Ephesians 5 verse 25 through 6 verse 4, these are the words of God. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does, the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. And you fathers, do not provoke your children to rot, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Amen. That ends this reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. The family is a place of spiritual warfare. It's a place where spiritual warfare occurs and it's a place where Christian victory, Christian progress in the spiritual war is displayed and demonstrated. I think many of us are probably familiar with the fact that Ephesians 6 teaches us about our battle that is not against flesh and blood but that is against spiritual powers and the armor of God by which he makes us to stand in that battle. But perhaps if your knowledge of the book of Ephesians isn't so thorough, you don't remember that this battle actually does not begin in chapter 6 in the book of Ephesians. In fact, in chapter 5, you have the fact that God has dear children, verse 1, and they are to walk in love, verse 2, but especially those who were once darkness are now the light of the world and are to walk as children of light. Verse 8, and in that section then, walking as light, walking as those who have awakened, having no fellowship with the fruitful deeds of darkness. And then in verse 15, see then that you walk circumspectly, being careful of every angle of life, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. And then he addresses public worship. being filled with the Spirit and the use that God makes of particularly singing in the public worship. One of the reasons that we would only want to sing what God has put into our mouths, because we're supposed to be admonishing one another with words by which the Holy Spirit fills us. And we'll hear more about that in the second talk tomorrow morning when we find that Christ himself is the singer, especially in the public worship, which is why we are to submit to one another in fear of God. Don't let anyone take verse 21, submitting to one another in the fear of God, and say, see, everyone submits to everyone, and just use that to erase the wife submitting to her husband. from verse 22 through 24. No, it's true, husbands should submit to their wives when we are singing God's word. In fact, whenever your wife reads or tells you something that is straight from the scripture, you submit to that scripture. I'm not saying you're submitting to the teaching of your wife, but there's those wonderful times, a good 40, 45 minutes, depending on what we're singing and how long, Lord's Day afternoon, when I and the other elders who are in attendance are submitting to two- and three-year-olds who are sweetly singing the psalms that they've come to know and love, and we're admonishing one another with God's Word. The Word of Christ is coming to dwell in us richly, and His Spirit is filling us. So public worship, and you would know that from looking at the armor of God as well, we won't take the time to do that now, is one of the great ways in which the spiritual warfare is waged. That we would be filled with God's spirit as God's children. That we who are light in Jesus Christ might wage war against darkness. But then the other place where in the intervening text between these two warfare texts is not just the public worship, but especially the household. He spends a couple of verses. on one aspect of public worship. And he's going to come back to things that are part of the warp and woof of public worship when he gets to the particular parts of the spiritual armor. There's not a diminishing of public worship by comparison at all here. But there is a very strong emphasis on the household. For our purposes, since we are coming in the second talk to think about recovering biblical fatherhood, we are sticking especially to the father's role and responsibility as husband in chapter 5, verses 25 through 33, and then interaction with his children. in chapter 6 and verses 1 through 4. And what we see here, what we hope to see in our remaining time this evening, are three things. First, that husbands are God's plan for their wives. Second, that fathers are God's plan for their children. And third, that God himself is his own plan for each one. And that should encourage you, if you are a wife without, a woman without a husband, if you are a child without a father, that the one who especially uses husbands for wives is himself a husband to the widow. And the one who especially uses fathers, their children, is himself a father to the orphan. In fact, in a house where the husband is not ministering under the Lord, is not himself in dependence upon the Lord and submission to him and exercising his ministry to his wife and to his children as a servant of Christ, they may have a man that they are married to or that they are dependent upon and have been begotten by, but they would still be spiritual widows. and spiritual orphans. Indeed, we live in a day in which spiritual widowhood and spiritual orphanhood is epidemic in the church. Now, where there is no husband and where there is no father, those who have the spiritual ministry in the church, the elders ought to take more and more frequent and more particular care of the souls. And those who have the material ministry in the church, that's how the diaconate, that was the occasion upon which the diaconate got started in the church. should have more frequent and more intense, more careful material ministry. And for those who are husbandless and fatherless, but we have done something in the church where we have, hopefully, a well-intended desire to be as helpful as possible. But often I think if we examine our own hearts, in our own actions, there is a great temptation for us as individuals to want to be necessary to someone. And there is a great temptation to churches corporately to make themselves more necessary or more essential or to take for themselves a role that God has not assigned to them. And so we have things like women's ministries and children's ministries and youth ministries and they're not all the same. Understand that's something we can talk about in another context. We just don't have the time to do all the distinguishing that we need to do. But the primary and the first women's ministry for married women as husbands and for unmarried women as fathers and The ordinary and primary children's and youth ministry is the parents in the home. And then, of course, also the preaching. All of the means of praise in the public worship and the shepherding and teaching ministry of the pastors are for the whole family. Every once in a while, talking to another minister and he wants to know what we do at HOPO and he says, you don't have anything for children. And I just, yeah, just, no, we have the teaching for children. We have the public worship for children. And we have congregational interaction for children. We have psalms sung almost entirely for children. They make up the bulk of the requests and sing at the top of their lungs. And the ministry in the home day by day, which we try to do whatever we can to facilitate it, is for children. There's nothing at Hopewell that isn't for children. But husbands are God's plan for wives. Fathers are God's plan for children. And God himself is his own plan for each one. First then, husbands are God's plan for wives. This is something that we learn in Genesis 2, but it comes up when Paul is instructing Timothy. There's nothing new under the sun. 1 Timothy 2 is not there because women generally submitted in that culture. No, what God said to Eve in the, well, she wasn't Eve yet, to the woman in the curse, that her desire would be for her husband, but he would dominate her using the same language so that we would understand what is being said there. He's not saying the headship. is a consequence of the fall. It's using the same language you would use a handful of verses later with Cain, saying, sin's desire is for you, but you must rule over it. It's the same verbs, the same construction. And so ever since the fall. because God's design in the family is for the husband to rule and to teach in the home, and God's design in the church now is for not all the men generally to rule all the women and all the men generally to teach all the women, but because God's design in the home is for the husband to rule and to teach, it is only men whom he has called to the office of ruling and teaching in the church. although unqualified, unordained men also should not rule and teach in the church. But when this was a problem in Ephesus and one of the things that Timothy was supposed to be setting in order in part by ordaining a new batch of elders, Paul writes to him in 1 Timothy 2, beginning in verse 11, let a woman learn in silence with all submission, And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. Nevertheless, she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with self-control. In other words, if she fulfills the part in God's plan for all of his work that he has assigned To her, she will have a great and glorious office, although not glorious in the eyes of men, yet, like we heard in Mr. Manton's letter at the beginning of the first talk, great and glorious, just as much as God's producing, by union with Christ, the effects of our union with him. Love, holiness, self-control is part of the work that God does. And we would not demean sanctification because it is not justification. And so we do not demean any part of the work that God does. But this argument that Paul uses, if it wasn't obvious enough that he's addressing a problem they had in Ephesus, Okay, so if we have a problem with it today, we don't just say, Oh, well, Ephesus was a different culture. And Paul was telling him to do what they did in Ephesus. No, he was telling him to stop the Ephesian Christians from doing what the Ephesian Christians were doing. And If that wasn't obvious enough that this is not merely cultural, but something that is for all people at all times, he uses an argument that goes back to Genesis 2 and Genesis 3. For Adam was formed first, and then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. Now, what he's saying here is that ruling and teaching is something that is established by God in the creation. It's something that unfolding man has in his family. The husband is God's plan for the wife. from the first husband that he made and the first wife that he made. He's not saying here, children, like some of you might do, or maybe I'll just say, I had two brothers who were two and a half years apart. There were favorite seats in the vehicle and you would race to the car and you would get to pick your seats according to who touched it. And of course, the oldest brother who came up with the rules also happened to be the fastest and always got the seat that he wanted. He's not saying, haha, Adam was first. He had dibs on ruling and teaching. And he's expecting us to know something about Genesis 2. So if you have a copy of the Word of God, I invite you to turn to Genesis 2. And you see the Lord not just breathing into Adam's nostrils in verse 7, but then showing Adam, showing Adam what ruling and teaching is like, what leading and teaching is like. He's demonstrating covenant headship before he makes Adam a covenant head. Yahweh God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." Now, obviously, this is an accelerated thing, but this is not the origin of trees. The Lord had done that a few days earlier in the creation, hadn't he? And so don't think that Genesis 2 and Genesis 1 are somehow in conflict with one another. No. It was these specific trees in this specific place for this specific man. And Adam is learning here. Because he doesn't know it yet, but he's about to become a covenant head. He's about to be charged with the care of his wife. And for his specific wife to provide the specific things that are good for her in the specific place that he makes for her. And so he's learning this from God. Out of the ground, Yahweh God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. Even that phrase, that that which she needs as someone who, in the image of God, is made to enjoy beauty. Your dog may be very affectionate and loyal. It does not ponder the meaning of life. It does not wonder about its creator. It was not created to know him. And it doesn't care anything about beauty. You make a doghouse if you're making it beautiful. That's for you, not for the dog. But you make a house for a wife. You should care that it's beautiful. She was made to appreciate that which is beautiful. One of the reasons that she works so hard in decorating and appointing and keeping the home in a pleasant way so that it's not just a relationally pleasant place to come home to, but even just a visually pleasant place to come home to. It's because this is how God created us. Well, we can't take that much time on every verse. I'm sorry. He made every tree grown that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is a sacramental tree. It is good and right, but we will not invent sacraments between us and God, but there are things that that are meaningful between you and your wife, that's a part of the headship, the leadership that God modeled for him. Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden. From there it parted and became four river heads. The name of the first is Pishon. It is the one which skirts the whole land of Havel, where there is gold. The gold of that land is Bedellium, and Onyxstone are there. The name of the second river, Gihon. There's one which goes around the whole land of Cush, the name of the third, the Hiddekel, and then the fourth, the Euphrates. And so there's provision for that which is needed for life. There's provision for that which is needed for work. There is raw materials for him to be usefully employed. Then Yahweh God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden the it's not tend and keep it there's a There's a gender difference between the word garden and the particle that most English translations are translating as it, even to the point where many lexicons will say of the word garden, we know it looks male, but it must be female. But the particle there, it's just generalizing the verb. It's the vanilla verbs for serve and obey, or worship and obey. So he puts man in the garden to worship and obey. And Yahweh God commanded the man to say, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. a quiz, who received the instruction from the Lord? Who was there? Was the woman there yet? She wasn't there yet. And yet she was supposed to keep this instruction, wasn't she? And so not only was the Lord, modeling for the man how to be a covenant head. His headship and leadership in providing not just things but community and opportunity for service and all of these other things. And I realized we didn't go through the rest of it in as much detail. But he also made it plain that the man was to teach his wife. It would have to be from Adam that Mrs. Adam learned, which is the tree of life that we may eat of, that is sacramental of our covenant that we are in with God in the garden, and which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that we mustn't eat of. And so when the apostle says, I do not permit a woman to rule or to teach, for Adam was formed first and then Eve, He's expecting us to know, Genesis 2. And that this is God's plan. Husbands are God's plan for their wives. That's why when a husband sacrifices himself for his wife, like we heard in our primary passage this evening, he is to do so under Christ for the same purposes that Christ does for his wife. Sorry, I'm trying to read and speak and flip and it's not working. Right? Husbands ought to love their own... Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. So husband is to love his wife sacrificially. Most people, I think, who read this passage see that, understand it. But he's not done talking about how Christ loved the church. Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify her and cleanse her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. Christ's death for us is necessary unto his cleansing us. Christ's dying for the church is necessary unto his cleansing the church. And that is how Christ has loved the church, and that is how a husband should love his wife. He cannot die for her, but he can certainly live for her, give himself up for her. And he cannot, by virtue of his own power, cleanse her with the word, but surely he can teach the word. and meditate upon it with her, and to trust our heavenly husband to cleanse that part of his body that is this man's wife by the word. A husband must sacrifice himself under Christ to be the sanctifier of his wife. Husbands are God's plan for wives. That's all the time we can spend on it. Fathers are God's plan for children. It's interesting, the entire ministry of John the Baptizer, although to use the theological categories of the last four or five hundred years, you could refer to him as John the Presbyterian. The entire ministry of John the Baptizer is summarized in a very interesting way at the end of the book of Malachi. Now, in God's providence to us, at least at Hopewell, we've been thinking about John a lot because we're in the book of Matthew. And not only did we have an extended time thinking about him in Matthew chapter 3, but just a few weeks ago in Matthew chapter 11, the Lord Jesus called our attention to the ministry of John again. And Jesus called him the Elijah that was to come. Well, this is how the Old Testament closes. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of Yahweh, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. Now, you read that, and you remember that Jesus said that John was the Elijah to come, and you said, wait a minute. I thought John's ministry was saying, repent, have not the opinion of your mind changed, but the nature of your mind changed. That's what that repent word is. Be converted for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And do not think that you can rest on being a church member because God makes children of Abraham, not simply of Abraham, his father, because God makes children of Abraham out of stone. And what you need is not John who baptizes with water, but the one who's coming after him, who pours out his spirit, not water, and who gives you that new mind, that new heart to produce this repentant life. And Now understanding what the ministry of John is, we look at Malachi 4 verse 6, and we see the whole of Christian repentance, the whole of the change that Jesus makes in humanity, represented by this component of it. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Now this is God's original plan, that they would be fruitful and multiply, that the father now, who is a husband who is teaching his wife, Now you have a taught wife who can be a mother who teaches the children, but the father especially teaching the children. And this is where we see Jesus has crushed the serpent's head. It's one of the many places that we see where Jesus has crushed the serpent's head in the believer's life. Because as a consequence of sin, as a consequence of the fall, you don't just have the wife trying to rule her husband the way sin was trying to rule Cain. You also have grief and childbearing. And it's a lot more than a few hours of labor and trying to pass a bowling ball of fire. There's a much greater grief. to bear sinful children who have to be commanded by God to honor their father and mother because the moral law written on their heart, they corrupt and abuse. So he comes and he addresses them in their word as well. And the apostle here in chapter six, he says, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise. This is one of the differences that God makes. When Christ comes and he reigns, not just in a home, but in the heart of a child, children, obey your parents in the Lord. Yes, that means the way the Lord says to do it. Yes, that means that your only hope ever for doing it is by Jesus Christ's own life in you and own power and righteousness in you. Yes, that means for his glory. And one of the things that it means is that when you obey your parents and the Lord, you see the defeat of the devil. you see the turning back of darkness. Now you're not just a child of your mom and dad. You're a beloved child of God who walks in love. You're a child of light who refuses to participate in darkness. Yes, there's darkness in your heart when mom says to do it and you say, I don't want to. Or you just feel it in your heart that you don't want to. That's from the darkness. That's from the flesh. That's from sin. But one of the ways that Christ displays his conquering of the devil is when he produces in our life his own righteousness. It doesn't save you, it doesn't give you credit with God, it doesn't do any of those things. But oh, does it glorify the Lord Jesus as the one who destroys the works of the devil. Now notice that the command for children to obey their parents and honor their father and mother, it's to both the father and the mother, but it does go back up to the father most of all, as the one who is leading and teaching even his wife. It comes in the context of a godly wife who is submitting to her husband, and a godly husband who is ministering the word to his wife. The design for the home is that as light in darkness, as children obeying and honoring. Because those children are going to be the next generation of the godly wife. and the godly husband. Now God's plan, this is God's plan for prospering children in this life and especially in the next. He quotes, that it may be well with you and that you may live long in the earth. Originally, this was a covenant promise attached in Exodus 20, but even expanded upon in Deuteronomy 5. And therefore, it was originally a promise, not just about Canaan, that when you come to the land, you may live long in it and you may prosper there. That was true. God attached those promises to the obedience of the nation, the obedience of the church. But that's not what the Old Testament saints, the converted Old Testament saints, were hoping in. Remember what Hebrews 11 tells you. that Abraham was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God, that these saints were looking forward to a better and eternal country, and the new heavens and the new earth. And so God's plan for covenant children is that they would trust in Christ, be converted, show their conversion in part by obeying their parents and honoring their father and mother, and that God would use this to produce a generation, a generation that flourishes. But not just a generation that flourishes for a few decades or maybe a century in this world, but a generation that will flourish forever in a new heavens and a new earth. And so Father, you should lead your home in such a way that you hope will make your home a satellite settlement of glory. Not merely that Middle Tennessee would be transformed by the gospel and there would be some light here in the midst of the darkness for a while, or a great amount of light here in the midst of darkness for a long time. There's no amount of Post-millennial, and that's a use of that term, there's no amount of that that can produce the fulfillment of this promise, because this promise is one that is eternal and perfect. God is bringing many sons to glory, as we hope to hear about tomorrow, and fathers teaching their children and husbands teaching their wives who also teach their children is God's plan for those children. It's God's plan for prospering children in this life, but especially the next. Now, when we get to verse four, he says, you fathers do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. Notice that then the children are not only to obey their parents in the Lord for this is right, they're to obey their parents because they're receiving the training as from the Lord and the admonition as from the Lord. Their obedience is in the Lord. You must point your children to Christ for all of it, not only for themselves, but as the one who gave you to them. And so when you have a child who's inclined against you and is willful and is repeatedly disobedient, you must come repeatedly, not only with the gospel of Christ, Of course, with the gospel of Christ, first and foremost. But not only with the gospel of Christ, and not only with their belonging to Christ and owing Him to believe in Him, owing Him to obey Him, but also with Christ as the one who gave your particular child, his or her particular mom and particular dad. The Lord has given me to you. Thus, their obedience will be in the Lord. But for a father, for a husband to lead his wife this way, and for a father to lead his children this way, the husband must be in the Lord. The father must be in the Lord. God's plan is not husband-centered marriages. His husband-led marriages, but it's Christ-centered marriages. Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord. Not as unto the husband. The husband is not the Lord in that statement. Yes, the husband leads and the wife submits. But the home, the marriage, is not about the husband. It's about Christ. And God's plan is not the father-centered home. but fathers leading in Christ-centered homes. We should love the word patriarchy. It just means father rule. Own it. Delight in the Lord who created it and designed it and commanded it and blesses it and uses it. But do not take a patriarchal home and turn it into a patricentric home, where the family's life is all about the dad. It's so easy to do that. But it's the discipline of the Lord, and the instruction of the Lord, and children who obey in the Lord, and wives who submit as unto the Lord. It's all about the Lord Jesus Christ. Which is why if you try to follow the husband leading and father leading plan, without genuine spiritual life and vigor in the husband and the father, then it will either fall apart or even worse, it will become something of a blasphemy. Because you will rule your wife and you will rule your children, but they will not be led, washed by Christ. They will not be disciplined, instructed by Christ in your leading and your ruling. Oh, he may bless them and work in them despite you. But what you're called to, men, is that He would lead them and bless them and work in them through you. And so if you've heard things that maybe you already believed and have caught your attention before and you started to make commitments in your mind and your heart for how things are going to be now in your marriage, how things are going to be now with your children and in your home, The first thing that must be in place is how things are going to be now between you and the Lord. By God's design and under God's providence, much depends upon the husband and the father knowing Christ and walking with God in His Word. If you do not have evening and morning meditation upon his word and prayer in which you are walking with the Lord, do not think that your reading and praying is somehow going to be the family worship that you are called to lead in your home. The power of an effective husband is drawn from a life with God in the secret place. The power of an effective father is drawn from a life with God in the secret place. Just look at the passage. How will a man know how to love his wife with the word if he is not experiencing Christ loving him with the word? We said you should love your wife in the way and unto the ends that Christ has modeled for us. How are you going to know what that is if you are not being cleansed by the washing of water with the word? How are you going to lead her in having fellowship with the Lord if you don't have fellowship with the Lord? How dreadful it would be if instead of morning and evening, morning and evening, Your family walks more and more together in fellowship with the Lord. You have an empty husk of what worship should be, but not actual fellowship with God. And suddenly it's possible that morning and evening, morning and evening, morning and evening, you're inoculating your children against biblical Christianity. Because the name and the shape of it is there, but the substance isn't. And they grow up and say, yeah, I grew up in one of those patriarchal homes. Christ's love to us men must not just be a mushy feeling. His affections are expressed by particular actions with a particular aim. We should be full of affection to our wives. but it is not Christlike love if it does not issue forth in cleansing them with his word. And we should receive Christ's affection to us, but you are not embracing his love to you if you are not coming to him to be cleansed by his word. and knowing your Redeemer not only as the one who gave himself to take away the guilt of your sin once, but who is continually giving himself to you to take away the power and the presence of your sin until it's gone. When you know Jesus' love to you that way, men, then you are prepared to love your wife as Christ loves his own body. Now, he uses this language, and it's wonderful language when we think about us and Christ. Born of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Sorry, of his flesh and of his bones here. But if you are so united to your wife, men, Like 1 Corinthians 7 says, yeah, you lead in the house, but she has authority over your body. And the two have become one flesh. Then if you fail to care for yourself spiritually, you are failing already to care for her spiritually. Not just you won't be prepared to minister to her, but God, by the covenant of marriage, has joined her to you. And if it were possible that you could minister to her ever so well, but you did not care for your own soul, she would be joined to one who is not obeying the word. And a great part of who she is in union with you will be spiritually weak and dying and sick. The opposite, of course, is also true. Let no man read the Bible ever so much, regardless if he prays ever so much, feels like he is so close to God, does ever so much other service unto the Lord. And yet with his wife, with whom he is one flesh, he does not care for her spirit. He does not make room for her and enable her to have the secret worship that she needs to have. He does not minister to her in the family worship and read and pray for her and with her. He's not spiritually well. He's united to one that he's completely spiritually neglecting. And so the father being God's plan for the children begins by the husband being God's plan for his wife. And then from that, children obey their parents, plural. From that, children obey or honor not just father, but mother. Now for the child to obey his parents in the Lord, the parents must be commanding what the Lord commands. This requires, fathers, that your heart be shaped by the Word. You will help your children much to do their obeying in the Lord if they have discovered by happy experience that almost everything Daddy says he has learned from the Lord. And the things that we don't know that he has learned from the Lord, we assume that he has, because that's just what we have found to be the case. And how will your discipline for your children be the discipline of the Lord if you have not been trained by the Lord? This doesn't just mean that you obtained from the Lord what to teach your children, and you obtained from the Lord how to discipline your children. It means that you are actively in fellowship with the Lord, so that it is independence upon Him and devotion to Him that you are instructing your child. Give your child the instruction of the Lord, and it is in fellowship with him, in dependence upon him, in devotion to him, that you are disciplining your child. Not like a man disciplines an animal, which can be trained by repeated pain not to do something. But as a Christian father disciplining a Christian child, Because the Lord whom you trust to use his word in your child's conversion, in your child's sanctification, is the Lord whom you trust to use his discipline in your child. And for your child, it's way more than, don't just spank in anger. All of this, what we have been getting at, and what we said we would come back to, is something we already saw in Deuteronomy chapter six earlier. Before we get to, you shall teach them diligently to your children, we have, and these words, which I command you today, shall be in your hearts. Deuteronomy 6.6, for the father, for the husband, is a prerequisite for the sort of household we heard about in the first talk. If God's Word is not controlling your heart, and the love of God is not filling your heart, then you don't even have the prerequisites I don't know how many of you have been in an educational situation where there were classes that you want to take, but there are other classes you have to finish first. Those are the prerequisites. Loving the Lord with all your heart. Having his word in your heart, men, is the prerequisite for teaching your children diligently. It's a prerequisite for talking about God's word with them. It's the prerequisite for having his word as bound to the hand, controlling everything that your family does. And this front that's between the eyes, controlling how your family sees everything. Now we don't have time to consider fully the home as a First Commission 2.8 place. That's where the Apostle says, I desire therefore that men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. The word men there is male specific. It means you should lead your family in prayer. Your house is a place. The church also is a place. You are to lift up holy hands, which doesn't just mean hands that are unstained or hands that aren't involved in immorality. It means hands that are consecrated. So the man who leads his family in prayer needs to be a man who everything he does is devoted unto God. Without wrath and without doubting, without wrath, a man who is confident that God always accomplishes his plan, and so he's not constantly having his views set off by being unable to bend the world to his own plan. and a man without doubting, one who has received and is convinced of the Word of God. And I wish we could have done all of those. But we must be men who lead our families in prayer. And there are prerequisites to doing that well. In conclusion, the family is God's small group ministry. Of all of his callings, there is no greater calling or vocation in a man's life. Your job is how you provide for your family. You don't even necessarily need to have one that feels fulfilling. It is fulfilling to do it for Christ. It is fulfilling to provide for your wife and children. But your job is just your job. Your wife, your children are on much higher calling than whatever you are doing to provide materially for them. This is God's plan and we must recover biblical fatherhood. I forgot in the introduction to tell you why we're doing this as ARPs. Well, when I say recover biblical fatherhood, I'm talking about something that you find attached to the documents of the Westminster Assembly. This is why there's a directory for family worship. This is why there are helps for the men who must lead their families this way to be the sort of man who leads his family or who is able to lead his family this way. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your help. We have come in weakness and preached in weakness and listened in weakness. But oh Lord, we rejoice in our weakness because your grace is sufficient for us. And your strength has made perfect in weakness. Grant that that would be the case. Grant that we would not just hear and think about things and agree with things. but that by your word you would produce fruit in our lives. We pray for those who are husbands and fathers, that you would help them. We pray for those who are mothers and wives, that you would so work in their husband, We pray for the children, that not only would you bless them, the ministry of a father whom you would use in their lives, but that even for those who have not such a father, You would grow them to be a man who has a father like this, a woman who knows not to take as a husband any man who is not like this, and grant that you would restore to us biblical fatherhood in our families across generations, we ask in Christ's name.