The. The. The End Oh. The. The. Now again, not being certain
whether or not there are any among us in this hour who have
not been with us for all or some of the previous sessions, let
me take just a moment to underscore what we have been dealing with
in this conference and where we are in our present treatment
of that subject. The theme of the conference has
been announced as the Christians' role in a wicked society. And in the first two messages
I sought to exegete that subject by demonstrating from the scriptures
that our generation is indeed a generation that in biblical
categories could be called a wicked generation. And then we attempted
to define what a Christian is. For it is only a true Christian
who has a divinely mandated role in this or in any generation. And then in our first session
this morning, in the adult, I'm sorry, in our session last night,
We concentrated on the heart of the Christian's role in a
wicked society, and I sought to describe that role under two
very simple headings, one positive, one negative. The negative being
that the Christian must not allow the wickedness of this generation
to shape his thinking or his lifestyle in any area. positively stated, the Christian
is to be transformed in all of his thinking and patterns of
life according to the standard of God. And we unpacked three
key texts under each of those headings. And while I said in
the introduction in the adult class that if I had ten or twelve
more sermons in this theme and in this conference, there are
many issues that I would like to address, because I had at
that time only three more sessions, we addressed one issue that certainly
must be addressed if we are in any sense to be lights shining
in the midst of the darkness of this generation, and it is
the issue of sexual identity, function, and purity. And if you were not here for
that hour, I commend the tape to you not because I believe
there is anything unusually profound in it, but because I do believe
it sets forth in a somewhat comprehensive way the biblical teaching on
what it is for us as Christians to refuse to let this present
evil age stamp its notions of sexual identity, function, and
purity upon our minds and thereby regulate our lives, but what
it is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds unto the
actual performance of the will of God in our lives, of God's
perspectives on sexual identity, what is it to be a man, to be
a woman, function, what are the specific roles assigned to men
and women, and then in particular sexual purity and integrity,
what is it to exercise this mysterious faculty of sexual desire and
appetite and procreative stewardship in a manner that glorifies God. Now in this hour I want to take
up a second specific area in which that twofold essence of
the Christian's role must be applied with great prayerfulness
and thoroughness. The second area in which we must
refuse to let this present age mold our thinking and shape our
practice, but rather be renewed in our minds and transformed
in our lives. And it is the area of domestic
piety, order, and stability, or stated differently, striving
to attain God-honoring family life. You have no idea of the
tremendous impact of a well-ordered, God-directed family structure
in this present crooked and perverse generation. For one of the tragic
results of the public educational system at every level And the
pressures brought to bear by materialism and an economic system
geared to have the so-called two-member working family has
been to erode, if not to disintegrate, God's norm for family life. And so my entreaty to you is,
if you're serious, about fulfilling God's assigned role for you in
this wicked generation, then you must strive to attain a God-honoring
family life. And that must begin with right
thinking about family living. And so I want to address, first
of all, the husband-wife relationship, and then secondly, and more briefly,
the parent-child relationship, and then even more briefly, the
child-parent relationship. And as best I know, unless you
have domestic servants, or a mother-in-law, or a father-in-law, or some other
abnormality that constitutes the structure of the family. First of all, then, the husband-wife
relationship, and under that heading I want to say two things.
First of all, there must be an accurate understanding of the
unchangeable God-assigned role of the husband and of the wife. There must be an accurate understanding
of the unchangeable God-assigned role of the husband and the wife. You say, Pastor Martin, why do
you use so many words in your headings? Because words are important
things, dear people. And I don't choose them just
to fill up space on my notes or in your brain. We are concerned
not with the changeable opinions of men. We are concerned not
with the changeable social mores of any given society, be it our
own or another. We are not concerned with the
roles assigned by the social experts and the social experimenters. We're concerned with unchangeable,
God-assigned roles. And as long as God is God, who
designed marriage, and as long as he's revealed his mind in
scripture, which though heaven and earth pass away, shall never
pass away, then we are dealing with unchangeable, God-assigned
roles for husbands and wives. Now the key passages, I trust
most of you know where they are. Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3, and then
a brief passage that parallels Ephesians chapter 5, Colossians
3, 18 and 19. I omit Proverbs 31 in that category
for several reasons, not because it is not important, But we're
thinking now of these roles as they are defined in the New Covenant
documents, surrounded by the realities of the full, revealed
redemption of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And that reality plays so heavily
in the God-assigned role in the New Covenant documents that I
am limiting my references to those documents. Now, what is
the obvious teaching, then, on this matter? Well, let us turn
to Ephesians, chapter 5, and root around in that passage for
a few moments together this morning. Since the passage begins with
addressing wives, we will give honor to the ladies among us
and start with them. Having called all believers to
a life of mutual subjection one to another within the body of
Christ, verse 21 of chapter 5, subjecting yourselves one to
another in the fear of Christ, the last of five channels by
which a spirit-filled life is to be manifested, For Paul had
said in verse 18, Be ye being filled with the Spirit, and then
there are five participles describing the five channels cut by a Spirit-filled
life, and the last is the maintenance of a spirit of mutual subjection
to one another in the fear of Christ. You see, the general
doctrine of the fear of God, living with a passionate concern
to have God smile and to avoid His frown, in the New Covenant
is even called the fear of Christ. For our whole religious experience
is brought to us with all of the glorious realities of the
person and work of Christ suffusing Christian duty and privilege. Then he turns from that general
directive and says, wives, and if you have an older translation
that supplies words and lets you know when it's supplying
words by putting them in italics, you will see the words be in
subjection are in italics. It simply says, wives, unto your
own husbands as unto the Lord. And it is the participle subjecting
yourself that is carried over into this passage from the general
submission that all brethren are to render one to another
as members of the body of Christ under the Lordship of Christ,
Wives are to render a unique subjection to their own husbands. Not to all men, but to their
own husbands. For the husband is the head of
the wife, whether he exercises that headship as he ought or
not. He is the head of the wife, as
Christ also is the head of the church, being Himself the Savior
of the body. But, as the church is subject
to Christ, so let the wives be to their husbands in everything. And then the final directive
to the wives, verse 33, nevertheless do you also severally love each
one his own wife, even as himself, and let the wife see that she
fear, that is, that she reverence, that she stand in a proper awe
of her husband in his person and in his position. Now, to
bring these directives into some simple statements that do not
simplify to the point of distorting their meaning, what is the will
of God, the good, the acceptable and the perfect, for every wife
in this place, for every single woman who hopes to be a wife,
for every girl that may someday be a wife? Well, first of all,
you are called to a Christ-centered submission to your husband. Verse
22, Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands as unto the
Lord. You are called to a Christ-centered
submission to your husband. That's the significance of the
words, as unto the Lord. In other words, you cannot have
a viable, genuine, spiritual relationship to Christ and be
insubordinate to your husband. You cannot enjoy true spiritual
communion with Christ, your Lord, while refusing to do what your
Lord says with reference to your husband. You are called to a
Christ-centered submission to your husband, which on the one
hand undercuts any superpiocity of someone who claims to be spiritual,
while wearing the pants and calling the shots and assuming the headship
of the home, But it also undercuts any unqualified submission, for
the supreme loyalty of the wife is not to her husband, but to
her Lord. That's why he says, be in subjection
to your husband as unto the Lord. so that at any point where the
husband should ever demand that which is contrary to the revealed
will of the Lord Christ, not only does the woman have the
privilege, she has a moral obligation to disobey him. A husband does
not have unqualified authority over his wife. Only the Lord
Jesus Christ has that. And so you, as a Christian wife,
are called to a Christ-centered submission to your husband. When you pray, Lord Jesus, I
would please you this day, your Lord says, please me by being
in subjection to your husband as unto me. Secondly, you are
called to a protective submission to your husbands. Where do you
find that? Well, if you look down at verse
23b, For the husband is the head of
the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, being himself
the Savior, the guardian, the protector of the body. Your submission to your husband
is not only to be Christ-centered, it is to be a protective submission. You are to be submissive to him
as the church submits to her Savior and Protector. The Church is subject to the
very Christ who gives Himself to save her from sin, to guard
and to protect her, and to bring her at last safely into His presence. You are called then to a protective
submission. This obliquely tells us something
about what a husband is to be. He is to take the role of the
protector of his wife, of her physical and mental and psychological
well-being, her protector from physical danger. And as you rear
your sons, may God help you men to rear men who have a sense
of commitment to protect women. I am angered by men who selfishly
and crassly Show no sensitivity or desire to be the protector
of women, of their honor, of their well-being. This is the
kind of submission to which you are called. Thirdly, you are
called to an all-inclusive submission to your husbands. Verse 24, But
as the church is subject to Christ, And when the Church is in her
life what she ought to be, Christ does not exercise His will in
one department or another, but Christ exercises His sovereign
rights in the totality of the life of His Church as the Church
is subject to Christ, receiving all of her directives from Christ
the Head. So let the wives be to their
husbands in everything where they agree with them, in everything where they're convinced
their husband knows better, in everything where they feel their
opinion has been duly sought, no such qualification is given. Now, if you're a wise husband,
you'll seek your wife's input in your decision-making, because
God, when he gave Adam, Eve, to be a helper answering to his
need, He didn't just give him a blind, a blonde bombshell with
a BB brain. He gave her a woman with as much
gray matter as he had. And if Adam had any sense, when
he was going to arrange a certain part of the garden, he would
have said, Eve, come over here. I think this would fit best here
and there, but you look at it with your feminine eyes and you
tell me what you think. God made a helper answering to
his need. He did this and make a dummy.
who'd be a good companion in bed, he made someone who could
help him in the fulfillment of his task, who would cooperate
with him in the dominion he was to exercise. This notion that
headship means, I go into my closet, weigh the issues, and
come out and announce to my wife and family what we're going to
do, my dear friend, that is nothing but sickening machoism. If you
run your house that way, God have mercy on you. I pity your
poor wife. And I've seen in reformed circles
men thinking that's headship, that's tyranny, it's stupidity. But nonetheless, all those qualifications
and husband bashing notwithstanding, wives, listen to what God says
to you, wives, be subject to your husbands in everything.
In everything! In everything! Yes, but in everything! Yes, but in everything! Up to the point that a husband
expects and demands that which would be patently disobedience
to God's law, you are called to an all-inclusive submission.
Fourthly, you're called to a respectful demeanor to his person. Verse 33. And let the wife see
that she fear. That doesn't mean go around trembling. Old macho husband's going to
come in with a frown, cracking the whip and bawling us all out.
No. It means that there is a reverence. In your whole demeanor toward
your husband's person, you recognize him as God's appointed representative
to administer the rule of God in your home. Seeking your input,
sensitive to your feminine perspectives, yes, all of that is true. But
nonetheless, you are called upon to reverence him, you are called
to a respectful demeanor to his person and his position." Now,
that's not all that complicated, is it? It's amazing how the market
is cluttered with all kinds of books on family relationships,
when right here in Ephesians, Paul, by the inspiration of the
Spirit, says, Wives, be in submission to your husbands as unto the
Lord. You're called to a Christ-centered
submission to your husband. He is Himself the Savior of the
body. You're called to a protective
submission to your husband. You have a right to expect that
in the exercise of His headship over you, He's committed to protect
you, to keep you from allowing undue demands, to crush you physically
and emotionally, to keep you from undue frequency of pregnancies. that will turn you into an old
woman before you're 30. He won't just make you into a
baby factory under the name of piosity. It's a protective submission. You are called to an all-inclusive
submission in everything and a respectful demeanor to his
person, reverence your husband. Now that's not a very complicated
job description, is it? You don't need to run around
the bookstores and get ten books about it. It means exactly what
it says. And what you need to do as a
Christian wife is to get on your knees, and if there's no time
tomorrow, get on your knees while your hands are in the sink. Say,
O Lord, this day, as unto you, I embrace my husband's headship. And O Lord, help me this day. to know what it is to feel the
comfort and the strength that comes from having a husband committed
to protect me. And the more I joyfully submit,
the more it will stir him up if he's a man of God to exercise
a protective headship over me. He'll regard me as a precious
treasure, not a chattel to whom he gives orders. But as Christ
loves and tenderly cares for his church and protects it so
he will me, And then I am, Lord, to be submissive in all things,
even to those things when we've talked about it and we don't
agree. It's at that point that your submission is put to the
test. Really, your submission's not put to the test when you
both agree as to what should be done anyway. But it's when
you've talked it through and hubby says, Dear, the buck stops
with me before God, and I'm convinced this is what we ought to do.
And you say, Dear, I respectfully disagree, but I principally and
religiously submit And you're not going to hear another thing
about it. Even if, five weeks from now, the facts prove you
were right, I was right and you were wrong, I promise not to
rub it under your nose. Because that would not be reverencing
your husband, that would be demeaning him. Now that's not very complicated,
is it, women? That's what God says. And if
you are to refuse to be conformed to the spirit of this age, and
be transformed by the renewing of your mind to prove the good
and acceptable and perfect will of God, you will lay to heart
that simple fourfold directive and say, O God, enable me so
to live by the power of the Spirit. And you husbands, what's he say
to you? It's very interesting. Not one
command to rule. Wives submit. You'd think the
parallel would be husband's rule. No. He assumes that you will
take your place of headship and rule. Verse 23, the husband is
the head of the wife, and he assumes that you have entered
into the marriage relationship, understanding that the burden
of leadership and headship falls upon you. And assuming that burden,
Here is God's fourfold job description to you husbands. Number one,
verse 25. Husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church. And here's the key phrase, and
gave himself up for it. You husbands are called to a
Christ-reflecting commitment to self-giving love to your wife. That's it. You're called to a
Christ-reflecting commitment of self-giving love to your wife. Husbands love your wives even
as after the pattern and standard of Christ, who, loving His bride,
did not give up something external to Himself. A world here, or
a galaxy there, but He gave Himself. His holy, theanthropic Person,
the God-Man, laid down His life. He gave Himself. And Paul says, you husbands,
love your wives with a Christ-reflecting commitment to self-giving love
to them. Secondly, you're called to a
sanctified, self-like love to your wives. And I've wrestled
for years to try to find the best way to say that, and I'm
still not satisfied. You're called to a sanctified,
self-like love to your wives. Look at verses 28 to 30. Even
so, ought husbands also to love their own wives, not as though
they were their own bodies, but as, as being their own bodies. The twos have become one flesh.
That's why he says, he that loveth his own wife loves himself. For
no man ever hated his own flesh. The two have become one flesh.
We are now one. But he nourishes and cherishes
it, even is Christ also the church, because we are members of his
body. For this cause shall a man leave
his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they too shall
become one flesh. I don't know what else to call
this, but what I've called it, a sanctified self-like love that
is to be extended to our wives. Now what man ever hated his own
flesh? Did you ever go along the street
and find a man sitting on the curb with a butcher knife, chopping
off his fingers a half inch at a time? Whoo, that was nice. Kick that one away. Chop off
another. Kick that away. No, no man ever hated his own
flesh unless he was crazy. But what happens? You're working
in the backyard and you get a thorn, you drop all your tools, come
inside, think you've died, and you come whining to your wife,
and, oh, I've got a big thorn. And so everybody's got to stop
what they're doing until we can get that thorn out. Why? Because
you love and cherish your own flesh. When it's time to eat,
you're at the table. Why? Because you naturally love
and cherish your own flesh. There's nothing wrong with that.
It is proper that we should have a care for the well-being of
our own flesh. That's why I call it a sanctified
self-love. But he said that is now to be
extended to our wives, because they are now bone of our bone,
flesh of our flesh. We are one. I am to be as careful
and solicitous for the thorn in her finger as I am for the
thorn in mine. And as much as I want to be understood
when I have a need, I will want to be understanding when she
has a need. As much as I long to be comforted,
and in that sense nourished, when I have felt pain and disappointment,
I will long to be the comforter when she has felt pain and disappointment. No man ever hated. His own flesh,
but nourishes and cherishes it. And so we are cold, even so ought. That's a word of obligation.
It has nothing to do with what you feel. You may wake up on
a given day feeling grumpy, as old Grumpy himself in Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs. Grumpy was always grumpy. You
may wake up feeling just like him, but it doesn't change your
duty. Ought, ought, ought is the word of duty. Duties to be
performed no matter what you feel like. Even so ought husbands
to love their own wives as their own bodies. He that loves his
own wife loves himself. That's our calling, men. We are
called to a Christ-reflecting commitment to self-giving love
to our wives. From our posture of headship,
we are called to a sanctified self-like love to our wives. Thirdly, we are called to a jealously
guarded exclusive love to our wives, verses 31 and 2. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother cleave to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great,
but I speak in regard to Christ in the Church. Nevertheless,
do ye also severally love each one his own wife, even as himself? And here the emphasis falls upon
the exclusiveness of the love that I exercise to my wife. We are called to a jealously
guarded, exclusive love to our wives. And whatever love we show
to our children, to our fellow men, to other women, to relatives,
whatever relationships demand love in all of its multifaceted
dimensions, there is an exclusive love to my wife that is shared
with none other. That's what I'm called to. And
I'm not to let out a little bit of that with my secretary. I'm
not to let out a little bit of that with the woman next door.
I'm not to let out a little bit of that with some young woman
in the church under the guise of helping her spiritually. There
is to be a lock upon the door of my heart. in which there moves
that unique, that peculiar marital love, and there's a padlock over
it, and no one enters those sacred chambers but my wife. No man ever falls morally who,
first of all, does not loosen up the padlock. Once in a while,
take it off and open the latch. And then he rationalized, well,
I want to be a good testimony. No, I am called to a love that
is jealously guarded in its exclusiveness. Each one of you severally loved
his own wife, and only one woman is to be loved in that way, in
all of the full range of what that love is. and the ways in
which it will manifest itself, and then importing an additional
thought from Peter, the fourth aspect of my responsibility as
a husband is this, you are called to a knowledgeable, honoring
love. 1 Peter chapter 3, you are called
to love your wife with a knowledgeable, honoring love. Peter reduces
his whole direction to husbands in verse 7 of 1 Peter 3 to these
words, Ye husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according
to knowledge. Let the manner of your dwelling
with her, exercising your headship over her, with a love that reflects
the self-giving love of Christ, the sanctified self-love you
have to yourself, that exclusive love shared with none other,
let it be marked by knowledge. That means I've got to take the
pains to know what makes women different from men generically,
and what makes my wife different from all other women specifically. That's why I laugh at these books
that say, women like this, women don't like that. I say, I ain't
married to women. I'm married to a specific woman. And though there may be some
general patterns, and if you've never read a good, responsible
book on the fundamental differences in a woman's emotional patterns,
triggered so dominantly in most cases by her hormonal patterns,
remember it wasn't Paul who gave this directive, Paul the single
man, it was Peter the married man, and he also had a mother-in-law.
And maybe many a time he scratched his head when his wife was in
a state of PMS and wondered, what in the world has happened
to my wife? From the sweetest, most reasonable
woman, she has become so unreasonable. She puts two and two together
and gets seventy-five. And lo and behold, the day her
period starts, she comes back to the real world and two and
two again equal four. And she looks back and says,
Honey, forgive me. I was such a witch for those
five, six days. But at the time, it all looked
that way. Anybody know what they're talking
about? Dwell with your wife according to knowledge. I'm dwelling with
a postmenopausal grandmother. And as I seek to know my wife,
I see what's happening. as her hair has turned gray.
And as for the first time in a skin that's been smooth as
silk for years, there's beginning to be a little crow's foot here,
a little bit of wrinkle down here. I sense an insecurity. And I got to dwell with her according
to knowledge and let her know what's true, that she's still
the most beautiful woman in the world to me. The crow's feet
and the sagging chin don't change it. Because I know all the shared
burdens and all the shared joys that lie behind those crow's
feet and the lines beginning to emerge and all she needs is
the reassurance that that's so and she glows. Dwell with her
according to knowledge. And as she's continually changing,
you've got to be continually learning. What is it that makes
my wife what she is, who she is, why she reacts? That's my
responsibility! I'm not to sit down and compose
a song like Higgins. Why can't a woman be like a man? For any of you not aware of it,
in one of the few, what you might call, decent plays in recent
decades, My fair lady, Higgins, in his frustration, sings, Why
can't a woman be like a man? What's wrong with women? They
can't think like men. They don't react like men. That's
right. And that's why Peter said, You've got to dwell with them
according to knowledge. And that knowledge, if accurate,
will bring you to the conclusion that she is the weaker vessel.
Now, it doesn't mean she's less intelligent. It doesn't mean
she's less spiritual. Weaker is a word of comparison. She is weaker physically. Generally
speaking, she is weaker under certain pressures emotionally. And what am I to do because of
that reality? Demean her? No! Give her added
honor. Let me illustrate. You got some
of that old day-by-day dinnerware. about that thick and bounce it
on the floor, doesn't even chip. Some of that stoneware, you throw
it in the microwave, throw it in the dishwasher, holds up week
in, week out, year in, year out, and you've got some of that fine,
thin, delicate china passed on as an heirloom. Got some real
gold leaf around the edge. It's weaker than the stoneware. So what do you do? Go out and
play Frisbee with it? Oh no, you treat it with special
honor. You don't let the kids set the
table when you're doing that. You set the table. You don't
let them throw that in the dishwasher. You carefully, with medium warmth
water, because you don't want in any way to erode that gold
leaf, you wash and you dry and you place it back. You give honor
unto those vessels as weaker vessels. That's the picture. Your wife is fine china. She's
not stoneware. That's your responsibility, man!
You say, well, I'm not the sensitive kind. Well, too bad. You married
her. Now God tells you, you become
the sensitive kind. Well, I didn't have an example.
So what? You got your Bible and you got
the Holy Ghost. I'm sick and tired of this cop-out
business. That's not the way I'm put together.
Well, too bad. Are you Christian? That wasn't
the way you were put together either. You were put together
to be a child of the devil and an heir of hell. And Almighty
God broke in and changed you. And he who started the change
can continue it. And you can become, by the grace
of God, this kind of a husband, one who is knowledgeable and
honoring in his love. Now in a day of arranged marriages,
and that was true in most of the parts to which these letters
came, think of how much more difficult that would have been.
For a woman to be submissive to a man she never chose. The
matchmaker chose them. Mom and Dad. Or after the old
tradition in Fiddler on the Roof, matchmaker, matchmaker, find
me a match, find me a catch. It didn't matter. They became
Christians and they're in the married state. And here's a man
that they were never particularly drawn to or quote, with whom
they fell in love. And here comes an epistle. And
one morning in the church at Ephesus, one of the elders stands
up and reads it. Husbands, love your wives. Wives, be in submission to your
husbands. regardless of how you entered
the relationship. You're in it, the grace of God
is with you in it, and Peter even envisions grace touching
the wife and not the husband, and he says you're in the marriage,
remain in that marriage, and by your lifestyle be an instrument
of salvation in the life of your husband. Now I ask you, my dear
friends, if we're thinking biblically, Where do so-called evangelicals
say we can have egalitarian marriages with no headship vested in the
man and submission in the woman? There's only one way these so-called
evangelicals can find egalitarian marriages, and I'm going to say
it bluntly, that's by thumbing their nose at God and His Word,
and I won't call anyone an evangelical who thumbs his nose at my God.
and who takes his clear word and says, I don't care what God
says. I'm going to listen to Gloria
Steinem and Friedan et al. Dear women, God have mercy on
you if you read the popular articles in Family Circle in Women's Day.
Get your recipes out of them. My wife still does. She's a recipe
nut. That's going to be her greatest
legacy outside of her godly example. She's going to leave to her daughters,
divide up her recipe boxes, split them up in her will to her two
daughters. But you be careful what you read. No, the Bible
knows nothing of egalitarian marriages, and on the other hand,
the Bible knows nothing of a carnal machoism in the name of, well,
we've got a weak generation. I'm going to be a strong Christian
leader in the home. And you walk through the home
like a marine drill sergeant, barking out your orders, treating
your wife like she was a recruit instead of like precious china,
dwelling with her, according to knowledge, giving honor to
her. as unto the weaker vessel, taking the children aside and
saying, kids, this is a hard time of the month for mommy,
and mommy gets a little irritated, and she doesn't mean to, so try
to be specially careful, and if you've got any problems with
your homework, don't bother mommy the next couple of days. Come
to daddy. Dwell according to knowledge.
That's God's description. You and I must have an accurate
understanding of these unchangeable God-assigned roles for the husband
and wife. But I said I wanted to say two
things under that head, and here's the second. There must be a hearty
commitment to and a Spirit-empowered fulfillment of these roles. Not enough to have a clear understanding
of these roles, there must be a hearty commitment to and a
Spirit-empowered fulfillment of these roles. Now, what do
I mean by a hearty commitment? Well, the stories told, whether
it's true or not, I don't know, of the little child in the Quaker
service where they sit quietly, you know, waiting for someone
to be moved upon by the, quote, Spirit to speak. And this little
child was determined to stand in the pew instead of sit. And
finally, the parent got him to sit. But he leaned over and he
whispered in his parent's ear, Me sitteth on the outside, but
me standeth on the inside. You see what he was saying? I'm sitting, but my heart's not
in it. I'm still standing. My will's
not been conquered. I've seen Christian women say,
well, that's so plain, all right, I'm going to grit my teeth and
I'm going to be a submissive wife, and it's written all over
them. No joy, no sense that they're free as a bird in their God-given
role. No, there must not only be an
understanding of your assigned role, but a hearty commitment
to and a Spirit-empowered fulfillment. And why do I say spirit-empowered
fulfillment? Because here in Ephesians 5,
the directives to husbands and wives comes immediately after
the imperative of Ephesians 5.18, be not drunk with wine wherein
is riot or excess, but be being filled with the spirit And then
you have those five participles that give the general manifestation
of a spirit-filled life, speaking one to another in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart.
Then he says, wives, be in subjection to your husbands. Husbands, love
your wives. The proof that you're filled
with the Spirit is not that you say you heard angels' wings fluttering
in your devotions, that you can go on in gibberish for three
or four hours, so-called praying and praising in an unknown tongue. That's nonsense. The proof that
you're filled with the Spirit is that to some degree, man,
If a person came to me and said, I can't grasp this idea that
Christ gave Himself for the church, that He is the Savior and Protector
of the body, how can I put teeth into that concept? I should be
able to say, go live in Brother so-and-so's home for two weeks
and watch the way he relates to his wife, and you'll get a
little idea of how Christ loves His church. That's a Spirit-filled life.
Or someone saying, I see it in the Scripture, wives be subject
to your husband in everything, with a trustful, Christ-centered
submission and a reverential demeanor toward her husband,
but I can't grasp what that concept means, that the church is subject
to Christ and the church reverences her Lord. I should be able to
say, you go into so-and-so's house and you watch that woman,
you watch the way she relates to her husband, and you'll get
a little idea of the church's relationship to Christ. Dear people, you can't live this
way without being filled with the Spirit. And being filled
with the Spirit is not to the end that you can have shivers
and shakes and let your tongue go off in gibberish. is that
you might be a husband who reflects the love of Christ to the Church,
and a wife who reflects the submission of the Church to Christ. Then
let me touch briefly upon the parent-child relationship. What
is the Christian's role in this wicked generation? To shine as
lights, not only in the husband-wife relationship, but in the parent-child
relationship, and again, The same two headings. There must
be an accurate understanding of the unchangeable God-assigned
parental role. And I use the same words because
I want to pack in them the same connotations. God has defined
parental roles. Dr. Spock and his subsequent
repentance notwithstanding, he ruined a generation. And then
toward the end of his life in Red Book Magazine, he retracted
and said, I messed up a generation. But woe be unto everyone that
followed him. And the embodiment of parental
duty is given to us in its most distilled essence in Ephesians
6 and verse 4. Paul goes on in this chapter
to speak of the other relationships in the domestic sphere, and he
says in verse 4, And ye fathers, Provoke not your children to
anger, but nurture them in the chastening and admonition, here
we are again, of the Lord. Look at the text briefly. Who
is addressed? Not parents, generically. Paul
had a word for that. He used it in verse 1. Children,
obey your parents. He could have split it up into
father and mother. He did that in verse 2. Honor
thy father and thy mother. But when it comes to the parent-child
duty, he focuses upon the father. The father is to be the knowledgeable,
hands-on, administrative head of the molding of the children.
He is not to be this mute character that brings home the bread. and
then sits on the recliner reading the sports page while he sips
his lemonade and grunts once in a while when the kids come
by and try to make conversation. What a horrible travesty of a
biblical father. And ye fathers And whatever part
the mother plays, and in the early years in particular, she
plays a unique part with boys and girls. And in the later years,
in the nurturing and ripening of her daughters for the responsibilities
of marriage, she plays again a very unique part. Paul is not
demeaning the mother's role, but he's putting the emphasis
where it belongs, upon the Father, who under Christ, is charged
with the responsibility of the nurture of those children. It
wasn't Joshua's wife who said, as for me and my house, we'll
serve the Lord. It was Joshua. It was Joshua
as the head of the home who said, as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord. And what is the essence of the
task? Paul bound up in one little word.
We have the negative, provoke them not to wrath, that is, don't
do things which unnecessarily provoke them to anger or in the
parallel passage in Colossians that would dispirit them, would
cause them to be discouraged, but nurture them. There it is. Nurture them. The only other
place that word nurtures found in the New Testament is right
up in chapter 5. Christ nourishes. He nurtures
the church. What does He do when He nurtures
the church? He brings the church to her full
redemptive potential, the potential which He Himself purposed and
for which He died. He now constantly nurtures her
by the Word and the Spirit and the means of grace in the life
of the church. to bring her to her full potential. Fathers, nurture them. That is, the totality of their
humanity, their minds, their bodies, their psyches, their
emotions. Fathers, be committed to the
totality of the nurture of the whole child. After the pattern of the Lord
Jesus, he grew in wisdom. mental development. He grew in
stature, physical development. He grew in favor with man, social
development. He grew in favor with God, spiritual
development in His holy humanity. He memorized His Bible verses. He learned His catechism. He
grew in favor with God, He who was God Himself. And that's the
task that God has given to us, the whole child nurtured and
prepared for the whole of life. May I say at this point that
if the Lord tarries and spares our nation from crumbling under
the weight of its own sin, one of the greatest encouragements
to me on the horizon as a middle-aged man is this. I see little children
in our assembly, who know more sound theology by the time they're
10 than I knew when I was 30, 35. And I say, oh Lord, do we
have some people who have developed a biblical mindset, who will
go into the fields of economics and politics and medicine and
astronomy and education And because they have a mind that can think
accurately, because it's embedded in biblical categories where
alone men can think accurately, could it be, Lord, that you'll
raise up men and women who will make a mark on this future generation? I tell you, when I think of the
potential, at times I get excited. Oh yes, I'm not taking back anything
I said earlier. If God should raise up a thousand
and give them tremendous influence, it will be a matter of degree.
It will still be a world that mocks the gospel and laughs at
us stupid people who believe the Bible. But if God can use
a Wilberforce to overturn the bastions of slavery entrenched
in the social structures of England, If God can use other men in mighty
ways in history, what God might do to me is a thrilling thing
just to think about it. But it won't just happen. It
means, fathers, something's got to be more important than watching
the next game in the playoffs. Something's got to be more important
than getting your handicap down from 10 to 5. Something's got
to be more important than the things that consume your time
that don't amount to a hill of beans. And you've got to pour
your life into your children to nurture that. Teach your sons
what godly, noble manhood is. It's a shame that my own son-in-law,
who I love like my own son, one of them had a dad who never even
taught him how to change the oil in his car, change a filter
on an air conditioner. I'm doing it now with great delight,
and he welcomes his father-in-law helping him. But I thought, what
a shame for a young man to come to life unfit to take care of
the most mundane concerns in the keeping of a home. Thank
God he did teach him a trade, a marketable trade, a noble trade. And I'm proud to say my one son-in-law's
a preacher and the other's a tailor. Saves me lots of money. No suit
I ever buy off the peg fits me, but when my son-in-law is done
with it, it fits like a tailor-made suit. And no matter what happens
to the economy, men need suits and haircuts. So if you're a
barber, or if you're a tailor, you're going to have work. But
what a tragedy. Where was his father? What was
he doing? Fathers use our past to nurture
our children. to teach our girls what a man
is by spending time with them. People say girls who are happy
with their fathers end up marrying their fathers. What they mean
by that is their idea of what a man is has been so influenced
by what their father is. That's what they look for. But
a blessed thing, if that's a godly man who nourishes and cherishes
his wife, who shows that he's a man both of steel when it comes
to convictions, but of velvet when it comes to his manner.
Carl Sandburg used that terminology of Lincoln. He said he was a
man of steel and velvet. And there's a wonderful book
on manhood that's written, Men of Steel and Velvet. And the
young girl that grows up with a dad who is steel and velvet,
she knows what a man is. And somebody that's all velvet,
smooth talker, sweet talker, and all the rest, but who doesn't
have convictions and isn't willing to rear back in his hind legs
and thunder a NO when necessary, and isn't man enough to put her
in her place, she doesn't want him for a husband. Or some guy
that's all steel and he thinks unless the steel glistens at
every moment, at every time, you're not a man. And if anyone
suggested he had a patch of velvet on him, he'd think that was being
effeminate. She doesn't want that. but men of steel and of
velvet. Where are they going to come
from, you fathers? You fathers, nurture them. Nurture
them. And what are the two means at
your disposal? Look at it. Chastening and admonition. Learning by the enforcement of
reward and punishment, and then by verbal instruction. Those are your two means. Chastening
and admonition. And what is the source of it
all? It comes from the derived authority God has vested in you.
It is of the Lord. What is to set the parameters?
It is the word of the Lord. What's to give you the strength?
It is the power of the Lord. Wherein do you hope that it will
issue in a godly life? The grace of the Lord. It's the
chastening and admonition of the Lord. And if you and I are
to fulfill our tasks, we must have an accurate understanding
of the unchangeable God-assigned role. And then there must be
principled, Spirit-filled commitment to the task. Principled, Spirit-filled
commitment to the task. I can remember in the midst of
an already very busy schedule years ago when my son was coming
into puberty, There was no way in the ordinary course of family
devotions that I could address the things a father ought to
address, and I was determined my son would never, never find
out the birds and the bees as I did. The 12-year-old kid in
a corner in Stamford, Connecticut, when someone told me the facts
of life, I was so mad I was going to go home and beat my father
up. I said, my kids are never going to get it that way. But
it meant that Saturday morning, precious hours normally spent
in sermon preparation, an hour had to be blocked out to start
taking my son through the relevant sections of the Book of Proverbs.
And I'll never forget the day when, having gone through one
of those sections, he began to ask the kind of questions that
meant I had to take down my anatomy book and show him how God had
made us. And I'll never forget in saying,
Dad, isn't it great how God's made us? And we got on our knees
and we thanked God that we're fearfully and wonderfully made.
And though in subsequent years that son has broken my heart
as he's thrown over all that he was taught, no little comfort
amidst the broken heart is, Lord, he didn't go that way because
I didn't instruct him. He went that way because, as
Solomon said, he chose to be the foolish son. He says, I did not hearken unto
my teachers. I did not listen to my instructors. But it doesn't change our task.
I urge you men, if you've not listened to some of the tapes
from Pastor Huffstetler's series on the school of Solomon, to
get them and listen to them. I've just finished a series of
40 Sunday school lessons on how not to foul up the training of
your children. Pastor Ray's excellent little
book, Withhold Not Correction. The helps are there. What we
need is a principled, spirit-filled commitment to the task. What
is our role in a wicked generation? I say our role is in many ways
to be seen in one of its primary aspects. right here. It is that
we shall have family life ordered by the word of the living God,
and pay any price short of sin to have it. If you're here this morning and
you're not a Christian, I hope you've learned one thing. You
sat there and you say, well one thing's clear, that man up there
believes the Bible, And he's speaking it as though he believes
it's a matter of life and death. You've read me rightly, that's
true. Because it is a matter of life and death. And this same
Bible says that if you have nothing but what you brought into this
world spiritually, you're in bad shape. For you were conceived
in sin, born in sin, you've lived in sin, you are now under the
wrath of God and there's no way for you to escape. but to find
escape in the person and work of Jesus Christ. But the good
news is that Jesus Christ welcomes all escapees who come to Him. He says, Come unto me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden. Him that comes to me I'll in
no wise cast out. I beg of you this morning, if
you're not a Christian, consider your state. Consider Christ and
his claims and his provision. And for you who are the people
of God, who do desire with all your heart to fill your role
in this generation, perhaps some of you ought to, after your meal
and getting the kids down for your nap, have a little judgment
day as a father and mother, husband and wife. How about you husbands
taking the lead and saying to your wives, honey, with Judgment
Day honesty, am I loving you the way Pastor Martin expounded
from Ephesians 5? That I ought to love you. Be
honest with me, dear. I'm ready to be hurt and wounded.
Tell me, honey, do you feel your love with a love that reflects
the self-giving love of Christ, the protective love of Christ,
the jealous love of Christ, the knowledgeable The honoring love
toward a weaker vessel. Ask your wife. I find it very
helpful to do it periodically. I don't like what I hear sometimes,
but it's good for my soul. You wives, ask your husband.
Do you really sense, dear, that I embrace your headship as a
religious conviction unto the Lord? That I do embrace it in
everything? Do you sense, dear, that I reverence
your position and your person as my God-given head? If not,
where not? Help me, dear, help me, that
I might be light and salt in this crooked and perverse generation.
That's how we make progress in grace, not by hearing sermons
that we say, well, that was nice and interesting, that was good,
and go on our way. James says you're like the man who looks
in the mirror and says, uh-oh, Got a blot of coal over here
and got a little bit over here. I better go wash my face." He
walks away from the mirror, completely forgets, puts on his tuxedo in
his finest, and shows up at a banquet, all dressed out in his formal
best, with his blotch of coal and some other dirt. He forgot
what manner of man he was. Looking in the mirror under preaching
does you no good. It's washing in that laver for
sin and uncleanness. then pleading for the grace of
the Spirit to change. May God help us to profit from
what we've heard today. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you again
for your Word. We thank you that it is a lamp
unto our feet and a light to our pathway. We ask that the
Holy Spirit will seal the things we have studied together And
we pray that each listener in this place who is united to Christ
may indeed become more light and more salt in this generation,
that we may see our role as parents, as husbands and wives, and by
the grace of God fulfill them. We pray for the children that
they too will see their role to honor and to obey mom and
dad, that in the day when On every hand we see blatant brats
unashamedly defying their parents that the children in these families
would manifest a sweet spirit of submission that will commend
the gospel which mommy and daddy love and believe. Seal your word
then to these ends we plead in Jesus name. Amen. The. The. so so so so The. You.