Alright, brethren, let's turn
to Psalm 45. Let's read in verse 9. King's daughters were among thine
honorable women, and upon thy right hand did stand the queen
in gold of Ophir. Hearken, O daughter, and consider
and incline thine ear. Forget also thine own people
and thy father's house. So shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty, for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him." You'll
notice the heading This is called the Song of Loves. And this song
is a beautiful love song of the marriage between Christ, our
husband, and His bride, the church. The bride of Christ is made up
of each person that God gave, that He chose and gave to Christ
before the foundation of the world. It's men and women He
chose and gave to Christ. She's illustrated or expressed
in Scripture as a bride that's been espoused, engaged, promised
to Christ. And we know this psalm speaks
of Christ because verses 6 and 7 are spoken of in Hebrews 1
and chapter 8, and it tells us, unto the Son, He said, Thy throne,
O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
Thy kingdom. Thou lovest righteousness, and
hatest wickedness, and therefore Thy God, Thy God, hath anointed
Thee with oil of gladness above Thy fellows." That's spoken of
the Son. So this is speaking all of Christ. Now, the scene here is of the
wedding ceremony between Christ and His bride. One day, when
this work is complete and Christ has called in all His elect,
then the bride will be presented to Christ and there will be a
marriage. And it will be a very public
thing because there is no secret believers. There is no secret
marriage between Christ and a believer. It's publicly professing Christ
is all. He's publicly professing He's
provided all as the husband of His bride. And she's publicly
professing She's submitted to Him in all. And obeying Him in
all. And it's public. It's public. There's no closet Christians. There's no closet believers that
just out of the corner of their mouth, whisper, I'll submit to
Him and everything. And so this is a very public
ceremony. And it will be a very public
wedding day when that happens. It was significant when Christ
came. One of the first things He went to was a very large wedding
ceremony. And it was a well-known big thing. And that's why we don't do weddings
to try to show off riches and show off how much we got, you
know, and it comes like competition. No, but it's a public thing because
that husband is saying before many witnesses, I'm professing
I will provide for this woman because Christ provided for me.
And that woman is professing before many witnesses, I will
submit to this man and obey this man in everything because that's
the relationship of Christ's bride to her husband. And so
the scenes of the wedding ceremony, and he says in verse 9, King's
daughters were among thy honorable women. These are the maids of
honor. King's daughters. And that's who all His elect
are, King's daughters. And upon thy right hand, that's
the place of honor. That's the place of honor. At
His right hand, at the King's right hand did stand the Queen
in gold of Ophir. She's decked out. She's decked
out. She's at His right hand because
that's the place of honor. That's where His bride stands
and she's decked in the gold of His righteousness. Now most
people don't have any idea why the institution of marriage even
exists. They have no idea. I had somebody
tell me the other day that their marriage was not a religious
institution, it was a legal institution recognized by the state. Well,
there would be no state that had a legal institution if God
hadn't ordained this institution. Because man wouldn't even know
what marriage was about or wouldn't even go do it if God hadn't ordained
it. And He did it in the garden when
He married Adam and Eve. So most don't have any idea that
a marriage between a husband and a wife was made to illustrate
the union between Christ and His bride. That's what it was
for. Since marriage is one of the very best pictures of Christ
and His bride. Marriage is one of the very best
pictures of Christ and His bride. Every believer that here's what
I'm telling you now. Every believer that hears what
I'm telling you now ought to take time to study God in His
Word concerning marriage. You ought to take the time to
study this and understand what it is and what's required of
a husband and a wife because this is one of the most Christ-honoring
pictures there is in existence. And if I don't fulfill my my
duty as a husband and I don't fulfill my duty as a wife or
I end up getting a divorce or any of that, I dishonor the one
I claim I'm saved by. A baby can't learn and put in
force things and a baby ought to take some time to grow and
learn and understand and this is something that's the most
important thing you're going to do in this life besides being
buried to Christ and following Him. Most important thing. We're celebrating Father's Day
today. And the reason we're celebrating Father's Day, and there would
be no fathers if God hadn't instituted this institution of marriage,
if He hadn't ordained it, there would be no fathers, there would
be no mothers. He did this to show forth Christ and His bride. And the faithful, unbreakable
marriage union between Christ and His bride is where believing
husbands and believing wives learn what a marriage is and
a marriage should be. This is where we learn it. This
is where we learn. Christ is our rule of life. You
are going to learn everything looking to Christ. And this is
where we learn how to be a husband and a wife. Now first of all,
Christ our husband loved his bride and gave himself for her. That's how he is the husband. He loved her. Loving a bride
is not just, he just didn't say, boy, you're beautiful, I think
you're beautiful, and you know, and then treat her like a dog
and lay around the house and not do anything for her, not
provide for her, not have a job, not do anything. No, Christ made
her beautiful by providing for her. everything that would make
her beautiful. Christ did that. Verse 9, upon
thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir. In gold of Ophir. At the right
hand, that's the place of honor. And in Christ, all God's people,
His church, the bride of Christ stands in the highest place of
honor. And the reason I said in Christ
we stand there is because when Christ finished the work of redeeming
His people, He ascended and at the right hand of the Father
is where He's seated. Because that's the place of honor.
The right hand. And in Him, all His people are
seated. Christ's Bride is at the right
hand of God. And She's His. He's the King.
He's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. and she is his queen. The queen is at the right hand
in gold of Ophir. It's customary in this country
whenever a bride gets married that she picks out and her parents
purchase the wedding dress and she picks it out and they purchase
it. That's not so with our husband,
with Christ our husband. He purchased our dress. He purchased
our dress. The gold of Ophir in which Christ's
queens arrayed is the righteousness that Christ is. It's the righteousness
Christ is, and it's the righteousness He wrought for her. Verse 13
tells us, down there, verse 13, it says, at the end, her clothing
is all wrought gold. It's all gold that's been wrought,
worked. Not one sinner that makes up
this bride did anything to purchase our wedding dress. Nothing. We
didn't do one thing. We didn't purchase it. We didn't
have anything, any funds to purchase it with. Sinners, a sinner is
somebody whose bank account is drained. They're insolvent. They're bankrupt. They can't
pay anything. They owe a tremendous sum, but
they have nothing to pay with. That's what a sinner is. You
and I couldn't purchase the dress needed to come into God's presence.
We couldn't do it and be His bride. But Christ came forth
by the free grace of God the Father, and He came forth, and
the garment of gold that Christ's bride is adorned in is the righteousness
given by Christ Himself. He went forth and He made this
garment. It's not of us. He went forth
and He paid the price necessary to buy this garment. And the
price necessary was His precious blood. The soul that sinneth
must die. The wages of sin is death. And
so God took all the sin of His bride and put it on our Lord
Jesus Christ, and that Word of God said He must die. He must
die. If He is going to pay the wages
owed, He must die, He must shed His blood, He must pay the purchase
price. And He paid it. And when He paid
it, brethren, He put away all the debt of his bride. He paid
off all the debt of his bride so that we don't owe God anything
else anymore. And not only that, He came to
us and He gave us a new heart and He gave us faith in Him and
He made us to trust Him and look to Him and quit looking to our... We no longer go through the law
and say, OK, now I need to do a little better on this. So go
out and try to do something consciously to make up for that law and then
go and say, well, I need to do something about this law and
try to do something to make up for that law. All the law. This is what righteousness means.
All the law of God is fulfilled by Christ for His people. And
He is the very righteousness. So the outward garment that we're
wearing is righteousness, a garment of righteousness that's been
put on us through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ so that we
have a gold wedding dress of His making. All righteousness.
But that's not only what's required. We have to be pure and chaste
and holy within. We have to be that within. And
not only has He made us righteous and robed us outwardly, He's
made us pure within. Look here, verse 13 again. The
king's daughter, his bride, that's who he's speaking of, his bride.
You think about that. Why is she called a daughter?
She's his bride. She's not his daughter. She's
his bride. But you think how loyal a daughter is and how submissive
and obedient a daughter is to her father. That's what his bride
is. That's what he makes his bride
to him, the husband. And he speaks to her as a daughter
and he says, the king's daughter is all glorious within. Not just outwardly, but within
as well. And the more lax and casual society
becomes, every generation gets a little more and a little more
and a little more. Nowadays, it's very, very rare to find
a young girl who's marrying a man who is a virgin. You just can't
hardly find it. Because it's just common to be
unchaste and ungodly and unholy. But you can't be married to Christ
and be a harlot. So what Christ does is He makes
His bride to be a chaste virgin. He sanctifies her and He makes
her holy. He makes her holy. Do you remember Do you remember the Lord, He
told the Pharisees, He said, you may clean the outside of
the cup. He says, and you think you've done something by that?
And He said, you fools, did not He, did not God who made that
which is without also make that which is within? When God in
the garden made Adam, He made Adam's body. He made that which
was out, without. He created that. But He also
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and created a
living soul within. He made that which was out, without,
and that which is within. And you see, that's what God
does in His new creation. When He makes you new and He
makes you His bride, He robes you without in His righteousness
and creates you outwardly the righteousness of the law, but
He also inwardly creates a new man so that you are holy and
a chaste virgin for Him. And He'll present you to Himself
as a chaste virgin. As a chaste virgin. You've become dead to the law
now that you can be married to Christ your husband because of
what He's done. So He brings you to Himself.
Brings you to Himself. Look at verse 14. And He says,
when she's saved and brought to Him, He says, verse 14, she
shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework. The
virgins, her companions that follow her, shall be brought
unto thee. She's going to be brought in the raiment of needlework
as a virgin with her companions. All his bribes are going to be
brought and the whole work is going to be his needlework. What
he's done. Within and without. It's tied
so tight, the marriage knot, that it can never be broken. And so, for every believer and
believing husband, every young man who intends to marry, you
make certain you know how Christ loved you and provided for you. A man that's not a believer can't
enter into this. Only those He saves and calls
can understand this. So you make certain, you believe,
that believe. You're going to get married.
You make sure you see and you learn how Christ provided everything
for you so that you'd come into His presence. He made you holy. He made you a... He made His
bride a chaste virgin. He made her righteous. And He's
going to present her to Himself holy and spotless without wrinkle
or any such thing. That's how a husband is to provide
for his wife. You could be sure to read Ephesians
5, verse 25 through 29. Give yourself, husbands, love
your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it,
that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of the water
of the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. Even so ought men to love their
wives. as their own bodies. He that
loves his wife, loves himself, for no man ever yet hated his
own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord
to the church for members of his body, of his flesh, and of
his bone. Provide her a place to worship first. First. Don't say, I do. Don't ask that
woman to submit to you to do a thing to you. If you're not
in a church somewhere where she can hear the gospel preached,
don't do it. Because you ain't even started off providing for
her. providing for us more than just taking her out to Red Lobster
on Friday night. I'm talking about get her something
that's lasting, put her under the gospel. If that hadn't taken
place first, don't marry her. And woman, don't you marry him
if that hadn't taken place first either. Don't do it. Don't do it. You go, if you do,
you run headlong into a cursed Moab is where you're going. Secondly,
and you know this, now listen, Mothers and fathers chasing their
children, teaching their children, and sometimes it's not pleasant
and you may get upset about it because it goes against what
you want. I can't control what goes on in the house, but I can
control what goes on in this one, and I'm supposed to. And
I'm going to tell you, this is what's right. Make certain that
that person knows the truth and knows that he's to provide for
his wife because Christ provided all for his bride. and beginning
with a place where you can worship God. That's most important. Alright, secondly, Christ's love
for us makes His bride submit to Christ, our one Husband. Because
He's done all this for us, we submit to Him. Look at verse
10. Hearken, O daughter, and consider,
and incline thine ear. When Christ our Husband says,
Hearken, consider, and incline thine ear, that means He's teaching
His bride to submit to Him. That's what He's doing. He's
teaching us to submit to Him. When He speaks this gospel into
your heart, He causes His bride to willingly submit to Him. He
makes you hearken. He makes you consider. He makes
you incline your ear. You follow Him. You submit to
Him. You follow Him. And you sew pants for Him and
you long after Him. Now, you husbands, when you first
got married, Did you ever make the mistake? The woman, as Scripture
says, she's supposed to submit to her husband in everything.
As Christ's bride submits to Him in everything. Now husbands,
did you ever make this mistake where at some point your wife
wasn't doing something that you liked and you said, now woman,
you're supposed to submit to me. And you told her that? It's your responsibility and
your place to submit to me. How'd that work out for you?
It don't work. It don't work any more than for
you to be compelled by the force of man to do anything, by the
whip of the law. It genders bondage and it genders
strife and it genders affliction. That's not how Christ makes His
bride submissive. That's not how. He loves her. He loves her. He loved her and
gave everything for her. Respect must be earned by the
expression of love. And that's what makes the bride
submit to Christ. And that's what makes an earthly
bride submit to her husband. A bride wants what the church
wants. Christ's people want a husband
who's got a faithful character. who's trustworthy, who makes
good on His Word. The bride wants a husband who
she knows will provide for her. When he says he will, she can
trust he will. And she knows when he leads her,
whether it looks like it's going to be through a famine, or it
looks like it's going to be through a trial, and it looks like, well,
It seems like we ought to be down there in Moab. It's more
fruitful down there. Still the Christ bride's going
to follow Him because I can trust Him and I know He's going to
provide it. He's going to lead me in the right way. And that's
what makes a woman submit to her husband, to have it proven
to her that He has a good character. When He tells her something,
it's true. And when He's strong to her, He's going to stand up,
He's going to lead her, He's going to direct her, He's going
to guide her, and that woman will submit to that man. You
can't force it. You can't demand it. That's not
what Christ does. That's not how He makes His church
willing. He makes His church willing by showing us how holy
and faithful and righteous He is to provide for us. And that's
how a bride is brought. Now brides, listen carefully.
Submit to your husband. Submit to him. Can you imagine
the church? Can you imagine Christ's bride
telling Christ He has to submit to us? Can you imagine us going
into a public place in front of a bunch of people and declaring
Christ can't do anything unless we allow Him to do it? Can you
imagine us calling him down and trying to correct him in front
of people and telling him, no, you're not right. Stop doing
that. Don't do that. Can you imagine
how ugly that would be for the church of God to do that? It
is so ugly for a woman to do that to a man. It is ugly. That's the ugliest woman on the
face of the planet. She could be on cover of whatever magazine
and be praised by everybody for her beauty. But the woman that
will do that to her husband is an ugly wench is what she is.
Because the picture here is of Christ and His bride and her
looking to Him and adoring Him and following Him and being in
submission to Him. And so the Scripture says, The
husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of
the church, and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the
church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their
own husbands in everything. In everything. In the Lord. If He starts to lead you out
of the house of the Lord, that's the one reason you can say, I'm
not following you. I'm not going to obey. I'm not
going to submit to you. I'm going to God's house where
the Gospel is preached. But in the Lord, follow Him.
And even if He is not a believing husband, follow Him, obey Him,
and submit to Him, because in showing being gracious and kind
to Him, God just might use you to bring Him to His house and
teach the gospel to Him. So, this submission by Christ's
bride includes forsaking all others for Christ alone. It's
not just following Him and submitting Him. It involves forsaking all
others for Him alone. Look at verse 10. Forget also
thine own people and thy Father's house. It's an utter impossibility
to be Christ's bride in submission to Him if we're unfaithfully
looking back to this world. You can't be Christ's bride in
submission to Christ if we're looking back to the world. If
we want to be out in the world, if we want to be sinning in the
world, and if we want to be running in darkness, we can't have fellowship
with light. You can't be Christ's bride.
We have to forsake all for Christ. We have to forsake all. There
can't be competition with our heavenly husband. Some of you
have not submitted to Christ in faith and yet you might be
torn. You're hearing the Word and you're
torn between confessing Christ and pleasing somebody else. Maybe
it's a friend or a loved one or you're not willing to cease
loving this world. Never let your carnal friends
and relations hinder you from casting all your care on the
Lord Jesus Christ and following Him. Now, some of that are older
may not understand what I'm saying, but when you're younger, you
know what I'm saying. God first starts teaching you and you start
hearing it and you start having these thoughts about, you know,
I'm going to have to... Am I going to not be able to hang around
with that person and this person? Listen, you can still be friendly
with your friends, But He calls you to come to Him and trust
Him and cast your care on Him. And He calls you now to honor
Him in everything you do. Do not disgrace Him, but to honor
Him. But what I'm saying is don't
let the thoughts of giving up the world turn you from coming
to Christ. Come to Christ. And if He's working
in you, that's what you will do. You will leave those things.
You must forget your own people and your Father's house. You
must forget your former vain associations, your former sin,
the love of this world. Here's the point. You must let
nothing come between you and Christ. He said, Love not the
world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man
loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Whosoever
he be of you, that forsaketh not all that he hath. He can't
be my disciple, He said. He that loveth father, mother
more than me, he is not worthy of me. He that loveth son or
daughter more than me, he is not worthy of me. We are to forsake
all for Christ, and by His grace that is what His bride does.
She forsakes all and follows Him because He has robed her
in that righteousness. He has made her that chaste virgin
within that is holy and spotless and without without wrinkle or
any such thing. And He's shown to her He'll provide
for her. And He's proven to her how faithful
His character is and how trustworthy He is. And He's made her willing
to submit to Him. And when she's willing to submit
to Him, she's willing to forsake everything else and follow Him.
That's what Christ does when He makes His children willing,
His bride willing. Now, when a husband and a wife
marry, they're to be one and they're to cling to each other.
Fathers and mothers, this is a word to you. We are to leave
married children alone. Just leave them alone. Leave them alone. This is why
it's so very important that if your children move in with you,
it's hard. Because you love that one that's
your flesh and blood. And if they get into an argument,
you're going to just about always side with them and have to say
something. That's not the place of the mother and father. The
place is for them to, if you can help them monetarily, if
it's going to be something worthwhile, maybe you could do that. But
don't get involved. They got to work it out between
themselves. Because she's got to forsake
her mother and her father. And he's got to forsake his mother
and father. Christ does not, he doesn't have multiple brides.
He's got one bride. And she don't have multiple husbands.
She got one husband. And we're clinging to him. And
we don't have any other. A husband is to cling to the
bride and the bride to the husband. And there can't be a competition
between them. And that's what will happen. If the bride's father
and mother get involved, that's competition to that husband.
His bride is now looking to them. She's not following him. She's
not reverencing him. She's not submitting to him.
She's looking to them. And this will cause him problems. It's
going to cause her problems. It's vice versa if it's the husband.
One thing I can say this, in 18 years of marriage, I have
never, when me and Melinda had something we had to work out,
I have never once called my mother and my father and said, this
is what she did, whatever, and I wish she wouldn't do this,
that. I've never talked to her about them, about her, ever. Because I know what they're going
to do. If I did, they would take up for me. It's just natural. You can't help it. That's your
flesh and blood. And she's never done that. She
never called her mother or her father and said anything like
that about me. I jokingly say this, but it's
kind of true. One of the secrets to our success
of our marriage is we both lived eight hours from our parents.
So I don't mean that you can't live close to your parents. You
can. But what I'm saying is when you have a problem, you just
got to work it out. between you and your spouse. We are members
of His body and of His flesh and of His bones and for this
cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall be joined
to his wife and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great
mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Do you
see what I am saying? The reason a man and a woman is to do this
is because it pictures what Christ and His bride, we have left all
else. Christ left the Father, came down and lived and died
for His bride to make her His. And His bride leaves this world
and all our father and all our other companions and we come
and we cling to Him. And we're one flesh in Him. And
so that's what the wife and the husband are to be to each other.
Now here's the last thing. Here's the last thing. This submission that Christ works
in His bride, this submission in everything to Him, is the beauty that Christ sees
in His bride. This is what makes her beautiful
to Him. Look here, verse 11, so shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty. He said, he said, he said, he
said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he
said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he
said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he
said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he
said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he
said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he
said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said,
he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he said, he
said, he said, he said, he said, So shall the King greatly desire
thy beauty, for He is thy Lord. Worship thou Him. You see, this is all of Christ. It's all of Christ. He is the righteousness with
which we've been clothed. He is the holiness who makes
us all glorious within. He is the One who showed Himself
to be altogether lovely so that we wanted to hearken to His Word
and consider and follow Him and submit to Him. And by His work
and power and grace and beauty that He is to us, He's made us
forsake all for Him. Everything is of Him. Do you
know what it is that's beautiful in the Bride of Christ to Christ? His image. He's recreated us
after His image. And that's the beauty He desires
in His bride. It's submission to Him, following
Him. I can tell you this for certain
just as a husband speaking of my wife. The thing that makes
me desire her more than anything and is more beautiful to me than
anything is how she never ever says an unkind word about me
in public to anybody. She does not run me down to anybody. She doesn't try to speak over
me in public. She doesn't try to rule over
me in public. She doesn't try to put me down
in public in front of anybody. If she knows I'm dead wrong,
she will bite her tongue and say, she might say something
to me privately, but she's not going to do it in front of people.
She's not going to belittle me in front of people. And she's
going to follow me. I said, Dawn wants me to go to
New Jersey and preach the gospel. She said, Clay, I don't want
to move to New Jersey. And she put her hair around.
And she said, nope, I want to do whatever the Lord would have
me to do. I want to go where the Lord would have me to go
and I'm following you wherever you go. That's submission. That's submission first to the
Lord. And submission to me because I'm following the Lord. She's
following me as I'm following the Lord. to raise our children. And it's always a matter of what
does your father say? And it's always a matter of your
father doesn't want that. It's a matter of making me the
king and the priest of my house to obey me and follow me and
do what I say. And I'm going to tell you something.
That is absolutely beautiful to me. Do you think I'm going
to ever take advantage of that? Do you think I'm going to turn
around then and belittle her in front of people? Do you think
I'm going to turn around then and belittle her in front of
my children? Or do you think I'm going to provide for her? You see, this thing works together.
The more the Bride of Christ beholds how faithful Christ is
to us, the more you want to submit to Him and the more you want
to follow Him. And the more you want to submit to Him and follow
Him, and Christ has worked it, And yet, the more we submit to
Him and follow Him, the more Christ looks at us and says,
oh, she's beautiful. She's beautiful. You see how it works? And it's
the same with a husband and a wife. A wife wants a strong man to
provide for her and care for her. I know in this day and age,
ladies, it's not, you know, don't, oh, if I'm going to get married,
I'm not going to say in the marriage vow that I'm going to obey Him.
I'm not going to say I'm going to submit to Him. If you have
that heart, don't get married because you're just dishonoring
the institution. Don't do it. And really and truly, you're
not married to Him anyway. If you don't submit to Him, you're
not married to Him. But what the Word of God says,
and I'm convinced the reason Satan does those things, the
reason that he has this world convinced that it's not good
for a woman to submit to a man and honor a man, obey her husband,
the reason that he would have this whole world convinced of
that is so when you come to these Scriptures and it talks about
Christ and His bride being in submission to Him, You'll say,
that's old-fashioned. And it will make you be even
more prejudiced against the truth that Christ is our husband and
His bride is in submission, trusting Him entirely to save us and provide
for us and bring us to glory. It will make you more prejudiced
against it because it sounds old-fashioned. There you go again. If you judge providence, take
providence in what's going on around you, what the world says,
and try to determine that's who God is or how God operates, whatever,
You've got to fool for a preacher, looking at the world. Go to this
book right here, and then you'll start looking at this world and
saying, this world is a corrupt mess. And you'll see that's how
it really is. Follow Christ. Submit to Christ.
That's the beauty. He works in His child, in His
people, and that's the beauty He loves in His bride. Because
why? Verse 11, For He is thy Lord. Worship thou Him. Worship thou
Him. Have you ever read where Sarah
called Abraham Lord? And I know some men that have
tried to sell their wives. You've got to call me Lord. You
missed the whole point. The reason Sarah called him Lord
is Sarah saw who the Lord is. She saw who the Lord is. See,
when you know He's Lord, ruling everything, you know that if
your husband is in error in what he's doing, you can still submit
to Him because the Lord's going to correct him. And He's going
to honor your submission to Him and correct him, and you don't
have to worry about it. You don't have to worry about
it. I was all thinking one time, I've got to correct my preacher. I've got to do this and correct
this. And the pastor told me, he said,
You believe God's absolutely sovereign? I said, yeah. He said,
that means He's absolutely sovereign over your preacher too. Yeah.
Why don't you just trust God to teach you? You leave Him alone.
And won't you submit? And you know what? That made everything better.
The Lord taught me and Him. Me and Him. Submit and follow
the Lord. He will make the path clear.
He will guide you. He will direct you. He will provide
for you. And husbands and wives, husbands love your wife, provide
for her, give yourself for her, just like she is your flesh and
blood, because she is. And women, submit to your husband
and follow him. Now, why? Because Christ is the
husband. Husbands learn from Christ and
follow Christ. Women learn from the relationship
between the bride and Christ and follow that example. If that
doesn't motivate us, We're not under the rule of Christ. Just
that simple. If that still causes anger in
our heart, our heart ain't been broken. We ain't been given a
new heart yet. Because that does not gender strife in the believer's
heart. That makes you want to. It makes the husband want to
see his shortcomings and want to provide for his bride more.
And it makes the wife see her shortcomings and want to submit
more. And it makes us both together want to submit and follow Christ
more. I pray God will bless it. Amen.