The following message was delivered
at the 1994 Trinity Baptist Church Pastors Conference. Now let us once again seek the
face of God in prayer as God has been gracious in past years
to grant us special seasons of His nearness in these sessions
together We have reason to believe he is not exhausted, his infinite
grace and kindness, and yet there is that fear. I'm sure in the
heart of every perceptive Christian, what would it be to be left at
the mercy of our own resources? Let us cry that God will indeed
graciously meet with us. Our Father, we are mindful of
your word which tells us, Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his arm and whose heart departs from you. You have
said that such a one shall be like a heath in the desert. He
shall inhabit a parched place in the wilderness where no water
is. And our Father, we know many
of us who are your children what it is to inhabit the parched
places that have come as the fruit of our own creature confidence. And we would solemnly repudiate
all confidence in our own ability to understand your word, much
less to minister that word to others. Come then, we pray, by
the power of your grace and of your Spirit, And so work in the
mind and heart of every listener, and in the mind and heart and
tongue of your servant who attempts to speak your truth, that together
we may all be made very conscious that you have fulfilled your
promise to those who trust in you. You have promised to make
them like a well-watered garden. Oh God, do that for us, we pray. through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Now for those of you who are
aware of the schedule and the announced subjects for this conference,
you know that the subject announced for tonight's meeting is our
vision for these days. In October of 1988, This was the subject announced
for the Monday night session of the conference in that year,
and since then, each year, the elders have directed me to continue
with that theme, and there has been, with but one exception,
this Monday night emphasis upon our vision for these days. And each time as I have begun
to preach on a specific aspect of that theme, I have first of
all given a word of explanation, explaining that the words our
vision for these days are simply used to express our perception
of the most critical areas of need for the people of God and
for our own generation, and what we as the servants of God and
the people of God ought to seek to do in the strength of God
to respond to that perceived need. Our use of the term, our
vision for these days, is but an application of what we read
in 1 Chronicles 12 and verse 32 concerning the men of Issachar
who had understanding of the times that they might know what
Israel ought to do. Or, in the language of the passage
read in our hearing, it is our effort to respond in obedience
to the injunction of the Apostle in Ephesians 5.15 and following,
Look therefore carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but
as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore
do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And so in the use of this title, Our Vision for These Days, we
are simply seeking to capture our perception, our understanding
of those aspects of God's truth which are most desperately needed
by our generation. And then I have always begun
not only with a word of explanation, but with a word of disclaimer. We, as a group of churches represented
by the men who are here, and certainly the eldership of this
assembly, claim no extraordinary commission from God with respect
to these matters, nor do we claim to have an exclusive commission
with reference to these matters. We have no individual or corporate
messianic complex but we are seeking to act as responsible
men, ministering to the peculiar needs of our own generation. Now in the previous messages,
we have addressed the subject, our vision for these days, and
have focused upon five areas of concern. Our vision for these
days is one that desperately desires to see a recovery of
the biblical gospel. Secondly, a renewal of biblical
holiness. Thirdly, a return to biblical
churchmanship. Fourth, a restoration of biblical
preaching, and in our study together last year, a recognition of the
watchman identity and function of the pastoral office. Now tonight,
I wish to address the sixth area of crucial concern, which does
indeed constitute a vital part of our vision for these days. And I've stated it this way.
It is the re-establishment of godly family life, or in the
more antiquated terminology, the return to domestic piety. What we would call in current
parlance, godly family life, our forefathers designated as
domestic piety. And I must confess there is something
in me that has an affinity for the older terminology. but realizing
that others may not quite be as skewed as I am somewhere in
the deep depths of my psyche that I feel a stronger affinity
to the term domestic piety, I will work with the terminology, the
reestablishment of godly family life. Now that this issue has
been and remains a matter of deep concern within the ranks
of those of you present in this place tonight is evident to anyone
who has any connection with those who are here tonight. The themes
again and again in the various family conferences have directed
our attention to various aspects of godly family life or of domestic
piety. The subjects that have been assigned
to some of you and some of us who have preached at the various
men's and women's retreats held by many of our churches, those
subjects indicate that indeed this has been a matter of deep
and pervasive concern amongst us. Furthermore, if you are in
any way aware of the rather lengthy series of sermons and adult Sunday
school lessons taught in our respective churches, you will
find that there have been repeated and often lengthy series of sermons
dealing with various aspects of the teaching of the Word of
God concerning godly family life. And so for me to say that our
vision for these days, and to include in the hour those of
us represented here, is not an overstatement. Indeed, there
is abundant evidence that our vision for these days is indeed
one that involves the reestablishment of godly family life. Furthermore, the legitimacy of
taking up a concern well worked by the brethren sitting here
tonight is obvious in terms of the glut of statistics that continue
to pour forth both from Christian and non-Christian sources relative
to the breakup of the so-called nuclear family. The frightening
proliferation of illegitimacy in our country and in the UK
as well. The horrible tragedy of divorce
that disrupts the family structure and leaves children vulnerable
to all kinds of abnormalities. Surely these things are a loud
cry that whatever emphasis we have placed upon this subject,
we have far from even begun to win the field. in this area of
godly family life. So in taking up the subject,
I know it is a subject for which there is great, I trust, universal
sympathy in those who sit before me this evening. And what can
I do in the time allotted to me when I've already said that
there are represented by the men here literally hundreds if
not thousands of hours of solid biblical exposition and application
and practical directives and exhortations just within this
group. Well obviously all I can hope
to do in this one session is to attempt to encapsulate this
vision and hopefully to issue a call to each one of us to a
fresh commitment to the realization of this vision under the blessing
of the Spirit of God and by the enablement of God's grace. So then our vision for these
days is the reestablishment of godly family life. I want to address the subject
under four headings, and the first is this. The reestablishment
of godly family life ideally begins with the contracting of
godly marriages. The reestablishment of godly
family life ideally begins with the contracting of godly marriages. Now I have said ideally because
I recognize that according to the scriptures and in keeping
with the experience of not a few of you sitting here, Though you
now have, by the grace of God, what could be called a godly
family life, it did not begin with the contracting of a godly
marriage. It began, perhaps, with two starry-eyed
kids running off and thinking that everything would turn out
beautifully because you, quote, loved one another. And after
finding out that a marriage ring and marriage vows and a honeymoon
did not mean that you rode off to the sunset to live happily
ever after, perhaps it was the very beginnings of the disintegration
of the relationship that made you accessible to the gospel.
And God may have brought some of you to repentance and faith,
Relatively at the same time, others may have borne the burden
of a divided marriage, such as we read about in 1 Corinthians
7. Some of you may sit here this
day. bearing that burden, and I am
not insensitive to those realities, but in seeking to issue a clarion
call with respect to our vision, I'm stating that the reestablishment
of godly family life ideally begins with the contracting of
godly marriages. Now, if we are to see godly marriages
contracted in the ranks of our churches and within the orbit
of our influence, what is it that we must seek to maintain
in our own thinking and impart to the thinking and the actions
of our children? Well, let me answer in three
categories. Number one, by maintaining biblical
standards for the selection of a marriage partner. By maintaining
biblical standards for the selection of a marriage partner. It is
not without reason that when God begins to describe the circumstances
in society at large, which ultimately led to God inundating the ancient
earth with the judgment of the flood, that the emphasis in Genesis
6 falls upon a practice in which men and women no longer maintained
what we today would call biblical standards for the selection of
their marriage partners. Look at the text in Genesis 6.1.
And it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face
of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the
sons of God, those of the godly line of Seth, saw the daughters
of men that they were fair, and they took wives of all that they
chose. We are introduced in this chapter
in the first statement that leads to the ultimate destruction of
the old world by a situation in which the concerns of godliness
no longer dominated in the selection of marriage partners. Rather,
it was beauty of face and of form. The sons of God saw what? not the character of godliness,
but they saw that the daughters of men were fair. They married
on the basis of what could be known by one long gaze upon the
face and upon the body. There was no concern with respect
to what lay beneath the surface of the fair face and the shapely
form. And the concerns of godliness,
the concern that the sons of God would marry the daughters
of God, and that together they would be committed to the rearing
of a godly seed, gave way to the philosophy that if it looks
good, grab it. And if we are in any way To see
in our day the reestablishment of godly family life, we must
use every means at our disposal to pass on to our children, and
hear me parents, and to regulate our assessment of those whom
they may begin to be interested in in terms of godly standards,
not carnal standards, personal taste, personal ambition, social
standing, or our own unmortified pride. Are you prepared, mom
and dad, proudly to introduce to anyone in the circle of your
influence a relatively plain Jane, whom your handsome son
has set his eye upon because he has seen through her relatively
plain face and less than beauty queen figure. the graces of a thirst after
God, and a love for Christ, and the adornment of a meek and a
quiet spirit, and a selfless commitment to serve others, and
a passion to know God and walk with God and to be a woman of
whom there is no explanation but that she is full of the Spirit
of God. You see, mom and dad, your own
stinking pride's got to be mortified. Are you prepared? Should your
daughter find her heart beginning to be drawn with romantic interest? the thought of a potential marriage
partner, someone who in terms of his background in training
and natural endowments was never cut out to make his way up the
corporate ladder, never cut out to be a, quote, white collar
executive. He may have gnarled and scarred
hands from his manual labor, The cut of his suit may not quite
be the kind of thing you'd expect in a Fortune 500 company office. But what she has seen in that
man is the assertiveness of a man who knows his identity as a man,
and who has a heart after God, who is committed to a life of
universal holiness, who is prepared to bear the burden of godly manhood
as the leader of his home and provider for his family. And
woven through the texture of that male strength is the tenderness
and the sensitivity which Paul describes as the meekness and
the gentleness of Christ. And she sees beyond what society
would call his blue-collar, second-class position as far as his occupation. and beyond perhaps the absence
of some of the refined, polished social graces that others may
have. And she said, that's the kind
of man I'd want my sons to become, and I want my daughters to identify
with as godly manhood, that the characteristics I see in him,
I want them to see and look for in their potential mates. How
about you, mom? You're ready to introduce Him
proudly to your friends. You see, it's not only an issue
for you singles to come to grips with. It's an issue for you parents
to come to grips with. And if we are to see a re-establishment
of godly family life that ideally begins with contracting godly
marriages, all of us together, singles, young men and women,
parents, and pastors along with them. We must maintain biblical
standards for the selection of a marriage partner. But then
secondly, we must maintain biblical standards for the goals of potential
marriage partners. We must maintain biblical standards
for the goals of potential marriage partners. As a relationship begins
to blossom, and you as parents have input, pastors and friends,
intimate associates, you begin to ask the young couple, what
are your goals for this potential union? What is it that you are
building in your mind as your dream castle? What is it to which
you're prepared to give yourselves in your marital life? Well, unless
we are hammering out for them those goals that ought to reflect
sensitivity to biblical norms, the world will not be at all
fastidious about impressing its standards and goals upon them. Should the goal be that they
have this much and that much accumulated in terms of earthly
possessions in the first five years of their marriage, and
therefore deliberately marry, choosing not to even attempt
to bear children for the first five years, so that they may
accumulate this, that, and the other? and then make a half-hearted
try at bearing children during the next five years while they
pursue this, that, and the other, and then, if it's convenient,
maybe children will enter the picture after the tenth year?
Are you allowing that perspective to take root among the young
people in your assembly? Among your own children? Your
own sons and your own daughters? Are you allowing them to conceive
of a situation in which it is to be considered normal that
both the father and the mother would be working outside of the
home in separate careers? As long as the Word of God clearly
says that the older women are to train, and the word for train
is not a standard word for teach, It literally means bring to sobriety. The older women are to help the
younger women to think with biblical sobriety about their God-given
role and task and place. And what is it according to the
Holy Ghost? Through the Apostle Paul in Titus
chapter 2. Let's look at it. Titus chapter
2. The older women are to train
the younger women to love their husbands, to love their children,
to be sober-minded, chaste, and then a compound word in the Greek,
the word worker and the word home. And it means exactly what
it says, workers at home. Kind, in subjection to their
own husbands, and look at the issue that's at stake, that the
Word of God not be blasphemed. How can the Word of God be blasphemed
if a woman does not have as her primary orientation in her goals
for marriage everything that relates to the domestic sphere? love husband, love children,
worker at home in subjection to her own husband, that the
Word of God be not blasphemed. Why? Because that God-assigned
sphere of her primary commitment is so plainly taught in the Word
of God that for anyone to claim to love the God of the book and
be obeying the God of the book and living in any other sphere
is to cause people to blaspheme And I say, if we are committed
from the depths of our being to see a reestablishment of godly
family life, then my brethren, my brothers and sisters, not
only must we maintain a biblical standard for the selection of
marriage partners, but maintain biblical standards for the goals
of potential marriage partners. Will they seek things, and along
the way, as is convenient, the kingdom of God? Or will they
view their union as a means further to pursue in strict obedience? Matthew 6, 33, Seek ye first
the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you. Are they marrying with a view
to turning inward upon themselves, seeking to find in one another
by a selfish insulation from a life of service to others that
happiness that will always elude them? For he that would save
his life shall lose it. He that would save his marriage
by feeding all of the energies and interest inward will lose
the very happiness that is sought That couple that loses its own
self-centered life, as Jesus said the same, shall save it. So if there's to be the reestablishment
of godly family life, it will ideally begin with the contracting
of godly marriages in brethren. It will not be a pattern amongst
us unless we maintain biblical standards for the selection of
marriage partners. Maintain biblical standards for
the goals of potential marriage partners. And thirdly, maintain
biblical standards for the commitments of marriage partners. Maintain
biblical standards for the commitments of marriage partners. And I do
not stand here to be your instructor, only your reminder. When our
Lord Jesus was questioned about the naughty issue of divorce,
You remember what he did in Matthew 19? He pointed them back to the
beginning, from the beginning. It was not so. He who made them
in the beginning made them male and female and said, for this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his
wife and the two shall become one flesh. So that they are no
more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder. And it will not do to take the
position that Dwight Harvey Small has taken in recent years and
others with him. that if along the road in the
marriage it becomes evident that the relationship is going sour
and the spark is gone and nothing can rekindle it, or if the marriage
has borne the shock of some unusual area of disruption through unfaithfulness
or through lack of fulfilling this or that commitment, we just
need to recognize this was a marriage God never made. and declare the
death of something God never made. That's how he conveniently
opts out of what therefore God has joined together. What sophistry! And yet it's hailed by evangelical
leaders on the book jacket as a marvelous restatement and reapplication
and more realistic insight to the scriptures that meets the
needs of our present day. So now the Bible must be twisted
to a covenant-breaking age. We're to see the reestablishment
of godly family life, brethren. We must maintain biblical standards
for the commitments of marriage partners. And you parents, and
you pastors involved in premarital counsel, if there's anything
that you underscore ad nauseum, underscore that once you walk
that aisle and consummate that relationship, you're in it for
keeps! And if it becomes a living hell,
you live in it, or lay hold of the grace of God to change it. But out of it you cannot jump,
because things ain't all you dreamed they'd be. Now granted, sexual infidelity
does give legitimate warrant for the marriage to be dissolved. It is not a command. and the
desertion of an unbelieving partner that cannot be rectified, 1 Corinthians
7. But my brethren, my sisters,
apart from those who accept clauses in the Scriptures, the commitments
for keeps, and for some of us who had no premarital counseling,
none whatsoever, We did have, some of us perhaps, some good
examples of what a solid marriage was, but there were few, if any,
books written from a Christian perspective. We just thought,
if I love her and she loves me and we both love the Lord and
we get married, it's all just going to work out just like that.
Now this didn't work out just like that. And I stand before
you as one who can testify that the first two or three years
of our marriage had lots of tears. Lots of late nights sitting up
with tears in an open Bible. But in wrestling through, how
can we make this thing work? One thing we knew we could not
do, and that was look back over our shoulder for a way out. It
was either through the difficulties and into a God-honoring marriage,
or suffer with all the unresolved areas of And in a day marked, I say, by
covenant breaking, may God help us to pass on as a legacy to
our young men and women this biblical standard for the commitments
that the marriage partners make one to another. So I lay before
you that first heading in our vision that we see the reestablishment
of godly family life It ideally begins with the contracting of
godly marriages. We will not see the contracting
of godly marriages unless these three principles take root amongst
us. Secondly, the reestablishment
of godly family life is built upon the nurturing of a godly
husband-wife relationship. The reestablishment of godly
family life is built upon the nurturing of godly husband-wife
relationships. God has so ordered it that he
gives every couple at least nine months to work on being a good
husband and a good wife before you have to begin to learn how
to be a good mom and a good daddy. Now God could have made us that
our gestation rate was the same as rabbits. He could have, but
he didn't. He didn't. And so in the very
physiology of the way God has made us, he is making it abundantly
clear to us, and in the creation order, he makes it clear that
it is the establishment of a stable godly husband-wife relationship
that the godly family finds its contours and its foundation. What is the essence of those
roles and relationships? I'm not telling you anything
new. I know that. You came here hoping to hear something profound.
Might as well get up and go out. You're going to hear things now
you've heard some of you many times, but have you really heard
them? For the husband, when we take what was read in our hearing
from Ephesians 5, and we collate it with 1 Peter 3, 7, husbands,
dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor unto
them as unto the weaker vessel. What is that distinctive role
of the husband that he is to cultivate? He is to cultivate
a loving, assertive, communicative, sensitive and nurturing headship
over his wife. That's his job description. That's
to be the way he relates to his wife. The husband is the head
of the wife. Assertion. Doesn't say he ought
to be. He ought to make an effort to
somehow dethrone her and get into his place. The husband is
the head of the wife. As Christ is the head of the
church. It's not a matter of whether
or not you're the head. It's a matter of whether or not you have the
holy gumption and divine wisdom and grace to be what you are. Or to weep out! God's constituted
you the head. But he says husbands, love in
that posture of headship. Love your wives. He doesn't say
rule them, govern them. love them as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for it, that he might present it
to himself a glorious church. So ought husbands to love their
wives as being their own bodies. They ought to love their wives
as themselves. Add to it Peter's word, dwell
with them according to knowledge, and what do you have? You have
the husband in utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and in
constant seeking by the Spirit to mortify his native insensitivity,
his native tendency to abuse his position of authority and
headship, his native tendency to draw into his own little world
and not communicate, his native tendency to judge his wife's
actions and reactions in terms of his own male perspectives
and not seek to know her, to get behind her eyeballs and under
her psyche and under her skin and to think and to feel as she
thinks and feels. He is to cultivate a loving,
assertive, communicative, sensitive, nurturing headship over his wife. See, in all of the preaching
that we do on Ephesians 5, there's something that is assumed in
the passage. It's not directly and explicitly
mentioned, but surely it's assumed. Husband's love as Christ loved
the church and gave himself for it. And how do you know He loved
the church and gave Himself for it? How do you know He nurtures
and cherishes it? How do you know He's going to
present it to Himself, a glorious church? And how do you know what
you must do in that process of ongoing purification? It's because
He's opened His heart and His mind in His Word. He's communicated His heart to
us. He is no mute Christ. who expects us to somehow read
the unspoken symbols of his love and of his nurturing care. I
love the imagery one author in an excellent book on Christian
manhood took from words used of a past president in our country. He said he was a man of steel
and of velvet. With respect to the commitment
to principle a willingness to bear the burden of leadership
and all that goes with it. He was a man of steel, but with
respect to how he impacted others, there was the softness, the invitingness
of David. Is not that very principle augmented
to infinity seen in our blessed Lord Jesus Christ? Little children were not intimidated
by him. When he needs one for an illustration,
he could say, hey, sonny, come here, sit on my knee for a minute.
Little kid doesn't stand up in a corner, cowering before this
austere figure. A woman taken in adultery does
not run away from him, but stands ashamed, yes, but there was something
so graciously inviting about his demeanor. And yet it's that same Christ
who with manly courage and manly strength weaves his scourge of
cords and goes into the temple and single-handedly dries out
all the beasts, overturns the tables, cleanses his house with
a ban of steel and the belt. My brethren, We're going to see
the reestablishment of godly family life. It will be built
upon the nurturing of godly husband-wife relationships, which means that
we men must first of all be committed to cultivating by every discipline
and means of grace at our disposal a loving, assertive, communicative,
sensitive, nurturing headship. over our wives. No wonder this
instruction in Ephesians 5 follows hard upon the command, be not
drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. And after giving
us five participles which show the, as we might call, the continuing
conduits of a Spirit-filled life, when he gets specific, he focuses
upon the husband-wife relationship, first of all, For surely a man,
every son of Adam, regardless of how God scrambled him up in
his mother's womb with what we might call the inclinations to
a more gentle, less volatile temperament, such a man will
need to be full of the Spirit to cultivate the steel of holy
assertiveness. Though he may not need anywhere
near much as much grace to be sensitive and nurturing and gentle. You see at some point or other
in terms of the way we've been put together every one of us
as men will need to be filled with the Spirit if we are to
nurture our relationship to our wives along biblical patterns
and for the wife when we bring together Ephesians 5, Titus 2-4 Genesis 2, 1 Corinthians 11,
what's the basic picture we get of that which the wife is to
be in relationship to the husband? She is to cultivate a loving,
yes, a loving, because Paul said the older women are to train
the younger women to love their husbands. And though loving the
husband is not mentioned in Ephesians 5, surely if the paradigm is
the relationship of the church to Christ, what is it? that constrains
you to submit yourself to Christ? Is it not the love for Christ
that the Spirit of God implanted in your heart when he brought
you to faith in Christ? And you have a faith that now,
according to Galatians, works by what? Works by love? Though the duty to love is not
explicitly mentioned in Ephesians 5, it's assumed in the whole
thrust of the passage, but it's explicitly mentioned in Titus
2-4 that women need to be trained how to love their husbands in
a biblical way. According to Genesis 2, the woman's
identity is bound up in her being a helper, answering to her husband's
need. You see, this is the real heart
of the nub of aggressive, intelligent feminism, if I may call such
madness intelligent. The thought that a woman's identity
is in any way connected with a man's, that is the thing that
raises the red flag. The intelligent, the well-schooled,
the articulate feminist is committed to this principle, I am what
I am as a woman without any reference to men whatsoever! And to tell a woman, look, the
very rationale for your existence, the way you exist, is you were
designed to be a helper answering to the man. You've thrown down
the gauntlet, my brethren. No, God threw it down in Eden. and he ain't never picked it
up. And so for you dear women, it
is to cultivate a loving, cooperative, respectful, let the wife see
that she reverence her husband, responsive submission. I say cooperative because in
this very passage, Though the fathers are addressed explicitly
in the nurture of the children in verse 4, the children are
commanded in verses 1 and 2 to obey father and mother, to honor
father and mother, clearly indicating that the father and mother are
cooperating in giving directives, in giving counsel and guidance
in the molding and in the nurturing of their children. The wife is
to cultivate a loving, cooperative, respectful, responsive submission. Would we see the reestablishment
of godly family life? Then we will only see it as it
is built upon the nurturing of godly husband-wife relationships. And the essence of those relationships
is captured if not exhaustively, at least in the broad strokes
of Scripture, in what I've attempted to set before you. But in addition
to this, the husband and wife are together to cultivate a sensitive,
selfless, mutually satisfying, intimate life. They are to cultivate
It is not something that comes naturally for most people. To
copulate is a natural biological urge and function. But hear the
word of God in 1 Corinthians 7. It is good for a man not to
touch a woman, but because of fornications, let each man have
his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. End of
discussion. Any time a husband has urges
that might tempt him to go elsewhere to have them released, let him
be intimate with his wife and vice versa. Just do what comes
naturally. No, no, no. The passage does
not stop there. Let the husband render unto the
wife her due, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. Ah, here the feminist screams,
the wife hath not power over her own body but the husband. And here all self-centered machoism
also screams for what was good for the ganders, good for the
goose. Likewise, the husband hath not
power over his own body but the wife. In terms of this responsibility
to cultivate a loving, cooperative, I'm sorry, a sensitive, selfless,
mutually satisfying, intimate life, the husband and wife in
this passage stand as equals under the Lordship of Christ.
And under the principles that were so clearly expounded to
us last night by Pastor Lamar from 1 Corinthians 6, 12, to
verse 20. Cultivate. Well, do you see what
that means? It means that there's got to
be a willingness to communicate verbally. There's got to be a
willingness to take time and cultivate openness to bring the
cross of Christ into this realm of our lives that in its power
we may slay on the one hand all prudery leading to an awkward
silence so that a husband does not know how to render to his
wife her due because she's mute. She was told that sex is dirty. Good girls don't think about
these things, much less talk about them. How can a man committed
to obey Christ, obey Christ, if the wife will not communicate
and vice versa? It is the cross of Christ that
enables us to slay prudery and all thinking concerning our intimate
life that would keep us from obedience to this directive. So I ask you, As parents, are
you preparing, wives especially, are you preparing your daughters
chastely, wisely, by bits and pieces, not only in terms of
your general attitude to your intimate life with your husband,
but by explicit instruction as age and readiness and circumstances
demand, so that when they walk down that aisle and your husband
gives that young woman, we hope, a pure virgin to that godly young
man mutually selecting one another on the basis of biblical standards
and principles. She goes off on her honeymoon
with realistic biblical expectations and solidly biblically framed
perspectives of her intimate life. And you fathers, are you
doing this with your sons? I have been appalled at times
when I've spoken to young men just before their wedding. They've
gone through the premarital counseling tapes. I may have given them
certain literature a week or two before. And when I've said,
now, how much has your dad spoken to you about these things? Pastor,
he didn't tell me nothing. Many times, Christian fathers We have a responsibility, particularly
in the light of this text, to avoid sexual impurity because
of fornications! Let each man have! Let each woman
have! And dear brethren, in this age,
if we do not have as a sacred wall around us, in this sensitive
area, a selfless, mutually satisfying, intimate life, we're going to
be sitting ducks for scandalous impurity. Involved in that, of course,
is something some of us don't want to face. When God said to
Ezekiel in chapter 24, verses 15 and 16 of Ezekiel's prophecy,
strange words. God was going to have strange
dealings with him. But he could say to the prophet,
who was no spring chicken at the time, the word of the Lord
came unto me saying, Son of man, behold, I take away from you
the desire of your eyes. with a stroke. You shall neither
mourn, nor weep, nor tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud. Make no mourning for the dead.
Bind thy head-tire upon thee." Verse 18, I spoke unto the people
in the morning, and at even my wife died. God describes his
wife. It's the only place I know in
Scripture where God uses that terminology. He said, I'm going
to take away from you the desire of your eyes. Imagine if Ezekiel
had turned and said, Lord, what in the world are you talking
about? She ceased to be the desire of my eyes long ago. She's become
such a fat, slobby, dowdy old woman. It takes all the grace
I can muster to look at her with any sense of delight. Ezekiel
apparently didn't have to say that. And whatever age had done
to put a sag here and a droop there, she was still something
to look at. And furthermore, to show that
he only had eyes for her when the Lord said, Today I take away
the desire of thine eyes! The devil didn't say, Which one,
Lord? Which one? There are four or five that I
look upon from the pulpit, Sunday by Sunday, Sabbath by Sabbath,
Wishing that I had them in bed! No, when God said, The desire
of thine eyes! Ezekiel knew that his wife was
that, and he knew there was only one who fit the description.
Now you dear wives, that's the challenge upon you. To continue
to be the desire of your husband's eyes. And so to carry yourself
and keep yourself not to defy age, and gravity, and wrinkles,
and the loss of subcutaneous fat in the folds of your face,
no, no, none of that foolishness, nothing more stupid-looking than
a 70-year-old woman keeping her hair jet black and trying to
rub out her wrinkles with pink mud. Well, I need not say I trust
any more on that, but I hope I've carried your conscience.
Do we have a vision to see re-established godly family life? Then it will
be re-established not only as we encourage the contracting
of godly marriages, the nurturing of godly husband-wife relationships,
but thirdly, the re-establishment of godly family life is augmented
by creating godly parent-child dynamics. The reestablishment
of godly family life is augmented by creating godly parent-child
dynamics. And I didn't know what other
word to use, and I didn't have enough time to use my Rodale
synonym finder and root around to come up with a better one.
But you know what I mean by dynamics. the basic chemistry, what kind
of electricity flows between people, what drives, as it were,
the relationships. Let me ask you a question. I
asked it of the two brethren in the car driving over tonight.
When you walk into a home, and you're there for about 15 minutes
to half an hour, and husband and wife are present, and children
say from at least three years old onward, it's not fair to
judge it below three in any given half hour period. You may have
a little one-year-old who's cutting certain molars and a two-year-old
that just come off the whooping cough and they're all out of
their patterns and you might totally misjudge the climate
of that home. So let's make a fair assessment. There's a structure
where it's in the interest of charity, you can make a fair
assessment. You walk into a home and if you're in that home for
half an hour and you say, this is family life, the way it ought
to be. What are the things that usually
stand out in bold relief as the primary characteristics of that
kind of home that makes you respond that way? Think for a minute. Think of
the homes into which you've walked. I hope it's been true of many
of the homes into which you men have gone this week. One of the
reasons we open our homes to you pastors If what is preached
is not being validated in our homes, it's time we knew it.
We faced up to it. We did something about it. But
what are those major dynamics that, without even analyzing
it, you pick up on them and you say, this is family life the
way it ought to be. May I suggest it will usually
be at least these three things? Many times more. But tell me
if these do not carry your own conscience and answer to your
own visceral sense of what makes a godly family. First of all,
there's a pervasive climate of principled love. You're in that
home for half an hour and you say, whatever the glue is that
keeps this thing together, it's got written all over it, principled
love. It isn't that everybody's going
to everyone else every five minutes and stroking them and saying,
oh, sweetie, honey, sweetie, honey, honey, sweetie, sweetie,
honey. Saccharine gush. But when it's time for the husband
to ask the wife when you're going to eat, you don't get the impression
she's somehow the hired servant. She's his wife. the very way
he asked her honey when will dinner be ready you sense in
his eyes by the tone of his voice she's a noble woman not the servant under his feet
and when she responds you sense in her tone no irritation well
you know honey it'll be it'll be on when it's ready you sense in the way she responds
that she's glad to give a sense of direction to the noble leader
in that home who's seeking to orchestrate the next major activity
for the household and for the guests. And her response is indicative
of a principled love. And when the dad tells the kids
to wash their hands the way they respond, you sense that their
obedience is not the appeal of this daddy. for fear they'll get caned forty
times in the shed if they come down with one spot of dirt. No,
you sense their response was one of loving obedience. Isn't
that the thing that dominates in the dynamics of a home that
when you go into it and you say, this is what a home ought to
be, it's the presence, it is the activity, it is the oozing
out of all of the interrelationships of the climate of principled
love. And you know, if you stayed long
enough, you'd be able to sit there with 1 Corinthians 13 and
have it exegeted before your eyes. It'd say, ah, there's love
that's suffering long. Ah, there's love that's not quickly
provoked. Ah, there's love that's believing
all things, putting the best construction on things. You'd
see 1 Corinthians 13 lived out before your eyes. The godly dynamics, pervasive
climate of principle love, a pronounced atmosphere, hear me now, of mutual
respect and appropriate submission. A pronounced atmosphere of mutual
respect and appropriate submission. We're in the realm now of manners
and courtesy. no demeaning of the kids, so
that they hang their heads with an unnecessary embarrassment.
The little ones, and not so little ones, may have their part in
helping get the table set. And when one of them is bringing
out the plates, lo and behold, being conscious that visitors
are present, and a little bit awkward in their presence, he
dropped the stack of plates. How did dad respond? You dummy! Did he go over and say, son or
sweetheart, daddy knows you didn't mean to do that. Maybe the next
time you ought to just bring out two plates at a time. You
sense that the father respects the dignity of the child as an
image bearer of God. And though he is in authority,
he treats the child with dignity. And though he is head over his
wife, he treats her with dignity. That's the very thing that is
captured in that word in 1 Timothy 3.4, the requirement for an elder
having his children in subjection with all semnoptetos, that is,
with respectability, with dignity. a pronounced atmosphere, mutual
respect, and appropriate submission. And then there's a third thing.
Tell me if this doesn't answer to your viscera as well. When
you go into a home where you've been there a while and say, this
is what a home ought to be, this is one of the other major dynamics
you're picking up. There is a profound sense of
distinct masculinity and femininity displayed throughout the structure
of that family. There is a profound sense of
distinct masculinity and femininity displayed throughout the whole
structure of that family. Because the matters of masculinity
and femininity are in the earliest years and all the way through
fundamentally imitative and assimilative A boy understands what masculinity
is by what he observes and absorbs from his dad. And long before
dad can conceptually and biblically expound to him the biblical doctrine
of masculinity, he is, as it were, impregnating the soul and
the psyche of that boy with what masculinity is. by the power
of imitation and the power of assimilation. And likewise, a
mother and a wife with femininity, if she is dressed with that beautiful
adornment that Peter says is a meek and a quiet spirit which
in the sight of God is of great price. God's not impressed with
the external adornment that may cost much that Macy's or Stern's,
but when he sees That inner adornment of the meek and the quiet spirit. He says, that is of great price.
That's there because my son died. That's there because on the grounds
of the death of my son, I've imparted my spirit to that true
daughter of Abraham. And by the mighty operations
of the Spirit given to her gratuitously on the grounds of the suffering
and the bloodletting and the substitution, a curse bearing
of the Son of God, I see the meek and the quiet spirit. It is of great price. And so
you sense when you go into that home that there's only one pair
of pants and who wears them. You don't have to be there three
days to find out who's calling the shots. You are there a half
an hour, and you sense in this man there is this expression
of sanctified but real, aggressive, hands-on directive in the ordering
of the affairs of that home. And you sense in his wife that
she is there almost as his shadow, an extension of his mind and
will. And when you've worked this way
for years, it's spooky at times. You seem to be able to pick up
the vibes of each other's mind when you're in other rooms in
the house. My wife and I at times have said that something's going
fishy here. I'll come down from the study
and say, honey, she said, yes, there's something I think I know
what you're going to say to me. And sure enough, she does. Why? It goes though the relationship
is one of submission and headship. It is a relationship fundamentally
of spiritual, and in the truest sense, psychological intimacy,
constantly nurtured by communication and self-disclosure. So there
is not a totally ironclad predictability. At times my wife will still throw
something at me way out of right field and I'll say, honey, I
never would have thought that. And she gets a twinkle in her
eye and says, well, I just want to keep you honest. I just want
to keep life interesting. But that notwithstanding, the
principle you see is that in such a home, there's no question,
given all due diversity of temperament, some women more bubbly, some
more reserved. It's not a matter of temperament.
It's a matter of a spiritual grace wrought in the texture
of the soul by the Holy Ghost. And the children, it's very interesting.
You'll see the little boys trying to do what dad does. And if dad
is the gentleman who pulls back the chair for mom, he proudly
goes around to pull back the chair for his sister. Because
that's what a man does. He treats a woman with the symbols
of her dignity. He doesn't demean her because
she's the weaker vessel. He gives her honor because she's
the weaker vessel. I just found out this week. Never
bothered to ask, but it's nice to know someone should ask me.
We've had so many weddings here, and I've given away my two daughters. Do you know why the bride is
always on the groom's left hand when they stand down there? You
know why? I didn't know why. The Breeders'
Digest helped me find out this week. In the days when warriors would
at times take their brides by force in the towns that they
conquered taking them back to their own domiciles they kept
their right hand free in order to draw their sword and fend
off the critters that might want to come and take the beautiful
young woman they were taken out of town that's supposedly given
as the real reason but whether that's so or not Brethren, in all seriousness,
do you see the principle, the words, chivalry, and the concepts
of deference to women, honor to women, men standing when women
enter a room, things that are looked upon as social anachronisms
in our day? No! They were symbols of masculinity
and femininity that had percolated down into what we call innocuous
social customs. It's a tragedy. They're well-nigh
gone because that which supported them and gave birth to them is
gone. And if we are to have godly family life re-established, brethren,
sisters, we must have a profound sense of distinct masculinity
and femininity displayed throughout the entire climate of our home. And that means the kind of clothing
that we ordinarily have in our homes. Because an image is being
assimilated and imitated. Well then, my time has gone.
Let me just touch very briefly on what again has been amplified
in great measure by many of you men with your own people as I
say in one sense I feel I would feel an element of embarrassment
that I was insulting your spiritual intelligence by going back over
such fundamental issues did not Peter do that when he said I
tell you these things not because you don't know them and not because
you aren't practicing them but he says I think it meet to stir
you up by way of remembrance. If we are to have the reestablishment
of godly family life, then we must see that such is crowned
by the impartation of godly discipline and instruction. The godly family
life that ideally begins with the contracting of godly marriages,
moves to the nurturing of godly husband-wife relationships, is
augmented by creating godly parent-child dynamics, such godly family life
is crowned by the impartation of godly discipline and instruction. And here, of course, the watershed
text was read in your hearing, Ephesians 6, And verse 4, And
ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture
them, the totality of their God-given humanity, as image-bearers, fallen
image-bearers, marred image-bearers, yes, but nurture them in the
chastening and admonition of the Lord. And while the fathers
have the primary administrative leadership in that impartation
of godly discipline and instruction, mothers are the well-informed,
cooperative aids in the task, as verses 1 and 2 clearly indicate. Children, obey your parents!
Assuming that the mother is involved in the giving of directives and
of instruction and correction, honor thy father and honor thy
father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise. And here, my brethren, the materials
available to us in our day are shamefully profuse. There is not an aspect of what
it means to impart godly discipline and instruction that is not received
more than adequate exegetical and applicatory treatment in
whole series of sermons and books and seminars and conferences
and retreats. You see, the problem with many
of us now is not knowing. It's the problem that James had
to address. It's being hearers only and not
doers. Because we know if we're to do
what this text says to nurture them in the chastening and admonition
of the Lord, we have got to make ourselves aware of what is involved
in a full-orbed commitment to full-orbed character development
in our sons and daughters. what is involved in reasonable
physical culture, what is involved in mental discipline, what is
involved in aesthetic cultivation, and a host of other things that
are involved in nurturing them, all that God has made them with
all of that potential, and this is not something to which we
can give a little attention once in a while and hope everything
will turn all right because we have family worship and go to
a Reformed Baptist church and homeschool them or send them
to a Christian school. It's a task that demands constant,
wearisome vigilance. constantly looking for the indications
of character weaknesses and tendencies, which you see, if not corrected
here, at the point of the triangle. There's only this much distance
between a virtue and a vice in a given area, but you see that
out here, 20 years later... Oh, I thank God for a mother
who was always looking from the point of the triangle down the
road to a 30, 40, 50 year old man. And her words still ring in my
ear. And I'm tempted to cheat on that
next dimension of pushing an issue to the point where I could
with real certainty nail down the significance of that word
or phrase. And I'm tempted to back off and
her words ring in my ear. Son, the job worth doing is worth
doing well. Wrap the cloth around your finger
and poke it in the corner when you scrub the floor. scrub brush
leaves that little bit unwashed and the floor is not scrubbed
until the corner is clean. No time! She didn't have an automatic
washer and dryer! Never had a day of paid help! Bore eleven children! No time! No. No will. That's the problem. No will! How can you do this, women? When
if you're honest, and if you're not honest, I challenge you to
be. Get a 3x5 card and put it by your telephone. And when you
get on that phone, mark the time. And when you get off, mark it
down. And total up how much time you're yakking on the phone throughout
the day. and then total up how much time
you've sat with your sons and daughters working on facets of
character development and look the ugly reality square in the
eye and then go down on your knees and cry to God for forgiveness. You men, get honest about how
much time is frittered away that could be spent pouring over the
wonderful legacy of Scott that has been reprinted, taken up
out of the rubble of indifference and brought forward in our day.
The trilogy of books that our brother George McDiarmid has
helped to see the light of day. The reprint of James James' book
on female piety. My wife's been reading sections
of it to me. It's profound and moving in its
insights. Spend the time absorbing these
things and asking God for wisdom to know how to impart them to
your sons and your daughters. Dear people, listen. If you think,
if the Lord tarries, just because our kids sit under sound teaching
and preaching and are catechized and homeschooled in Christian
school, it's all going to turn out all right. God have mercy
if any of you will round long enough to see the fruit. of what
will happen in the next generation if we are not committed to pay
the price to crown our godly family life with the kind of
discipline and instruction that shows at least a measure of sensitivity
to the full spectrum of concerns of the Book of Proverbs. where
Solomon is concerned to instruct his son, not just in a modicum
of basic biblical principles about knowing God and hating
sin, but he instructs him in the full spectrum of the issues
that he will face in life. He doesn't assume. He'll just
know how to do the right thing, doing what comes naturally. Our vision for these days Surely,
brethren, you would agree with me. It is that we would see the
reestablishment of godly family life. And I submit to you, if
we are to see that with the blessing of God and by the enablement
of the Holy Spirit, then we must come to grips with these principles
and many more that I've sought to set before you tonight. Such
family life ideally begins with the contracting of godly marriages,
is built upon the nurturing of godly husband-wife relationships,
is augmented by creating godly parent-child dynamics, and is
crowned with the impartation of godly discipline and instruction. And when we hear those things,
we say, who is sufficient for these things? And we come back
to Ephesians 5. Be filled with spirit. You can't
be filled with the Spirit unless you're indwelt by the Spirit,
and you can't be indwelt by the Spirit while you're yet an impenitent
rebel against God. And you who are parents and have
the awesome privilege and frightening responsibility of the nurture
of those lives, if there were no other reason for you to repent
of living for yourself and loving your sin and going to Christ
to become a Christian, this were reason enough, lest you betray
the souls of your own precious children. I urge you, if you're
not in Christ, take the shortest route to get to Him. And if you're
in Him, and I assume on good grounds I believe that the majority
of you here tonight are, then I urge you to be filled, constantly
filled with the Spirit. Do not grieve Him by unconfessed
sin. Keep short accounts with God.
Do not quench His influence by stiff-arming the arrows of His
truth that have found you even tonight. But ask God to have
mercy upon you. Find a secret place before you
pillow your head and have dealings with God. And if the climate
of your home is not that climate that we describe, with those
dynamics, gather the family and tell them, God has shown me this
is what our home is. This is what it ought to be.
And Daddy confesses his sin. And Daddy's committed to seeing
a transformation. I close with this one simple
anecdote and a number of you will be able to relate to it.
It's been very humbling and encouraging to hear how many of you have
taken the series on how not to foul up the training of your
children and have used it in various ways in your own assemblies
and to meet people in conferences and the rest who have indicated
how God has used that. And one of the strange ways God
used it in our own assembly with a couple that I've had counseling
with over a number of years, on a number of occasions, where
there were some real burrs of tension in the relationship.
It wasn't open, it wasn't scandalous, but it was real to them, real
to the progeny in the home, real to me, but we'd reached an impasse. We'd sort of just put it on the
back burner for God to take the situation in hand in his own
way and time, And lo and behold, when I was in one of the opening
studies speaking about the climate of the home that we ought to
seek to create, one of love and warmth and acceptance, as opposed
to one of tension and bitterness and rejection, apparently God
sent an arrow to the heart of that husband in a marriage that
was several decades old. And home, in my understanding,
has said something like this, honey, that was a description
of our home. And it's not right, and it's got to stop, and by
the grace of God it's going to stop. And it has stopped. Somebody had to come to the place
where they said enough's enough. Are you in that place? I ask
you pastors here, since the only requirement in 1 Timothy 3 that
is amplified is ruling well his own house. If a man rule not
well his own house, how shall he take care of the church of
God? Can you invite your people into your home? And could they
go away saying, I don't know what it is, but the dynamics
of that home just, it's just what a home ought to be! And
could someone sit down with them and say, let me help you. Was
it that in that home you sense a climate of principle love? That's it. Was it that in that
home you sense that there was a climate of respect and submission
to authority but with respect among all. That's it, that's
it, that's it, that's it. Was it that in that home you
sensed the man was a man and the boys were boys and the woman
was a woman and the girls, that's it? Would they be able to say
that in your home? You answer before God, but answer honestly. The Lord
help us that we, his servants, will never, never think we can
afford to coast, but by the grace of God be standard bearers in
the restoration of godly family life in our generation. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you once
again that your words is a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto
our pathway. And we pray that the principles
and precepts of your word that we have together considered this
night may take deep root in all of our hearts, and taking root
downward, O God may it bear fruit upward. May there be repentance
where repentance is in order. May there be renewed encouragement
where that is in order. May there be confirmation where
that is in order. Lord, use your word in all the
ways that you know it is needed in the hearts of your people.
Seal that word and may it bear fruit unto everlasting life.
Thank you for this day. Thank you for one another. Thank
you for your mercy. Thank you that we've been privileged
to meet in the peace and safety of this building. Thank you for
all of your mercies. Dismiss us now with your blessing
and your grace resting upon us and working mightily in us through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.