I wanted to begin by clarifying something. Last week, I had a good conversation with Barry and it wasn't about the dumpster. It was just in the hallway. And he was he was reminding me to nuance something. And I was glad he did, because this is a very sensitive subject, being a husband or wife or father or mother. And like I said, last week, I said, would all the perfect parents please stand up? And people who were standing quickly sat down. And I've been over, so none of us were perfect parents or are perfect parents. But we want to be faithful parents. That's the goal. And I made a comment, and I joked about it later. I said, you know, when you're having a discussion with your spouse, you should never say, you never do this, or you always do this, because that exaggeration makes it wrong. And so I use the word always regarding if I'm a rebellious husband and my wife is rebellious, all of our kids are going to be rebellious. Probably most of them will be. But I can't say all of them will be. My own experience is only one or two I've seen. But that doesn't mean God can't save children of rebellious parents. But it doesn't bode well that he put them in a home with rebellious parents. So I don't want to automatically assume that. And also, I'm not assuming that if you have a rebellious child, that it's your fault automatically. You know, if you have ten kids and they're all rebellious, we probably should talk. But if you have, you know, more than one child, one or two or whatever are doing fine, and one is just dances to their own drummer, that may not be your fault. I didn't want to spread any unnecessary guilt. We all have enough guilt in this subject to go around, but I didn't want to spread any unnecessary guilt. So did I qualify that enough, do you think? I appreciate Barry's sensitivity to that. Last week we looked at biblical parenting begins with being biblical parents. And I said I wasn't trying to be a smarty, but before we get into the how-to's of parenting, the great importance of being a biblical parent. Because you're going to be modeling, 24-7, whether you're thinking about it or not, you're modeling what you want your kids to grow up to be like. Husbands and fathers are modeling what a husband and father is like to their sons and daughters. And wives and mothers are modeling what a wife and mother is to their children. And so if we just went into the how-tos, the nuts and bolts of parenting, without stepping back and saying, well, how am I doing at the important job of modeling, then we would miss the most important thing. Because there are a lot of things in the Christian life we're just caught. You know, you can think about when you got married and you got into your marriage a little bit and had a discussion about whose job it is to take out the garbage. You just take something like that. Well, in my family, dads never took out the garbage. Well, in my family, dads always took out the garbage. Now, that wasn't a rule posted on the wall anywhere. Fathers never take out the garbage. But, you just grew up with it, and so you assumed that was just the law of the Medes and the Persians. It was written and sewn somewhere, and that's the way it was. And you discovered that wasn't the way it was in the other person's home, and you had to work it out. It was just one of those things you caught. It wasn't consciously taught to you. The Christian wife submits to her high calling. The Christian wife does have a high calling. Again, we'll look in the Bible in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. Our marching orders always come from the word of God. Our job descriptions come from the word of God. She is a creature created in the image of God, and this is a review of last week. It's the same passage we looked at for the men. Genesis 1, 26 and 27, then God said, let us, plural, make man, plural, in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them so we have a woman is just as much created in the image of God as her husband is and if you would like big word of the day I'm not R.C. Sproul. I don't use Latin. R.C. Sproul always uses Latin. He doesn't use an English word if he can use a Latin word. But there's a big word called ontological. You kind of go, oh man, I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet. Ontological means your status before God. From God's point of view, a wife is just as much value and of high calling in life as her husband. She may have a different status in her job description, but she doesn't have a different status before God as to her absolute worth. A wife is not less important to God than her husband, even though the husband may have the job description of being the head of the home and having the final say-so. Ontologically means, as to her ultimate status, her ultimate value before God, men and women are equal before God. It would be almost like saying, is Christ less God than the Father because he submits to the Father and does certain things in the plan of salvation? No. It's neither is a wife of less value to God than her husband. Her status before God is not less. It's just a different job description she has to fulfill. But she is a creature and she's created in the image of God. She's a creature called to be God's vice-regent, vice-president in exercising dominion over the earth. 128, and God blessed them and God said to them, to them, plural, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So it's the wife's job, too, to exercise dominion over the planet. She's the vice regent. She's the vice president. She is also a creature under the authority of her husband. And this is chapter 2, verses 20 through 23. It's interesting how God does this. He gives Adam, as part of his job description, okay, I want you to name all the creatures, which in a sense, I'm giving you major responsibility to name them, to speak about them, and to give them a title, is creating an important responsibility. But as he's going through this, it's like, there's nothing here that corresponds to me. You know, like going into Noah's Ark, two rhino, two hippo, two giraffe. But if Adam had been there at the time of Noah's Ark, There wouldn't have been anybody yet, or if the nose arc had happened earlier, there wouldn't have been anybody corresponding to Adam. He didn't have a helper suited to him. He needed someone to compliment him, not compliment and you have a nice haircut, not that kind of compliment, but a compliment in the sense that you help, you come along to help, which is sometimes she's called a helpmate. Someone whose job it is to come alongside you and be your compliment, to fill in the gaps in your life and to help you and to be that person that God said, you need this person to be the man I've called you to be. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the ribs that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. And what? Then the man said, whoa, I said, this is at last the bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. She has a derivative nature. She was taken out of her husband's side, so to speak. The man had priority. The man had headship. But again, she's not nothing. She's not his doormat. She's interesting. You know, you've heard people say she wasn't taken from the crown of his head. to be boss over him. She wasn't taken under from the soles of his feet to be trodden underneath him. She was taken from a rib symbolically to be at his side. This person is the one who should be at my side and we should go through everything together. She's a creature who was to be a help me to her husband. The Christian wife's submission to her high calling. Okay, I've got a calling from God. I'm to be a creature. I'm a woman. I'm not a man. And I was thinking about this several times as I've been praying for our time together. We live in such a sad and such a confused time. I'm not sure in the last, in the history of our country, has there ever been a time as sad and confused as ours? One case in point, Time Magazine, six, eight years ago, had a cover and it showed a man and a woman looking at each other. And the cover said, men and women, are they different? They kind of go, whoa, what are these guys smoking? What are they drinking? What's wrong with them that they can't tell? But when you've been so bamboozled through the thinking of our culture and how, you know, we're going to make little boys into little girls and we're going to make little girls into little boys and we're going to do all these things that are men and women really different. Come on. But when you're going down the scale of Romans 1, you get stupider and stupider and stupider. And so now people, well, I don't know, maybe girls should be on the wrestling team. Maybe boys should be home ec majors. Of course, home ec, that kind of dates me, doesn't it? You can't take home ec hardly. There's only one college, I think, in the United States, John MacArthur's Master's College, where you can get a home ec major anymore. It's not called that, but that's what it is. But they're not ashamed of making that a major, but most schools, you wouldn't be caught dead. I'm a home ec A major. Couldn't you do anything else? Anyway, our culture is so sad and so confused that it would actually have to ask that question. But you grew up, you were growing up and your children are growing up in a culture where everybody's been shot in the head with sinful novocaine and people are like, they're just kind of mentally frozen and they're not really thinking clearly. But for a Christian wife, when God begins to work in your life and reorient you to, OK, He's saved me, He's given me a new heart, a new motivation, a new orientation of life, He also reprograms you. He renews your mind. It's like, OK, here's the hard drive on the old computer. OK, we're going to cleanse that. We're going to add new data, and we're going to just renew this data here and give you a whole new perspective. And that's the course of your Christian life. Can you think of some things that you initially thought when you were a baby Christian? You look back now and you go, wow, I was so far off from the truth. It's taken me a while to see what the truth is. And you're happiest when your life conforms with the truth. I'm happiest when my life conforms with the truth. Because disobedience and ignorance doesn't take you good places. Ignorance and disobedience don't take you good places. So the Christian wife submits to her high calling. Now we're going to be looking at Ephesians. Five times the Word of God commands wives to be submissive to their husbands. Ladies, I'm not beating up on you this morning. You have heard this before. So what is he saying? Get a life. Move on. But it's important because you have to teach this to your children. Why do you think the Bible has it five times that wives are supposed to submit to their husbands? And they're all in the New Testament. Why do you think that's true? It might be important. God doesn't repeat things for his own benefit. They may not have been doing it. If you read about first century culture, America today is more like first century culture than probably any other time in human history. I mean, the kinds of things going on in America today were part and parcel of the first century. So you live in a culture where nobody else thinks this way. And haven't you even had people say to you, why in the world do you do that? Or why do you submit to your husband? Or why do you call him the head of your home? Why would you do that? I've actually conducted weddings, and the weddings when I conduct them, The pastor and the church and the Bible controls the wedding, not the wedding planner or the bride or the bride's mother. And so here's the things we say. And one of the things you say is that a wife is called to submit to her husband. And I've seen people look at each other in shock and snicker or make comments in weddings when the wife says her vows and vows to submit to her husband. Whoa, what's wrong with them? Well, they're Christians. They're living in their life according to God's word. First century Christians lived in a culture where all the stuff is just new things. You know, Rome wasn't Jerusalem, and the Roman culture wasn't Jerusalem at its best, and so you're having to tell each of the churches. Notice in 5, let's see, B, 1, A, it's Ephesians, B is Colossians, C is Titus, and D is Peter. You have different contexts. The church at Ephesus, the church at Colossae, Paul's pastoral assistant, Titus, and then Peter are all having to teach their constituents that this is the way it ought to be, because it just wasn't obvious. And so, as any teacher knows, repetition aids learning, so we need to repeat it. Okay, 522 and 523. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Not to somebody else's husband, but to your own husband. You can't go up to some woman in the church who's not your wife and say, I want you to do this for me. Well, good luck. I mean, I'll talk to my husband. Maybe he'll submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and he himself is the Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Now, Colossians 3.18 basically says the same thing. Wives are to submit to their husbands. Turn to the passage in Titus chapter 2, verse 5. It begins in Verse 3, this is something, and the people who are speaking this are, this is something that older women in the church can teach the younger women. Not just in formal Bible studies, but if you're both in the nursery together, and the newly married person asks the oldly married person about something about marriage, and it's an opportunity to teach. Teaching happens in all kinds of formats. Verse 3, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers. or slaves to much wine, they are to teach what is good. And so train the young women to do what? To love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." That's something that can be reinforced by the older women telling some of the newer women, newer mothers and wives, that this is how God plans to bless you as you submit to His plan. In 1 Peter, Ephesians 5 is a long passage on Christian marriage, but 1 Peter has a long passage on Christian marriage. Not as long, but it's an important passage. I'm reading out of the ESV. Many of you have that. Some of you use the New American Standard, like the pastor. My ESV begins with, likewise. What does the New American Standard begin with? In the same way. What does that mean? Likewise. Likewise, in the same way, wives, be subject to your own husbands. It keeps hammering to your husband, not any other husband. Men just can't go around the church ordering women to do things. Wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if they do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives. We'll come back to that. In verse 5, they give an example of this. But this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands. It was a shock in many of the cultures of the world to have a submissive wife. And certainly in the Roman culture, it was beginning to be a thing that wives were becoming independent. They weren't called egalitarian marriages. It wasn't called women's lib. But they were having more and more assertive women. And so the idea of being submissive to your husband, when some cultures came naturally, because husbands were kind of Neanderthals and carried a club on their shoulder. And if their wives didn't submit, they had them over the head. End of discussion. But as the Roman civilization touched different cultures, it began to be more of a thing, a novelty for a wife to be submissive. And so they're having to remind their people that this is God's way of doing it. The specific meaning of submit to and be subject to is from a military word meaning to subordinate oneself. to place oneself under rank of another, or to place oneself in subject to one another. I think that's pretty clear. Is there any questions about that? Again, I'm kind of reviewing things which are probably basic to all of you, but if you're a teenager or 20-something, these are things that you might not have thought about because you kind of go, well, I'm not married right now, I'm just kind of working on growing up, later I'll find Mr. Right or Miss Right, but when you find that person, will you be the right kind of person to marry them? In other words, this is your time to practice to get ready to be Mr. Right or Miss Right later when you find that person. Submission to a higher authority is the common biblical teaching for us all. You know, there could be a woman sitting here thinking, why does he harp on this? Why can't he get on to something else? The submission thing. Well, hey, everybody in this room is to be in submission. We're all under authority. Nobody on the planet who's a human being is not under someone's authority. For example, in Luke 2.51, it says the young Jesus was in submission to his earthly parents. Students, you think you have it rough. Imagine being perfect and being the God-man and you have knucklehead, imperfect, sinful parents. stay in submission to them. In John 12 49, grown-up Jesus says that he does not speak or act on his own authority but that which was delegated to him by his Heavenly Father. Jesus didn't wing it when he went around Palestine. He just didn't make it up as he went along. He and the Father had worked on a plan and he spoke things and did things according to what the Father asked him to do. In Romans 13, it says, all authority is delegated and every person is to be in submission to the governing authorities that exist. And by the way, it's funny, I've watched this 30 years. Every time we speak on this, not just to the wives, but I'm speaking on submission to authority, the hand goes up. Well, what about when you've got a crummy ruler? Who was the ruler when Paul wrote this? that great hero of the faith, Nero. Wow, I mean, one of the worst, grossest, stupidest, craziest, worst Caesars was Nero. And Paul said, that's what God gave us right now. We're to be in submission to the government. As bad as it is with a bad leader, do you know what civil war looks like? I've talked to a man who grew up in Uganda during the days of Idi Amin and the civil war all around there. And he said, when you went to the bus stop Whoever had the biggest weapon got on the bus. He said, somebody packed a pistol, I had a sawed-off shotgun. I always got on the bus. He said, it was terrible. He said, you never knew what a day would bring because there was no order. There was no authority. It was every man and woman for themselves. And it was brutal. So we're to be in submission to the authorities, and if they're bad ones, pray more. And Titus 2.9 says servants are to be subject to their masters, which is like first entry for employer-employee. You know, we're to be in submission to our authorities at work. Hebrews 12.9 says that children are to be in submission to their parents. I had a dad come to me once. I went to his place of work. He was just all maxed out. His teenage daughter was giving him a terrible time and she was wanting to do things she shouldn't do. And she should have gone out to be a lawyer, because she was really good at giving it to him. And she says, well, where is there a Bible verse that says, I can't do this? Of course, that would have to be a Bible so humongous to give you every potential thing. And he goes, I can't find a Bible verse. What can I tell her? I go, children, obey your parents and the Lord. This is not a giant rule book. It does have principles, which in many times are rules, but it's not for every conceivable thing is there a chapter and verse, but there are blanket passages, okay? So children are to be in submission to their parents. Well, there's a verse that says I can't wear this to school. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. I said that nicely, didn't I? Okay, moving right along. Every person is under authority to someone. It's the essence of sinful autonomy to want to be a law unto oneself. The word autonomy means I'm a law unto myself. Nobody tells me what to do. I dance to my own drummer. I do my own thing. Okay, I'm a rebel. My life's going to be hard. It says the way of the transgressor is hard. The way of the lawbreaker is hard. You want to break the law all the time? Plan on having a really messed up life. A Christian wife wants to submit to her husband. Why? Well, she wants to please God. I know this isn't a hard principle, but it's good to remind myself. Obedience always pleases God. And sometimes when it's the hardest. She wants to bring honor to her Savior by modeling His submission to the Father. She instinctively knows it's the right thing to do. It corresponds to why she was created. I was created to be a complement. to my husband, the suitable helper. She wants to be a living example to her children. Meditate on Luke 640 and parenting. Luke 640 says that every person, every disciple who is fully trained will be like his master. And who are the disciples in your house? And how are you training them? And just some of you are flipping there. We'll see if I'm right. So let's look at Luke 640 and see if Steve is fudging, or if it really says that. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. What does that say to our students in our home, to our disciples in our home? And that has a lot to say about parenting, too. She wants to see her husband become holy, the man God created him to be. The reason why God gave you to that man was because he can't make it on his own. And all God's wives said, Amen. Okay, this guy can't make it on his own. He needs my help, bless his heart. Which is a southern expression, bless his heart. You know what that means, don't you? Bless his heart. Let's look at Proverbs 12.4 before I get in trouble. Okay. Bless my heart. An excellent wife is the crown of her husband. What's a crown? Now, guys, if you start wearing crowns to church next week, it'll look tacky, okay? Your wife standing there, that will be your crown, okay? An excellent wife is the crown of her husband. What does that phrase mean? Ladies can answer if your husband doesn't get it. What does this mean? The excellent wife is the crown of her husband. Let me give you an illustration. For years I've said, I'm married over my head. My wife, you know, how does this go? My wife is Forgetting my own illustration. It will come back to me in a minute. Well, she's the best thing that ever happened to me. That's not the illustration. Oh, well, I'll move on here. What does it mean? An excellent wife is the crown of her husband. Guys, you need to bail yourself out quickly because you have to go home and face your wife. Why didn't you say something? I'm sorry. Sandy's in the nursery, but I will tell her. For 20 bucks, I'll be silent. OK. I used to say my wife was my better half, but I've been married 41 years. She's my better three quarters. If I live long enough, she'll be my better nine tenths. In other words. People can tell a lot about your marriage by how happy your wife is. And is she a credit to you? Does she bring glory to you by how she is as a person? She is the crown of her husband. She sows what he is. But she who brings shame is like rottenness to his bones. In other words, having a bad marriage and a wife who's not on board. You know, some of us have been around this bush. It can be very painful. How a Christian wife submits to her husband? Well, ask to the Lord. Ask to the Lord. Now, there will be people who call themselves Christians, and I'm not saying they aren't, but they're seriously misinterpreting Scripture when they say, well, marriage is egalitarian. The wife does her thing and the husband does his thing. It's a 50-50 kind of deal. We each do our own thing and nobody's in charge and nobody's the boss and she can do her own thing. But it says, as the wife is to submit to her husband, as to the Lord, and then life says, as the church submits to Christ, so should the wife submit to her husband. Do Christians, do churches have the option of saying, thanks Lord, we got it, but we have a better plan, so we're not going to do what you say, we're going to do our own thing. That's not the biblical way that Christians are to act toward their Lord, or churches are to act toward their Savior. In the same way, wives are to do it as they would unto the Lord. Now please note, as the church submits to Christ, so should the wife in everything, in verse 24. But note, everything means within the boundaries of God's righteous law. Husbands cannot command their wives to sin. And husbands cannot command their wives to do something that would go against their wives' conscience. And a righteous man wouldn't ask you to do that. The legacy left behind by a wife and mother who is unsubmissive, what does that look like? Alienation from her husband. These proverbs here have to do with like a dripping, living with a woman who's like a dripping attic Eve. You know, just the water's dripping, it's irritating and it's just, it's like rottenness. Rebellious children who learn rebellion against authority by watching her. This talks about that this kind of woman tears down her own house with her own hands. And in a great book on the Christian family that's published by Sprinkle Publications, some of the elders may have this book, James Alexander says that the number one place where children can learn submission to authority is by watching mom. If mom has a regular difficulty with authority, so shall a certain number of your kids probably, because they've learned it by watching you. And also they can look forward to a life lived under the chastening hand of God if you're a real Christian. Because Hebrews 12 says, I discipline all those I love, and if you're not getting the message, I have ways of disciplining and training you. The Christian wife has a respect for her high calling. We've talked about submission to her high calling. I see what God's wanting me to do, and I embrace it. I submit to it. I take this on as my job description. But she not only does it, but she doesn't go, OK, I'll do it. If you've had children who are cleaning their room or doing what they're supposed to do, but their attitude is so bad, you have to go in and clean up after their attitude because they're technically doing it, but they're not doing it with the right attitude. A wife not only submits to her husband, but she respects her husband. What does God's word teach about respect for authority? Well, God has ordained all authority that exists, already been through that, all authority, and it's repeated three times in the New Testament. Rebellion against God-ordained authority is rebellion against God Himself. Obedience with a good and right attitude is always the way to God's blessing. Doing the right thing with a good attitude always has God's favor. The God-approved attitude toward authority is respect, fear, honor, and love. Now, I know some people would just go ballistic by me having the word fear in there. No, no, no, we never fear. We shouldn't fear God. We should respect Him. We shouldn't fear the authorities. But Scripture doesn't say that. Scripture says you ought to fear the authorities. For example, why? What do the authorities have that you don't have? The sword. They can execute justice. We ought to be afraid of running afoul of the law. And Jesus says, don't be afraid of men who can really kill your body. You want something to be really afraid of? Be afraid of me, because after having killed your body, I can cast your body and soul into hell. That's a healthy fear. It's not the craven fear of a slave. I don't fear God throwing me into hell, but I don't play fast and loose with God. I don't call him the man upstairs. I don't disrespect him. I have a healthy filial, that means that of a son, Fear toward my Father. Who do you know loves you more than anyone else? You ought to say, God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit. Who do you not want to run afoul with? You don't want to get on God's bad side, so to speak. You go, well, you can never get on God's bad side. You know, dads, children ought to say in your family, Dad is the biggest lover and cheerleader in our family. Who do you not want to take you out to discipline you? Let mom do it, don't let dad discipline me. Because they should have a healthy fear of their father. You're teaching them to have a healthy fear of God. I feared my father but I knew he loved me. I loved him back. But I feared my dad. He was big and tall and I was small and shrimpy then. didn't run afoul of my dad. And that was a good thing to learn because I don't play fast and loose with God the Father. But fear is part of it. I respect the authority. I fear the authority because it does hold the right to execute justice. I honor it. I love the authority. Believers are never to speak slanderously against an authority, for all are installed by God. That means that you may be very critical, and rightly so, of governmental officials. But you don't have to go around running them in the ground all the time or making a sub-career out of slandering the authorities. Pray for them. Work to see new ones installed. I remember years ago when Bill Clinton was president, and Pastor Walt Chantry, who was a well-respected man in Reformed Baptist circles, said he was really grieved about Bill Clinton's problems. And like, well, duh, he had all kinds of problems. But we're thinking of a big moral failure that became public. And this is Walt Chandry's observation. Christians will use this to excuse their own inner rebellion toward authority by seeing what a bad person he is, and that will give them an excuse not to respect authority. He is a bad man and an important job, but I can't diss the office because the man occupying the office is a cad. I need to respect the office even if the person holding the office is not worthy of it. But I have to be careful it doesn't give me an excuse to resist all authority. Respect for authority involves eagerness to do good, to obey with a good attitude, and not sullenly and dragging one's feet. How is a wife to apply God's command to respect her husband and his God-delegated authority? First of all, a Christian wife is to view her husband as God's immediate, specific authority. Paraphrasing another biblical text, 1 John, how can you say you are submitting to the God you cannot see when you want to submit to his delegated authority that you can see. That's a paraphrase of the verses. How can you say you love God, whom you haven't seen, when you can't love your brother, right here, who you can see? And so, also, the analogy works here with submission to authority. This is God's on-site authority. I'm really submissive to God. I'm just not going to submit to this guy. Well, what other authority does he have exercising in your life right now? I would really be responsive to authority, but this guy's a jerk, and so I just can't do it. But he's the only authority in your life. I'll tread on really treacherous ground right now. You have to be very careful if you're into a lot of contemporary Christian side issues, because a lot of them have as a sub-theme, rebellion toward authority. What are you talking about? Do I dare say this? Shall I say it, Brandon? Okay, Brandon told me. I've been around, I've lived long enough to see the curvature of the earth, and I've seen the homeschool movement come on board, when it was nothing, when there was three people. You're kidding, what's going to happen to your kids? Are they going to be socialized? Okay, I know the drill. We've homeschooled our kids for a couple years. But some homeschoolers are, again, the government. And so I hate the government, so I'm going to homeschool my kids, because I'm not going to get their terrible paws on my kids. Okay, there are problems with public education. There are Christian educators who are doing a good job in the schools to see that doesn't happen. But what's going on in my heart that gives me another excuse to diss the government? Or, as pastors, we just know people come to us and say, we're not going to do this because they're out to lunch and I'm against them. Please don't have your babies in your kitchen. Go to the hospital. Doctors are perfect. They're not God. I'm not telling you it's the law of the means of the person. You can't have your babies in the kitchen floor. But I know people who lost full term babies in the kitchen floor because they were knuckleheads and they didn't know a whole lot of things. And here you are. I'm sorry to step on that toe, but I'd rather save a baby than have you mad at me. OK, I think I should move on now. OK, OK. A Christian wife shows respect by honoring and esteeming her husband as God's appointed instrument of blessing for her and their family. If your husband is a successful husband, you will have a blessed family. So it's in your best interest to respect and pray for him and help him. A Christian wife loves her husband as an expression of respecting her husband as God's good gift. And this respect can be best demonstrated or modeled by her loving her husband and submitting to him. Titus 2-4 we've already read. A Christian wife knows that respecting her husband means praying for her husband and the critical position he is entrusted with. Now the first Timothy 2 passage has to do with where to pray for kings and all those in authority. That would be your husband too. And finally, a Christian wife is very careful with her tongue and how she speaks to and about her husband, like in front of the kids or other women. The tongue is the overflow valve of the heart. And respectful speech is very important as a prime part of showing respect. How many of you think Abraham was a perfect husband? Let the tape show that nobody thinks Abraham was a perfect husband. How many of you think Abraham had some real issues like courage and bravery and some other things? This is my sister. Oh, nice. That's a good way of protecting your wife. But in 1 Peter 3.6 it says, Sarah showed her respect to her husband by calling him Lord. Now, I know all the guys are going to, you know, dear, I've been thinking maybe if you call me Lord, it would really help the husband wife deal going. You get the drift, OK? She spoke respectfully. One husband and wife team I know were at the dinner table and they were teasing back and forth and her husband said something and she said, oh, dear, you're such a meathead. And I knew that when I watched the banter, and he said very dryly as he continued to eat, Abraham called Sarah Lord. OK, Lord Meathead. So she was up to the situation. Eight sinful habits, attitudes that undermine respect for your husband and his delegated authority and which must be put to death. Pride. The wife who is not humble and submissive at heart. Genesis 3.6, that would be Eve. She's always eager to argue, to refuse, to ask why a million times and otherwise make it known her heart is not in it. You don't have to ask a million why questions to nuke this. Fear, the wife who is afraid because she knows her husband's weaknesses. I can't submit to him because he's an idiot. I know all of his weaknesses. Admittedly, that's hard, but your husband has to go to work with a boss who's probably not perfect either, and perhaps with a CEO, and the whole company in his career rides on this guy making right decisions. Is he going to make perfect decisions? Is any corporation represented here perfect with totally awesome bosses making right decisions all the time? Well, how scary would it be at work if I don't trust God that He has to superintend this business and my boss, and you have to Trust God to superintend your on-site boss, your husband. Knowing the perfect love of God, cast out fear. 1 John 4, verse 16, I believe. God is greater than you or your husband, and he is the ultimate source of your security and stability and the meeting of all your needs. If you're thinking your husband is going to be the be-all and end-all of your life, you have a real wrong attitude. You're expecting your husband to be God, and we'll come back to that. There's an unbiblical perfectionism holding on to a false ideal of thinking, if only I had a perfect husband, then I would be respectful, submissive, and happy. Now, it's possible to think that because perfectionists want everything to be perfect. If my husband was just perfect, we could get this ship going, moving. This is a fallen world. Nothing and no one is not deeply flawed by the fall of our first parents. There are no perfect people, including you who are sitting here who are perfectionists. If you're saying, I'm not going to submit until the thing is perfect, well, for one thing, you're foisting your personality on him thinking, I'm right, I'm the standard, he's not up to my standard of perfection, I don't have to submit to him. That's pride hiding behind perfectionism. There's an idealistic romanticism, the phantom husband. You know, he likes to sit on the sofa and hold hands and talk about the whole day all the time and just talk and look at you and talk and listen and drink tea. The Phantom Husband is the mirage of Christian romance novels and Hallmark movies and watching Anne of Green Gables too many times. I was watching a... I didn't think it was a chick flick, but it's kind of turning into this series on television. I won't mention it in case you watch it. It's like, guys don't do that. They don't go fishing and talking about conversations. This is... a woman wrote this and it's true. A woman wrote this and it's being acted out, but there are no guys like this. I just hate to break it to you, but there are. What are you laughing at, Brandon? Anyway, I'm going to tell Beth. I'll hurry up and finish here. The myth of entitlement. I deserve better. Much, much better. You know, you can become disappointed with your husband. You thought those were stars in your eyes, but it turned out to be sand in your eyes. You looked at your husband and Eve was tempted to believe she deserved better and that God was keeping it from her. Look at this knucklehead I've got of a husband. Oh, I just deserve a better husband, a better deal than I'm getting. Actually, if you say, God give me what I deserve, you'd wake up instantly in hell. Anything you've gotten that isn't hell is grace. anything. I don't care how bad your suffering has been. I have heard of awful things I can't repeat in public. I don't care how bad you've experienced anything in life. It's not been hell. And that's what we each deserve. Idolatry. Expecting your husband, a mere creature like yourself, to be for you what only God the Creator can be for you. All-sufficient. 1 Peter 3.5 The way the wife doesn't give in to fear is by looking to the Lord, not to her husband for all things. I mentioned 1 Peter 3.5 and Stepping Heavenward. Ladies, how many of you read Stepping Heavenward? Okay, a number of you have not. We need to push that for a ladies book. Stepping Heavenward is a novel. It's a discussion of sanctification in the form of a ladies diary from the time when she's 14 until she's an older woman. And she marries a guy who she thinks is a dream husband for. He's a great guy. He's a medical doctor. There's lots of money here. He's all these wonderful things. But then something happens and there's an influenza outbreak and she functionally doesn't see him for six or eight weeks because he's gone all the time taking care of people. And then one day she has this great realization. Even the best of husbands can't be God to you. And if you expect your husband to be God to you and fix all of your problems and always make you happy and have the solution to every problem, you're putting a burden on your husband that he wasn't expected to bear and you're treating him, a mere creature, like he was the creator. That's idolatry. Seven, walking by sight and not by faith, seeing only problems and errors and not the God who stands behind your husband and is able and willing to help you both. Almighty God and His promises and character must be factored into everything that our life, sorry for the misspelling, that our life involves. There'll be a lot of things in life that will hurt you and disappoint you, and sadly one of them will be your spouse. But you have to see the God who stands behind even your spouse, who stands behind people, because otherwise you'll lose your sanity. These people can't be God to you. You have to walk by faith in the God who you can't see, but is working all things together for good. And finally, unbelief. If I'm a woman who does not believe God's word and trust his promises, then there will be no respect and submission to the husband. The problem is not with my husband's failings, but with my own unbelief. You've married a knucklehead. It's in Latin at the bottom of your marriage certificate. This guy's a knucklehead. But if you don't look to the Lord, that's your fault. God is more than adequate for every situation, and every trial, and every imperfect, weak, and sinful husband, but He is not that to the wife who doesn't believe Him. I mean, the promises in Scripture are there, but if you go, yeah, but you don't understand, and then they go off and tell you how bad my husband is. God knows all about this, whatever His promises say. When you don't believe God and trust Him, then you won't respect and submit to God's delegated on-site authority figure, your husband either. I'm past time, but I'll quit if people would like to ask questions. We can do that and other people can be free to move on. Thank you for your patience. Let's pray. Father, again for the second week in a row I've crammed two weeks worth of material, two lectures into one quick study on Christian wives and mothers. Father, who is adequate for these things? There is much repentance that we all need to do, husbands and wives. And teenagers can look at their lives and saying, am I growing up to be the kind of person I want to be 10 years from now? Would you give us grace to take advantage of the means of grace, to pray, pray, pray, to look to the Holy Spirit for the strength, to look for the scriptures for the wisdom we need to be the people we need to be? Would you do this for Christ's sake? Amen.