Okay, we're continuing our study of the fifth commandment, parenting and marriage, making applications specifically to husbands. So we continue with the sins forbidden or the evils that husbands are tempted to do, which if they do, they should repent. And if they have not yet done them, avoid them, keep away from them. And so to know what God forbids them. So last week, just to review very briefly, the sins forbidden to husbands, there was an inordinate seeking of yourself, your own glory, ease, profit, or pleasure, the commanding of things unlawful or not in the power of your wife to perform, counseling, encouraging, or favoring your wife in that which is evil, Dissuading, discouraging, or discontencing your wife and that which is good. Correcting your wife unduly. And then we'll pick up with the sixth application in this section. Careless, exposing, or leaving your wife to wrong, temptation, and danger. So this is not the ordinary course of God's providence where dangers come upon people, temptations happen, wrongs may be done to people in the ordinary course. This is where someone who has the ability to stop those things does nothing, is careless, does not take ordinary precautions or necessary precautions that a reasonable person would take. And so gives unnecessary occasions for that person to suffer who's under their authority. Now, if you recall, Judah had his son, his first son married Tamar. And then the son died. Then the second son married Tamar, and he died. And then Judah had a third son named Shelah, and he refused to give Tamar, his daughter-in-law, to Shelah, because he was afraid that Shelah would die as well. So this action on Judah's part constituted a carelessness exposing his daughter-in-law to temptation. So anytime a person in authority sees a danger, sees a wrong that might be done to someone, or sees some temptation that they might fall into, and is careless and not avoiding exposing that person, that is a sin. And specifically, husbands are not to carelessly expose their wives to any kind of wrong, any kind of temptation, any kind of danger. So a husband who does not provide sufficient defense for his wife, or who does not make sure that she's provided for in terms of her own defense, does not look after, for example, if he refused to have arms in his home for some wrongheaded notion that God forbids the owning of a gun. and his wife were wronged or put into danger because she had no way of defending herself or he had no way of defending her. That would be a careless exposing of his wife in that regard. Also in scripture in the book of Acts, Galileo was the magistrate, I believe, at Ephesus. And the Greeks were beating Sosthenes. And it says that he cared for none of those things. He didn't care about Sosthenes. He didn't care about the course of justice. He was careless. and therefore he exposed the one under his authority to danger and to wrongs that were done to him rather than defending him. So husbands, unlike Galio, are to care for the situations and circumstances of their wives under their authority. Seventh sin forbidden is provoking your wife to wrath. Of course, we know explicitly that fathers are forbidden to provoke their children to wrath, but husbands may also provoke their wives to wrath. So there is a prohibition of provoking your wife to wrath. Some of the sins that we talked about last time can lead in that same direction, where We talked about if you discourage or discontinence your wife from doing what is good or correct her unduly, that can lead to a provocation to anger. But also hypocrisy tends to lead to provocation to anger. unequal application of rules the rules don't apply to me they only apply to you that kind of idea so if for example you were trying to save money and you required your wife to be very frugal and then you wasted all your money that would be an instance of provoking your wife to wrath and then finally in the eighth place The Catechism talks about in any way dishonoring themselves or lessening their authority. So this is a husband has authority from God. He has official authority. And I've talked about this distinction previously, but there is a distinction between the form of authority or the official authority someone has in a position of authority. And then there is the real authority, or more of the substance of the authority. So here it talks about when a husband dishonors himself, he also lessens his authority. And he does it in four ways. So we'll talk about each of these. So a husband is not to dishonor himself. He's not to decrease his authority by, first, unjust behavior. So if you'll recall, Noah was sinning against God by drunkenness. And when he sinned against God, he dishonored himself in his drunkenness. He exposed himself unnecessarily. And therefore, the authority that Noah had seemed to be lessened. It was decreased because he didn't have the moral authority of a superior. Now God still recognized his official authority, and he cursed the son who uncovered Noah's nakedness, or he cursed his grandson, actually. But Ham had his descendant Canaan cursed because of Ham's reckless disregard for the official authority of Noah, even though Noah had lessened his own authority by his unjust behavior. So a husband must behave in a just way. He must do what is right and render to everyone what is their due, or his authority in his wife's eyes will be lessened or dishonored. Again, that doesn't necessarily give license to Ham what he did, nor does it give license to a wife to be disrespectful, because there's still the official authority a husband has. But this is addressing the husband and his duty to increase his authority by really doing what is just and pleasing to God, as well as requiring that his wife do what is just and pleasing to God. So a husband is not to dishonor himself, he's not to lessen his authority by being unjust. Some husbands actually will lessen their authority and will dishonor themselves under the pretext that somehow they're being humble. And so they'll relinquish their authority, they'll submit themselves to their wives, and they think they're being humble and pleasing to God, but it's actually unjust, because God requires that the husband behave in such a way as the head of his household, not to decrease his authority by being supposedly humble in that way, or somehow thinking lowly of himself. So unjust behavior. Then indiscreet behavior. And we see this in the scripture as we looked at in our past lessons. Discretion teaches you what to say and what not to say, what to do and what not to do. When you're indiscreet, you don't say what you ought to say, you don't do what you ought to do, you don't do what's suitable to the particular circumstance in the application of wisdom. So indiscretion certainly makes someone liable to the charge of folly. And if a man is to honor the authority that God has given him and honor himself, His behavior should not be indiscreet. It should not be unsuited to the occasions. Of course, there is a time for every purpose under heaven. There's a time to laugh. There's a time to cry. There's a time to love. There's a time to hate. There's a time to give life. There's a time to take life. So indiscretion means you don't know which is which. You apply the wrong set of actions or words to the circumstance that it doesn't apply to. And if you remember Rehoboam, was Jeroboam came with a demand that they decrease the heavy-handed authority that they perceived Solomon to have. And you'll recall that Rehoboam went back to the ancient counselors that sat before Solomon who were discreet because they were wise and they had learned by long experience what was suitable at what times. And if you recall, the old men said, answer these people kindly, listen to their demands, and you'll find that they'll serve you forever. So by making a few concessions to them, to their demands, whatever those are, you'll find that longer term, you'll retain your authority. Then he went to the young men who lacked indiscretion, who didn't know what was suitable to say at what times. And they said that he should say that his little finger would be thicker than his father's loins. In other words, if you think my dad's authority is heavy-handed, mine's going to be heavier. I'm going to be harder on you than Solomon was. That's basically what they told him to say. So that was indiscreet, because it wasn't suited to the circumstances. If the people had a legitimate complaint, listen to what they say, and put yourself in their shoes, love your neighbor as you love yourself, yes you have authority, yes you can answer them roughly, but is that the appropriate thing for this particular circumstance? No. And therefore it was indiscreet. Now also, Rehoboam's answer was rigorous. His behavior toward them was overly corrective. They may have been out of line to make the request that they did. They may have been beyond what God allows them to do. So they needed correction, perhaps. But what he says is not suitable correction. It is beyond. My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke. My father also chastised you with whips. I will chastise you with scorpions." That's how he answered them. So I'm not just going to punish you like my father did that you're complaining about, but I'm going to kill you. That's basically what he's saying. When you chastise someone with a whip, there's hope that they'll recover. When you chastise someone with a scorpion, there is no hope of recovery. Scorpion will poison them with a sting from their tail, and they will eventually die from that poison that's injected into your system. So that's not good. So what happens here is that the people leave his authority, they're done with him, and they say, we have no portion in David, no inheritance in the son of Jesse, and they go every man to their tents. Jeroboam's authority then is established, this illegitimate usurper. So rigorous behavior on the part of a husband can have the effect of squashing his wife, of discouraging her in doing what is good. So it also is related to other sins we've talked about before. And it also serves to dishonor himself. It might seem that somehow it would increase his honor by being overly corrective, micromanaging, or coming down hard. There might be a temptation for a husband to think that by over-correcting his wife he will somehow recover his honor, but it doesn't actually do that. It has the opposite effect because everybody instinctively recognizes, not perfectly because we're sinners, but we instinctively recognize what is just and what is rigorous. Now justice is a mean or the middle way between rigor on the one side, which is overcorrection, and being remiss on the other side, which is undercorrection. So both of these are dishonorable as far as a husband's authority. Justice is the right way that God commands. Rigor is the overcorrection. over harshness or roughness that a husband would have with his wife and being remiss is where he Allows her to do what she wants to do and does not correct her when she strays That's being remiss and that dishonors himself In a way that's more recognizable Because it shows that he's not in a position of headship and correcting his wife He is remiss now The passages cited in the Catechism, 1 Kings 1-6, it states that Adonijah's father, which is David, he never displeased his son at any time. So there was never a time in Adonijah's life where David said, no, don't do that. Now, husbands can be tempted to think that if they always please their wives, then their life will be happy. Which, first off, the goal of a husband's life is not to have happiness. The goal of nobody's life should be to be happy. That's not the goal of life. Our chief and the main point in our lives is to glorify God. And of course to enjoy Him, which does entail our own happiness. But the first thing is glorifying and enjoying. And that is what we ought to strive for. We won't be happy truly unless we glorify God. But there's a phrase that unbelievers have and that Christians have been duped into believing. A lot of Christian husbands repeat this phrase. They say, happy wife, happy life. And what that means is I should always please my wife because if she gets upset and she throws a temper tantrum, my life's going to be difficult. So that is remiss behavior, whereas rigor would be crush my wife and I'll have a happy life. Remiss behavior is happy wife, happy life. Let me just do whatever she says and then I'll be happy. No, you won't. Because remiss behavior dishonors the husband himself. He's dishonoring himself. And he's also decreasing the real moral authority that he has over his wife. Because she will no longer think of him as her head, she will think of him as kind of like a servant boy who's there to do his wishes, or her wishes, excuse me. This is my servant boy that I keep as my slave, and he's supposed to be my head, but he always makes me happy. He always does what I want. And that's remiss behavior. Also you recall Eli's two sons who were never rebuked by their father. And then it came to the point where his sons were taking the best of God's offerings, which belonged to God, the best portions God claimed for himself. They would come in and they would take with a flesh hook what they wanted from the people's sacrifices, rather than burning them as a burnt offering to the Lord. They would take the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel. And God came to Eli and said, what are you doing? you haven't corrected this that's gone on here and now my name is at stake because you prefer your sons before you prefer me this is in first samuel 2 chapter or verse 29 chapter 2 verse 29 30 31 and so the authority of eli was lessened and his person was dishonored Because God said, them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. So by his remiss behavior, by failing to correct those under his authority, Eli brought dishonor and shame upon himself. And so this is probably, of all the sins that seem to prevail in our day, you could make a case that indiscretion is in here toward the top, but I would say remiss is probably the top sin that husbands commit in this regard toward their wives. They do not displease them. They always seek to please their wives rather than to please God. And so if they always seek to please their wives, they're not going to correct them according to the Word of God. They're not going to say, no, I'm sorry, we need to do this other thing. This is the commitment I've made. This is the right thing to do. No, they're going to say, well, it makes my wife happy. She doesn't like this place, so let's find another church." Or, you know, she thinks we should do this in raising the kids, and I know that the Bible says we ought to do that, but in order to not have to fight with my wife about this, I'm going to give in to what she wants. Or always asking, well, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? Instead of making decisions and saying, well, Again, you're not to inordinately seek yourself as a husband, but there are ordinate ways, there are appropriate ways of seeking yourself, your own ease, glory, profit and pleasure. We're only, as husbands, forbidden from inordinately seeking those things. So if a husband is always seeking to please his wife and never seeks the glory of God before his wife, he might think he's winning with his wife. He's actually losing because he's dishonoring himself and his own authority. So unjust behavior, indiscreet behavior, And then the two ditches on either side of justice, rigorous behavior or remiss behavior. These are sins that husbands must avoid. They're temptations that we must seek to avoid by God's grace. And sins, if we've committed, we have to repent of and turn away from these. All right, let's close in prayer.