We'll go ahead and begin this morning. I need to move it closer. Okay, all right, so this is just, we've been going through this book for, I was studying yesterday, actually I was doing work on this on the ride home from Nashville, and I was talking to Mary about it, and I said, man, I could really just do two lessons in this, there's so much here, and she's like, well, do you feel like, I said, I feel like we've been doing this book since we started doing these things, so I guess we're not in a hurry. I think so. I can't remember. We've been doing this book for almost two years now. We've deviated here and there and done other things. This is just walking. This is not my notes. This is Lou's notes from this chapter 11 of The Complete Husband, which I actually walked off and forgot my book at the house, but it's okay. I'm good with my notes. We come back to it, and the title of the chapter was Protecting Your Wife from Danger, and I just thought that was a little bit of a clunky title. I was like, do you have to have from danger on there, protecting your wife? Think about it. I mean, do we protect them from peace? When you think about protecting anyone, the obvious implication is, yeah, it's dangerous. So protecting your wife. And maybe we think that that's the main thing. Maybe we don't think about it so much. Maybe when we do think about that, we're thinking, oh yeah, I'm carrying my gun on me and I have a couple of shotguns at a house. So if anybody wants to storm our house, they better think twice because I'm protecting my wife. But do we really, is that the only area that we think about, the physical protection that we think about when we think about protecting our wives? Or maybe we could even say our families. It was funny that this is what I was studying yesterday because even as we were walking away from the Capitol, Mary went and parked the car and dropped us off because we got there late. And then as we were walking, because we got McKenzie and Madison with us who were, like fish out of water. They'd never been to the big city, and they're acting like they don't know how to act. And I'm like, you guys, lower your voices. I mean, I know it's middle of the day on Friday, but all of a sudden, I get a whiff of something, and it's like some strong BO. And I turn around. Out of nowhere, this guy's just walking, dark black hat, stuff on him, and he's just walking sort of behind me. And I'm like, you know, immediately, like we are as men, okay, you know, I'm starting analyzing the surroundings, all the stuff, scenarios, what could go down, and I'm just, they're just oblivious. Mary's thinking, find the parking garage. The kids are oblivious. And I'm thinking, OK, this guy's going to try to do something. I'm ready. That is one of the things that I think that we have to think about as men. But also, let's think about this subject biblically. We have walked through passages of being a husband. And you think about, The Ephesians 5 passage where it tells us that we are to love our wives, but Lou Priola says implicit in the command to love your wife as Christ loved the church is the responsibility to protect her from danger. He gives some parallel scriptures of the characteristics of God or of Christ to protect and likens that as part of our responsibility. If we are to be Christ as Christ is to the church, we are to be that to our wives, then as we see the characteristics of Christ to his people, then we understand those characteristics are what we are supposed to do. So 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 3 says, but the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil ones. So there we see his protective nature over us. Matthew 23, 37, Jesus says, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as hen as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing. Now, don't don't miss what I'm not. I'm not saying the interpretation of these verses are husband versus. I'm saying we see characteristics of the protective nature of God and of Christ, and therefore we can look as if we're to be the shepherd of our homes. Then we can see that one of those things that goes along with it is is seeing that protective characteristic. Then Ephesians 5.23, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and here's one that's not really necessarily focused on a lot, and is himself its Savior. So we understand that Christ is the Savior of the church, but think about some of the characteristics of what a Savior is. A Savior saves and brings something in from danger. So what is a practical application of relating that, which the text does, to the husband's role in nature with his family, with his wife, and that is to not necessarily save her soul, but protect and save. And of course, we are living in a time where that just, they want to rewrite the book on all of that. Women don't need saving. They are just as valid and equal as far as incapable of these types of things. I mean, they've rewrote the book on that with, action films, and media, and television, and all of that stuff, music, on showing that men doesn't, in fact, if you come up with a storyline where a man actually saves a woman, that's considered, you know, chauvinistic, and on the wrong side of history, and you're just not understanding of the times. But I think that that is really sad, and I think it's gonna be to the detriment of many people who will find themselves in real physical danger. Priolo says, this is all introduction and thoughts. You are to shelter and defend her from any danger that would hinder her usefulness and mar her beauty for Christ. Think about that. This is the area we think so much of the physical protection, and yes, that's there, but think about it this way. You are to shelter and defend your wife from any danger that would hinder her usefulness for Christ or mar her beauty for Christ. So then we ask this question, what do we protect our wives from? Well, the first thing that he points us to is the power of influence. The power of influence. Listen to some of these scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15.33, do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Proverbs 13.20, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Now, homardiology 101. Are we responsible for our sin? Yes. Would our wives be responsible for their sinful choices? Yes. We can't blame other people. However, the testimony of Scripture is clear that who we spend time with has an effect. It has an effect. Proverbs 22, 24, and 25, make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare, or I like to say a trap. 1 Corinthians 5, 6, your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? So we have to be careful. And of course, I think it goes without saying, I don't want to continue to nuance this every time I make a statement. So it goes without saying that as we're talking about the influence and being on guard for our wives, we have to guard that with ourselves, right? OK, so we get that. That goes without saying. As their protector, you must protect your family from dangerous influences. Now get this, guys, as their spiritual leader, you can help them find refuge by providing them with avenues for godly influence. Now, I understand sometimes, whether it's by proxy of our wives having a little bit more time while we're working a job or something, I understand sometimes our wives can be more geared to looking into doctrinal and theology things, but again, I want to encourage you. God gave you the responsibility of being a spiritual leader. So therefore, where she may say she may have a little bit more knowledge, you are still responsible to lead in that area. So therefore, you've got to, you know, just buckle down, man up and and and know some things about worldly philosophies, about theology, about scripture. Know some truths that will give you that protective covering, that protective lining that you know, OK, When you hear those things, it's like, uh, red flags start popping up. Okay. Um, that is a responsibility that we have. Uh, so, uh, this, and this is where I think like we could spend a lot of time here. So this is why I cut it in half. So I'm not going to cover this whole chapter. This will be a part one. But, uh, the next thing is potential areas of danger. What are some potential areas of danger? Look at Deuteronomy 20. Deuteronomy 20, 16 through 20, another passage about protection. But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded. that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God. When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human? that they should be besieged by you? Only the trees that you know are not trees, for food that you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siege works against the city that makes war with you until it falls." Okay, so in this passage, what does he tell them that they are to destroy when they come into the land? Why? Why? because of the influence. Yeah. And let me ask you this. As we know, we have a general knowledge of Old Testament history. When they do not do that, what ended up happening? Yeah. You know, we walked through minor prophets last year, and a lot of that was just because they started letting those things influence them. And then what did it end up bringing? God's judgment and wrath on them. He had to step in and do that. So does God take the philosophies, the false doctrine, the false teaching of others and the influence of that seriously among His people? Absolutely. So this is, I know as men in the American culture that we come up with, and listen, love it, I love it, have your guns, practice shooting, have a plan ready if something happens, I get that. But sometimes I wonder, are we more geared and on guard for that and less on guard for the worldly philosophies and the false teaching and doctrine that invades our homes? And we've gone to sleep on that area. And we are so alert and awake to this area that in Tennessee, does it really happen all that much? You know what I'm saying? Again, don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying don't be on guard for that. We should. That's our responsibility. But let's not neglect this responsibility. So, let's break these down. Potential areas of danger for our wives that we have a responsibility to be on guard for and be alert for. Dangerous friends and associations. Dangerous friends and associations. And let me just preface this. Let's say that you come away from today, or maybe within the next six months to a year, you're like, whoa, that right there is an area, a problem area. How do you go about this? Well, do not go about this by going, honey, I think that you are no longer going to be doing this or spending time with this person. All right, good talk. Right, we understand that's not going to fly very well with our wives, okay. So we understand, please, please understand that whenever you go to address this something that is already there, you know, let's make sure that it's a first it's it's approached as a conversation. Let's talk about this. Let's approach it with love. But then let's also guide and teach along in the process. Ask questions. Does this line up with God's word? Does this line up with God's plan and direction with how our family should behave? Is this interfering with responsibilities that we have to our family? And that type of thing. So guide and lead along with questions. And if you go really blank on that, seek some counsel before you have the conversation with her. Okay, so dangerous friends and associations. I mean, we could talk ad nauseum about just stories that maybe we have about other associations we've had in our life experience of how someone got around with somebody else and then I mean, the horror stories are galore with this with social media, right? Spouses get on social media, connect with somebody that they hadn't talked to in a long time, and then this, this, that happens. Conversation talking through on social media happens, and then boom, family is wrecked. Okay, so dangerous friends and associations. How would, is a friend, here's one thing to consider, is a friend impeding, is a friendship, and even on its surface you may say this is not a dangerous friend, this person is not a bad friend, but is that friend impeding? and that friendship taking up inordinate amounts of time that takes your wife away from the responsibilities that she has to her children and to her husband, or even to her relationship with Christ. And so therefore, you know, wisdom may be needed there, not necessarily axing the friendship, but, you know, hey, let's talk this through on what's wisdom in this area. Developing inordinate relationships. I grew up in a fundamentalist era where they were scared to death of any type of cordial friendship between members of the opposite sex, men and women. Came out of that and was listening to a lot of stuff that talked about, you know, no, men and women can be friends and that kind of thing that are not married, that are adults. It's like, yeah, yeah, I see I see the truth in that. But I think that I guess there's just a lot of concern and warning. I think more of it now has been experience. Experience has seen like it's not necessarily we get so plain on like, what does the Bible say? What's what's this and what's this? And we forget the spiritual realm is working. Because let me tell you something, the devil wants to break up families and wants to break up churches. And if he can do that in a wedge between an adult male and an adult female that are not married but get along, I mean, it never starts out that way. It never starts out that way, okay? But developing inordinate relationships. Now, in the process of working together, like ministry working together and and maybe even outside of church situations where there's working together with an adult member of the opposite sex. Is that gonna happen? Yeah. But what is wisdom in protecting not even yourself, but even your spouse with developing those inordinate relationships? Well, I mean, we could talk through some of those things, but let me tell you just something that I try to practice myself as a pastor of this church. If I'm having a conversation with one of your wives or one of the wives of this church, I make sure that I'm going to talk to the husband way more than I talk to the wife. I want to have more interaction with the husband than I want. Also, it's never done in private. There's always going to be people around. Always going to be people around. If you want to go another step of wisdom, even if there's people around, also have another person in that conversation. That's not fundamentalist. That's wisdom. That's wisdom, okay? There's some times where you need to protect your wife. And Mary, I've had many conversations about this and we're still working on it, but there's many times where you have to protect your wife. When you see someone speaking to them that you're concerned about, you know, stop what you're doing and go over there and be with them. Okay, protecting them from accusations of inappropriateness and that kind of thing. So, dangerous friends and associations, developing inordinate relationships. Number three, bad theology. Bad theology. We are responsible to protect them from bad theology. There's a lot of bad theology out there. I've thought this so many times in the last 48 hours, so I hesitate saying it in public. There are times where I am thankful for podcasts and YouTube, but I'm getting to the point where I think it's more of a 70-30% where I'm 70% just wish it would go away. There are so many people out there just trying to make, become an influence. And I'm talking in the Christian world. I'm not even talking about the secular world. I'm talking about the Christian world. Want to start their own little show and their own little YouTube channel and their own little podcast. And listen, I've done that, been there, done that, got the hat, gone, gone, gone away from it. Okay. I, I, I, I don't, I'm not so sure where I'm at right now, if that really serves the church. Sometimes I can see where it's helpful, but sometimes I'm like, I feel sorry for pastors that have to deal with, they're trying to lead their church and they have Joe Schmoe church member coming in every Sunday, listening to some YouTube person who doesn't have a, doesn't pastor or serve any type of ministry, but has gone off on this tangent, this thing. And then this pastor has to deal with this church member, this church member, this church member, critiquing everything that they're doing because of YouTube. Okay. And we have to watch and protect our wives with what they're kind of taking in as far as listening and watching things. Listen, there's, again, it can be a great help and addition and benefit to our Christian growth. But I think the need for discernment is so big now because of just the glutton of how much is out there. Because you can have somebody come out there, and they start a show, and they critique and rip on this one thing. And you're like, yeah, I agree with that person. And you listen to them, and you like how they speak. And then as you continue to listen to them, I mean, they are just wrecked with all kinds of other topics that you should not even be listening to. And so it takes that. That's where, really, that's going to be some hard things to figure out, like protecting your wife from bad theology. Let me ask you this. Do you know what your wife listens to? Do you know what YouTube personality or YouTube channel they listen to? If you don't, you probably need to go and ask. And don't sit there and listen to what, if they say, this is who I listen to, don't immediately go, I want you to stop listening to that. Do your research. After you find out who they listen to, then go research. Listen to them. See if you hear anything that's like, uh, I don't know if I like this. I don't know if this lines up. Be careful, too, about just saying, like, I don't like it. Ask yourself, well, is God OK with this? Like, is this wisdom? Is this how the Bible lays out things? OK? So bad theology. Again, I could spend like a whole lesson on each of these. Assuming too many responsibilities Assuming too many responsibilities. We have to protect our wives from assuming too many responsibilities. Again, we have to be careful with ourselves on the same issue. But we have to protect our wives from assuming too many responsibilities. If you or your wife Consistently, do not get all of your weekly responsibilities completed in that time. There are only two possible explanations for your inefficiency. That's what Priolo says. Number one, you're wasting time. Or number two, you have assumed more responsibility than the Lord intended for you to have. I'd say there's a third option. There could be a combination of both. that within that time frame, you're wasting time and you've taken on too much that you're supposed to. What's the number one priority? Let me ask you this, and I want an answer. What is your number one priority as far as a daily scheduled time type of thing? Time with God. So, if that's your number one responsibility, what's your wife's number one responsibility? Same. Time with God. This one, you know, you read some guys that it may not, they say something that it's not necessarily scripture, but man, it puts you in the floor. This was one of those things that I read from Priolo in this chapter that I was like, okay, I'm writing that down. I'm going to say it because that put me in the floor. All right, listen to this. Do you schedule your day around scripture or do you try to squeeze the Bible into your schedule? And that's one of those statements where I don't think it's like just trying to make you feel bad or guilt trip you. I think it's just, that's what we need to hear. It's what we need to hear. That's why I wish I had my book. Page two of the notes, yeah. Do you schedule your day around scripture or do you try to squeeze the scripture into your busy schedule? I tell you, as I've counseled, when I read that, immediately what came to my mind was that is 90% of what I see when I counsel people. When I'm starting to give them scripture as an assignment and they come back, that's what I'm seeing. They try to squeeze the Bible into their schedule. We're all busy. Everybody's busy. But what's our number one priority? And if that's our number one priority, that's our wife's number one priority. So this may be something that we say, all right, honey, I need to work on this. But as I work on this, I want to lead you in working on this too. So this is going to be a team thing where we are going to make this a priority. I've always been, I like the priorities. I'm the type of personality that priorities help me structure things right. So if I can prioritize things, then that just clicks in my mind. So this is sort of what I want to close with and finish up because I wanted to go 30 minutes and I'm at 32. But Ephesians 5 and 6 gives us, I think, a familial biblical priority. Or maybe we can say it this way, a life biblical priority. Think about the way that it's structured. We get the teaching about the husband and wife relationship in chapter 5. That immediately carries into the first part of chapter 6, which is the parent-child relationship. And then that carries right into the slave-master relationship, which we know that that has been applied in modern times, in our day, as the employee-employer relationship. But everything comes before the husband and wife is what? Doctrine, theology, practicality of your relationship with God. So we see the biblical priority there. So number one, your personal relationship and walk with Christ. which is your wife's number one priority. Number two, your ministry to your spouse, which is your wife's number two. Your wife's number two, next to God in Christ, is her ministry to you. Number three, your ministry to your children, which is her number three, her ministry to her children. And number four, your ministry to your employment, whether you are the employer and have employees or you are an employee of somebody, in other words, your employer. work, what God has gifted you as far as employment to where you can provide for your family. That's number four. And so a lot of times this gets real out of order a lot of times because that number four takes number one. Because what are we doing? We're sleeping, we get up, we get ready for work, we go out, we spend 12-14 hours at work, come home, And number four has become number one. Because we're too tired to spend time with the kids. We don't have enough energy to talk with wife. And number four has become number one. Now, it takes a mindset and it will take a little bit of a developing a new habit to get that back in order. But you can have that back in order where number four is not where you can have number four in number four spot and not be neglecting your work or robbing your boss or doing that kind of thing. It'll take some discipline and new habit forming, but it's possible to where you're not robbing your work, okay? So assuming too many responsibilities, I think a lot of this can be changed with understanding these biblical priorities. So there's questions that you can ask yourself. Maybe these are questions that you could take your wife and ask her. Look around, what's your schedule like? What are you doing? I know a lot of us, our wives are homeschooling our children. So they have a lot on their plate. They have a lot on their plate. But when we ask these questions, like how's your personal relationship with Christ? How's it going? Okay, honey, it is my job to protect you. And part of that is me leading you and being concerned about your relationship with Christ. Now, if your wife has a heart like mine does, then if you start doing that, what are they probably going to automatically feel like? Yes, they're going to feel. So what should you probably do? Assure them that you're not trying to make them feel bad. And this is not trying to make them feel like they're on the ground. No, this is a start of, hey, let's get on the same page of this. And let's do this. And assure them too that there's no expectation that they're supposed to be spending two hours a day in wonderful communion with the Holy Father. Build yourself up in your most holy faith. You're not taking 300 pounds on each side of the barbell right away. Do the barbell. Get the barbell down before you start adding weight to it. So it's building that. So take a pointed concern with this. Then you can talk about, you can have a conversation about your relationship with each other. Ask her, how could you ask this question? Well, what about this? Ask her, say, honey, do you feel that you have anything on your plate that at the end of the day or the end of the week, you wanted to do this thing or help serve me in a certain way as your husband, but you just couldn't get to it? And maybe reassure her, you're not asking this in a selfish thing because you want her to revolve around you. No, but biblically, you're wanting to follow this priority, okay? Then as you move on from there, ask her, is there anything going on that you feel like any relationship, anything, any responsibility that you feel is taking too much time away from what you'd like to do with the children? Now, she may not have an employment, she may not have that, but she may have a service where? Here at the church, right? She may have a service there at the church. So, do we cut out service to the church? Not necessarily. But we do look at those things of, hey, let's make sure we're covering one, we're covering two, and we're covering three. Then that lets you know how much you can say yes to at the church, okay? Now, what would probably be an overcorrection? Yes, because do we have a biblical, clear biblical teaching that we are supposed to serve in the local body? Yeah, so if we're like cutting out a number four, if our number four for our wives is service to the church and we're cutting that out completely, let's say this at least. that that's a very temporary thing so we can get the three back on track, but not a permanent thing. Because then we're going to also, we're going to start neglecting another biblical priority. Okay. So that's, that's, I wanted to stop right there, but there's a lot more to go to it. So we'll finish a part two next time.