. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son. The sunum bonum, or the greatest good of the Christian life, is our conformity to Jesus Christ. Actually, God is working in His sovereignty so that absolutely everything is orchestrated in our lives to conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. Now, do you want to know what the purpose of marriage is? It is not to give you a little piece of heaven, but it is to conform you to the image of Christ. Now, let me teach you something. You know about all these organizations that are dating services. One of the things that they all have in common is they claim to put you with a mate who is compatible. Isn't it? That's the whole thing. Do a psychological exam. They're going to give you a mate that's compatible. Automatically, I can tell you it is not the will of God to use those services. Because in most cases in His providence, God does not want to give you a mate who is compatible. Now, let me just share with you something. Imagine the way you would be if you had a perfect wife. I'll tell you, you would look like the perfect husband. You would look so compassionate. And why are you compassionate? Well, she deserves it. You would look so loving. You would lavish gifts on her. You would be so graceful with her, so kind, so gentle. You would practically adore her. Why? Because she was perfect. And everyone would look at you and say, you are the greatest husband in the world, when in fact, Jesus would look at you and say, you are a whitewashed tomb full of dead men's bones and you need to wash the inside of the cup. Because the only reason you look the way you do is because she's met every one of your needs and desires. God will give you a wife that is strong in the areas where she must be strong so that you are not tested beyond what you can bear. But God will also give you a wife who will not be compatible and will oftentimes fail you in the very areas that you most desired in a wife. Now, why is that? What does it mean to be like Jesus? I mean, when I mention the name Jesus, what just pops into your head? You probably don't think of wrath. You probably don't think about hell or justice, even those are all aspects of God's economy. When you think about Jesus, what do you think about? Unconditional love? Grace? Mercy? Well, now let me ask you a question. How are you ever going to learn unconditional love if you're married to a woman who meets all the conditions? How are you ever going to learn mercy if you're married to a wife who never fails you? How are you ever going to learn grace if you're married to a woman who deserves everything and more that you can give her? You see, in the providence of God, one of our greatest problems, greatest struggles in our heart with depression and everything else is just this. We don't want what God wants. We want an easy life. We want a perfect mate. We want this and that and every other thing. And God desires conformity to Christ. And so people will marry. They'll find out that they're not compatible, that they rub each other the wrong way, and they think they've made the wrong decision because they do not know God. My people perish for a lack of knowledge. You see, now, sir, you can look at your wife, and sister, you can look at your husband, And look at all the ways in which you do seem to fit and praise God. You can also now look at all the ways that you don't fit at all and realize it's not a fluke. It's not a mistake. But those things also have been orchestrated by God. That you would be married to a man, be married to a woman who would rub you in all the wrong ways in the areas where you most wanted to be rubbed in the right way, and he's done this in order to conform you to Jesus. The only question is this, is that what you want? Do you want what God wants? Do you want to be conformed to the image of Christ? I wish I could remember the story, but I remember hearing of, I don't know if it was a Puritan, a great Presbyterian in Europe, I think it was. who was known to have a notoriously evil wife. And all the men got together one time, all the pastors in the area and a brother stood up and said, brothers, let's just have a prayer meeting and give thanks for our wives. They had a prayer meeting, gave thanks for their wife, and afterwards he went to this pastor who had a notoriously evil wife and said, brother, I'm so sorry. I forgot about your situation. I didn't mean to offend you. And he said, you offended me not at all. I have more to thank God for with the woman He's given me than any of you. But this woman has driven me to my knees and to cling to Christ more than all of your wives combined. Do you see? What do you want? What do you want? Gentlemen, this also rubs against something that is becoming very, very popular in our day. We have come to believe now, even in our circles, that the determination of whether or not a man is a true man of God is the size of his ministry, his notoriety. Now, come on, we know that's a lie. We know that goes against everything the Bible teaches in the Old and New Testament. He never says, beware if all men hate you. He says, beware if all men speak well of thee. What am I getting to? I'm getting to this again. Our great desire should not be to prosper in the ministry, but to prosper in Christ's likeness and let God take care of the ministry. And I believe with the emphasis on expository preaching, which I need to be better at expository preaching. All of us do. But be very careful about this. Be very careful that you do not spend more time preparing sermons than you do preparing you. of being in the Word just to get a word for somebody else, but to be in the Word, to be transformed by the Word and to preach out of the overflow of your life. So now he goes on and he says, verse 25, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her. Now, this is a good word for the wives. See, up until this moment, you might be thinking, well, amen. My husband's to lay down his life for me. Give me everything I want. No, give you everything Christ wants. Christ laid down his life for the church. He says specifically here so that he might sanctify her. A man serves his wife and his children with the goal of sanctification. not the goal of spoiling them, but that she might be sanctified, that she might grow in Christ. And he goes on and he says this, he says, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. Now, later on, we're going to go down here And we're going to see in verse 29, he says, no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes the nourishing of the wife. And then Paul tells Timothy to be nourished on the word of God and sound doctrine. One of the principal means of your wife's growth in Christ is your ministry of the word to her. Now, this ministry of the word, be very careful, gentlemen, does not mean that we sit down and give our wives hour long lectures every day, particularly about verse 22. Be subject, be subject, be subject. But it is sitting down together in the Word, both feeding upon the Word and both benefiting from one another. If the great apostle could write the church at Rome and tell them, not only do I hope to benefit you, but I hope that you will benefit me, then how much more can we go to our wives and say, not only do I hope to benefit you in our time in the Word, but for you to benefit me? with the insight that the Holy Spirit has given you in the Word. Now, he goes on, verse 27, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. You see, Christ desires to have a perfect, beautiful, spotless, unblemished bride that's pleasing to Him in absolutely everything. The first thing He does is He dies for her. Then He calls her unto Himself. And then He spends so many years. What is it? 2000 now? Patiently cleansing, working, teaching. Just look in your own life, man. Isn't it humbling? When your wife doesn't understand something or your child particularly doesn't understand something, a simple command, your child doesn't understand, and you become so irate with him, I've told you three times. And Christ is looking at you from His throne saying, and I've told you 300,000 times. So he is patiently working to give himself a bride, a perfect bride. Now, let me just say this. I'm just going to throw a number out because, well, I have to. If you've been married 10 years and your wife is not pleasing to you. My question would be this, what have you done to make her pleasing? How much time have you invested in her so that she might be pleasing? Oh, you'll take your men on a conference so that they'll grow. You'll disciple the men in your church so that they will be able to do this and that. You'll take youth somewhere so that they learn something about Christ. Let me ask you a question. Your wife's not pleasing to you, but how much time have you invested in your wife? It's convicting, isn't it? It's like a man whose son comes of age, 16 years old, and he says, I can't do anything with the kid. The first question I always ask is, what have you invested in him? What have you invested in him? What have you invested in your bride? Do you have anything to invest? Because maybe you don't. Maybe the best thing that ever happened to your wife is that you've never opened up the Bible and tried to teach her anything. Because you haven't done the first thing, which is your personal piety and devotion to Christ. Lou Priolo has an amazing statement, he says. How large does your vocabulary have to be in order to teach a parakeet to talk? Well, it has to be larger than the parakeet. It's the same way if your vocabulary in the scriptures, not larger than your wives, how can you teach her? If your vocabulary in the Scripture is not as large as even a child, how can you teach a child? You see? Men, I say these things to you and I don't want to hurt you. But I also don't want to hurt alone. These things I'm saying hurt me. And I'm not telling you that to give you an excuse so you can walk out of here and say, well, everybody struggles with it. Christ is not going to allow you those words on the Day of Judgment. I'm telling these things because I don't want to be a hypocrite, but I do work by His grace. I want to be better. I know that I'm wrong. Do you? Now, he goes on. So husbands, verse 28, ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh. Some people would say, well, here's proof right now that the scriptures aren't inspired, because in fact, there are people who hate their own flesh. And what do we call them? Insane. He's not making a universal statement. He's saying no one in their right reason tears at his own arm. Or tries to rip his own heart out of his chest. Some people do and we call them insane. It is absolutely insane to attack your wife. To do things to spite her, to hurt her. And then ask yourself, is that loving as Christ loves? If anyone ever had a right to spite his wife, It's Christ. The high calling of the ministry. I take the ministry very seriously. But I have to say it's. It's near impeached by the high calling of a husband. Because Paul tells me in First Timothy that unless I do my duty as a husband, I should not even think of entering into the ministry. We go on. He says, no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. Again, we've already said this nourishing. Go to chapter six, verse four. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up. It's the same meaning. Nourish them up, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Men make a great mistake in thinking that their wives come ready made. It is in God's economy. We talk a great deal about God ordained this, God decreed that. Well, God ordained that the wife grow in sanctification, not solely, but at least partially by the help of her own husband. As he nourishes her. See, we don't have the idea here of just a man giving lectures, a spiteful man finding things wrong with his wife and using the word to point them out. No, here we see a man full of love who's nourishing, tenderly building up. It is almost, and this is so important, and this is one of the reasons I'm a Baptist, and it is this. It is not an organizational. It is an organic relationship. You see, the whole thing about what we are. We are not a political entity. We are not a government entity. We are not an organization. The church of Jesus Christ is an organism. And everything that we are flows out of life to life. You see, this is not about the transmission of rules, oppression of someone through pointing out their weaknesses. This is about the power of God flowing through a man. And his ministry of the word unto his wife, nourishing, feeding. Now, he says no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. There's an idea of of of warmth here, of coddling. The idea would be best displayed in what we all consider the most tender scene known in all of literature and art, which would be a mother nursing a child. There's nothing more tender, nothing more splendid than that. And that, in a sense, is the relationship of the husband with the wife. Now, there is a terrible thing that happens to us men. And it demonstrates our hypocrisy and annuls many of our fine acts in our early years. Commonality. When something becomes common, the old word for common was vulgar, profane. And what do I mean? When you first met your wife, oh, how you treated her. Open the door. Politeness abounding. Now she could stand outside that car for four hours in the rain and you would be wondering what on earth is she doing? We are any time. Let me say this. Our nation has fallen in to not only sexual perversion. But violence. Not only the loss of beauty, but the loss of tenderness. Whenever God is thrown out of the picture, we become a vile, grotesque thing. And all the things of beauty are destroyed. And one of them is tenderness. Tenderness. You know that even when you did your best with her in the younger years, You even did better when her father was present. Her father's always present. And so is her brother that rules the nations with a rod of iron. All men will bow before him, some by grace and some because their kneecaps will have been broken by that rod of iron. So both her father and brother are watching you. Are you afraid? You should be. But not so as to throw you into despair. Now, cherishes it just as Christ also does the church. Do you see this? Do you see this? Marriage has a purpose of conforming you to the image of Christ, but it also has a purpose of displaying to the world what the relationship of Christ is with the church. Men, I know what it's like to spend long hours working for the ministry. So don't think that I think the ministry lightly. But don't tell me how much you cherish the bride of Christ if you don't cherish your own bride. See, here's the thing. Everybody's watching you cherish the bride of Christ. Everybody's applauding you for your service to the bride of Christ. They watch you on Sunday and Wednesday and when you go to the hospital and everything else. No one, no human person is watching you cherish the woman with whom you're wed. Maybe you're doing a lot of things out of vainglory. Or do you think you will be more rewarded for a ministry than you will for taking care of God's daughter? We go on. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, verse 31, and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great. It is. It's great. It's a great mystery. Do you know the greatest thing I can do for my children? Is to love their mother more than any human being on the face of the earth. Because my children are going to look at our relationship and go, well, we're secure. Dad's not going anywhere. So, you know, I felt like the Holy Spirit spoke so much in that last sermon to me about family, about children. But through my head, I kept thinking this, I need to get up and share this. Why? Because all the good you do to your children will be annulled if the same good is not done to your wife. A friend of mine is very bold. Some would say pushes boldness to the edge of insanity. And I'll never forget one time in Peru where mothers mean everything. He preached on Mother's Day and this was his sermon. You're not a good mother if you're not a good wife. It was like throwing gasoline on a bunch of hornets. But the whole fact is true. If you're not a good mother, if you're not a wife obedient to the commands of Scripture, and you're not a good father, if you neglect your mother. You see, my boys are going to learn how to love a woman by looking at me. And my daughter is going to find a standard in me. She's not going to rise above my standard. She sees me as a callous, selfish, self-centered individual. She'll think when some stupid young man comes along that that's all there is out there. And she'll take that pain upon herself and never know that there are really godly men who walk this planet. She needs to know that. He says, this mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ in the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself. And the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. It's amazing here. We have to be careful, but it does seem to be more than coincidental that the husband is not told here to respect his wife and the wife is not told here to love her husband. Now, of course, a man should respect his wife and wife should love her husband, but it's not said here. I think there's a purpose in it. Knowing. The masculine gender, as I do, being one of them. I know that I do not need my wife calling me three times a day saying, honey, I love you. I don't need cards that say I love you. I don't need flowers. But if she doesn't respect me, I fall apart. Now, my wife, I must respect her, of course, but she does need Not only to know I love her, but that must be iterated, reiterated, constantly affirmed and constantly demonstrated. You say, well, I'm just not that way. I know you're not. Repent and become like Christ. Repent. But you see, I must have her respect. Sisters, let me share something with you. You will not improve that man by showing him a lack of respect. You will not improve him in any way. You will never get what you desire to have out of that man by showing him disrespect. But you will see him transformed by your obedience, observance to the will of God and in respecting him. Because even when he is bad, that respect of yours That favor granted unconditionally will shame him and bring him to repentance. He will have no just cause for declaring war on you, but if you fight him. He will almost want you to fight him so that he will have just cause in treating you poorly. Don't do that. Don't do that. I always give this illustration and I think it's very, very well for me, it's helpful. Women are always saying, I want my husband to change. I want my husband to change. They cry out to God. They cry out to the pastor. I've been crying out to God, pastor, for 15 years and the man is still not changed. God's done nothing. They forget Romans chapter 12, where it says, Give place to the wrath of God. Give place. And what am I saying? What's unusual, if you go to the castles in Europe, you'll find the front door to be rather large. Thirty soldiers walking abreast can walk right through that door. But when you get to the second floor of many of those castles, the stairway is only less than a half a meter wide. About like that. You would expect a large stairway, but it's so narrow. And it goes up to a door that may be only five feet tall and just as narrow. And you wonder why. And here's the reason. If the castle is overrun by the enemy, everyone in the castle can run up to the second floor. Now, if there's only ten men in the castle and a hundred men enter to take it over, still now, to overcome that castle, they've got to capture the second floor. And on that second floor, they've got to get to it by a stairway. And only one man at a time can go up that stairway. So it means one man standing at the top of the stairway with a spear can defend the entire castle. Now, dear sister, what you're doing with your husband, he has retired to the second floor from all your battling. And he stands there with shield and spear. And you are fighting him with everything you have. And all the while you're looking back at the Lord saying, why don't you help me? Why don't you help me? And he's saying, get out of the way. Get out of the way. Get out of the way. But you never do. You keep disobeying, lashing with the tongue, lashing with the tongue, lashing with the tongue, and you never give place for the Lord to work. Get out of the way. Respect Him and let God deal with Him. I know what some of you women are thinking. That's exactly what I'm going to do. I am going to start respecting that man. God's going to beat the living daylights out of him. That's not the proper motive. Men, if your wives start getting very nice to you, you're fixing to die. I actually preach a sermon to women on how to live in such a way so that God will kill your husband. That's not the point of this, but it is to get out of the way. Now, to close this up, let's just go for a moment. In chapter six, verse four, fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. I saw my older son talking roughly to my younger son about a year and a half ago. And as I approached him to scold him, I realized he looked just like me. when I scold him. He was talking to his younger brother who was not doing what he wanted in the same way that I talk to my older son when sometimes he does not do what I want. We live in an angry world. The sinful world is always angry. It will put you out of sorts today if I walk up to you and I dislocate your shoulder and you have to spend the rest of the day, the rest of the week with a dislocated shoulder. It will be very easy to make you angry throughout the week. Get a splitting headache and the kids run into the place and you're very angry why you're hurting. We are a sinful, broken, wicked people in America and everybody's angry. One of the greatest things you need in your household is to pray for joy, true Christian joy, true Christian patience. What am I describing? The fruit of the spirit. To not provoke your children to anger. Most men do this by neglect. By neglect. Most children are angry because they're just neglected. God did not call you to work so much to give your children everything you never had, because it was those very things you never had that made you the man you are. And it's the things you gave your child that ruined them. He called you to give your children yourself. Your time. And don't talk to me about quality time. Closest I'll ever get to coming into a fistfight with you is if you start talking about quality time. Let me share with you something about quality time. It's one great big lie. And I'll tell you, go to your own quiet time, your own devotional time with the Lord. Every time you bow your knee, does heaven just seem to break open in the presence of God, flood the room? No. But maybe every so often, After you have logged hours and hours and hours of prayer, Bible study, all of a sudden something happens and you know the Lord is here. Quality time comes out of a quantity of time. Quality time comes out of a quantity of time. Well, just listen to this. I've tried to come up with some figures. I honestly can say I've tried to be sincere in these figures. I don't know how accurate they are, but it seems to me that the average child. From 12 years old. Until they graduate from college. Logs in. Years and years. Years. 10, 12 years of training in the secular mindset, formal education in the secular mindset. They log in over 16,000 hours of training in the secular mindset with television. And when I try to figure out the best I can to most Bible studies in the homes, I think I come up with somewhere around 500 hours. of their own personal study, not study with death. Most fathers have nothing to do with the religious education of their children. Most children learn everything they learn from somebody other than their dad. And that is why we have lost our children, our families and everything else. Do not blame this on the sovereignty of God. I will not have it. Why on earth do most people have children? The moment the child is born, they're put in daycare because dad and mom are working. Why? In some cases, it's to make ends meet for a while. And I can understand that. But in most cases, it's not. Don't lie to me. We're in America. In most cases, it's simply because everybody wants two new cars, a home they can't afford, to dress with clothes that have certain emblems upon them. So you've gone so far in debt that you're a slave and you've sold your own children for a bowl of wine. Why did you ever want to have a child if you're going to pay someone else to raise the child? Why? Give your children over to Caesar, as Bodie Bauckham says, and you will have children of Caesar. You can't understand why they've gone astray. They've had over 12 years of formal education anti-Christ, over 16,000 hours they've logged on television, and got less than 100 hours of religious education from their own father. It should not be so. And we promote this in our churches. We do promote it. Because we are more concerned about what Sunday looks like than what the family looks like. Because Sunday is our badge on how good we're doing as pastors. Read the Reformed pastor, Richard Baxter. He took the gospel to the home. I would not be surprised if God sends such a persecution so as to destroy all our buildings. so that it becomes relational rather than organizational, so that there's nothing but the Spirit of God to lead us, direct us, move us. You see, oh, my dear brothers, I am 48 years old. I should have grandchildren. My daughter is two. My youngest son is six. My little boy is eight. I have at times in my life, and I will conclude with this, I have at times in my life, I can say this, in the jungles of Peru risked my life for the gospel. I have been terrified under the hand of my enemies for the gospel. But if you were to ask me, Paul, what does it mean to lose your life? What does it mean to truly follow Christ in discipleship? What is the hardest thing that's ever been laid upon you? And that is to obey God with regard to the commands He has given me to love the people closest to me. Which happened to be my wife and three little children. To lay down opportunities, even opportunities in the ministry. in order to be obedient to that call. Now, I know that the pendulum of movements in the church never seem to stay at center. We swing from one extreme to another. There are people that all they talk about is the family, family, family, and they have no sense of the church. But I know others that it's church, but not really the Baptist, biblical, theological idea of the church. No, it's their ministry. And it's all about church, their ministry, their ministry, and their wrong. There's a truth in the middle. There is grabbing hold of the one without letting go of the other. There is simply walking in simple obedience to the commands of Christ inside of His providence for each individual. And right now, some of us are fathers with children at home. Do not neglect the wife and the children in the name of Christ, because that is using God's name in vain. Gentlemen, we live in a culture of leisure. We live also in a culture of entitlement. And most of us in our heart want to be called a servant, but none of us want to be treated like one. We do need our rest at times, but let us make a commitment to go to bed wore out. Of maybe even aging more than we should. Because having done the ministry, we set our sights on home. And we come home only to begin our second work. Which is an equal work. of caring for our wives and our children and raising up a godly heritage unto the Lord. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would use this word in my own life and in the lives of my brothers. Simplicity. that there be a genuineness, a realness in our Christianity, that we would be obedient in the small things that are indeed great things. Help us, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.