Let's now take a look at 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3. I want to do a short series on mothers and daughters and fathers and sons over the next couple of weeks. One of the reasons for this is we have a lot of sons and daughters in our congregation. It's important, I think, to get back to this. from time to time. This is a big project that God has given to us, and I want to be sure that I bring out the Word of God on this. You know, it's interesting. There are hundreds of books written on these topics, and I mean hundreds of books. I don't think I'm exaggerating. There are hundreds of books written on husbands and wives, parents and children, and they come from different perspectives, but sometimes don't you kind of want to go back to the Word of God and say, what was it that the Bible said originally? You know, after reading all of this stuff, don't you kind of want to go back to the Word of God and find out what the Word of God said? Because the Word of God is our authority, correct? All these hundreds of books that have attempted to explain and apply are not the authority. The Word of God is the authority, and the Word of God always speaks to us. And I think sometimes in application, we're trying to write a hundred books on how to ride a unicycle. Are you with me here? So you've read a hundred books on how to ride a unicycle. And you get up on the unicycle, how is it going to go? You're going to fall right on your face. But you've read all the books on it. You've learned so much about it. The words contained in the book on how to ride a unicycle won't make any sense until you get on the unicycle. And then you begin to ride, and as you're riding the unicycle, you begin to think, oh, that's what they meant when they said this or that. Do you follow me? I think that's the way the application of God's word goes as well. You can only get so many experts telling you about how to, but it's when we actually get out there and apply that we begin to understand what the Word of God said originally. And we learn something about ourselves, and we always do. We learn two things. We learn what we're doing that's bad, and we're learning about the things we ought to be doing. And so we learn both things. And hopefully we're constantly relying upon the grace of Christ. Hopefully we're under the cross of Christ, right? We're standing in the blood of Jesus. And as we look at ourselves and we begin to see these spots all over us, we begin to see that we're falling short of the glory of God. We look around and say, oh, that's what that blood is for. Now let's turn to the word of God and read 1 Peter chapter 3, first six verses. Now the word of God, listen carefully. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of plating the hair, wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is, in the sight of God, a great price. For after this manner, in the old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." And everybody said, Amen. I think the The vision that we have in our households is pretty much what Brother Mike prayed towards the end of his prayer, that our children walk in God's ways, that our daughters know what it is to live as godly women, that our sons know what it is to live as godly men and that they are standing on our shoulders, we say, but really standing on our toes and maybe on our knees. You know, we have to be humble here. It's not as if, you know, we're understanding this thing and there's no mistakes and we're, but we're all struggling and each generation will struggle on its own. So we gotta remember that. That each generation will struggle in its own battles, with its own battles, with its own issues. But we want a generational legacy of faith. Not the generational legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura Ingalls Wilder had one daughter. Her name was Rose. And Rose became one of the most outstanding feminists of the day. She was an individualist feminist like Anne Rand. So it was a little different than your typical socialist feminist. There's two brands of feminism. The Western form, that is the form that moved to the Western pioneering states like Colorado, turned into the individualist Anne Randian sort of feminist, and remember it was Laura Ingalls Wilder in her book, These Happy Golden Years, where she said she did not want to use obey in her wedding vows. I was sitting down with a couple, it was neat, in our church this week, and they're getting ready to get married, and the young lady said, I want to make sure we have the word obey there in the vow, and sure enough, it's there. It's the traditional vow that we use. But that was not the case with Laura Ingalls Wilder. She did not want obey in her wedding vow, so it made perfect sense in many ways, that the generational legacy that she sets involved the apostasy of her daughter, Rose, who did not have any children, divorced her husband, and that ended the Laura Ingalls generational heritage. That was it. That was the end of it. There's nothing left of Laura Ingalls Wilder. This is a sad, sad legacy, but this is really how you get a divorce rate moving from 0.1% in 1800 to 40% or 50% or whatever it is in the present day. It's 300 to 400 times what it was 150 years ago. But how do you do that? You absolutely need Laura Ingalls Wilder and you need Rose Wilder Lane to write their books. You needed them to be the leaders in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s in this nation to get to where we are today. So, you know, I know this is offensive. You know, anytime you go out to Laura Ingalls Wilder, that's kind of an icon of American Western home education. I learned this quickly when I started mentioning this about Laura Ingalls Wilder in public audiences. Not everybody received it as enthusiastically as you are. But I just use it as an illustration. I mean, you know, our desire, I mean, it's your desire that your daughter become a feminist, have a divorce, have no kids, and die, a very unhappy woman, by the way, who had a terrible relationship with her mother, and her letters are filled with cursing and bitterness, and it's just awful. She's taking God's name in vain all the time, and it's just, oh, it's just, you know, you can see exactly what happened to America in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s by following the Laura Ingalls Wilder generational legacy. So I guess what I'm saying is, do we have a different vision here? Their mom's here with a passion for something different than what Laura Ingalls Wilder had. And I would hope that there would be something here in our congregation in that regard. Okay, let's look at the passage here. And again, I want to tie this passage in to mothers and daughters. And you moms are wives to your husbands, but you're trying to set an example, and you're trying to pass a legacy on to your daughters. So I want to kind of bring that together as best as I can this morning in the message from 1 Peter 3. Now, the first thing I want you to notice is that in this passage, wives are mentioned first. And all of the commentators made an issue out of this, as I studied it. Wives are mentioned first, not just in 1 Peter 3, but also in Ephesians 5, 22. And children are mentioned before fathers in Ephesians 6. So the commentators have made something of this, and I think it's important. Why did they do that? Why do we start a little series of messages on husbands and wives, but we begin with the wives? Why does Paul do that, and why must I do that, as I kick off my little series here? The reason, I believe, is this. Because willing submission is better than coercive leadership in a biblical construct of a social order. Do you want me to say that again? Willing submission is better than coercive leadership. Now what happens with the pagan tribes is they beat their wives into submission. They force their wives. into doing what they want them to do. And the pagan Indian tribes even rented their wives out and sold their wives, and it was just disgusting, the sorts of things that Lewis and Clark came upon, and the pagan tribes that had absolutely no influence from the Jewish scriptures or the Christian scriptures in Nayan to 3,000 years or whatever it was. So, if you want to know what the pagans do, their social order is built up on beating their wives into submission. Which, by the way, is the same thing that the Muslims do. And let me say this also. When there are Christian men who give way to abusiveness, they are violating a Christian law order and they are effectively pagan. They're becoming what the pagans are. Now, as it turns out, there are increasing numbers of women that want to become Muslims, and that's because they're reacting against the other order, and that's the broken-down social order that's happening in the Western world that is no order whatsoever. That is the serial polygamy, the men that won't provide for their single wife or for their three girlfriends. They won't provide for anything. And they're constantly disintegrating their families, and they're engaging in serial polygamist fornication. A lot of ladies from secular households today are moving away from that into the Muslim polygamist households. My wife ran into one of them in the parking lot of where we used to meet before. And remember that? A couple of years ago, somebody was selling a car or a truck to a Muslim couple, and it turns out that was the direction that she sent. So she read the fourth surah in the Quran, verse 34, and she saw, this is really cool. Those you fear, those wives you fear may be rebellious wives admonish. Banish them to their couches and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them. God is all high. God is all great. Okay, so when she read that, she was excited about the possibility of a social order. I'm not. Can everybody else say amen? Especially some of you ladies. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. Now, that worldview is more and more popular today in Europe, in France, in Germany, in America, Detroit. Everybody's got to mention Detroit. But it's growing all over America. Why? Because they present a social order that kind of works. Okay, they use a lot of duct tape, but it kind of works. But what you get with the God of the Bible is the passive voice. Praise God for the passive voice. What do you say is the passive voice? Be ye in subjection. Isn't that beautiful? What's the passive voice? The passive voice is subject yourself. Ladies, subject yourselves. It begins with you. Subject yourselves. If we're not going to have pagan households, and we don't want to have Muslim households, but we want to have Christian households, then praise God for the passive. Somebody say amen. Especially you Greek grammar. Did I hear amen for you, Mike? Praise God for the passive form. Be ye in subjection. Subject yourselves to your own husbands in the Lord. So it all begins with you. If wives don't submit themselves, we can hardly move on. We can hardly move on. There's no real order. Things dissolve into chaos, and houses or homes become just houses of cards, made of cards, become easily subject to disintegration. Okay. Here's another reason why this is so important is because rebellion is next to witchcraft and rebellion to God's ordained order is rebellion to God. You see, the subjection of the wife to the husband and the submission of the children to the parents is very basic to a Christian order of things. And if we don't get that, chaos. You know, I get a lot of people writing in to me and saying this whole Matthew 15 thing, that Jesus is affirming the death penalty for the young man who beats on his mother and curses his father, okay? This is the most horrible thing that anybody could ever advocate in the history of the world. That's effectively what I get. Now, I delete those emails right away. Because I fear God. And it turns out Jesus wrote that. Jesus said that. And God, of course, in the Old Testament, gives us His law. And so I think out of respect for Jesus, we need to be very, very careful what we say about the law of God. Moreover, you have to ask, why did Jesus and why did God in the Old Testament impose this? Why was He so serious about this issue of children obeying their parents and when it gets so bad, that a son is cursing in his father's face, God assigns the death penalty. I was in a King Soopers about five or six years ago and happened on a conversation, it wasn't really a conversation, it was a young 16 or 17 year old man in the face of his father cursing in his father's face. And I don't know if any of you have ever experienced this, but maybe you've experienced this where you were at a Safeway, and somebody pulled out a gun and was putting 17 bullets in the body of somebody in the middle of everything. Have you ever had that experience? And it just takes you back, and you step like four steps back. You know, you're kind of shaking a little bit, because you can hardly believe that somebody has disrupted the social order and violated God's moral law in such an egregious way. That's the way I felt. But when I was there in the presence, I tell you, it's only happened once. I've never actually seen this in any other circumstance in my life. But I saw it one time at King Soopers, where a young man, 17 years of age, was in his father's face, cursing his father. I don't know if he was 17 or not, but young man. Couldn't have been out of high school. And he was cursing in his father's face. See, God takes these things deadly seriously. Here's one of the problems. These men grow up and they're taking pot shots at sheriff's deputies as they're running down the street. Now, what if you had somebody taking his 22 and shooting out the tires of a police car and shooting bullets through the windows of police officers? Would you be a little concerned? Do you think the magistrate would take that seriously? Do you think, typically, when you get that level of rebellion against the social order, do you think that they might even try to put a kid like that in prison for doing something like that? I think so. And that's because, you know, you're violating the authority of the God who deputized those parents. As they're taking pot shots, as they're taking a baseball bat to their mother, or as they're taking the .22 and shooting out the windows of the car, it's an insult to the Lord God of heaven who has made the galaxies and has assigned you mom and you dad as the deputy, as his deputy in that house. So that's the reason why this is so important. In rebellion amongst the children in home, rebellion with the wives often snowballs into rebellion in the church and rebellion in the entire social order. There may be a reason why churches are having such a hard time today. I think one of the reasons, we talk about accountability, and how it may be hard to do accountability when you have people that don't want to submit themselves to accountability by church hopping, whatever it is. We have all these discussions all the time about why is it so hard to do church, to be a church, to have accountability systems and all the rest. I think one of the fundamental reasons is because the basic social order has been weakened over the last number of years. Okay, so let me encourage you moms to teach your daughters to be good wives. And do so by example. Do so by example. Obviously fathers can do the same thing by submitting to the elders in the church. And my heart is so blessed when fathers come to the elders and submit themselves to the elders and say, you know, I'm not sure I've been doing what I really need to be doing in my household. I may be more dictatorial and I may be provoking my children to wrath more than I ought to be. I mean, is your heart blessed, brothers, when there are fathers that will sit down, humble themselves, and receive counsel in the presence of their own daughters, in the presence of their own sons, in the context of the church? What do you think that does? What message does that send to the man's wife, who's supposed to submit herself to him in the home, or to the children in the home, who see their fathers submitting to the elders in the church? This is why in Ephesians chapter 5 we begin with, submit yourselves one to another. I think primarily that's looking at fathers. Submit yourselves one to another within the body of the church and then the apostle turns to the wives and says, you wives submit yourselves to your own husbands in the Lord. Train your daughters to be good wives. And remember, more is caught than taught. A robust application of these principles is essential for dealing with the divorce culture of the day. So, you know, let's not be embarrassed of this passage. Let's not be hesitant to bring it out. Let's read it over and over again. Let's talk about it. Let's meditate on it. Let's keep it in front of our eyes. You know, if you understand that whatever Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane came up with over the last 70 years has moved the divorce rate from .1% to 40 to 50%, it would seem to me that we ought to ignore their counsel and move back to the Apostle Paul and say, you know, Apostle Paul has some good things to say and let's bring this out and let's start applying this. Okay, secondly, When your daughters are not taught concerning these important biblical commands, they will become lousy wives for lousy husbands. Generally speaking, if they are married, they will marry badly. I mean, I've received this comment before. What happens when you find yourself married to the wrong woman? And my response is always, you're married to the right woman. The woman that God wants you to marry so that you can learn some of the lessons you need to learn in your life, big guy, while God is teaching her some of the lessons she needs to learn. See, this is the perfect thing about marriage. It brings two sinners together, both of whom need a lot of work, and it's just like some assembly required, you know? We're working it through, and we deserve each other, and it's a good thing. But think about what you can do by training your daughters in the home. If they're not submissive, they will marry husbands they can boss around or passive men that will not be able to lead a household or make a living. And as you know, these are bad foundation stones. that tend to make for poor family life. So I'm just saying, you know, I'm trying to motivate you a little bit to, you know, hey, you know, maybe I can start right now, my daughter's 14. Think about what you can do for future households. And here's one thing also to remember, dads or moms, as you see something from your daughter and you realize, ooh, there's some issues here, think to yourself, do I really love the man who's going to marry that? whatever that was right there. What can I do now to help and to train my daughters in some of these things? Okay, thirdly, what a blessing to future husbands and churches, to entire social orders, that there are parents who take these admonitions seriously and teach them to their daughters. And then finally, and just remember this, we all need to repent of stuff. And the purpose of getting into the Word of God and to draw up these passages is to convict, to draw us to repentance. And your daughters need to repent of something, as should your sons. None of us start out all ready to go in life. And if Jesus died on the cross for these sorts of things, then why not teach to it? Why not teach to it? This is the stuff for which Christ died. Okay, let's take a look at the passage now, beginning with the first verse. We'll read the first verse one more time. Likewise ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. So let's focus on the first admonition, wives be in subjection to your own husbands. Characteristically, I know I'm supposed to qualify, Peter, and tell you you're not to submit to your husband if he tells you to rob a bank. So let me just say that right off. Your husband tells you to rob a bank, don't go rob a bank. You know, we say this, we use it as a qualification, but I've yet to run into a husband who has told his wife to rob a bank. So it doesn't happen that often. I'm guessing there are instances where it happens, but it doesn't happen a great deal of the time. What this does involve, however, is obedience. And when that shows up in verse 6, Sarah is used as a pattern for this obedience or this submission in verse 6, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord, whose daughters he are as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement. Now, this obedience has to do with doing what he says. doing what he says. Now, we understand that there are tyrannical husbands. There are micromanaging husbands that can be really rough, can be really difficult. Here's what I would recommend. If there are difficulties in marriage, that again, husbands and wives submit themselves to the counsel of elders. I find this to be such a helpful thing. I myself have sat with my wife before the elders in this church and elders in the previous church that I attended before I was a part of this church, probably four to five times. and have kind of gone over some of the issues, some of the difficulties in communication. And we have received homework from our elders, and it has been helpful to us. So, if there's difficulty within the marriage, my encouragement, again, is to submit yourself to the counsel of the elders. But again, you get the husband that you get. And you may have a sinful husband. He may be a micromanaging, tyrannical husband, or he may be the anemic, abdicating sort of husband. But whatever the case, you're to obey Him in the Lord, you're to submit to Him in the Lord, you're to do what He says in the Lord, which again, doesn't mean that you violate God's laws. My encouragement is that if you think that it's going to involve the violation of God's laws, there are huge segments of Baxter's practical thoughts and the Puritans dealt with these sorts of things, the question of whether or not a wife should attend a different church from her husband, and these sorts of issues. I'm telling you, these are sticky issues that have required some of the wisest men to adjudicate these things. Certainly draw in other counsel if you're tempted to go against your husband in some of these areas. But obedience is what God calls our wives to. 1 Peter 2 and verse 25, we have the example of Christ who submitted to the will of the Father. And this is the best example of one who submitted. And that's why I believe at the beginning of chapter 3, we see this word, likewise ye wives. Remember, there's no chapter divisions in the Greek. So if you just read it straight through, it might be a better idea to back up a couple of 5-6 verses and see that Peter is talking about Jesus. Throughout this passage and he's talking about how Jesus submitted all the way to the end to the will of his father In fact, remember in the garden where Jesus is his whole being was sort of pressing against He didn't want to take these next steps and he cried out if it be possible Let this cup pass from me and yet what did he followed up with nevertheless not my will but thine be done. I Now this was the example that Peter presented to the wives in 1 Peter chapter 2 when he comes back and said, likewise ye wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands. So how is it with you wives on these issues? Are you afraid of the decisions your husband is going to make? We're going to later find out that you're to submit, you're to obey without fear, without any fear. But here's my questions for you. Are you afraid of the decisions your husband is going to make? Are there any attempts to manipulate the decision-making process? Is there an area in which you are more paranoid concerning his decisions? You might ask yourself that. Perhaps you're good with him deciding to go on vacation for three weeks, but it's this other little issue of theology, or medical decisions, or finances, or debt, or the family diet, or whatever it is. And if he makes the wrong decision on that one, you're gonna blow the top. You're gonna give him the cold shoulder. Maybe manipulate the intimacy just a little bit here or a little bit there. See, these are the sorts of questions you need to ask yourselves concerning this submission thing. Now, it certainly is an area of growth. I mean, I've been so blessed by my own wife in all of this because, you know what, she was not raised in a Christian household. Her family, her parents got divorced and, you know, it was the typical American household. And here's my wife with, you know, a few little pieces that she pulled together over a couple of years and God marvelously saved her. But, you know, she wasn't raised in a household with godly examples. And with all this teaching going on in the church over those 26 years or whatever, but over the years, Brenda has grown so much in these things. And she always likes to come back to me and say, you're the great leader. Our children's future is really a matter of your leadership and all this. And I'm thinking, I'm really not sure who's the best example in this family, but my wife, who's been a wonderful example of repentance and humility and coming back to the cross of Christ and saying, I failed this error, I'm so sorry, will you forgive me? In tears, she's good in tears, she's better in tears than I am. And it's just, it's been wonderful. I'm telling you, from personal experience, being married to a wife who didn't have a godly upbringing, but was pulled out of the fire by the grace of God, and then she's a testimony to grace year after year after year after year before my own children. I'm blessed. I'm blessed. And my children are blessed. You're blessed, children. You're blessed. So this is what God wants to see in the lives of every single woman in this congregation, is to grow in the area of submission day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. And daughters, let me apply this to you. Within your own home, obviously, the obvious application is, again, the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. Obey your fathers. Ask yourselves, am I kind of being a little obstinate here? Am I being a little bossy, a little irreverent, a little sassy? Am I manipulating my father in this area or that area? See, this is what the world presents. The world is presenting the young daughter who's bossy, obstinate, irreverent, sassy, manipulative to their fathers. That's the status quo. Status quo is feminism and broken father-daughter relationships. Okay, that's baseline. Okay, and for those of us here, we ought to say, don't like the baseline. Amen. Don't like the baseline. Baseline's no good. Bad baseline. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna do this differently. Okay, we're gonna do this differently. It's not gonna be easy, because my flesh is against it, and all the worldly influences are against it, But I want to do this differently. I'm gonna do this differently. We're gonna work with this obedience, this submission thing, and it's gonna be hard, and it's gonna involve repentance and confession and change in our lives over a period of time, but what we want is metanoeo in these areas. Okay, now, here's the next question. What do you do about the husband who is disobedient? And that's verse one. And it's really kind of what I appealed to earlier, where you do have husbands who aren't perfect. Now, here's the question. Is this referring to an unsaved husband? or a saved husband? And my answer to that is I'm just not sure. I'm not exactly sure, because the word is disobedient. He's a disobedient husband. So he may be a Christian, he may not be a Christian. Whatever the case is, he's just not obedient. And my guess is the wife picks up on this. Now he may be disobedient and the wife is getting it right. He may be disobedient and the wife hasn't exactly nailed where his disobedience lies. Or he may not be disobedient in that area and the wife still thinks he is disobedient. But whatever the case, there's a perception of disobedience upon the part of the husband. He doesn't lead family worship on a daily basis. He hits the wrong websites. He doesn't attend church or whatever it happens to be. Whatever the case is, he's disobedient. Now, let me point out to you something in this verse, because let me read the verse. Likewise, ye wives be in subjection to your own husband, that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. Let me mention one thing that's not mentioned, and that is prayer. I just point that out because I usually offer that counsel. I usually say, be sure you're in prayer for him. But I just want to point out the fact that prayer is not listed as the priority in this passage. That's interesting. Again, sometimes we give all this counsel to people But sometimes we need to go back to the words. What did the word really say about this? About disobedience, lawful, anemic, angry, whatever husband. What does the word really say? So again, what did it really say? And it turns out there are two things that a wife can do to address a husband that's not up to snuff. Number one, subject yourself to him. And number two, be silent. It's the best approach for handling husbands who aren't in obedience to God's word. Now, I think the average Laura Ingalls Wilder, if they heard this sermon, their response to that is, well, that's really dumb. You know what I'm saying? Like, who came up with that? That doesn't make any sense at all. And the Bible doesn't make sense. to the carnal mind. It just doesn't. So, here's Peter telling ya, there's two things you can do to address husbands that are not on their game. Subject yourself to him and be silent. And here's the bottom line, I think, because this is picked up throughout the rest of the passage here. If you don't believe that God is sovereign over your husband, then you're going to have to be sovereign. Somebody's gotta be sovereign here, right? So if you don't think God is sovereign, then I guess you're gonna have to be sovereign. The only problem with that is that you make a really lousy sovereign. Admit it. It'd be nice if people were honest, you know? I tried to be sovereign over my wife for like five seconds. It didn't go well. It would be really nice if people would just admit that on the front end of it. All right. And then we have the example of Sarah who submitted to her husband in some really, really harebrained schemes. And by the way, she did refer to him as Lord. I think it's Genesis 18.22. I don't have it in my notes. But you can look it up. She does refer to Him as Lord. And apparently, that's commended here. And the word Lord, in that Hebrew word, is master. It's the same word that Abraham's servant, who went to find the wife for Isaac, used to refer to his master Abraham. So same word. That's the word that Sarah used in reference to her husband. Sarah then submitted to Abraham, and this is the amazing thing about these stories. You know, a lot of the book of Genesis, again, doesn't make sense. Because Abraham comes up with a harebrained scheme. I think it's a harebrained scheme. Now, some may not, but I still think that plan A for Abraham could have been trumped with a better plan A. It's the whole idea of, okay, you can be my cousin, or my sister. I guess she was a half-sister. You can be my sister and we won't act married and stuff while we're in Egypt. And yet, coming out of this, Coming out of this, coming out of it, both times, both times this happened, coming out of it, what did God do? He blessed Abraham, both times. Now that blows my mind. I don't know why he blessed Abraham, except, number one, Abraham's his man. And when you're in covenant with a true and living God, God is good all the time. And he will take care of you, okay? Even if you are harebrained. And you come up with some really harebrained schemes. But secondly, and again, this is only a suggestion, and it's based on the present text. It may have something to do with the humility and submission of his wife in the process. Okay, again, just a surmise, oh please. It's not... Not something, it's an implication. I'm just drawing an implication here. It's not necessarily clearly laid out as that in the Word. But what does the Word say about that silence and submission is something that God thinks is really cool. He likes it. He says, did you see what she did? She submitted to Him, even in that most difficult situation. That's cool. That's great. You know, He likes it. He appreciates it. He gets a kick out of it. Why? She's silent, she's humble, and she's submissive. She trusts in God. She's not afraid of Pharaoh or anybody else in the whole world. She fears the true and living God. And God says, that's cool. I'm wondering if some of these wives are trying to nag their husband into submission so he'll exhibit the spiritual leadership that Bodie Bauckham says he needs to exhibit in the church or in the home. One of the reasons why these households, these husbands may not be one is because these women are not silent. So moms, here's the other thing you need to keep in mind. You may not be as spiritual as you think you are. And you know what? Don't feel bad. I say that about myself all the time. And I say that about all of the men here. Okay? I think this applies to all of us. Sometimes don't we think we're like spiritual giants? I mean, we won a spiritual battle, swatted a fly for the kingdom of God. Magnificent super flyswatter for God, you know? And the next thing that happens, we're tripping over a devil's toenail, or a dragon's toenail, and he's raking us down the back, and once again, we're not the spiritual superman that we thought we were. So, kind of keep that in mind as well. I think that's helpful. If any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. Okay, let's move on. to verse six and really focus in on this trust for a moment. Sarah, again as the example, was one who trusted in God. She trusted in God. It wasn't as if she was trusting in her husband that he knew what he was doing. And some husbands are this way, don't worry honey, you know exactly what I'm doing. I'm running 120 miles per hour down the freeway, there aren't any cops around. Everybody take off your seat belts, let's all stand up in the convertible. And your wife is thinking, this is not a good idea. I know what it is. I'm just, hopefully this isn't exactly what happens, but you know, you're looking at your wife, your husband, this is going to go badly, you know, and you just, listen, you may not trust in your husband right now, but you need to trust in God. because he's the one who gave you this husband. And here's the second application. Be careful about worry talk versus faith talk, especially in front of your daughters and your sons. If you're, and I know my mother struggled with this, so I can think back. I was there, I was on the front row of her life, when our support was cut in half, and we were living on $400 a month, and $200 of it went to rent, and we were eating bread crusts for two meals a day for four years. And during those years, I remember my mother kind of worrying out loud occasionally. But she would always correct herself. So there's that challenge going on, that stress going on in her own life. And she was trying to really follow Dad down this track of becoming reformed and losing most of our support. and still staying on the mission field, and you know, here's dad trying to lead the home, and mom's like getting a little quivery, and she's having a hard time trusting in her husband, let alone trusting in God, and yet, you know, in the end, it came around, and my mom, I really believe, grew tremendously in those years, and she is one of the most mature elderly Christian women I know in this country today. But why? Because she trusted in God. She trusted in God in some of those very difficult days. Provide that example of faith to your daughters. Some father who decides that Coke and pepperoni pizza is good on Friday nights. But the wife has attended all of those health food seminars over the last five years. And by the way, health food doesn't make you live longer, it just seems like longer. That's my own commentary for a second, my mistake. I'm sorry, that doesn't play into the sermon at all. But here the wife can give the husband 500 pages of data as to the negative health effects of pizza and Coke on Friday nights. And she could whine about it every single week or she could cheerfully submit in faith believing that God will somehow, somehow, somehow bless this food to her family's needs. The Bible has little to say about pizza and Coke. But it does have a lot to say about wives submitting to their husbands. So I'm just pointing these things out. There are issues that are debatable matters, and then there are issues where the Word of God comes out and says, boom, here it is. So always take the Word of God as more authoritative than even the 600 pages of scientific studies on the negative health effects of pizza. Okay, so a little defensive pizza there. Okay, let's move along to heart and hands. Let's back up to verses 2 to 4. I know I skipped ahead a little bit to draw in the example of Sarah, but I'm going to back up to verses 2 and 4. And let's read this. The Bible has a lot of words here. And I'm just going to give you the words mainly. I'm not going to draw a lot of application out of this. I think some of you may have wanted me to say a little bit more. I'm not going to say a whole lot more. I'm just going to lay out the words. And again, this is the unicycle. I can only give you so many words. You're gonna have to get on the unicycle and start working this yourself to really understand what was really meant by these words. I believe they're important, I think they're critical, but here's the major point. God wants chaste conversation coupled with fear, but let it be the hidden person of the heart which is not corruptible. even the ornament of a making quiet spirit. The Bible is vitally concerned with both hands, internal and external, but the externals is only reflective of a proper internal. Now, here's an example. If you see something in dress you're concerned about, always remember, if there's an issue, it's not the dress that's the fundamental issue. That's not the heart of the matter. To get all bound up in externals, and how many of us have been that way? Where we're all bound up in externals. Externals become this gigantic elephant in the room. It's like, that's it, the externals. If you're all bound up in externals and not concerned about the internals, what you get is hypocrisy, vanity, and useless parenting and discipling. It's just useless. It's nothing. What does God want us to be primarily concerned about but the internals? The externals may be a clue, and I even use the maybe, may be a clue to something in the internal, but not a very good clue when it comes to dress. And let me give you some of the words that are brought out here. What are we looking for? But first, chaste conversation coupled with fear. Shouldn't be any question what the fear is. Fear is the fear of God. We've mentioned that already. I'm not gonna go over it again. Secondly, it's chaste conversation. A chaste conversation means a pure and holy lifestyle. The word chaste comes from the word hagios, or pure, or holy. So a pure and a holy conversation We don't use the word very much these days. We don't use chastity very much, but it's a matter of purity. If you begin to live out purity, you begin to understand what it is. It's just like riding the unicycle. In other words, impure people do not understand purity. Pure people understand purity and impurity. For example, let's take a guy who hasn't had a bath for two months, walks into the room. Is he bothered by anybody else in the room? Not really. Is everybody else in the room bothered by him? Yes, they are. Why? Because he's used to him. And they're not. He hasn't had a bath in two months. And everybody in the room knows it. You see, the impure man doesn't distinguish well between impurity and purity. The pure men or women in the room distinguish it well using the nostrils. Does that help you? That's what purity is. That's how we understand purity. But it's very difficult sometimes to describe it. Because it takes purity to know what purity is. And it takes purity to know what impurity is. When pure people see impurity, they're kind of turned off. When they hear impure language, they blush. When they see a scene where a guy is getting out of a bed in a movie with... I don't even want to describe it. He's getting out of a bed with, I don't even wanna talk about it, but there have been so many Christians writing into me from my radio show, upset with me over coming at a movie that has some of those impure things going on in a bed, and I'm really offended by it, and they're not. I just, I can't hardly believe it. I can't hardly believe it. The sensitivity of people to orgies, Christian people, their sensitivity is not there. At least to those that are writing in to my radio program. But these people see these things, these pure people see impure things, and they're really turned off. They read impure Facebook entries. They instinctively turn away from these things. Clean people can sniff out dirty stuff, but dirty people certainly cannot. Okay, the focal point again is where the heart is. Again, it's not the externals. It's where the heart is. The focal point is not what do I put on today? How do I look externally today? Okay, if that's the dominating thought amongst two people, the one, the 17-year-old girl who just, you know, is so concerned about her looks and she just wants to look like the fashion models and on and on and on, there's that person. And then there's the highly, highly externalistic fundamentalist dad over here, and he is really, really, really, really concerned about the way his daughters look. Okay, we have a problem both sides. Everybody with me here? You've got a problem on both sides. Why? Because the essence of the issue is the internal. We can't be utterly consumed with externals. The world is focused on externals. So the fundamentalistic dad and the 17-year-old girl that's completely consumed with externals, both, are worldly. It's all about the dress. The dress is everything. They're worldly people, they're externalistic, worldly people, and they don't understand the vital importance of the heart. If there is a primary emphasis on internals, internals, then there develops the right cosmon, the word used in 1 Timothy 2.9 for modest. The word used in 1 Timothy 2.9 for modest. has no sexual connotations. That particular word has no sexual connotations at all. It is a word for balance. It's a word for balance. Again, you know, I get so tired of all the books, written on all these things, and yet we need to get back to the Bible. What did the Bible really say? The Bible says what really matters is the heart. And if the heart is in the right place, then there will be a right cosmone, a right balance and appropriateness about the outsides. And that will automatically develop in the externals. There won't be too much ostentatiousness. There won't be too much carelessness. I mean, let's say somebody, you know, says, oh, well, I don't care about dress anymore at all, you know, so just, I'm just never gonna take a bath, and I'm never gonna wash my clothes, never gonna, you know, and just, and so, I just don't care. That's not the Word says. The Word says, get your heart right, and there will automatically form the right kosmina, or the right balance, the appropriateness of everything on the outside. because the focus is on the internals. So the key question is, where's the heart? Well, here's a couple of A couple of ways to determine that. Again, what did I say? I said you're not gonna determine it primarily through dress. And that's such a minor external, that there are more fundamental ways in which to determine the state of the heart. Here it is. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. That's a big one, that's very important. So what you need to ask about yourself and about your daughters, is this, where is their passion? Where is your passion? Where is your primary interest? Where are the subjects of conversation turning to? Where is your hearts turning to? Where does your daughter spend her time? What does she pour her life into? Is it Christ and his kingdom or worldly pursuits that have nothing to do with it and the connection is not even there, of no real concern? Her delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth she meditate day and night." Can that be said of your daughter? Can that be said of you? Just consumed with the law of God, the Word of God, always wanting to get back to it, realizing how essential it is to her very life. Who else? Well, we go. You only have the words of eternal life, is what the disciples told Christ. So where her treasure is, that's where her heart will be. So look at her, it's easy, this is not hard. What are her passions? What does she talk about? What does she spend her time doing? What is the biggest issue in her life? Secondly, the words that a woman or a man speaks are more instructive of the nature of their heart than what they wear. And I could throw out a few other things. And that's because the book of Proverbs and the word of God, word of Christ, comes back to the tongue again and again and again. So listen, listen, listen. Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. You wanna know what the heart's all about? Just listen, listen. I'm afraid some of us dads are not good listeners. I know I'm not. And it may be time that some of us start writing down the things we're hearing. You know, maybe just every time your daughter says something, write it down in a journal somewhere. This is what she said. If you want to know the heart of yourself, you want to know the heart of your daughters or your sons, out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. Proverbs 15, the heart of him who hath understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouth of the fool feeds on foolishness. Okay, and then finally, here's the final point. Communication is important. When communication breaks down, In times of war, we've got a big problem. If you're out in the middle of a conflict, and somehow your headset, your radio goes on the fritz, and you're all by yourself, and you're being attacked from all sides, you know what? We're gonna lose some battles here. We're gonna lose some battles. And that's why communication with our sons and daughters is very important, but again, biblically speaking, what? Everybody says communication's important. Pagans say the same thing. But what about communication? The first thing that's important about communication is, this is what you communicate about, confess sin one to another. That's a command from God. Confess your shortcomings one to another. We read that in the book of James. So that's what you're to do. Yeah, communication's important, but we should be confessing our sins one to another. So let me ask you this. Are you confessing sins and are they confessing sins? When was the last time your daughter or your son confessed sins to you, and when was the last time you confessed sins to them? It's very basic Christian stuff, but sometimes we forget it in the mix. With whom do you communicate, especially for daughters and sons? Remember, he that walks with wise men shall be wise, but companion of fools shall be destroyed. So seek out wise people, and hopefully your parents are among the wise, and you can share with them. Okay, well, let me let me wrap up a few things quickly. I've just got a few other things here And we'll be done in just a couple of minutes But what we have also recommended is the meek and quiet spirit in verse 4 the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit Which is in the sight of God of great price the word for meek is prowess and and that's the same word Jesus uses when he says I am gentle and lowly of heart and So where Jesus expresses himself as gentle, take on that quality. Perhaps studying Christ might be helpful. The hard thing about this word, praous, is it's only used like five times in all the New Testament. And Jesus uses it for himself. So Jesus says, I'm gentle, and he's telling our ladies to be gentle. Now gentleness appears to me to be a calibrated touch. Okay, secondly. a quiet, calm, peaceable, content spirit. The word used is hesuchias. Hesuchias is a quietness, a peaceableness, not a dripping faucet, not grappling for power, or one that's trying to dominate, dominate, dominate conversations, gain ascendance. If we were to draw in 1 Timothy 2.8-11, we find a few other words. In like manner also the women adorn themselves in modest apparel. We touched on that with shamefacedness and sobriety. Shamefacedness is a sense of shame that restrains a good woman from committing an unworthy act. That's the way it's described. Again, I'm not going to apply it. I'm just going to say that's what it is. I would encourage you to study it and try to figure out how to ride that unicycle. Number four, sobriety. Sobriety is also recommended or commended or commanded by Paul with shamefacedness. Sobriety is wisdom and soundness of mind. And then finally, we read in verse 10 but which becometh women professing godliness with good works good works is also Commended to us they adorn themselves with good works They adorn themselves they you know and when women are are getting themselves ready to go in the morning They're adorning themselves they adorn themselves with this earring over here this earring over here the necklace You know they're they're getting their shoes on and so forth and so on what? Peter is saying what Paul is saying here is adorn yourself with good works, care for the poor, show hospitality to strangers, and serve others in the family. These are the adornments that God considers to be of great value. Okay, here are questions now. A few more questions to ask. Are you gentle with people and are you training your daughters to be gentle? Are you seeing growth in this area? Are you of a quiet, calm, and peaceable spirit? Are you and your daughters working with these things? Do your daughters have a sense of shame, a caution, and a concern about staying back from the ledge of sexual sin? Are they trying to protect themselves from sexual sin? Are you seeing growth in this area, or are you seeing things slipping? Listen to yourself and your daughters. Do you hear wisdom and soundness of mind in their speech? Are you seeing growth in this area? Are your daughters' lives filling up with good works, or are they more concerned about serving themselves, making their own money, living their own lives? as the existentialist narcissists of the day. So, again, these are the questions to be asking concerning these passages and the words that are encouraged by the Apostle Paul and Apostle Peter for our wives and daughters. In practical suggestions, give your daughters examples of godly women in the past. I think of Monica, Dorcas, Blandina. George Whitfield says of Sarah Edwards, Mrs. Edwards was adorned with meek and a quiet spirit. She talked freely and solidly of the things of God and seemed to be such a helpmate for her husband. That's a third-party analysis of Sarah Edwards, the wife of Jonathan Edwards. But there are actually a two-volume series of Puritan women produced, I think, by Sprinkle Publications. I'd encourage you to grab a copy of that. There are great examples of godly women from the past. I'd encourage you to study some of these, certainly study some of the examples you find in history. As you love your daughters, also pray for them, fast for them, hope all things, endure all things. And finally, exercise repentance before them. Any bit of hypocrisy, any bit of humility, any bit of sin confession, moms, If you bring this out while your daughters are living through the teenage years, their young adult years, the timing is absolutely perfect for this. Your daughters aren't going to recognize it and aren't going to appreciate those confessions as much when they're younger, but when they're older, They will respond well when a woman begins to bring out some of these things and find areas in which God needs to work in their lives over here, over there, and areas in which they need to confess of this sin or that sin. And as they do so, as moms do this, in the presence of a 14-year-old daughter or a 16 or an 18-year-old daughter, it is amazing what happens in the growth of our children and ourselves. This is how we cleanse our relationships and wash the relationships clean, make them authentic and beautiful. All of this is of great value to God. We are in the family of God. We are justified by the grace of God. Now let's live as children of God. And that's what has been presented today. And next week we'll move on to sons and dads. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we pray that you would apply these things to our lives. We pray that you open our minds to these things because Father, it's hard to define these things just by using the lexicons. I just drew from lexicons today. I feel like I'm hopeless and finding ways to understand it and live it and apply it and illustrate it. Father, it's impossible without the Spirit of God helping us to get up on that unicycle and applying these things word by word and day by day. and month by month and year by year. Father, I pray that you would have mercy upon our moms, our daughters here in this room. We pray that you would teach them, Father, teach them by your Spirit. And we pray, oh God, you would save our children by your grace. We see what's happening in the world around us. We don't need any more illustrations as to how everything's breaking down. No more statistics. Father, what we need is the grace of God upon us. And we ask for it this day. Have mercy upon our daughters, Father, our wives, our moms. Let's enjoy a time at the table. Let's speak of husbands and wives immediately. What comes to mind is Ephesians 5.25, especially as we approach the Lord's table now. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. It is not a lowly position to be a wife, to be a bride. Why do I say that? Because the church of Jesus Christ is not in a lowly position if Christ is treating his church as he says he's treating it here in Ephesians 5. Christ loves his church. He's nourishing it. He's cherishing it. Does it look like he's valuing it? Does it look like the church is really, really, really important to Christ? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. The godly wife is a picture of the faithful church being washed, cleansed, all the spots removed, all the wrinkles pressed out. That's more than makeup, by the way. That's Jesus really doing something for his church. Wow, that's beautiful. Jesus is raising up a church And it is primarily the Word of God that does the work. Do you see that? He washes it by the Word. So it's the Word of God. That's why in Reformed churches, we present the Word as preeminent. And that's why, I'm sorry, but you get three sermons. You get one for the Lord's Table too. The Reformed church doesn't just go straight to the Lord's Supper as the Roman Catholic Church did at the Mass. Because the Word of God is a centerpiece. If we're not washing by the Word, not preaching the Word of God, bringing it out in front of people, then we're not doing the essence, the major part of the work. But let's not ignore the koinonia, because this is the koinonia. We come to the table, it's the koinonia, and we do it weekly, which by the way, most Reformed churches have not done it weekly. According to John Knox, the reason we're not doing it weekly, he said, is because they've done it the wrong way, in this way for so many years, we're gonna have to make it more special and do it in a different way. But he said, he did say that this is not something that needs to be permanent, necessarily. And John Knox, as a reformer, said that early on. Thus, 500 years later, there are many reformed churches that are going back to a weekly communion regimen. That's happening all over the place in the OPC and other places, too. but we preach the word, and I know that there's a fair amount of word being preached, but we also bring you to koinonia, and that is the communion, the close communion with the flesh and blood, Jesus Christ. That's all we know about it. It's a mystery. It's a very, very deep mystery. It's a great mystery. That's why it's called in Ephesians 5.32. It is the church and Christ as one flesh, as one flesh, in communion, in koinonia, at this table, and it is called the flesh and blood communion with Jesus Christ. Now, where we got into trouble is trying to define how that happens. So we're not going to get into that mystery too deep, because if we do, we're going to be in a heap of trouble. But let me say this, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, shall be joined to his wife, they too shall be one flesh, here it comes, this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. One flesh, Christ and the church. We are going to have a one flesh experience. Christ and the church in communion at this table today. And it is a great mystery, it is a great mystery. Let's tread carefully with fear, with reverence, and with thanksgiving. Father in heaven, to be in communion with the Son of God, the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, truly man, in flesh and blood, and truly God, at this table today, is amazing. Father, this is more spectacular, more astonishing than we could ever imagine. Father, we pray that we would know something of the depth today, something of the depth of your love for the church, something of the depth of how important, how significant this church is, something of the depth of the forgiveness of sins and the washing, the cleansing, and all that has happened by the Word and by the Spirit of God over the years in our lives. Father, we pray that as we approach this table, there would be reverence here, deep reverence for the mystery but also a love and appreciation for Jesus. We pray this in His name. Thank you for listening to our messages from Reformation Church in Castle Rock, Colorado. Our church has been meeting in public school facilities for many years. Because of political pressures and shifting worldviews, it will be increasingly more difficult for us to continue renting public facilities. Hence, we are thankful that the Lord has provided us real estate for a building in Elizabeth, Colorado. We are now in the process of constructing our new building that may be used for regular worship, discipleship, shepherds conferences, and other ministry events. Presently, we have about 75% of funding necessary to complete the building. If you would like to contribute something to this project, we invite you to visit our website at ReformationChurch.com. That's ReformationChurch.com.