Though our modern society has descended into a state of moral decay, God’s people must not capitulate to a man-centered fear or corruption in the face of this onslaught. As families continue to face such spiritual darkness, they must give priority to the mortification of all rebellion and irreverence within their own hearts. Thus, for the father to lead his family through such spiritual battles, he must teach them to reverence God above mere men, knowing that the Lord graces his covenant people with a joyful reverence (Jer. 32:38-40, Ps. 2:11-12) and loving servitude that is rooted in the fear of Christ (Eph. 5:21). This instruction of the father, with the support of his wife, is an urgent and essential one. It is an instruction which seeks the continual, scriptural transformation of the family by reverencing God and His Word above all.

My name is Michael Beasley and I serve as pastor of Peace Baptist Church in Germanton, North Carolina. We're only two hours away. I'm sure many of you have traveled much further than that to be here. I'm very thankful that we're all here together. This is clearly such an important subject.

We talk about the fear of God and it is clearly a subject that goes well beyond our ability to address in even just a weekend. But we have much to get into here this morning and so I would like to get into the text of Scripture here shortly. I would like to read at least the primary section of Scripture that we're going to be setting and then I'd like to open in prayer and then offer a few more preliminary comments before we get started. And I'm going to begin with verse 21 and I'll go back in just a moment and explain the context of this text, which we must do, but for the sake of time I'm just going to begin with verse 21 where the Apostle Paul says, For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. That he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. Will you pray with me?

Precious Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day that you have made and pray for grace, which we need daily. We pray for grace, Lord, to appropriate this scripture and so much more as it relates to the subject of the fear of God. Father, we confess that we fall short. We do not reverence and fear you as you deserve. We're so thankful, Lord, that you were patient in dealing with us, that you love us, that you were committed to completing the work that you began in us.

So we plead with you for grace. Continue that work. Here this morning, Lord, open our hearts and open our eyes that we would behold wonderful things in thy law and that we would see and understand where we fall short and where, more importantly, where we need to grow. Help us to understand, Lord, that we have confidence in you, not in ourselves, but we have confidence in you, or to work this work of sanctification in our lives. May we embrace the responsibility that we have to be servants of Christ, to fear him, and to serve one another in this reverence of the Savior.

Bless our time. Bless every soul that is here. May we all be students as we sit at the feet of Christ and hear from our great shepherd through his word. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

The task before me is intimidating. This is a vast subject. And I have now 50 minutes to go through the subject that is before us and I will say this that I'm hesitant to bring up books but because I'm not going to cover everything I will say that last year I had the privilege of writing a book on the subject and really there are two books that relate to what we're going to be addressing here this morning so knowing that I will fall short of covering everything let me just encourage you to consider two books that I have available in the rhododendron vendor section. One is My Banner is Christ which deals with the subject of the fear of God and the church's desperate lack of it and our need to be reformed and restored to godly fear. Part of the book deals with the problem of celebrity worship in modern evangelicalism where we exalt men above the word.

I believe this is a grave problem and so that book addresses those issues. The other book that relates to our subject at hand is called The First Institution and that deals with the family and it deals with the construct of marriage and child training and everything else and so The great burden I've had the joy it's a joy But it's a burden because I know that with the short time that we have them I'm gonna get I'm gonna be trying to compact a lot in the time that we have together Let me also say that this is intimidating because to talk about the fear of God and to think about the span of church history is to me intimidating because I have faced fearful things in my life, but when I think about what brethren have endured over the centuries, I'm intimidated to think about talking about the fear of God because brethren in the past have had to face fearful contexts of life that far transcend what we have experienced. Brethren have shed blood, have lost their lives for the gospel. And I feel like I'm dwarfed when I think of brethren who have lost their lives, choosing to fear God rather than men.

I think I'd rather hear from them, but you just get me. So I'll do what I can. Thanks be to God, scripture is sufficient. So it's not my sufficiency, it's the scripture sufficiency that we need here this morning but I bring up the past in order to point out one thing my banner is Christ which I wrote last year is heavily inundated it is heavily buttressed with the works of John Flavell and John Bunyan. Both of these men lived in very trying times and both of these men suffered greatly because of the passing of the act of uniformity in 1662.

Both of these men were affected by this. As you know, John Bunyan served in prison 12 years and wrote a number of his great works from prison. Flavell as well was ejected from his pastorate, and he was unable to minister to his church because of the Five Mile Act that was passed in 1665. He was no longer able to minister to his flock because of that act. Five miles is nothing to us, but to them in their day that was everything.

Both of these men were faced with the challenge of choosing whether or not they would fear God or men. And I'm struck by the humility of Flayville who could have in his own work on the fear of God which is entitled by the way a practical treatise of fear and Bunyan's work by the way before I forget is a treatise of the fear of God. Flavell's work in his work rather than bemoaning the difficulties of his own circumstances and conflicts of life says this, He says, we are conscious to ourselves how far short we come in holiness, innocency, and spiritual excellency of those excellent persons who have suffered these things and therefore have no ground to expect more favor from Providence than they found. If we think these evils shall not come in our days, it is like many of them thought so too. And yet they did, and we may find it quite otherwise.

The same race and kind of men that committed these outrages upon our brethren are still in being. Their rage and malice is not abated in the last degree, but is as fierce and cruel as ever it was. And elsewhere he says in his work, it is far better to lose our carnal friends, estates, liberties, and lives than part with Christ's truths and a good conscience. Plable was very committed to warning the church about the danger of fearing anything or anyone but God and God alone. Because he saw the spiritual rot and danger that comes when we exalt men above their station and give them the reverence that is due to God alone.

I mention these men because I will be quoting them here and there and I mentioned these men because again they help us I think to think through the subject of fear. Now we've already had some excellent messages on the subject of the fear of God. And I think you already know that the subject of fear is mutilated in our society. When the secular world talks about Christianity and when it talks about this idea of fear it mutilates this subject horribly. But I think that Flabel summarizes it well and both of these men referred to and you've already heard the term and expression filial fear.

This is the fear of a child, the reverence of a child that a child gives to a father. And so Flabel says this, he says, the more power this filial fear of God obtains in our hearts, the less you will dread the power of the creature. This is the fear that does not drive us away from God but it causes us to revere God, honor him, exalt him, and come to him for safety and protection. The world knows nothing of this. Now I'm not drifted far afield.

I'm talking in general about what we're talking about regarding the subject of the fear of God. We're to apply this to marriage and family. And this is why I read the text of Ephesians 5 beginning in verse 21 because there Paul is describing what spirit-filled living looks like when he says and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Now, in order to consider what that verse has to do with our subject at hand. The first thing I'm going to have to do and basically I'm giving you the outline of what we're going to be studying here this morning right now.

The first thing we're going to have to do is we're going to have to talk about the context, meaning, and importance of Ephesians 521 and talk about what it means to be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. This verse is planted in the middle of this chapter and so we can't just jump into the verse and expect to understand what Paul is saying so I'm gonna have to do some contextual analysis I can't start anywhere unless I begin there. Number two, we'll consider how this affects our view of the institution of marriage in a general way. How this affects our view of the institution of marriage. Then we'll consider thirdly how this verse affects the life and the ministry of the husband.

Then fourthly we'll talk about how this text affects our view of the home overall. Then I'll offer, if I have time, some implications to these texts. I need to get moving here because I've got a lot to go through here. Let's first of all think about the context and importance of Ephesians 5 21. When Paul says being subject to one another in the fear of Christ, This text relates to what follows because Paul borrows from verse 21 when he says in verse 22, the very next verse, he says, wives be subject.

Your verse, your Bible translations should have the words be subject in italics. And the reason why those words are in italics is because those words actually don't occur in the text this is what is called an elliptical construction it's very common actually the beginning of Ephesians Ephesians 1 1 begins with what's called an elliptical construction there's no verb in verse 1 so the translator supply the verb that is implied there in the verse. While the same thing here is true in verse 22. When it says wives be subject those are italics those are in italics because there is no verbal there. Paul is borrowing from the verbal of verse 21 when he says that we're to be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

Wives be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is also also his head of the church he himself being the Savior of the body and then he gives the verb explicitly in verse 24 when he says but as the church is subject to Christ so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything." So it's very obvious and very evident that he is establishing a broad sense of subjection within the body of Christ but then he narrows it down and talks about the nature in which we serve one another and how it is that wives offer a unique and special servitude and subjection to their husbands. If we work backwards from verse 21 We have to understand that verse 21 when it says be subject that is a participle and that is one of five participles that Paul supplies when he describes what spirit-filled living looks like. So in other words whenever you have a participle That's describing the way in which people conduct themselves. It's describing activity You can read through those and really I haven't the time to go through every one of them But he talks about how it is that if we're being filled with the spirit and that's the imperative the last imperative in verse 18 he says then we're going to be speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God even the Father and be subject to one another literally and being subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

All of those are descriptions of what spirit-filled living looks like. Then if you work backwards from the last imperative in verse 18, you find that that is one of a list of five imperatives that take us back to verse 15, where Paul commands us to be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time. Why does he say that? Well, because back further in verses 3 through 14, he warns us about ungodliness and ungodly living. For he says in verse 5, for this you know with certainty that no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

That then brings us back to the two fundamental root commands at the beginning of the chapter where he says and here the two commands he says therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love and then he gives us the model for what a walk of love looks like he says just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us an offering in the sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma and the fact that verse 1 begins with the word therefore means that you have to go back prior to verse 1 by the way many commentators have called in the book of Ephesians one long sentence and they're right. It's all connected. So if you work backwards, chapter 4 talks about how it is that God has created the unity of the church were called to preserve the unity of the church utilizing the gifts and provisions that Christ has sacrificially given to the church then moving back to chapter 3 Paul prays for the church that God would grant them according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the Saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to all the fullness of God." Then in chapter 2 he talks about the fact that we have nothing to boast in with respect to our salvation.

What were we? We were dead in our trespasses and sins when God made us alive together in Christ Jesus. And then further back he goes back to this God exalting doxology where he praises the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Father for his sovereign choice of a people according to the kind intention of his will. He talks about the Son's sacrifice on our behalf and he talks about the Spirit who is offered and given as a pledge for our inheritance. And then in that first chapter he issues a concluding prayer to that God exalting doxology where he says, speaking of the manifestation of God's power, he says that God manifested his power when he raised him that is Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come and he put all things who Pataxin in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church which is the which is his body the fullness of him who fills all in all now why have I gone all the way back to the first chapter I've gone all the way back to the first chapter because Paul brings up this word, hupotasso, subjection.

He began with this epistle with the subject of subjection he talks about it in chapter five and it all converges together to this one point we are all subjects of Christ's kingdom we have been placed in subjection under him his rule his authority and his Dominion and that makes us what servants who serve him and we serve one another that's the big picture that's the big picture I cannot leave out because that's the point. What Paul is doing is he is exalting Christ, lifting up Christ and showing us that nothing is missing. He possesses all authority, all dominion and all rule and we therefore serve one another in view of his absolute and unmitigated authority. Matthew Henry speaking of verse 21 of chapter 5 says this, there is a mutual submission that Christians owe to one another. Condescending to bear one another's burdens, not advancing themselves above others, nor domineering over one another and giving laws to one another.

Paul was an example of this truly Christian temper for he became all things to all men. We must be of a yielding and of a submissive spirit and ready to all the duties of the respective places and stations that God has allotted to us in the world. This is a very important point and again I don't have enough time to expand it all but the bottom line is is that every person is a servant whether the person is serving as a leader in the church or not whether the the individual is the head of his home or we're talking about a wife submitting herself to her husband everyone is laboring as a servant but each according to the respective calling and duty that God has assigned to us. Why? Because Christ is our head and he's above all.

Calvin's commentary in Ephesians 5 21 He says this he says God is bound us so strongly to each other that no man ought to endeavor to avoid Subjection and where love reigns mutual services will be rendered I do not even accept kings or governors whose very authority is held for the service of the community it is highly proper that all should be exhorted to be subject to one another in their turn or in other words according to their calling. Wouldn't it be nice if we had politicians who were servants? It'd be a very transformative thing, wouldn't it? Calvin's right. Whatever our calling, whatever our office is, we're servants of Him.

And we serve in fear of Him, in reverence for Him, knowing that he has all power and authority and dominion over the church all things and the church one thing I think that is important is that not only is Ephesians one long sentence but it is also in many respects an epistle of love. I've already read his prayer regarding the Ephesians that they would know the love of God but he also enjoins us to walk in love in each in Ephesians chapter 5 and I think that this is such an important concept because if we're going to talk about serving in the fear of Christ we have to understand that fear and love are not antithetical concepts I think Sam Waldron was talking about this the other day and this is such an important concept. Again, this concept of fear, the subject of fear, has been so thoroughly mutilated we have to reclaim the true biblical teaching on the subject and understand that the child of God who loves God will reverence and fear him as a part of that expression of love because he sees the authority of his God. He sees the majesty of God.

He sees the beauty of God, the transcendent wisdom of God, and he reverences God in view of these things. So brethren, we're to walk in love, we're to serve in fear. These are not opposing concepts, they blend together. And this affects everything. It affects the church, marriages, whole households.

So how does this affect our view of the institution of marriage. This is our second point. We just gave a very brief overview of verse 21, a contextual overview. Now how does this affect our view of the institution of marriage? Well I think it should be self evident really when you think about it.

If we reverence Christ, if we herald and reverence Him, then we will have a regard, a high regard for the institutions that He has created and given. By the way, the Bible begins and ends with marriage. If you want to think about how much God emphasizes marriage, just think about this. The Bible begins with marriage, it ends with marriage. It began with the marriage of the first man and woman, which ended in failure in the sense of Adam's sin.

It ends in the victorious Lamb of God and his union with his people, the marriage of the Lamb of God. Revelation 19. It is so important that we understand that God has invested much in this institution of marriage. He regards it highly and if he regards it highly how should we view this institution? If we fear and reverence Christ we will have a high regard for this institution that he made And the thing that we have to understand is, again, is that marriage has a subordinate purpose.

And that subordinate purpose is to point to the greater union, the eternal union, that will have no end between Christ and his people. So at its best, marriage is what? It's a fragrant aroma that gives forth the beauty and the glory of Christ and his union with his church. So again, Paul says, "'Wives, be subject to your own husbands, "'as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, "'as Christ also is the head of the church he himself being the savior of the body but as the church is subject to Christ so also the wives ought to be to their husbands and everything husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her bunion said it so well if you haven't picked up a copy of Family Duty I urge you to do so and read it but Bunyan's work on Family Duty he says this he says this is one of God's chief ends in instituting marriage that Christ and his church under a figure under a figure might be wherever there is a couple that believe through grace I love that what a simple thought but that's the idea if you see a godly husband and wife and if they're doing what they're called to do, what you're seeing is, is a figure of the beauty and the glory of Christ in his union with the church.

And that's a beautiful thing. But brethren, I'll say this, irreverence and indifference is a disease to this whole thing. When we fear God well, we herald Him and His institutions well, and honor him and everything that he has made. When we don't fear him well everything degrades and indifference takes over. I came up to a brother the other day.

I'm not going to name names. Okay, it was Jason Dome. He comes up to me and he's got two books in his hand and he starts to pull out a book and he starts to hand it to me. And he then proceeds, or excuse me, as he's handing it to me, I'm starting to reach out for the book. And then he proceeds to tell me that a gentleman had just given it to him and that it was a 19th century copy of a commentary by Spurgeon.

And as I looked at it further, it was a rather fragile looking book. And so at first I was willing to reach out and grab the thing, but then when he told me what it was, I thought, I don't know if I want to grab that and touch it. I don't want to break it. At the outset I didn't really know the value of the book. To me it's just like another book, but then when he told me the value of the book I thought, hmm, I might want to put a glove on before I handle that thing.

Our understanding of the valuation of things affects everything, doesn't it? We have to have a greater understanding of the value of marriage if we're going to honor it properly. If we understand the value of God better, then we understand his institutions better. They all go together. But when we do not have a proper reverence in regard for God, we do not herald his institutions as we should.

By the way, the subject of the fear of God has been so thoroughly mutilated in the modern society. Preachers will preach on the love of God ad nauseam, really though, to the absence of any mention of the holiness and justice of God. Evangelical feminism has decimated, in many regards, the subject at hand, talking about the roles of men and women. I was reading a Gilbert Bauzeki, and I'm not even sure if I'm saying his name correctly, but he works so hard. The exegetical gymnastics he has to perform to say that there is no submission of the wife to the husband and the husband is not necessarily the leader in his home, he has to work so hard to make that thing work that he has to go back to chapter 1 of verse 22 and say that Jesus, being the head of the church, doesn't mean that he has authority in the church.

I dropped the book as soon as I read that sentence. That is insane. Wasn't it Carlton who was talking about how it is that disobedience comes through fancy exegesis in so many words, right? Well, there you go. So much of the professing church has damaged marriage by undermining the roles of husbands and wives and children or even the embracing of divorce.

We're very soft on divorce in our culture. We shouldn't be. I'm not talking about being hard on people in a cruel way, but the bottom line is we cannot be tolerant of divorce because the moment we are, we're saying, you know what, marriage doesn't really matter. That didn't work out. No.

Here's what serving one another in the fear of Christ looks like, especially as we move forward into the text talking about marriage and family. It means that we live out our day-to-day life in reverence for Christ, fearing him and understanding that he is worthy. I think this is one of the central aspects of the fear of God that we have to understand. When we say we fear God, we're making an implicit statement about God. Do you understand what I'm saying?

In other words, when we're talking about the fear of God, we're talking about our response to God, but that is implying something about the God that we're responding to, right? So when we say that we're to fear God, we're saying that he's worthy of fear. We're saying that he's worthy of reverence. We're saying that he has all power, authority, and dominion. And brethren, I would say to you that to the extent that we grow in that fear of Christ, we will grow in our appreciation and high regard for things like the institution of marriage which he made in order to convey the beauty and communicate the beauty of his relationship with the church.

On a personal note, I think it was a month ago that we received a note from a family member from my wife's side indicating that one of her cousins was no longer going by the name of John, but he is now Elizabeth. And the letter that was sent to my wife was basically encouraging her and all of us to join in with affirming John as now Elizabeth, that he's a transgender and we're to call him a woman and all these things. You know the world invites us to tinker with marriage like a toy. We can't join it. Doing so says, I do not fear Christ.

Brethren, this is something that we're gonna have to face and I think I'm not even sure what our children are going to face, but they're going to have to address this as well. And the bedrock of the fear of Christ will be the thing that will help them to navigate their way through this. Not just for them, but for any generation. Now, let's move on. How does Ephesians 5 21 affect the husband, the life and the ministry of the husband?

Well again, The husband who serves in the fear of Christ is impacted by the supremacy and lordship of Christ in everything. If he fears Christ, he will understand that marriage is a serious, holy, deeply important institution. It is a figure of Christ and his bride, and therefore he will treat it with that high regard. So again Paul says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ also is the head of the church and then in verse 25 he says husbands love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. I'd just suggest four ways I'm gonna have to run through these very quickly four ways in which men are impacted by Ephesians 5 21.

Number one The man who references Christ will have his motives and affections sanctified. The man who references Christ will have his motives and affections sanctified. The bottom line is that as the husband is serving the wife as the head of the home, and that is his mode of servitude, is he's called to be the leader. So that's how he serves his wife, is by providing leadership. The thing that we have to understand is is that servitude can be offered to other people, but with different motives.

Remember Worldly Wiseman and Pilgrim's progress when Christian came up to him? Worldly wise man was so eager to offer up his services he advised him to crawl up that great big mountain to go to the house of legality. No thanks for your service, right? Everybody serves. The question is who are you serving?

When a man references Christ, what he's going to want to do is to imitate Christ. And if in the imitation of Christ what he's going to discover and understand is is that Christ served his father out of love for him first and So in John 14 31 it Jesus says this he says so that the world may know that I love the Father I do exactly as the Father commanded me." That is such a beautiful and small text but it is so striking because Jesus is saying this he's saying I'm doing what I'm doing because I love the Father He's the first. Remember the song by Avalon, We Are the Reason that He Gave His Life? Not saying it's a bad song, but we're not the reason only. Jesus laid down his life out of his love for the Father first.

Now that's not a small observation I don't believe because what that really means is that Jesus obviously is the greatest example of the Foremost Commandment. God is first and then others. Brethren, I got to say this is this is this is one of those moments where you'd have to say that this is so simple and obvious and easy and yet it's so easily maligned. The man must love his must love the Lord first he must serve the Lord first before he can effectively love and serve his wife. Secondly, reverence for Christ teaches the husband that he has no inherent authority.

I say this often as a preacher, take my Bible away from me, I've got nothing. I've got nothing at that point. The same thing is true for the husband. If he's going to lead in the home, he has to understand he's not an inherent authority. The only authority he has is the authority from Christ.

If he's reverencing Christ, he will understand that. Therefore, he won't come up with His own oral traditions, his own authority, his own made up authority. Thirdly, reverence for Christ will drive a man to minister God's word to his wife, not man-made tradition, which is really an outflow of the former. Abunyan says this, he says, ungodly fear is that which will put men upon adding to the revealed will of God their own inventions and their own performances of them. It was this fear, this evil fear, that put the Pharisees upon inventing so many traditions as the washing of cups and beds and tables.

You know, when I meet men who are talking about the things that they're doing in their home and their family and I can't really come up with a shred of Scripture to justify what they're doing, I think to myself, What are you doing? The fact that you're the head doesn't mean you get to make up your own rule book. You serve a higher authority, and that is Christ. Fourthly, reverence for Christ will lead a man to cherish and regard his wife as a gift from God. Proverbs 18 22 says, he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

And so if a man is is reverencing Christ, cherishing him, appreciating him, then guess what? He's going to appreciate the gifts that he gives he's going to appreciate his wife and live sacrificially for her as a servant and so that's why Paul says, so husbands ought also to love their own wives. A filo sin, that's the verb of debt. It's another way of saying, you know what? You owe your wife love.

You owe it to me, you owe it to her. And you need to do so sacrificially. I need to move faster here. How does the Ephesians 5 21 affect the wife? The life in the ministry of the wife.

Well, every point that we've just gone through here applies to the wife in the sense of the fact that she is to receive the ministry of her husband. So, she is to receive the love and ministry of the husband such that Christ is first, not her. Christ is first, the Word of God is first, above all. She is to receive his mediated leadership in other words it is Christ who is her ultimate head and he is just a mediated leader serving under Christ and by the way that's that reminds the wife of the fact that she is serving an imperfect man. By the way I'm sure that all of you ladies already knew that.

You're welcome for me telling you telling you something you already knew. But it's a very important thing to consider. When wives consider the fact that they're serving imperfect leadership, that's something that you just have to understand that that's a part of the institution of marriage in its earthly temporal form. And the person that you ultimately serve in that submission is Christ because the man will never be perfect. He's growing, he's maturing, he'll become better, but he'll always be imperfect.

And Again in light of what we've just covered as he is ministering the word of God to her She needs to receive that ministry of the word again understanding that he's an imperfect man, and he's not a Spurgeon Okay, Or he's not whatever favorite preacher you may have. That doesn't matter. If he is growing in the Word and endeavoring to minister the Word, receive that ministry. Don't sit there and nitpick him. I'm an imperfect preacher and every man is imperfect.

The best among us were imperfect, but the thing that we look to is the perfection of God's Word, the sufficiency of Scripture. And a wife in submitting herself to her husband she does it how unto the Lord right he's the ultimate head and then she's to receive his care and nurture he's to give care and nurture to her but she's to receive it which means if he's not supplying a mansion and brand-new cars every time every year that's okay right what does Paul say to Timothy about what's needed in life he says If we have food and covering with these things, we shall be content. Everything else is just a nice add-on. Okay? In our materialistic society, I think is a very important concept because people want the next thing.

You watch too many commercials and you think, oh, I need that thing. No, you don't need it. You need food and covering, everything else is in addition. Recalibrate your thinking about what you need. Ladies, what you are doing in the home is very serious.

It is so much more serious than I think we hear about, at least as often as we should hear it, the world belittles your role. It mocks it. Do not listen to the voices of the world. When Paul wrote to Titus he said, older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands to love their children and to be sensible pure workers at home kind being subject to their own husbands That the Word of God may not be in my translation has dishonored the word in the Greek is blaspheme a tie What does that sound like? Blasphemy Do not blaspheme the word by Ignoring your calling and your duty, which is beautiful in the sight of God.

Don't listen to the voices of the world. Do not compromise on these things. God sees this as being very important and the failure to uphold these things is blasphemy. Does that put a little fear of God in your heart? I hope it does Because we're to serve one another in the fear of Christ see How does this affect the home our fourth point how does Ephesians 521 affect the home Well Paul says in Ephesians 6 beginning in verse 1 he says, Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth." Then he says in verse 4, fathers do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Here he quotes from the Decalogue, the Fifth Commandment, which is a reminder to us of the fact that he's writing to families. He's not adjudicating whether or not the children are believers or not. If they're not believers, they're getting the law, which is called a what? A pedagogue, a tutor that leads us to Christ that's a gospel means if they're believers they're being given the very commandments that they need to obey as believers They're all to obey whether believers or not. For fathers, they're to remember that there's only two ways that this thing is going to go.

You're either going to teach your children and bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord or you know what you're going to do? You're going to be provoking them to anger because you know what? The absence of nurture and the absence of teaching leaves children under themselves and that is provoking. You're abandoning your children if you're not teaching and nurturing them. And Paul says it's not an option.

James Alexander in his book, Thoughts on Family Worship, which if you haven't gotten that I'd encourage you to get it. He says that the domestic hour of prayer and praise is also the hour of scriptural instruction. The Father has opened God's Word in the presence of his little flock. He thus admits himself to be its teacher and under shepherd. The example of a Father is acknowledged to be all-important.

The stream must not be expected to rise higher than the fountain. The Christian householder will feel himself constrained to say, I'm leading my family in solemn address to God. What manner of man should I be? How wise, how holy, how exemplary. This undoubtedly has been in cases innumerable the direct operation of family worship on the Father, as we know that worldly men and inconsistent professors are deterred from performing this duty by the consciousness of a discrepancy between their life and any acts of devotion, so humble Christians are led by the same comparison to be more circumspect and to order their ways in such a manner as may edify their dependents.

There cannot be too many motives to a holy life nor too many safeguards to parental example. Establish the worship of God in any house, and you erect around it a new barrier against the eruption of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Fathers, you're the under-shepherd of your home. And you're an under shepherd because you serve under the shepherding care of Christ. Serve in fear.

This is serious. It is far more serious and grave than we understand. Thanks be to God that he is committed to this matter of teaching us of how serious it is that the husband lead his wife in his family, that the wife received the leadership of her husband, her imperfect husband, doing so not with fear of men but in the fear of God. And the children are to receive that instruction that fathers are not to shirk their responsibilities nor abandon them but to be faithful, to grow. They're not perfect.

Just continue to grow and do better and better and better as time goes on. If I can, I'm going to try to offer some implications to what we've studied here thus thus far. Men, you were called to serve in the fear of Christ. The particular calling of servitude that you have is that you were to lead your home by the authority of Scripture. I say to you tremble at the word well.

Carlton spoke so well in Isaiah 66 where the Lord said to this one will I look to him who is humble and contrite of spirit and who trembles at my word. Men be perpetual students of the scriptures. I fear that education and higher education can be a great downfall to men because they can think that they know everything. By the way, writing a book can be a great downfall because it can be the point where you think, well, I'm an expert on the subject. Yeah, got news for you.

You got a lifetime of growing. Dr. Jim Zaspel, who I knew, I don't know if that's a familiar name to any of you, but he served and ministered, I think for something like 52 years. He preached the gospel for 52 years. The thing I love about that guy, you know what, he was a perpetual student.

He didn't walk around like some grand authority and you know he's no constantly learning constantly growing I love that also men make sure you're trembling at the voice of the Lord, not at the voice of your children or the voice of your wife. There's a church that in Minnesota I remember talking to a number of congregates there and one person said to me that of their wife, he said that yeah she's she's so such a leader she said I think that God is even afraid of her and I just my eyeballs about popped out that's the advantage of wearing glasses by the way keeps the eyeballs in moments like that and then I thought well that's just an aberration this is a bunch of craziness And I talked to another guy a little bit later and then he said pretty much the same thing about the fact that God was afraid of his wife because she was such a strong woman. He thought that was a compliment. That's gross. But what these men are really saying was is that they're afraid of their wives.

They're not trembling at the voice of the Lord, they're trembling at the voice of their wives. I'll tell you what, I've met too many men who tremble at the voice of their wife. Do remember Adam was rebuked by the Lord. The principal rebuke when he sinned was not that he had taken from the forbidden tree, the fruit from the forbidden tree. No, the principle rebuke was is that he had listened to the voice of his wife rather than listening to the voice of the Lord and trembling at his word.

Women, ladies, to the to the point that you are pursuing godliness, and I trust that you are, the world hates you. And I think you know this. The world has set its marks upon you and you're a target. Submitting to your husbands lovingly, joyfully, ministering to your children, Working in the home, the world thinks this is disgusting, and it does not hesitate to say so. We may have the first female president in our nation.

Hillary Clinton keeps talking about breaking that ceiling. I wonder if the ceiling she's talking about is the ceiling of judgment in Isaiah 3 where it says, speaking of the judgment that is set upon Judah, that the consequences of their sins where he says, oh my people, there are oppressors our children and women rule over them. That wasn't a good thing, that was a judgment. Who knows, I don't know and I'm not wishing for this but This may be a judgment against our nation, that it should be ruled by a woman. Children, consider these truths that we've reviewed together.

Think about the manner in which you're serving in your homes. Think about this matter of honoring your father and mother. You know the idea of honoring something means that you're going to treat something according to what it's worth. So, if I gave you something that was a toy that you really, really wanted, you really, really wanted, you would take care of that toy, right? Well, your parents are worth far more than a toy, and honoring them means treating them well in view of their worth.

God gave them to you as gifts, so treat them and honor them as gifts, And that's the way in which you honor the Lord. In fact, that's the whole point of honoring your parents. They're not the chief end. The chief end is that God would be honored. As God said in Malachi 1-6, a son honors his father and a servant his master if I then am a father where is my honor.

That's the whole point of honoring others is to honor God ultimately through those relationships. And one last thing, if you have not read this I would encourage you to find a copy and enjoy this sometime. Thomas Manton wrote a preface to the Westminster Confession of Faith, or this is an epistle to the reader that is oftentimes attached to the Westminster Confession of Faith. But he says, I cannot suppose thee to be such a stranger in England as to be ignorant of the general complaint concerning the decay of the power of godliness and more especially of the great corruption of youth. Wherever thou goest thou will hear men crying out of bad children and bad servants, whereas indeed the source of the mischief must be sought a little higher.

It is bad parents and bad masters that make bad children and bad servants, and we cannot blame so much their untowardness as our own negligence in their education. The devil hath a great spite at the kingdom of Christ and he knoweth no such compendious way to crush it in the egg as by the perversion of youth and supplanting family duties. In other words, fathers abandoning your responsibility to nurture your wife and children. Here strike at that all those duties which are public in the assemblies of the Saints, but these are too well guarded by the solemn injunctions and dying charge of Jesus Christ is that he should ever hope totally to subvert and undermine them, but at family duties he strike it with the more success because The institution is not so solemn or abounding with fear and the practice not so seriously and conscientiously regarded as it should be and the omission is not so liable to notice in public censure. In other words, these things can slip and people don't notice them right away.

And then he says this, Now the devil knoweth that this is a blow at the root and a ready way to prevent the succession of churches. If he can subvert families, other societies and communities will not long flourish and subsist with any power and vigor. But there is the stock which whence they are supplied both for the present and future. For the present a family is the seminary of church and state and if children be not well principled there all miscarryeth." Your home, it's a seminary. I like that.

And men, you're the under shepherds. You're the president, dean, professor, pastor. What a privilege. What a literally, I'll use the word correctly, awesome privilege. Fearful.

It is fearful. But thanks be to God for his sufficient grace, his sufficient authority given in his word. Let's pray to God for grace for all of us. Father thank you. Thank you for all that you have supplied in your word and there's so much more.

We've been so brief here this morning but help us to learn from what you have supplied through this text, these passages that we've considered. I pray Lord for your grace upon my own life, for every soul here that we all would increase and abound in these things for your glory and namesake. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. Is the the church in the family to the word of god and for more information about the national center for family integrated churches where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area log on to our website ncfic.org.