In the sermon 'Kingdom Building Marriages 2' delivered by Carl Provost, the focus is on the biblical principles of marriage as outlined in Ephesians 5. Provost emphasizes the roles of husbands and wives, where wives are called to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ, and husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. He discusses the cultural challenges to traditional marriage, including the redefinition of marriage and gender roles. The sermon traces the historical attacks on Christian marriage, referencing the Puritans and their understanding of marriage as foundational to a godly society. Provost argues that strong, biblically-grounded marriages are essential for building God's kingdom, as they produce godly offspring and influence society positively. The sermon outlines practical duties for husbands and wives, highlighting mutual love, support, and adherence to God's word as key components of a successful marriage.

Ephesians chapter 5 beginning in verse 22 same passage we read last week wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord For 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 unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it. That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by 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, so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it even as the Lord the Church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.

This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ in the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Let's go again to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you. Father, as we look again at this word that you've given us on the created order of marriage, Father, and as we recognize that you build your kingdom through godly marriages and godly families.

And Father, we pray that as we look at this word again today that you would open our hearts and teach us what you would have us to know and help us to apply these to our life. Father, we pray in Your Son Christ Jesus name. Amen. In returning to this text today, this text today. One thing that's absent in Paul's instructions here are principles or duties that we might have as husband and wife.

Many of us like to have these lists. I think even when you look at how some of the preachers in history have dealt with this, they've always drawn from other places in Scripture and developed principles for a godly marriage. So the sermon today will be more of a topical nature than it was last week, but last week being more of an introduction that God uses godly marriages as kingdom-building marriages. As I mentioned last week, there is an all out war against marriage and gender and ultimately against the truth of God's Word going on in our culture today. We have legalized, as Doug Wilson likes to call it, same-sex mirage.

And I appreciate that term because God's Word clearly defines what marriage is, and what the culture is today defining as marriage is not marriage. In fact, just this week, talking about the attacks on gender that we're seeing as we talk about who can use which bathroom, Utter nonsense, utter wickedness, things that make no sense outside of the understanding in God's Word that when people refuse to worship God for who He is, that they are given over to reprobate minds and they are deceived to believe a lie instead of the truth. Just this week, parents in Ohio lost custody of their 17-year-old daughter because a judge ruled that she should be allowed to receive therapy, including testosterone therapy, to identify as a boy. That's the way our judges are ruling in this nation. If you think this is a new problem, even in maybe our generation, you're wrong.

For this is a problem that has been building for a long time. The enemy has been attacking the family and the structure of Christian marriage for a long time. People despise Christian marriage. They despise those principles that for many regards, the practice that we hold to today in traditional marriage oftentimes comes from those teachings of the Puritans as they first came here and established churches and communities here in this nation. Just to give you a little bit of a couple of quotes to give you an idea of how long this has been going on.

The Sex and Information and Education Council of the United States, which implemented a class on sex education in schools in 1964. Here were some of their principles that they were going to seek to accomplish in schools. The merging or reversing of sex roles, obliterating children from their parents, and abolishing the traditional family. That was their goal in 1964. And for those who can Remember what some refer to as the good old days before they did things like this in school.

Actually back in 1946 Brock Chisholm of the World Health Organization, this is just a summarization of his quote, said, you parents as dictators and suppressors of children's better nature. There has been an attack, a long-going attack on Christian marriage and the family. Those who have, we see parading the rights around these days on television and in Hollywood, 1979 the Gay Liberation Society had as their goal says we must aim at the abolition of the family formed on the archaic and irrational teaching of Christianity. This is an issue about the Bible and God's created order. This is not just an issue that's separate from the church and the culture and the culture can do what they want to do and we can do what we want to do.

This is a full frontal attack to destroy Christianity. This is Satan's device to fight against the church. See, the Bible teaches that God made them male and female. Now we're told that God made them equal. They're both in the image of God, equal.

But then also God made them unique, male and female. He made them to go together. He also made them to fit together, anatomically and psychologically. Their roles are not interchangeable. You know, it's interesting, Even in this tolerant culture, in this culture where they want to speak about transgenderism, when a child is born today in the delivery room, they don't neatly declare, it's a person.

It's very clear. When you go get a sonogram and you choose to know the sex of your child, they declare it's a boy or a girl. How do we end up in this utter madness that we're in today? So you need nothing but a simple understanding of physiology and a little bit, not much, a little bit of common sense to understand that this is an all-out rebellion against the authority of God, against His power, and against the order that he has set in creation. But what's interesting, if you look at the history of the world, is what God has established from creation can't be changed.

So why is this happening? Well I think we have to go back to the beginning to see why this even happened. It began at the fall. The curse brought in this change of order. You remember the story the Satan deceived Eve and Eve listened to the serpent.

And then Eve went to Adam and Adam listened to his wife. And neither one of them listened to God. A complete reversal of the order that God had placed in creation. But what we see here in this text today is actually in Christian marriage is a restoration of God's created order. And in order to be in a biblical marriage, In order to be in a biblical marriage, in order to be in a kingdom-building marriage, you must be one who is indwelt by Christ, one who is unified with Christ, in order to be able to live by these principles, in order to be used of him for the building of his kingdom.

The second Adam as we are told came to restore things. That promised seed that was promised that would come and crush the head of Satan that was fulfilled in Christ Jesus. He came and he restores his kingdom through biblical marriages and development of biblical homes and families and about development of biblical churches As we look at the history of the world, you can see that every nation that has ever sought to change God's order has fallen. Greece, ancient Greece and Rome, when you look at the excesses and the rampant homosexuality that was in those and the rampant fornication. In fact, Rome clearly had no enemy of equal, but yet they fell from corruption within.

In fact, Even if we look at the history of the church, every denomination that has stopped believing the Bible, every denomination that has denied the creation, the first 11 chapters of Genesis as being history, have not recognized that there was a literal Adam and Eve. Those who have ignored the gender roles that are clearly in God's Word have become liberal and to the point of becoming no churches at all, Apostate and having no witness. In fact, the denomination of Jonathan Edwards and John Owen, those Congregationalists, what happened to them? You can find them today in the Universalist Church. This is the church of the homosexuals and the fornicators and the pedophiles and whatever else you can come up with.

They accept everybody. They say everyone's going to heaven. No church at all, apostate. When you turn from God's word as the standard of righteousness, as the standard of order in creation, it does not stand. For God's word goes about, he builds his kingdom through his people, through families, established through godly marriages.

A study recently showed that the church in America is in sharp decline. Except they noticed one part of the church that was actually growing. And it was these micro denominations and one thing that's key about these micro denominations is most of them still believe the Bible is God's Word. In fact I took a history class a number of years ago on Presbyterian history, and this contemporary professor stated that what he recognized is the mainline Presbyterian denominations were becoming more and more irrelevant as they turned from God's Word, and that he saw the future in history of the Presbyterian Church in these micro denominations that actually still hold to God's Word as an errant, as the truth by which we live our lives. So what do we do?

Now notice that Paul did not tell the Ephesians to become political activists and to go out and try to shut down these temples to Aphroditus. And I'm not saying those things are bad things, but what he focused here was that they needed to build their own marriages. They needed to allow God to build godly families and for the culture to change through the advancement of families and churches as we multiply through covenant communities who are faithful to God's Word. So as we come to the text today, I want to look at the purpose of marriage, and then we'll look also at the duties of marriage for both men, for husbands and wives. Now the purpose of marriage early in the church, and I made reference to this last week, had quickly become, by some false beliefs in teaching, the idea that it was only for procreation.

In fact, some of the church fathers taught that the actual act of procreation was sinful but necessary. It had come to the point to where it was viewed better to be celibate. As you can see, this clearly would go against any understanding of building the kingdom through godly offspring and fulfilling the dominion mandate. The reformers helped reform this aspect of the church. They helped them to understand that marriages were for the created order and an advancement of Christ's kingdom.

And then when you read the Puritans, they clearly point to the potpourri and the heresy of these beliefs, and they restore marriage to its rightful place. It started with the reformers and it was more fully developed with the Puritans. Just to get an understanding of how they viewed marriage, I'm gonna read the Solemnization of Matrimony from the 1662 Anglican Prayer Book. It says, Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate instituted of God in the time of man's inocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and His Church, which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with His presence, the first miracle that He wrought in Cana of Galilee, and is commended of St. Paul to be honorable among all men, and therefore is not to be any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly considering the cause for which matrimony was ordained.

First, it was ordained for the procreation of children to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to praise of his holy name. Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication, that such persons, as have not the gift of constancy, might marry and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body. Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity, in which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can show any just cause while they may not lawfully be joined together let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace." It's getting to where in marriage ceremonies today you don't hear these words spoken anymore. In fact, many people want to write their own vows, oftentimes not even understanding what a vow is and what they come back with are not vows at all, more of a Western sentimentalism about how much they love one another.

But vows are purposeful. In fact, marriage is hard. But it's good. And marriage cannot last if we try to do it on our own strength. It's through Christ and adhering to those vows that we have made.

In our Westminster Confession of Faith, there are three purposes of marriage that are listed. These were actually during the time of the Reformers were in sort of a reverse order, and then they were changed in emphasis during this time of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Just going to read the first two sections from Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 24, paragraphs 1 and 2. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman. Neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband at the same time.

Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of the husband and wife, for the increase of mankind with the legitimate issue and of the church with a holy seed and for presenting and for preventing uncleanness. So The first point we see there is to be a companion to one another. Recognizing God's Word, that Adam was given a companion. He was given an helper, one who perfectly complimented him. One who he walked with and talked with and had the most intimate relationship with.

A mutual help to one another. There's a help in bringing up children and erecting a well-governed family. Well ordering of property, they bear adversity together. This companionship is lives live together as in union as one. They go through health and sickness together with one another.

We are told in God's Word that he who findeth a wife findeth a good thing from the Lord. God's Word clearly teaches that it is not good for man to be alone. And we are told There are some who have given the gift of singleness, but this is a rare gift. For men, we are told it is not good for them to be alone, and He gives them a wife. And it is a good thing to find a wife as a helper, as one that comes alongside and completes Him.

When we recognize that Adam and Eve were both made in the image of God for each other, equal, and we recognize that it is in that union with our spouse that we are also complete. And that we represent that family, that oneness in Christ by which He builds His Kingdom. The second purpose of marriage that we see in the Westminster Confession was to have children. In fact, the words there are a little archaic. It says, marriage was ordained for the multiple help of husband and wife, and for the increase of mankind with a legitimate issue, this basically just means children, with legitimate children, and of the church with a holy seed.

And so there were two concepts that they understood there. For one, and I'm going to deal with the second one first, was that God had called families to bring about godly offspring, holy seed. Those who you would train in the fear and ammunition of the Lord. Those who would understand and take the faith and they would eventually at one time they would leave their father and mother and cleave to their wife and they would also have godly seed. And so we see the development of families through this idea of project procreation of a godly seed, but there was also the idea of Covering the earth to increase mankind with the legitimate children.

And this is speaking of those that go out to cover the earth. They're sent out, and they establish other communities, They establish other cities, other countries. And when the Puritans first came here, it was so that they could worship with freedom, so that they could worship without the oppression of the government. And they established new governments based upon God's law. And you look at their laws and the laws are clearly defined to protect the family and they recognize the importance of family They recognize the importance of building a godly city, a city upon a hill.

And God uses this as a purpose of marriage for the advancement of His Kingdom. For the Puritan, and I believe that they're accurate in their view of God's Word, to sit around and decide how many children they were going to have was not a conversation they would have. They wouldn't say, well, you know, I think two children, I'd like to have two. Well, I was thinking three. That's not a conversation of the Puritan mindset.

The Puritan mindset was that the city needs more godly children. The church needs another godly seed. And so they were considerate of their wives and of issues to do with health. And they didn't, it wasn't a have as many children as you can possibly have mentality. For they recognized that they must be able to be responsible for these children and to raise godly offspring and to train them.

But yet they recognized that children were a blessing from God. They recognized that it was a blessing for the womb to be opened and for them to have children. In fact, most Puritans had an average of seven to eight children. Now it was a different time then and on average only About three of those actually lived to be adults in that time. But there was an advancement of the kingdom through these godly families.

And the third principle that we see in our confession here is for preventing of uncleanness. This is to avoid fornication. Marriage is a haven to help avoid the pitfalls of lust. Husbands and wives are to find their satisfaction in one another, not depriving one another in order that the marriage is a protection from the pitfalls that we see so often in our culture today. Now I want to come to some practical duties of a marriage.

Now I'm going to give a lot of principles here and when there's not a lot of time left. And so most of these principles, except for a couple, come from William Gouge. He wrote a 700-page book that was probably the best-selling book in the time of the Puritans on building a godly home. And the first volume deals with actually this passage to do with a godly marriage and a godly family and then the second volume deals with the holy vision for a happy marriage and the third volume deals with raising up godly offspring but every single one of these I'm going to list, he has scripture verses to back it up. And so I don't have time to put a scripture verse with every one of these.

But we will recognize that there are lots of principles that we can find in God's Word. For God has given us the instruction book of how to have good marriages and we don't have to go to psychology. And there are some good books out there and I wouldn't be opposed to those who want to look at this book. In fact this is going to belong to the church library and will be added there soon. And there are some other books like the Exemplar Husband and the Excellent Wife.

But God has given us His Word as the instruction book. And the reason why Paul doesn't give us a detailed list here is because God's Word is the manual for life. And what the Puritans were so good at is pulling these principles from all of God's Word. And this is just a sampling of what you'll find in this book here. Let's look again before I read there in our text.

The duties of marriage. It says, wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord, for 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 unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands, and in everything husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it." We recognize there that there's an order to creation in the marriage. But we also recognize in verse, as we looked in the two weeks ago, in verse 21, it says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. And just to revisit this real quickly, there's a transition from a general submission, an idea that there's a sense in which we all submit one to another as those who are equal spiritually and standing before our God.

But yet, he goes directly into that created order of those particular areas of authority that we are to submit to. But first of all, I want to look at the mutual duties of marriage. First of all, it's to guard the oneness of your marriage. We are told the two must become one flesh. See, it is possible to get married and to be made one flesh at our marriage, but yet to live our lives separate.

I see this all the time. Two people that have no connection other than the fact that they come together and they live in the same home. They have completely separate lives. They have a completely separate set of friends. That is not the way it's to be.

And that's one of the reasons why so often marriages end and divorce, Because they never live as one. They never actually live as two that are made one. They are to share their life together. Being with each other. They should desire to be with their spouse.

They need to remember the time when they wanted to spend every extra minute they had with this person that they were courting or dating or whatever form you were utilizing when you met your spouse. I can remember giving up many hours of sleep so that I could spend time with Lynn. It didn't seem to bother me at all at that time. It seemed like after we got married I instantly turned old and couldn't do it anymore. But yet we have a desire to be with our spouse, sharing together.

Now this is a difficulty. It seemed like before marriage, I never had a shortage of things to say. And then oftentimes after marriage, this is a struggle for me. There's a tiredness that comes in with providing and raising children and just the mundane things of life but yet if you're in an intimate marriage there should be a mutual sharing with one another. A walking together, as Adam and Eve walked in the garden.

There's a togetherness that should be clearly seen in our marriages. Talk together. Now, borrowing from Alistair Begg, he talks about the four T's in a message on this, a similar message on this passage. He refers to them as touch, time, talk, and travel. Touch.

Now, some of us have to think back a little further than others, but I want us to think back to when we first met our wife, when we first met our husband. Remember the power of touch. Just think about that time when maybe you were sitting there and your hand just reaches over and all you do is touch pinkies. And it's just this electrifying feel. There's power in touch.

And we're very sensitive to this in the early days of our marriage. And we need to recognize the importance of touch in a marriage, to show affection through touch. And as years pass on, the same level of electricity is no longer there. The same buzz is not there, but we have to work at it. But it's still important.

Time. Far more valuable than money. Oftentimes, because we are chasing money, we don't have time for our spouse. Always looking at a time in the future when we will have time. And we, in raising children, especially if you're homeschooling them, we're busy.

And oftentimes we neglect our spouse by not giving them the time that they need. And I think we all have been guilty of this, but yet we recognize that it is important to give time to our spouse and then one that was already mentioned, but talk. Our wives need us to talk to them. And sometimes if you have a job where you, maybe you're frustrated or you come home and you don't really want to talk. We have to recognize that, especially our wives that maybe have been home for long periods of time with small children, That they really need that adult conversation.

They really need that time that they can talk with their spouse. And Alistair gives his last one, travel. Now he says He's not talking about going on vacation here. He's talking about just taking the time to ride to the grocery store with your wife. Go do some things together.

You know, we're at a point in our life now where often times the kids are doing other things or they stay at home and we're going out by ourselves. And we're sort of rediscovering this time of being able to go out together. And you remember, It's good to be with your spouse. These are signs of a mutual duty that we have to each other in order to build healthy marriages. Also enjoying the sexual purity of your marriage.

The Puritans coined it as matrimonial chastity. And what they mean there is you should have no affections, Your eyes and all of your affections should be for your wife only. This is one who has disciplined himself, has disciplined his eyes, and all of his affections are for his wife. Enjoying physical intimacy with your spouse says they must intimately give themselves to each other willingly, readily, and cheerfully. Now This should only be tempered by concern for each other's piety, weakness, or illness.

This again leads to that third purpose of marriage, and avoiding fornication, avoiding temptation. You are to love your spouse and live in harmony. Without love, no duty will be well performed. Note, when husbands love their wives as Christ loves the church. She will be pleased to serve Him, to submit to His leadership.

Love, mutual love is necessary for a healthy marriage. Each should cherish the other as a special gift of mercy from God. Do you recognize your spouse as a gift from God as your most cherished possession? The home should be a haven from the storm-tossed world. See, oftentimes we go out into this world and we're attacked for what we believe, either at the workplace or just out in the culture today.

But our home should be a haven from that, a haven of love. And we should build each other's through prayer. See, prayer also is a mutual duty that not only should we be praying together, but we should be praying privately to be one spirit, recognizing that our flesh oftentimes gets in the way of this one flesh union. And praying that God would help us to overcome sinful desires and that he would build that union, spiritual union between husband and wife. Pray for God to sanctify our marriages, to sanctify our children.

Pray for those financial pressures that oftentimes come on marriage. Pray that God will fill us with the spiritual graces that we need in order to love one another. Even when we're finding it hard to love our spouse because of something that maybe they have done. Recognizing that it's not dependent upon them, but it's dependent upon our relationship with Christ. We should be building up each other.

We should help each other out spiritually. Help each other with temptation. See, Part of the requirements of the husband is to wash his wife with the water of the Word. And that means he leads his family in the teaching of God's Word. But there's also a sense in which she ministers to Him spiritually as well, oftentimes reminding Him when He's discouraged of God's Word, helping to encourage Him, helping each other with temptation.

It's good to have accountability partners in overcoming sin, but your best accountability partner is the one you live with, the one who knows who you really are, the one who you cannot hide things from. Now we sometimes accomplish hiding things, but God brings them into the light. And He uses our spouse, and we should utilize our spouse, mutually holding each other accountable to avoid temptation. There should be a sense in which we compliment one another, recognizing that we both have different gifts. And in order to function to the fullest potential, that we shouldn't be fighting with one another, but complementing one another as we serve our Heavenly Father together.

We should appreciate each other and for the different spiritual gifts that God's given us uniquely, and even recognizing that in the weaknesses that He has put us together so that we can complement one another. We should never speak harshly to each other. Never provoke each other. Show kindness to each other. Overlook each other's faults.

Cultivate true friendship. It doesn't just happen. It takes time to cultivate the friendship in a marriage and to keep those fires going. Take interest in each other's interest. See, the wife shouldn't just cease to no longer have her own interest and be absorbed into her husband when she's married.

She's unique herself and you should take interest in each other's desires and interests. Sympathetic to each other in distress, sickness and weakness, guard each other's reputations. Never speak ill of each other, be confidential in each other's secrets. Share the oversight of the household. Work together in hospitality.

And work together in the benevolence to the poor. See, these are all biblical principles that are given to us. And these are all derived from God's Word of how we can meet mutually work together. Now I want to look at the husband's duties. First I want to do a quick overview of what this text calls him to do.

It says, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. We recognize that the love of what He's called to do, first of all, is impossible. But yet it's the standard that we strive for. For we are not perfect. In Christ, perfect love for His church is the pattern that we Seek.

And what we see in this passage is that we are to love our wives absolutely. It's agape love. It's a self-giving love, giving of yourself. We are to love our wives purposefully. We are to love our wives purposefully.

We are to love our wives realistically, recognizing that they have different needs and desires than we do. And we are to love them sacrificially, putting their needs before our own. Here's some of the principles from Williams' book. Delight in your wives and seek to esteem them even to the point that others would call it doting. Now think about this.

Some of us might think this is a little mushy, but this is coming from the time of the Puritans. This isn't our Western sentimentalism today, but we should so cherish our wives that people outside looking in See that we are doting over our husband or our wife Recognizing how much they mean to us See God has given us a special love for our wives that is not affected by the change brought in by time, illness, or accident. It's a love that sees beyond these things. We are told to provide for our wife in sickness and in health. In fact, the husband must only reprove his wife in tender love as he steers her away from sin.

And in fact, this in itself should be rare and administered in private. There again displaying that tenderness and love to her. A husband must accept the functions of his wife as she performs in the home, not demanding too much of her, recognizing her weaknesses and not putting too much upon her. She should also be given the freedom to manage the affairs of her home, for she has been given dominion of the home, of the domestic duties that God has called her to. And We must do this for our wives cheerfully and tenderly.

Now the wife's duties. First quick review over what it means for wives to submit to your own husbands. It says, wives, submit yourself to your own husbands as unto the Lord. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. See, submission is the humble recognition of God's divine ordering of society.

And it's a recognition that society cannot function as God established it without the principle of submission being understood and applied to the marriage. And so she is recognizing that she is submitting to God's plan. She's submitting to Christ when she submits to her husband. In no way does it imply inferiority. We are told clearly in God's Word that we spiritually are equal.

There's man and woman, slave and free. Our spiritual standing before God is the same. Our wives, this one's an easy one for me to say our wives are smarter and more confident than us in many areas. And we need to recognize that. But yet, God has called them to submit.

And that doesn't mean that they are to give up that. It's an understanding that they, A good husband who leads a biblical marriage recognizes the gifts of his wife and utilizes the gifts of his wife. Basically, submission has nothing to do with her ability. It's only the order of God's creation. In no way is the husband superior to his wife.

And it's also as I said last week it's an it's active not passive basically it's not subject it's not subjugation or cohesion by the husband that the wife willingly gives her submission to her husband. Now the husband might be called to wash his wife in the water of the word which means he might instruct her in God's Word and what God's Word teaches but nowhere is he to tell his wife how to submit. God's Word is the standard for her submission. It's voluntary, not forced. It should be joyful, not begrudging.

In everything, it's not unthinking or slavish. It's not unconditional obedience. So what are some of the duties that we see in this submission? A wife should be content in her husband's work, social standing, and financial status. As long as he's not sinning and he's not a sluggard, she should be satisfied and content with where God has placed her, the home she's placed her in, the social status.

I have seen many problems brought into marriage because there is no contentment in this. The conversations that she has with her husband should show respect. She should respect his opinions. She should respect his leadership, recognizing that he is the representative of Christ in her life and the family. And even in her own ruling of the home, she should understand the areas where maybe she needs to dialogue with her husband to make decisions.

But she also needs to understand the areas where she has the liberty and authority in the home. So that she can lead things in such a way that they do compliment one another. That it's not an extra burden on him, but that she truly is allowed to be the helpmeet that God has called her to be. She should establish Christ's kingdom in the home. This is an establishment in the home of teaching the children, according to God's Word, raising up godly offspring, having the home as a haven where the husband can come and get away from the sins of the world, the sins of the workplace.

It's a place where he wants to be. It's a home that's in order. It's a home where she herself has been diligent in keeping the home in the way that fosters this level of comfort. She should be thrifty without being miserly. She should persevere in her duties at home So that her husband can clearly see the work of her hands when he comes home Recognizing the the virtue and value of a godly wife as we see described in Proverbs 31 Handling herself with sobriety mildness courtesy and modesty Now I gave a bunch of biblical principles here, and if you want verses for all these, I can give them to you.

But we didn't have time to read them all today. But these are principles that we can follow and the principles are in God's Word. And if we're going to know how to have Kingdom-building marriages, we have to know God's Word. How do we defend against the attacks of Satan in our marriages? By being people of the Word, people of the Book, looking to God's Word for principles of how to live our lives, live according to His created order.

So what does this look like in the spread of his kingdom? In Habakkuk 2.14, after speaking against those who build cities through conquering and blood, It says, for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as waters cover the sea. See, God builds His kingdom through the advancement and spread of Christian families over the earth, fulfilling the creation mandate to fill the earth. And we recognize, if you look at maps of how the church has spread, you see that that's exactly what has been taking place. And often times as we see things from maybe From our current position in this culture, we see a declining church.

But overall, as you look at the church in the world, it is expanding. God is building his kingdom through kingdom-building marriages that bring godly seed into communities and churches and that establish godly nations. And the outworking of that oftentimes might result in political involvement, might result in confronting sin on the streets. But first and foremost, it starts in the home, just like it did in the garden with Adam and Eve. One man, one woman, two became one flesh, and living our lives according to God's principles in order to see the spread of His Kingdom.

Let's go again to the Lord in prayer. Father, we come before you and we thank you for this word that you've given us father and we recognize that we are weak and needy people and that oftentimes we are so easily and snare by the sin around us but we recognize that there are strength in numbers That you have given us strength by giving us a spouse and you have given us strength by giving us Godly offspring and that we stand stronger together as godly families and we stand stronger as unified churches and we recognize that where one of us might be weak that where we all stand together under the headship of Christ we are strong and father I pray that you would use us and our families and in our church to share the gospel with this world around us and for the advancement of your kingdom. We pray in your son, Christ Jesus' name, Amen.