Well, we're going to be looking at Proverbs 31, verses 10 through 31. This is a passage that has made many women aspire to be like this woman, and it's made other women very, very discouraged. They can never live up to the standards. Well, this was a very unique woman. She was a statesman's wife and had a lot of resources. Most of you don't have. And we're going to look at the general principles that underlie it and not expect, I don't think God expects every person to be a clone of this woman, but He does expect us to exemplify the principles. So let's read Proverbs 31, 10 and following. Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, so he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and willingly works with her hands. She is like the merchant ships. She brings her food from afar. She also rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants. She considers a field and buys it. From her profits, she plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength and strengthens her arms. She perceives that her merchandise is good, and her lamp does not go out by night. She stretches out her hands to the distaff, and her hand holds the spindle. She extends her hand to the poor. Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household is clothed with scarlet. She makes tapestry for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them and supplies sashes for the merchants. Strength and honor are her clothing. She shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is the law of kindness. She watches over the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates. Amen. Father, we thank you for this, your word. And I pray that as we dive into it, that you would speak to our hearts that which you intend us to grow in and to be encouraged in. to be looking to Jesus for the strength that we need for all of the labors of our hands. And so do bless the preaching of your word, I pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're now on number eight. of our series on women of faith. Last week we looked at the widow of Zarephath and saw that even though she was a poor woman, in fact so poor she was on the verge of starvation, that God caused her to be an incredible example of faith. And today in this Proverbs 31 woman, We're going to be looking at a woman who's on the opposite side of the spectrum. She is fabulously wealthy, and yet despite that wealth, and I phrase it that way on purpose because wealth does have a habit of drawing people's trust away from the Lord, despite that wealth She had everything that she did from faith in the Lord, and she, as later verses say, operates in the fear of the Lord in all that she was and all that she had. And what's remarkable about that is that just the previous chapter, the prophet Agur had said that both poverty, extreme poverty and extreme wealth can be enemies of our faith. They can drive us away from the Lord. But we've also seen in this series that God can prosper us spiritually no matter what state we are in, whether married or unmarried. And yes, it's very important in our circles to realize God uses single ladies. Not everybody is called to marriage. He can use us whether we are in a state of good marriage or bad marriage. And we'll be seeing that even in bad marriages, God uses women of faith to advance His cause and His kingdom. He can use us whether we are rich or whether we are poor. Paul said that he had learned how to be rich and how to suffer need in a way that glorifies God. That's Philippians 4.12. And I think this woman is a beautiful example of that. Well, you know me, I love structures in the Scripture. I believe structures help us to understand the literature a lot better. And this poem has four pretty cool interweaving structures. And I want to spend about 15 minutes showing why understanding the structure makes the meaning of every verse pop out much more clearly. Now, it used to be that liberal scholars thought that this was a disjointed and jagged poem that was artificially arranged around an acrostic. But as soon as people realized and proved definitively that this is a beautifully crafted chiasm, everything changed from disjointed to being tightly and elegantly crafted. And for those of you who are new and don't know what a chiasm is, it's an A, B, C, D, C, B, A structure. where the two A's beginning and the end of the section are parallel, the two B's, C's, and it goes down to the middle, and the middle of the poem is the central theme of that poem. And today I'm not going to preach on the chiastic structure, though it's pretty cool. I was very, very, very tempted to preach on the the chiasm, but I do want to at least introduce it to you. And so if you take a look at your outlines, I've put the chiastic structure at the beginning there. I think you'll see the parallels pretty clearly. First A section speaks of a woman's worth. Second A section, which is verses 30 through 31, also speaks of a woman's worth, this time articulated by her family. First B section speaks of how much the husband trusts and recognizes the value she brings to the home. Second B section, which is verses 28 through 29, do exactly the same thing. I'll just give one more example. If you look at the first G section, close to the middle, verse 22 is the first G section. It says, she makes tapestry for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. So it's about her making clothing, and the second G section also speaks of making clothing. It says she makes linen garments and sells them and supplies sashes to the merchants. Now in Hebrew, parallelism, and we won't get into this a great deal, but the second part of the parallel structure usually fills out either by contrast or addition It fills out the idea that was introduced in the first section. So in this one, it says she not only makes enough for her household, she makes enough to be able to sell to others. Now, I just give that just to let you know, it's without question anymore that this is a chiasm. I think it's very, very well established. And what is the central theme of this chiasm? Interestingly, it's not the woman. It's about her man. Verse 23 says, Now, in the past, Liberals thought that this was an intrusion. It just didn't seem to flow. It didn't seem to be a part of this poem at all. So they thought some other author must have stuck that in there somehow. But now that the chiasmus is recognized, they can't do that anymore. And even liberals recognize that this verse is an integral part of the poem. And it shows how This woman was the kind of wife that helped her husband to be successful in life, not exactly something these liberals were happy with. Now, each part of the poem adds to the success of the husband. And so it's no wonder that in the linear structure, which is another way that this is beautifully structured, in the linear structure it calls her family to praise her. Now, you might think that the Western aphorism that behind every successful man stands a woman is a corny aphorism. It is not. It's very biblical. And by structurally making the central theme to be the husband and his dominion work, the author is showing that her calling revolves around his calling. Her makeup, her clothing, her food preparation, buying, selling, everything else enables her to pursue her calling. And what is her calling? Her calling is to be a helpmeet to her husband. That's the central message of this poem. And so this was a woman who exemplified what we looked at in Eve's calling to be a helpmeet to Adam. And we saw that that word helpmeet is a fascinating term. Helpmeet is actually made up of two Hebrew words. The word for meet is translated as comparable in some versions, but we saw that the Hebrew term shows that she is equal to the man. Eve was equal to Adam in some way. As to essence, the woman is the husband's equal. She's comparable to Adam intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. In every aspect of the image of God in man, she is equal. Okay? That's what that term indicates. She is not inferior when it comes to image. But where meat deals with the equality of essence, the Hebrew word for help deals with inequality of function or role. There is a functional subordination, functional difference, where there's a leader and a helper. And even the way that this poem is structured, I think, demonstrates that. She is helping her husband fulfill his calling. She is his helper. So the chiastic structure really gives a new perspective on what each verse means because each verse, according to chiastic poetry in Hebrew, each verse needs to be read in light of the central theme. Okay, it's one of the reasons why I almost preach through this as a chiasm. But I think giving you this much, I think you'll be able to figure this out on your own. Now, second structure. This is also structured as a warrior poem, which is really, really weird when you think about it. Really weird. Daniel Knorr was the one who introduced me to this. He sent me an essay by Robert Rayburn on Tuesday. And I'm reading through this and he's showing how all the scholars say that this is a warrior poem going through all the structure and I'm thinking, I gotta check this out. So I'm looking at commentary after commentary and people like Bruce Waltke and Murphy and Tremper Longman and others like that. And the more I've read, the more undeniable it is that this is written like a warrior poem. Even some of the words are strange warrior words. For example, the word for gain in verse 11 is usually translated as spoil or plunder from war. Now why on earth would this author use kind of a strange word for gain that gives kind of a warrior aspect to it when there are plenty of alternative words that could have sounded more feminine? The word for food for her household in verse 14 is literally prey, as in animals that are hunted and butchered, okay? Likewise, the word virtuous means valiant or strong. In fact, it's usually used of a warrior, Chayil. So just as a warrior might be honored in song for his valiant feats in the battlefield, which is the exclusive domain of men, This woman is being honored in a warrior-type song for her valiant feats in her exclusive domain of womanhood. Though she is the weaker vessel when compared to the man's role when competing on a man's turf, The point is, she is strong when she fully embraces her calling as a woman. Both men and women can so easily be pulled away from what is unique to our calling, be pulled away by our cultures, and we valiantly resist that. Now let me read you some of the ways that this Hebrew word for virtuous or valiant or valor, how it's been translated in other parts of the Old Testament, depending on context. It's translated as able, activity, army, band of soldiers, company, great forces, host, might, power, riches, strength, strong, substance, train, valiant, valor, and war. Now, that does not mean that this lady is a battle axe who's really hard to get along with. I think the point is that when she focuses on the things that are unique to her femininity, she is operating in the realm of her strength and God pours more strength into her life. He causes her to succeed just like an army or like a valiant soldier might succeed. Oddly, feminism is a flight from true womanhood that has lost what makes women strong. They want to gain strength, but they've ironically lost the very thing that could have made them strong And I think it's so cool that this is built this concept is built right into the very structure of this poem Now there's a third fascinating structural feature about this poem And that is that it is an acrostic that is 22 letters long, each verse beginning with a succeeding letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is also 22 letters long. And so some have spoken of this whole section as being the A to Z of a godly woman. And they mean by that the A to Z of everything you need to know about being a godly wife. Well, the problem is a lot of commentators say it doesn't tell us everything that we need to know about being a godly wife. It simply doesn't. So the A to Z is not pointing to everything we need to know. It's pointing to something else. It's better to say that the A to Z of everything that this woman does is done in a way that does not deviate from her biblical calling. It's all consistent. It's all unified. It'd be very easy for this wealthy woman to be lazy and to let the servants do all of the cooking and the sewing and the charity and the teaching. And they no doubt were involved in those things, but she kept her fingers in those kinds of things as well. It was not beneath her to do the kinds of things that her servants were engaged in. Just like any leader needs to be willing to say, no, it's not beneath my dignity to do any of the tasks that other people are doing underneath me. So whether a poverty-stricken widow of Zarephath or a fabulously wealthy wife of a statesman in this chapter, Women are called to stay true to biblical womanhood in A to Z of everything that they do and to reject the pagan concept of womanhood. And before we dive into the text, I do want to comment on this pagan concept. This poem contradicted the pagan ideals of Solomon's day just as strongly as they contradict the modern ideas of feminism, transgenderism, and everything else of Confucianism. of today, we cannot brush this description off and say, oh, that's just a cultural thing. That was just some woman who was accommodating to her culture. She was not. She was just as countercultural in her time as she is in our time. In fact, you read the commentaries, they say, A biblical womanhood was a radical departure from the womanhood of the pagan nations around about Israel. And by the way, it's not just women who follow the world and refuse to be countercultural. The men many times do this as well. They push their wives and their daughters to dress and talk and live and have the aspirations of the world. If you're a conservative Christian, the Victorian world of old, or sometimes it's the modern world, but they're not looking to the Bible. They're looking to either tradition or what's going on around them. Let me just use Solomon as an example of how the world can frame our thinking when we backslide. In his youth, Solomon thought very biblically about womanhood, and his relationship with his first wife was ideal, as shown in the Song of Solomon. And by the way, that woman in the Song of Solomon was not Victorian either. She worked out in the field. She was a woman who knew how to have fun with her husband. It was a biblical wife. Anyway, Solomon backslid, as recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes. And toward the end of his life, he repented of his backsliding, and he wrote that book of regrets by inspiration. Solomon's wisdom and wealth had tempted him to stop living under heaven, he started living under the sun being the highest level, so he's looking at life not from God's perspective, and the more and more out of touch with God he became, the less he viewed women from a biblical perspective, and he began marrying pagan women. The point is, his treatment of women was a barometer of his lack of a walk with God. like is attracted to like. Just as another side note, some people wonder why in the world God included an awful book like Judges in the Bible. Well, that book shows that God tests—this is one of its many points—but you can test how close people are to God by how they view women and how well they treat their wives and their daughters. And I think the story of the Levite and his concubine is written deliberately in a way to make us sickened by the Levite and sickened by the whole culture and their attitude toward women. It's deliberately written that way. So your treatment of your wife and your daughters is a barometer of your own godliness or ungodliness. Now back to my point. By the time Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, his first godly wife had died, and his taste for women had changed, and he said that of the 1,000 wives that he had married, not one of them was virtuous. Not one. And so this chapter, I think, is a call from God to us men. It calls us to value what God values in our wives and our daughters and to not allow the pressures of culture or pornography or peer pressure from other Christians or anything else to dictate how our women folk should be living. We need to look to the Bible. Well, let's dig into the text. I'm going to follow the linear outline. It's another structure, and I don't have it in the exact structure there, but it moves from worth to actions to praise. First, this woman's sense of worth did not flow from what others thought of her, did not flow from her actions, did not flow from her beauty, did not flow from anything else in the rest of this poem. Notice that verse one does not say, for the worth of her efforts are far above Ruby's. It doesn't say the worth of her raising up of children or the worth of X, Y, Z. It says her worth. as a person, as a woman. When a woman finds security in who she is in God's eyes, her husband is freed up to flourish. And I think this first point is really essential for women to settle if they're going to be the best helpmates that they can be. Insecure women tend to find self-worth in things that will forever keep them bouncing up and down and all over the place emotionally. Here's the point. declared Eve's worth before she did anything. Okay? And let me explain that. After declaring his entire creation to be good several times in Genesis 1, God says after the creation of Adam, it is not good, And those should be shocking words when they're stated in the context of a perfect creation with no sin. So after he said repeatedly, it is good, it is good, it is good, God says, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate. And he wasn't simply talking about satisfying Adam's loneliness or another man could have done the job. Even God's companionship was not sufficient. There was something about the woman that was needed And even Adam recognized this. God says for the very first time, he uses the word very, he says in Genesis 1.31, God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good. Adam certainly felt that way because prior to her being created, there wasn't anything that he saw that satisfied his urge, his need for a helpmate. And so she was worth more than rubies, more than all of the animals that God had paraded before him prior to that. And get this, she had that worth before she did a single act of service. God's declaration that His creation was very good was declared before she had done anything. In other words, her worth comes from God's declaration. Okay, not others. We need to line up our sense with God's sense. So, her worth came from who she was in God's eyes and the role that she embraced, not by how much she could accomplish. And the reason I bring this up is because I've read a ton of books on Proverbs 31, and it's astonishing how many times people attribute worth to a woman by how much she can accomplish. Oh, you're not doing as much as this Proverbs 31? What kind of a louse of a wife are you? And it makes people very, very discouraged. It's based upon what women can do, their performance. Well, you may not have all of the wealth of the Proverbs 31 woman had, or all of the servants that she had, and you're not going to measure up. And besides that, what happens when you get aged and you can't do quite as much? What happens when you're an invalid or you're just sick for two weeks? Your sense of self-worth begins to deteriorate. And this is, I think, the error of feminism. Feminists have declared over and over again that the worth of a woman is measured by what kinds of things she can do, right? If there's something a man is doing that a woman is not allowed to do, she feels that her worth is being attacked. Elizabeth Elliott once said, there is a fundamental and, to me, quite puzzling omission in most feminist discussion, the failure to talk at all about femininity. And by that she means, what is unique to the female sex? She says later, we are not required somehow to overcome our sexuality. We affirm it. We rejoice in it. We seek to be faithful to it as we seek to use it as a gift of God. Unfaithfulness to one sex is unfaithfulness to everybody. The husband who is not faithful to his masculinity defrauds his wife, and the reverse is equally true. So we need to realize that an attack on God's definition of a woman's worth is really an attack upon God and God's order. Elizabeth Elliot says, we are called to be women, not men. I have accepted God's idea of me and my whole life is an offering back to him of all that I am and all that he wants me to be. So true worth comes when you embrace your calling. to the biblical model of womanhood. And as we saw from the meaning of virtuous, true strength comes from valuing your unique role. And even if you didn't know that this was a chiasm pointing to verse 23, he helps us out in verse 11 by saying the same thing. He says, really, men will flourish the best when women flourish in who they are. Verse 11 says, the heart of her husband safely trusts her, so he will have no lack of gain. Now, there's a ton that could be said on that that I won't say on how it is that both men and women flourish the best when they embrace their unique callings. But let's go on into the next section, and let's look at the woman's actions. Some of them I'll spend more time on, some of them I'll fly through rather quickly. Verse 12 gives loyalty to her husband as a key to his success. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. Now loyalty for life is becoming less and less common feature of our society. Not always the woman's fault, not always the man's fault. But this is not just addressing a refusal to divorce. That's just part of the equation. This is addressing an attitude of being for the husband where the husband feels needed and respected and valued and secure in her loyalty. There were two massive studies that I read that show that when this is present, there are very measurable statistical changes that actually happen to the man himself. One study was done by George Gilder. He was primarily documenting statistically the changes that happen to men prior to being married and then after being married to a loyal and devoted wife. He says, when a man gets married, the changes in his life go far beyond his immediate relationship. Statistically, his college grades summarily climb above those of more talented singles. His crime rate plummets. He pays his bills and qualifies for credit. He drives more carefully and qualifies for cheaper insurance. His income as much as doubles. He becomes much more psychologically stable. Contrary to the theory that bread-winning duties account for high male mortality, he lives much longer than his counterpart who stays single. And of course, in most cases, he devotes himself to one woman. Dr. W. Peter Blitchington has also done extensive research on this subject. And he gave pretty much the same conclusion, but he started by saying this. No such important changes take place in married women. This is not to say that men don't have an influence for good on women, but male influence doesn't appear to be so intense and profound. The man who finds himself firmly entrenched within the safe haven of a family, secure in the love of a good woman, will find his role as provider and protector uplifting and ennobling. His identity as a man will be guaranteed by his wife's devotion. His mental and physical health will be assured by her commitment and loyalty. Under her encouragement and support, he will work harder, love more fully, and live longer than his single compatriots. Her influence upon him will be profound. Blessed by her presence, his work and his earnings will take on a new meaning. His existence will seem purposeful and his tie to society firmer as his life merges with her life. He will give her protection. She will give him a home. He will make her a living and she will make him a man. The point is, even pagan studies affirm the truth of verses 11 through 12. The next phrase is interesting. It says, she seeks wool and flax. Now the Hebrew word for seek is darash, and it's much stronger than the English word for seek. The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament says it has the following ideas inherent in it. Investigating, searching, striving for, inquiring about, and paying detailed attention to. In other words, just talking about research. This woman isn't picking up the first piece of flax or the first piece of wool that her hands come upon. No, she has trained herself to be able to discern quality. She knows about quality. She's researching how to get the best. Martin Luther's wife, whom I will refer to from time to time, because she reminds me a lot of this woman here. She started off her marriage dirt poor. Dirt poor. But she used her wits to help the family get ahead. And she would research on how to keep improving the things that she was making, including even things like beer. And she said, well, my beer is not selling. So she would go around sampling beers. And she would try to make the best beer that she could. And she ended up getting a huge market. She made a lot of money from the beer that she made. Anyway, she was always researching and supplementing areas of her family's income. The next phrase shows that this woman had internally embraced a work ethic. She doesn't just work when others are watching or when she's forced to. It says here, and willingly works with her hands. So this is internal. It's a willingness to work. And what is cool about this is that she's a wealthy woman. Manual labor is still, despite the fact she's a wealthy woman, it's not beneath her dignity. And manual labor should not be beneath the dignity of any of us. Whether we're pastors, whether we're statesmen, doesn't matter who we are, we should love manual labor. Anyway, we speak of this inner drive to work as the Protestant work ethic because it presupposes an inner worldview that drives us to be industrious. And I don't have time this morning to get into what's all involved in the Protestant work ethic, but it's here. It's definitely here. Starts in the mind and in the heart. Verse 14 says, she is like the merchant ships. She brings her food from afar. Now, this is not saying that she traveled to other countries. I want you to notice the word like. This is simply a simile. And I believe the likeness is that her economics takes into account the big picture in the long-term vision. And commendators point out that merchant ships were noted for having to play the markets on a macro level rather than on a micro level simply because of the long distances that were involved. When you're transporting stuff from an Israeli port and you're taking it to a distant country, You're having all, there's a lot of process to find out what goods we need to load onto the ship, what they're going to want. You take it over there. You're going to get totally different goods from that part and bring it over here. The point is, There's risk involved because if you don't match up prices and prices change, you could lose a lot. There's risk involved in a ship sinking, you know? So sometimes our investments don't work out. But you don't get ahead if you're playing it safe. If this merchant who is running these ships does not have a long-term vision he's not going to get ahead. And she uses the internet, so to speak, to order parts from afar, if they meet all of the situations of quality and value that this proverb talks about. So all of that requires long-term vision. I believe it shows her to be a future-oriented person, not a consumption-oriented or present-oriented person. Now where verse 13 spoke of an inward work ethic, verse 15 shows this work ethic lived out in the home. She also rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and a portion for her maidservants. Now the word for food is prey and may refer to butchering the food that is needed, or as Tremper Longman claims, it may simply be an idiom for the early bird gets the worm. I tend to side with the commentators who say, she's literally butchering something. That's the literal meaning of the term there. And this is one of several things in this poem that reminds me so much of Katie Luther, Martin Luther's wife. She butchered and dressed her own chickens and cattle and pigs. She too was an early riser, was very industrious. Now, we just go to the meat market to purchase things, and that's okay. I love division of labor, and this proverb speaks of division of labor. It's not one of the points I put in the outline, but it is an important point. I can't touch on everything this morning. But having said that, it's probably not a bad idea to learn how to butcher a deer, you know, for tough times, just knowing how to do it. And really, on a lot of her skills, it's probably worthwhile to at least gain some skill, even if you're not going to always use it. Just keep up with those skills. But this is definitely not a Victorian woman. Verse 16 says, she considers a field and buys it. From her profits, she plants a vineyard. When Katie and Martin Luther were married, they were destitute. But Katie knew how to buy low and sell high. And little by little, she was able to buy little bits of property with her husband's permission and keep increasing the livestock and the garden that she was growing. And then from the small profits she would make from selling vegetables and beer, she would buy more plots of land on which she could grow more grain and more vegetables and animals. And I believe, having read two or three biographies of her, that their financial success is almost 100% attributable to Katie. She was a remarkable entrepreneur. And actually, as I said, a lot of things remind me of her. She could be theological, but she could be humorous. She really was a pretty funny person. She knew how to play. She knew how to work. Anyway, moving on, verse 17 says that this woman was physically in shape. She girds herself with strength, is literally, she girds her loins with strength. Now the loins are the muscles in your back. And since to gird your loins is a metaphor to prepare yourself, it means she prepared her back to be strong. And the second part is she strengthened her arms. So in modern lingo, she worked out. Right? That's what she did. Some commentators point out that within the structure of a warrior poem, this means she worked out to be strong in her womanly duties, just like a warrior works out to be strong for battle. She valued her body, did not allow her body to go to pot. She made sure that she was physically in shape. First part of verse 18 says, she perceives that her merchandise is good. Dictionary says that the Hebrew word for perceives is to have good discernment or judgment that comes from repeated tasting, testing, or other similar experiences. to be able to discern the good from the bad. So it's used, for example, of people who, from experience, are able to taste a wine and be able to discern if it's a good quality wine or not, or to be able to feel or look at fabric and to be able to say, yes, this is a good quality fabric, or this is an inferior quality. That is an art that has to be learned. It's an ability that should be taught to our children. Can our children discern the difference between a good quality boot and a boot that will fall apart in a few months? Can they look at fabric at the fabric store and say, oh yeah, this is good quality that should last for a long time? Can they tell the difference between good grain, beans, and rice from the stale product? It doesn't come naturally, it is trained. Verse 18 says, and her lamp does not go out by night. Now this verse has been grossly misinterpreted over the years. This verse does not mean that she works all night or even that she stays up late or it would contradict Psalm 127 verse 2 which says it is not good to stay up late if you're getting up early and verse 15 says she gets up early. So that psalm says you need a good night's sleep. Well the literal reading of this sentence shows it can't possibly mean she burns the midnight oil In fact, it has nothing to do with staying up by lamplight at all, or it would literally mean she never went to bed at all, because the lamp doesn't go out, right? And so Bruce Waltke demonstrates that the idea of a lamp never running out was used by the Hebrews as an idiom, meaning that she never ran out of needed items because of poor planning. It's always milk or whatever else is needed in the larder. This had not been previously the case for Martin Luther because Martin was so generous. He was always giving away even stuff that they needed. And she would remonstrate, we need that. You know, if you're always giving away the milk, what are our kids going to eat? And so she was generous too. But I think of the two of them, Katie was much smarter in terms of making sure we have good planning for the future so that the larder does not run out. So sorry, night owls. I know that some of you like this as a proof text for you. It is not a proof text for you. This woman has also learned skills in the apparel industry. Verse 19 says, she stretches out her hands to the distaff, and her hand holds the spindle. And that's probably what her parents had taught her. There's other skills that maybe other women had learned, but this was her skill. And just as I tell young men that the more skills you can take on, and even more than one trade that you can take on, the further ahead you will be, I tell young women that you'll be ahead the more crafts and canning and preservation techniques and stain removing techniques and other practical tips that you can learn. You might rightly think it's a whole lot cheaper to buy things at the store, which I tend to think as well. And so most of our stuff we buy from the store. But it's good to train your daughters how to sew. There may come a time when you will need that. For example, canning. Some people prefer not to do a lot of canning, but if times got tough, it is a skill that is essential to have in place. You know, if you weren't able to buy things from the grocery store. So it's probably good to occasionally do some canning so that that skill is maintained. Anyway, it doesn't mean she didn't buy clothes. She probably did, but she kept up her skills of sewing. Verse 20 shows that this woman is not selfishly preoccupied only with her own household's needs. She was also generous in mercy ministries. She extends her hand to the poor. Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy. Luther would have impoverished his family with undiscerning charity. Katie had a very nice balance of being generous to the poor but not doing it in a way that would enable their bad habits or would enable laziness or would enable any of the kinds of things that our federal government and our state governments do with their welfare system that has no accountability whatsoever. She knew how to be wise but generous in mercy ministries. Mercy ministries really is a skill that needs to be learned and we went through a lot of the skills that are involved in good mercy ministries in our training of deacons. What goes for mercy ministries in many churches I don't think is good. The next verse shows that she was prepared for disaster. Disaster can hit any community and paralyze it. Earthquake, tornado, it could be snow, it could be fires. There's any number of things that could make groceries, for example, go out. So women need to think about how to be prepared so as not to run out. And by the way, this is not fear. Preparedness actually alleviates fear and anxiety. Too many Christians, I think, would be in trouble if there was an EMP. Anyway, verse 21 says, she is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household is clothed with scarlet. The reason she didn't need to be afraid is because she's already prepared, just in case. In fact, I have a much more detailed chiastic structure than I put into your outlines there. That's the general pattern, and on the more detailed one, this is parallel to 25b where she laughs at the future or rejoices in time to come. She faces the future with faith because she's done what she could and she trusts God with the results. First part of verse 22 shows that she spends time adding beauty to the home. Are tapestries really necessary? I would say no, they're not. But they can be very beautiful. And notice that she does this for her own enjoyment. She makes tapestries for herself. You husbands should not be way too focused on functionality. After all, she's the one who has to live in that house a whole lot more hours than you do, unless you're a work at home dad. But allow your wives to spend time and money on artistic flourishes and other ways of making the home more homey and pretty. This verse says it's not all about you. It's about pleasing her, too. Part of Paul's paradigm for husbands in 1 Corinthians 7.33 is, quote, how he may please his wife, unquote. And I think too many husbands don't emphasize that part enough. How can I please my wife? She makes tapestries for herself. And by the way, if every part of this poem produces a successful husband, which is the center of the chiasm, that means allowing your wife some self-indulgence will ultimately benefit you men. That's the bottom line. And this goes for your wife's clothing too. Second half of verse 22 says, her clothing is fine linen and purple. Now Waltke points out that both kinds of clothing mentioned here are very expensive. forms of clothing, one being half a month's wages, and the other being upwards of two months' wages for an average working man. Now, obviously, this woman's a whole lot more wealthy than we are. You can tell by my clothing, I don't spend that kind of money on it. But the point is, if you can afford it, you shouldn't feel guilty about spending money on clothing for yourself. You're not going to go into debt, obviously. You're going to spend it within your means. But allowing a wife to spend on herself is one way of blessing her. And I guess I should emphasize again that this woman is wealthy, she has servants, she's got all kinds of things that we don't, and so we're not going to necessarily be able to imitate everything that she does. Well, you know, it's not entirely true. Most of you guys have servants. Technology has taken the place of slaves in the home. And so if you've got a washing machine, you've got a servant working for you part of the week. If you've got a car or a telephone, or a microwave, there's all kinds of technological advances that we have. So in some ways, most of us are pretty wealthy, and I'm all for that. I think those things leverage our time and enable us to be involved in other things. I've already commented on verse 23, which is the heart of the poem, so I won't say more than to repeat that. Her goals in all that she does is to help him succeed. I was reading, I think it was on John MacArthur's website, but one lady applying this chiasm to herself, and she's just asking herself how her clothing would fit in with his calling. In other words, is my clothing appropriate to his calling? How can my preparation of food to fit in? How will my other purchases lift up and encourage my husband? And let me balance this. It's not in the text here, but Psalm 128 says that the wife and the children are at the heart of the man's home. So it really goes both ways, right? But here it's saying that the husband should be at the heart of the wife and the husband's home. So those two scriptures speak of mutual respect. Some of these last points parallel in some ways earlier points, so I'll be briefer. But verse 24 shows that she has a home business or a cottage industry. And some people shy away from this, thinking only the man should be bringing in income. But I think this is quite clear. She makes linen garments and sells them and supplies sashes for the merchants. Despite being fabulously wealthy, she supplements the family income by her industry. I think that's very, very interesting. Her wealth is not an excuse for her to stop taking dominion, to sit back and watch soap operas all day, which is a bad idea anyway. But she's a businesswoman. She treats her home management as if it were a business. And you women need to ask yourselves if the quality of your management of your home is so poor that you would be fired if you were doing that in another business context. I think it's good to ask yourself that. If so, you need to repent and regroup and restart. She treats the plantation she manages as a business. Her whole life she is seeking to increase the family's estate, at the same time is also enjoying the family's estate. So there's really a balance between industry and pleasure. In any case, it might be worthwhile for you to strategize with your husband. Is there any way that we could, with our family, maybe with the children, with me, start a cottage industry? Something that would give a little bit of pin money for extra spending. Verse 25a shows that she has strength of character and her character is so pronounced it's not hidden, it clothes her. Strength and honor are her clothing. Her character exudes to the outside, it's noticed. Now obviously, you're not gonna have that if you're not soaking in God's grace and in his word to develop his graces. Anyway, there are different takes on the next phrase in verse 25. This version says she shall rejoice in time to come. Another version has she is facing the future with a smile. Another has she looks to the future cheerfully. Another has she laughs at the time to come. And whether it's addressing good humor, confidence, her faith, her lack of stress, when all of those are put together, and I think they probably all are, you can see how such a lack of anxiety about the future would bless the whole home. Some homes are so filled with stress in the parents' lives, they're just no fun to be in. True Proverbs 31 living can help to remove that stress. It's not always guaranteed, but it can help. The next verse shows that she has studied God's word sufficiently that she's able to give biblical advice at any time. She opens her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is the law of kindness. Now wouldn't it be cool if you were so saturated with the Word of God that every time you opened your mouth, boom, out comes Scripture, out comes advice. I mean, that's what's pretty much going on here. And the last phrase is chesed. It's covenant faithfulness. So it's not just words of kindness, as some translate it, but a woman who exudes the biblical law of chesed. So she speaks biblical wisdom and counsel and advice. And we men ought to listen to our wives. But you women should not be so busy that you don't have time to be in the Word every day. Find quiet time when you can be in the Word. And if it's just like such bedlam that you can't, strategize with your husband. Do we need to go to parenting class? What do we need to be able to carve out time where we've got a disciplined home? Verse 27 summarizes what Paul talks about when he calls mothers to be managers of their households. And here it says, she watches over the ways of her household, does not eat the bread of idleness. Now that first clause, she watches over the ways of her household, strongly speaks of a household manager. To carefully watch over is a leadership position. And a lot of people don't think of women as being leadership. They are. They are. In fact, one strong word that is used of mothers in the New Testament is the feminine form of the word Lord, which is translated as lady. She's the lady of the home, means she has the management of the home assigned to her. Another strong word is oikadespotane. It's even stronger. 1 Timothy 5.14 means she runs the house with authority, oikadespotane. Despotane, very strong word for Lord and authority. Our wives need to be freed up to truly manage or run the home. Now, of course, good managers report to the boss, and the boss has the right to correct and change and give guidelines. But a good boss doesn't micromanage. She is the household manager. And of course, the last phrase in verse 27 shows that she is not lazy. She has taken seriously her role as a manager of the home, and this frees her husband up to sit in the gates of the city and influence society. So being a statesman was his career. It's not yours necessarily. But it's basically saying that the husband's going to do better in his career when the wife does better in her calling. It's not saying that the husband isn't home, he is, but he's also an effective statesman in this case, and that is in large part because she is a valiant wife. She's doing her utmost to serve the Lord through his calling. So it's no wonder that this psalm ends with a call to praise. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates. Now there's a lot in there I'm not going to dig into, such as God's emphasis on character over beauty, how the fear of the Lord characterized everything that this woman did, how such a woman will even be recognized by the public as praiseworthy, and how she should be able to enjoy some of the fruits of her labor, etc. But I just want to focus on how important it is that we praise our mothers and our wives. Praise them for who they are as women. Praise them for their motherhood. Praise them for their works. And in addition to praise, pronounce God's blessings upon them. I think very literally we men should bless our households every day. And we should praise them too. But we should bless them. There is something that happens when we bless that transfers from God to them. The worth of a virtuous woman is beyond rubies and therefore really beyond praise, but we need to do it anyway, and that's one area I believe Luther excelled in. Even though he joked about Katie and joked to her and she joked back, she was sharp as could be, he was seriously grateful beyond words for the gift of a virtuous woman that God had given to him. And I'm gonna end with words from John Phillips that I say amen to. He said, we can imagine Solomon's ideal woman growing old. Her husband has nothing but praise for her. Her children rise up and bless her. When she is called to her last rest, the family gather in the old home, and the neighbors drop in to share their memories. The poor of the city gather at the gate and talk about what a blessing. she has been to them. Unknown to everyone, the king has written down her story, and the Holy Spirit will include it in his book. Succeeding generations will read that this woman was called blessed and will wonder who she was. Many women will say, I'm going to be like her. Surely one of them will be a young virgin who will live 1,000 years later in a despised Galilean town called Nazareth. To her, an angel will say, blessed art thou. May that be said of each woman who aspires to be like this woman. It's only possible through the grace of God, but it is possible. Blessed art thou. Father, I pray that your blessing your encouragement, your energizing, your hope, your faith, everything that is needed for these women to continue to aspire to be more and more like this ideal woman, that you would give it to them. Would you bless them this morning, Father? Encourage their hearts. Enable them, Father, to be so in tune with what your Spirit desires and so fulfilling their own callings that their husbands succeed in whatever callings that you have given to them. Father, I pray that these homes would be tightly knit together, all bitterness, all rancor, all clamor would be put away, all negativity, and that you would enable these homes to be filled full to overflowing with the joy of the Lord, which is their strength. And so once again, Father, I pray not only your blessing upon the women, but upon the men of this congregation, the children of this congregation, may we more and more be conformed to your word. And I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.