This is God's Word. This is Christ's Word to His people. The world is not interested. They're not listening. These are words to husbands and wives about marriage. You don't need to go to a marriage counselor. Our Lord is called the Wonderful Counselor, and His Word is what we need to hear. We need to hear and do what he says, and it shall be well with us, our married, children, these promises we have. We read, we looked at verses 15 and 16, Colossians 3, where it says that let the peace of God rule in your heart. Going up to verse 12, put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy and kindness humbleness of mind and meekness and long-suffering, forbearing one another, forgiving one another. If any have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do you. If these things, if we did this by His grace, we wouldn't have too many marital problems or problems in relationships. at all. And then he says in verse 15, let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you're called. You're called to be peacemakers. Fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make peace. Peaceable people will have peace in their homes and families and their hearts. And be thankful. Be thankful. You know, covetousness is a real a major portion of our problems. James said that. You lust, you have not, you desire to get, and so on and so forth. But we can be content with such things as we have, realizing what we have we don't deserve, and be thankful. And then verse 16, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. The words of our Lord, if they dwelled in us richly in our hearts and minds, husbands, wives, even children, we would have love and joy and peace and unity. And behold how good and how pleasant it is to dwell together in unity. The opposite is misery. Isn't it? Strife and division is misery. Misery. Nothing brings more reproach on the truth upon our Lord than disunity and division and strife in the home, in the church, and wherever. Nothing brings more reproach to them. There's a scripture that says where there's envy and strife, there's confusion, meaning people say, I thought you all loved the Lord, and husband and wife, I thought you loved each other. Well, if you both love each other, why can't you get along? It's confusion. Confusion, and young people are confused. The two parents can't get along when they both claim to love the Lord, and they end up getting divorced. It's confusing, and they don't understand. What's wrong here? Well, somebody's lying. Somebody's lying. Right? And it ain't our Lord. He's telling the truth. So, these words are vital. Aren't they? Vital. Now here, we pick up in verse 18. Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as is fit in the Lord. Submit yourselves unto your husband. Wives. Go to Ephesians 5 with me. Ephesians chapter 5. And Paul speaks of marriage in 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, Peter speaks of it. Our Lord speaks of it. But Ephesians 5, it tells us what marriage is a picture of and what marriage is all about. Ephesians 5, look at verse 21, it begins, to all of us, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord, male and female, husband and wife, submitting yourselves one to another in the Lord. That is, submit your wants, your wishes, your desires, none. You should be interested in theirs. Think on things of others. Let all your desires and wants and wishes be in submission to theirs. Right? Serve them, male or female. And our Lord is, as Christ loved the church, what did he do? He left his father, came down here. What kind of wife did he marry? A good, sweet, wholesome, beautiful, loving, no, the opposite. Faithful, she's going to be faithful to him. No, but he is to her. And that's what Hosea, the story, he said, go love a woman like the love of the Lord toward his people. And so, what did he do? Submit one to another. Verse 22, Ephesians 5, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. He's the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be their own husbands in everything. That's what it says there. That's what it says in Colossians 3. That's what the Lord said. Submit. Submit. Let me read my pastor's... If you do not have Henry Mahan's commentaries, you need to get them. They're the best. I look at them all the time. Here's what he said. The wife must be in subjection to the husband as it's fit in the Lord, obeying him, respecting his judgments, his decisions, and following his leadership as long as He doesn't violate the Word of God. It's like Peter's command, submit yourself to every ordinance of man as long as he doesn't violate the ordinances of God. Right? That goes without saying. Our Lord said, if any man loved father, mother, husband, wife more than me, and I'm a disciple. So we obey him first. And anything that goes against, for instance, here's a believing woman and an unbelieving man. And the unbelieving man is the head of the house, okay? And Peter even talks about the believing woman submitting to an unbelieving man, doesn't he? You've read that. All right. What if that man says, I want you to leave. We're leaving. We're going to leave the gospel. I've got a better job in a town where there's no gospel and you're coming with me." Well, you didn't. Well, the Lord said, forsake all that you have for my sake in the gospel. Didn't He? No, she's not to submit in things like that. But as long as a man is civil and loving and kind and reasonable, he doesn't go against God's word. This is the rule. Somebody has got to be in charge, don't they? Somebody. It's that way of everything in life. Someone has got to be in charge. You can't have two chiefs. You can't do it. So somebody has to. And this is what our Lord said. Ephesians 5 again, it says, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wife be unto her husband, and everything. Submit to. Submit to. All right? Let me ask you this, and I ask myself this. Why does he speak to the women first? You'd think he'd speak to the man first, wouldn't you? Why does he speak to the women first? Let me ask you this question. Who has the greater responsibility in a marriage? The man or the woman? Who has the greater responsibility? The man does. Christ assumed all responsibility for his bride. Right? Right? He assumed all responsibility, regardless of what she does. This is what he's going to do. So the man has the greater responsibility. Well then why does he speak to the woman first? Because it's more difficult for her. Because of our pride, because of our flesh to submit to another human being. A man. A sinful man. Fallible, faulty, finite in his understanding and sinful and he's going to make mistakes. So he deals with us first. Us. I say us. I'm the bride of Christ. Submit. It's more difficult. It's just more difficult. We need humbling, don't we? And it began in our text in Colossians with humbleness of mind, meekness, and long-suffering. If we're that way, our Lord was, and he took everything. He took every... Everything that was sent his way, he took it and made it. Oh, he made peace, didn't he? He made peace. So to the woman, he deals with first. And our Lord assumed all responsibility. And then the man, he has the greater responsibility. Now let's talk to the man. All right? We've got 30 minutes to deal with it. Three hours on each role. The women, the men. And we've done this before. But we're just taking God's word as it comes. We're going to just deal very briefly with it. Now to the man in our text. Now keep Ephesians 6. Go back to Colossians 3. And this is why the Lord tells us not to marry unbelievers because it's difficult enough as it is. Paul said, you're going to have trouble in the flesh. He said, in 1 Corinthians 7, he deals with marriage in depth. And he said, you'd be better to be like me, unmarried. Unmarried. If you're married, don't seek to be not married. If you're not married, don't seek to be married. But if you can't contain, married. But in the Lord. Married believer. Because there's going to be trouble even between believers. Because you've got two sinners dwelling together in the same house. And male and female. And so, we're going to have trouble. But God's grace is sufficient. And if we just listen. Our Lord said, if you know these things, John 13, where He's washing their feet. He said, if you know these things, can you quote the rest of it? Happy are you if you do them. Do them. That one is one thing. All right? But that doesn't make peace. That doesn't do anything. Do it. And what Mary said one time, he said, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. You'll be well with him. You'll be well and you're married by the grace of God. All right? Now, and that's hard to say. It's the reason he warns us about marrying unbelievers, because they're not subject to the law of God, and neither indeed can they. They're not going to hear this. And it'd be a great grace if that man, that woman, is an unbeliever, treats their spouse with love and kindness. It'd be great, mercy and grace. All right, verse 19, to husbands. Husbands, love your wives and be not bitter against them. Husbands, love your wives. A man recently contacted me, he and his wife are having terrible, Neither one of them are under the gospel. Neither one of them are under the sound of the word. And of course, that's the first thing I say. Both of you got to be under the word. You got to. And, well, he was telling his side, and I said, I really don't want to hear it unless I hear both. But I said, here's what I'm telling you. I said, you get you and your wife under the sound of the gospel, and I told him, I said, you love your wife as Christ loved the church, and it'll be okay. Well, he fired back. Well, the woman's supposed to submit to the man. Well, somebody with very little grace or no grace, that's what they're going to do. That's what they're going to say. That's going to be their immediate reaction, right? When man fell in the garden, what happened? What did they say? All right? They all blamed it on somebody else. The first thing, Eve, it's not my fault. It's that serpent. If you'd have submitted to your husband, this wouldn't have happened. Our Lord said that, you're guilty. But no, she said, well, it's his fault. And Adam, what about you? Well, if I wasn't married, It's that woman you gave me. Oh, you were blessing God for her when she came to you. You were so happy. Bone to my bone, flesh to my flesh, we're 2-1. Now what's the problem? Sin. Somebody else's fault. It's their fault. Now that's our fault. We need to take all the blame. We need to take all the blame. Husbands. And I told that man that. And he fired back to me, if she just, you know, submit to me, you'd what? Yeah, I hear you. If you love her, maybe she would submit to you. See, the thing is, we're not the same. One time, Peter, Simon and Peter, the Lord said, Simon, they're going to take you to a place you don't want to go. They're going to carry you, going to crucify you. And he looked around, there's John. He said, well, what about John? Why do I have to go through this?" He said, our Lord basically says, none of your business. You follow now. You do what I tell you. Whether they do it or not, you do what I tell you to do. And it'll be well. At least you'll have peace. And the rule, the general rule is that the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make peace. So the husband has a greater responsibility to love as Christ loved his church. Anybody? Any man in here done that? Can you not look back on some strife and division you've had in your marriage over the years? Can you not look back and say, if only I had loved her and just submitted myself to her? loved her as Christ, we wouldn't have had this problem. I remember as a young man, that young married man, you know, Mindy brought this to my attention, that she looked at my Bible, my first Bible I owned, and I had underlined, Wives Submit, underlined, highlighted in yellow, in quotations. See? Husband, love your wife. Now, I want that highlighted. Right? Husband, love your wife. My father once said this, and he said it from years of experience, dealing with lots of broken marriages and all that. Years of experience. He said, a couple come to me and they've got a problem. He said, I immediately say to the man, what are you doing wrong? I know that from experience myself, sadly to say. Okay. Verse 19, he says, verse, love your wife, be not bitter against them. Why would we be bitter against a woman? Well, the scripture says she's a weaker vessel, right? It's just so. There's no godly woman that takes offense to that. You don't mind, you're not like my neighbor, you don't mind asking a man to help you, do you? At all. Well, she needs, we both have needs. But, and her needs are your, her wishes are your command. Right? Be not bitter, they make requests and sometimes demands. That's all right, I need constant help. We all do. We need help. What about the man? Where would we be without her? Come on now. I knew some of you before we got married. I'm glad you're married. Where would we be? We need each other. Don't be bitter against me because when you get married, this is the vow you make before God. The promise, and it was your heart's desire, at least you said so, to serve that person, right? Sickness or health, poverty or wealth, until death do us part. And Peter talks about, I don't have time, but Peter's talked about being heirs together of the grace of life. It's a wonderful thing, marriage is a wonderful thing, if Christ, if peace rules, Where Christ is a wonderful God. If not, it can be terrible. Alright, now look. Children. Young people. That's why they're here. Verse 20. Children, obey your parents in all things. Well, this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Obey your parents in all things. Do you know the Ten Commandments? The principles of what our Lord says are throughout the scripture. Our Lord magnified the law, didn't he? Blew it up to show that, thank God we're not under the law, right? Because we break it. It's not a covenant. It's not even a rule of life because which ones are we under and which ones are we not? In the New Testament, our Lord, but our Lord did talk about these things, didn't He? Magnify these things. And Paul even said about the commandment, there's the first commandment with promise. He talked about the first commandment with promise is to children, if they obey their parents, it'll be well with you. That just makes good sense, doesn't it? It'll be well with you. If you're disobedient and rebellious and buck them, you're going to have... The way of the transgressor is hard. And the same is true with God's people. God's Father's going to come down hard on you. As long as I was an obedient son, my dad was man. My buddy, when I started bucking him and rebelling, I made it rough on myself, he said. Obey your parents and all things. You know, children should, we should, our Heavenly Father. Children just don't have the wisdom. They don't have, I know, you know, when you reach 13, you've learned all you need to learn. I know that. But we think, I remember thinking when I reached teenage or whatever, my dad, shoot, man, I got it. What does he know? Well, the fact is, what do I know? Nothing. Thirteen years of experience on this earth, you don't know nothing. You ain't been nowhere and done nothing, experienced anything. And I think kids, they say that parents can't understand them. I think kids for some reason think that our parents, you know, they went from 12 to 40 overnight. They just skipped all those years. They're 40 years old and they don't have a clue what the kid's going through. And nothing's changed. No generations. Now, a little more conservative years ago and some time, but still, the same problems, the same troubles throughout life. And the parents have already, why should you submit to them? Because the Lord says so, and everything. But another thing, and if they're believing parents, they're going to, bring you up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord, the fear of the Lord. They're going to tell you what God's Word says. You're not going to learn that in school. And what God says is right. And much of what is said in schools is flat wrong. In fact, they encourage an attitude. They encourage you to rebel against authority in school. Isn't that what? They encourage you. You're somebody. Stand up. Buck the system. Don't do it. Don't do it. God is angry with rebels on every hand. Angry. Obey your parents. And they've been through what you've been through, and experience is not just the best teacher, it's the only teacher. You don't know anything, really, until you've gone through it. You don't. So obey your parents and all things. That's the first commandment with promise. What's the first commandment with warning? Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Did you hear that? Those two things. And that describes the latter days in 2 Timothy 3. Children disobedient to parents. blasphemers. And God said, I'm not going to hold anybody guiltless who takes my name in vain. And that's this generation. Buddy, we're in the last days. And what I'm teaching is so foreign, so strange, so unheard today. But you're only going to get it from God's Word. Alright, next night. Fathers, verse 21. Provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged. How can a father provoke his children to anger? By being an overbearing, domineering, ruling with an iron hand and not ruling with love and mercy and understanding. Same with a husband. Peter said dwell with her according to knowledge. Understand her needs and vice versa. But for a father, He needs to remember what it's like to be a son. And for, you know, a father to not let a son do anything, you know? It would have been hard for me to have a son. I didn't have one. I pretty much know how I want things done, okay? You know what I'm saying? And if it's not done right, I'm going to redo it. But they've got to learn. Don't they, Stephen? They've got to learn. They're going to make mistakes. My dad let me, I was a mechanic from an early age, and I blew everything I worked on, just blew it. And he had to hire it fixed. But that's the way I learn. Right, Stephen? That's the way we learn. And not do it for them. It discourages them. Dad, let me do it. or to rule with an iron hand, an iron fist, discouraging, discouraging. Let me read my pastor's parents. He said there are two dangerous directions we can take in raising our children, two dangerous directions, either being too hard and unreasonable on them or the opposite, being too indulgent and easy on them. Chasing them. Never punishing them, so to speak. Giving them everything they want. Buying them everything. That's as bad as being too hard on them. Right? Need to work. Need to earn. Need to work hard for things. It's the only way you appreciate anything is if you work hard for it. That's right. Wealth gotten by vanity will diminish, the scripture says. Given to them. We want to appreciate it. So, alright? Children, obey your parents in all things. All things. If the child's a believer, and the parents are not, and the parents say something against God's Word, obey the Lord. Right? Alright, now look at this. Servants or children. Employees. Verse 22. Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh. Not with eye service, as men pleases, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatsoever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, not unto men. When we take a job, who gave us that job? You say, our employee. No. God did. For us to murmur and complain about it, Playing against God, him. Could have given it to somebody else. Well, he didn't. He gave it to us. So we worked first, foremost, we worked for him, don't we? And thanks to him, working as unto the Lord. Lord, you gave me this job. And then, there are very few employees or employers or believers. That's just very rare. I worked, Mindy and I both worked for Bob Coffey years ago. He had an art gallery. Man, that was, wasn't that wonderful? And Tammy's brother worked there. Tammy, Joe's brother, Colin, worked there. Everybody there was a believer. Oh, man, that was a good work situation. Oh, it was wonderful. Everybody working so hard and never, never any strife. Boy, isn't it hard to work for some of these people you work for? Tough, isn't it? Children of Israel were under some hard task management. Yes, they were, but the Lord put them there. And we're to do it in all things according to the flesh, not with our service as men-pleasers, but fearing God who gave us that job. Whatever we do, do it heartily. You know, bad employee, a slothful one, is an approach upon the gospel. You ever think about how our Lord worked in his father's carpenter shop? I bet his father had to say, son, take a break. Let's eat lunch. Stop. He never had to tell him to sweep the floor. Never. He never cut corners. Never. Whatever he did was perfect, as unto his Father, in obedience to his earthly Father. That's glorifying to God. Whatever you do. Verse 24, knowing that the Lord of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for you served the Lord Christ. What is our reward? Again, the word rewards is not in the Bible anywhere. There are no rewards. Inscription. It's not there. Look it up. A challenge. It ain't there. Reward. What is God's people's reward? What do they get? He said to Abraham, I'm your reward. You get me. You let Lot have Sodom. What does he get? He almost perished with it. Oh, that's perish. He said, you get me. The inheritance. The reward is the inheritance, joint heirs with Christ. We get him, married to him, and whatever he has, what's that? Everything. But if you're in love, this is the thing with marriage, if you're in love, you don't have to have much. If you've got the person you love, that's why you got married in the first place, wasn't it, Steven? You leapt high hills and swam oceans to get to married. She didn't have a big dowry to give you. It's her you want. You still love her, don't you? Well, he's our inheritance. He's the one we want. David, whom have I in heaven but thee? And none on earth I desire beside thee. So, when love has to be there, doesn't it? Or else you try to find your happiness in things, and that won't work. You receive the reward. You serve the Lord. Now, we're not rewarded in heaven for what we do. You know He's not saying that. He's already gone into great detail in Colossians about, you know, we get what Christ earned. All right? Verse 25. But now, here's the principle. He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong. It's yet done. All right? There's a verse of Scripture in the Old Testament. That's not talking about salvation, it's just talking about... He said, if you'd be willing and obedient, you'll eat the good of the land. You'll eat the good of the land. It's not going to be saved. It doesn't say, if you'd be willing and obedient, the Lord will save you. No. Salvation is not my word. But it'll be well with you. Peter wrote about this in death. Who is he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good? If you do what's right. If not, God's going to deal with it. God's going to do it. And how many of us, you know it's so, that you know when you have an act, you're right, you're rotten at the core, and don't, that later on something happens, you know, Lord's chasing me for that. Right? We all know it. We feel He's chasing us. I ain't doing this because I'm such a disobedient son. It's not earning heaven. It doesn't have anything to do with it. He's no respecter of persons in that sense. There's one passage that the Lord said, I've loved you. He said, I've loved you more than all the people on the earth or above all the people on earth. I love you. And so I'm going to punish you. Whom the Lord loves, he chastens. He'll be willing and obedient, like a horse, you know. If he'll just act right, man, he'll give you all the grain he wants. No, that's a problem. But you know, it's all well. It's all well. But if he acts up, you're going to make it hard on yourself. Right? Because that's just the principle in it. Oh, it's good, wise counseling. And actually, it's not just counsel, it's a command. It's a command. Wives, submit. Husband, love your wives as Christ loved your children. Obey your parents in all things. Servants, work for the Lord. Employee, employers, be like your master is with you. And be well. Okay.