The Christian Family: God's Directives to: Wives

The point: Store up these concepts in your minds and face your first contemplations of marriage within the biblical framework, rather than letting your heart and head get messed up by mere emotion.

Martin advises young people to approach marriage within a biblical framework rather than emotional gushiness, as love alone doesn't make it work.

And as I sought his mind with reference to the theme that he felt would be most helpful to you, his people, and visitors who might come amongst us, it was his express wish that the theme of the Christian family be dealt with, and I know of no better way to come at that subject than to take the passage which has been read in your hearing and attempt, by God's grace, to open up to you. And to open up something of the mind of the Spirit as found in this portion of the Word of God. Let me say, first of all, by way of brief introduction, that I am fully aware that some of you are not yet wives and ...

0:37 - 1:58 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Pastor Martin introduces the sermon series on the Christian family, emphasizing its relevance for all, married or single. He then lays out four crucial principles for interpreting…

He contrasts demanding submission from a horse with expecting it from a wife, emphasizing that a wife is an image-bearer of God with a mind and spirit, not a brute.

It is not the submission of an animal. A mindless being is the submission of an image-bearer of God. And when a husband realizes that, he will never demand the same kind of submission from his wife that he would expect from his horse. He puts the spurs in the side of his horse and says, Get out!

9:42 - 10:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand that this is distinctively Christian teaching, and unless you are a Christian, you will not understand it, submit to it, or have the grace to follow it.

Martin vividly illustrates the carnal mind's enmity against God's will by imagining a woman boiling with fury and wanting to throw a shoe at him for expounding biblical submission.

You're going to sit there looking up and be very polite because you're gracious and you're kind and you have lots of natural Southern charm. You wouldn't dare let down the face, but there are some of you women sitting here tonight that are going to boil with fury and if you could do what you want to do, you'd rise up and throw your shoe at me. Why? It's because your heart's never been subdued by the Holy Ghost.

14:27 - 14:49 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand that this is distinctively Christian teaching, and unless you are a Christian, you will not understand it, submit to it, or have the grace to follow it.

He quotes a servant of God who states that Christian domestic life is the triumph of faith and the most acid test of genuine Christian experience, highlighting the home's importance.

As one servant of God has said, In Christian domestic life, Jesus Christ is at once the starting point and the goal of everything. We may even say that domestic life is the beginning of everything. Domestic life is the triumph of the Christian faith. Jesus Christ is the starting point.

15:56 - 16:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: To be submissive to your husband does not mean you're giving up your dignity as a creature made in the image of God. It does not mean you're becoming something halfway between a human and a beast. It is your glory to see…

The example of Jesus being subject to his parents in Luke 2:51 is used to define submission as a positional subordination that does not diminish inherent worth or dignity.

In Luke 2.51 it says of Jesus that he came down to Nazareth and was subject to his parents. Now this is a pivotal passage to understand the significance of this word subject. Was Jesus Christ the eternal son of the living God as much when he was a boy as when he was a full grown man?

23:18 - 23:40 Read in full sermon

Driving home: To be submissive to your husband does not mean you're giving up your dignity as a creature made in the image of God. It does not mean you're becoming something halfway between a human and a beast. It is your glory to see…

He uses the example of Jesus being wiser than his parents to illustrate that a wife's submission is not based on her intelligence, education, or culture compared to her husband's.

So it's not a matter whether the wife is better educated than the husband, whether she has more gray matter, higher IQ, more culture. It has to do with none of those factors. She is to be subject because God has ordained the structure just as much as the Son of God greater in wisdom and dignity than the very parents whom he himself had created. He was the creator of Mary and Joseph.

25:42 - 26:03 Read in full sermon

Driving home: To be submissive to your husband does not mean you're giving up your dignity as a creature made in the image of God. It does not mean you're becoming something halfway between a human and a beast. It is your glory to see…

The disciples' report that 'even the demons are subject to us' (Luke 10:17) is used to convey the sense of obedience and subjugation inherent in the word 'subject'.

And yet he was subject to them. Subject to the ones he made! Without in any way staining the dignity of his person. It's the same word used in Luke 10.17.

26:03 - 26:16 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin details three aspects of a wife's submission: it is voluntary (not forced, reflecting Christ's wooing of the church), exclusive (to 'her own husband,' not all men), and…

The analogy of Jesus Christ wooing and winning His bride (the church) is used to explain that a wife's submission is voluntary, not forced, as God makes sinners willing to come to Him.

When God purposes to lay hold of a rebel sinner, He doesn't force the sinner to Christ. As the old confession says, Confession says, He so works upon the heart and the mind and the will that they come most freely, being made willing by His grace. Christ rules us, and in the mighty, powerful operations of the Spirit, He so works upon us that we can do nothing other than come. But Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.

27:47 - 28:18 Read in full sermon

The point: If you profess to be a Christian, you will voluntarily submit to your husband, because if you love Christ, you will heed His commandments.

He states that a husband cannot force his wife to submit, as this breaks the parallel with Christ and the church, and any attempt will fail.

So often the passage is read this way, Husbands, force your wives into submission. That's utterly impossible. And any of you who have tried it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. No man can force his wife to submit to him.

28:54 - 29:07 Read in full sermon

The point: If you profess to be a Christian, you will voluntarily submit to your husband, because if you love Christ, you will heed His commandments.

If a wife won't submit, it's either an unregenerate heart (requiring prayer for salvation) or temporary arrested Christian growth (God will chasten her more effectively than the husband).

What wilt thou have me to do in the words of Saul of Tarsus? If you have a wife who will not voluntarily submit to you as a husband, it's either a reflection of her unregenerate heart, in which case, instead of trying to feed her into submission with verbal whips, pray that the Holy Ghost will change your heart and save her, and then she'll take the directives of God seriously. Or it's a case of a temporary arrest of her growth as a Christian, in which case God will put His rod on her, which is far more effective than yours. For whom He loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom He receive...

29:29 - 30:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Once you get hold of the principle that your submission is deeply religious, it can revolutionize your whole thinking about your role as a wife.

He uses talk shows discussing women's rights as an example of the 'vanity of the mind' of the generation, which denies God's created distinctions between sexes.

To state it negatively, it is the height of irreligion and impiety. It is walking as the Gentiles walk when you do not submit yourself to your husband. It's walking in the vanity of your own mind. And Ephesians 4.18 says, don't walk as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. You want to know the vanity of the mind of our own generation? Turn on any talk show and listen to these people blabbing off about women's rights and all this other falderal. I don't know what else to call it.

36:40 - 37:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Once you get hold of the principle that your submission is deeply religious, it can revolutionize your whole thinking about your role as a wife.

He describes the evolutionary theory that men were hunters and women nurses, leading to traditional roles, which modern movements seek to 'outgrow,' contrasting it with biblical creation.

Vanity of the mind as though God had not created any distinction in the sexes. Simply an accident in the evolutionary process. And the only reason men have traditionally been the leaders is because back when we were grunting and half-talking and making peeps and squeaks when we came out of our caves, the male was the hunter and the woman was home nursing her little brood. And therefore, she had to be the domesticated member of the family.

37:11 - 37:37 Read in full sermon

The point: Once you get hold of the principle that your submission is deeply religious, it can revolutionize your whole thinking about your role as a wife.

He mentions the Russian experiment of keeping a fetus alive in a test tube as an extreme example of the seriousness with which some seek to erase fundamental distinctions between male and female.

The only thing that hangs them up right now is that women have wombs and men don't. But they're doing their best to get over that. And in Russia, they actually kept a fetus alive for seven or eight weeks in a test tube. They're serious about this.

37:50 - 38:02 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The tendency to follow, to feel safe, to feel secure, to feel that you fit under the positive, loving, firm direction, of a godly husband has been embedded in your very soul from the moment of your creation as a woman.

He quotes 1 Corinthians 11:7, 'the woman was made for the man and not the man for the woman,' to emphasize the creative order as a ground for submission.

It was God who said, it's not good that the man should be alone. God said, I will make someone to answer to his needs. And then you know the beautiful story how God put Adam to sleep with someone who said the first case of anesthesia and he took one of his ribs and out of that rib he formed a woman and brought her to the man and he sees in that woman the answer to his needs and says, this is woman because she was taken out of man and he pleads to his wife and the two become one flesh. Now, Paul picks up that very order of creation in 1 Corinthians 11, 7 and says, the woman was made for the man...

41:53 - 42:35 Read in full sermon

Driving home: The tendency to follow, to feel safe, to feel secure, to feel that you fit under the positive, loving, firm direction, of a godly husband has been embedded in your very soul from the moment of your creation as a woman.

He quotes an unnamed source stating that 'the tendency to follow was embedded in Eve's very soul,' illustrating that submission is a natural, God-given delight for women, corrupted only by sin.

As one has beautifully said, the tendency to follow was embedded in Eve's very soul as she came forth from the hand of her creator. Oh, dear women, you young girls, listen to me. The tendency to follow, to feel safe, to feel secure, to feel that you fit under the positive, loving, firm direction, of a godly husband has been embedded in your very soul from the moment of your creation as a woman. And there's only one reason why every woman does not instinctively delight in the thought of being submissive to her God-given man and that's the intrusion of sin into the human race.

42:36 - 43:18 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin clarifies that a wife's submission is to be 'in everything,' not just convenient areas, paralleling the church's pervasive submission to Christ. He notes that this does not…

He tells an anecdote of a man who claims to decide 'big issues' (like UN membership) while his wife decides 'little issues' (like car, home, college), exposing the man's theoretical, non-impinging decisions.

Not just in the department you deem best, but in the totality of your relationship. Now, this is not me, unlike the man who said, well, in our home, I decide the big issues and my wife decides the little issues. I decide whether or not red china should be admitted to the UN. I decide whether or not I decide whether we ought to continue to side with Israel in the Mideast crisis.

50:32 - 50:53 Read in full sermon

The point: When a woman catches hold of this principle, she submits in everything, not at the whims of her own ideas, but because God commands it, even if she disagrees after discussion.

Martin shares his personal practice of consulting his wife, valuing her intelligence and advice, while maintaining his role as the administrative head of the home.

I thank God that God gave to my wife not only a pretty face, but he put some grave matter between her ears.

52:10 - 52:16 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He describes the climate of submission as 'godly fear' or 'reverence' for the husband, not based on his character but on the office God has given him. This reverence precludes…

He uses cartoons like 'The Flintstones' and 'I Love Lucy' as examples of popular culture that subtly promote a climate of marital partners being pitted against each other, undermining reverence.

What a strange thing on our ears in this day. This is why I think it's a tragedy when Christians enter into this kind of silly banter that goes on about husbands and wives and somebody putting something over. This is one reason, among others, why we don't allow our children to watch the Flintstones. Oh, you say, Mr. Martin, you're kidding.

54:08 - 54:28 Read in full sermon

The point: You will not speak disrespectfully to your husband nor about him behind his back, nor openly challenge his authority before the children, but make it evident that you reverence him.

He uses the analogy of honoring the king, regardless of his character, because of the office God has placed him in, to explain that a wife's reverence for her husband is due to his God-given office.

It has nothing to do. It has nothing to do what's in him. It has to do with the God who's placed him over you. God says, honor the king.

55:29 - 55:41 Read in full sermon

The point: It is absolute wickedness for you to refuse your place of subjection, regardless of your husband's bad example or weaknesses.

He describes a home where a woman lovingly submits to her husband as 'salt in the midst of putrefaction' and a powerful witness in a dark generation.

And the lack of being submissive to domestic stability in our own nation is in great measure due to the fact that women have long since lost the glory of their publicly assigned position. We talk about witnessing. I'll tell you what witness is in our generation. You see a home where a woman lovingly submits to her husband, and that is right in the midst of darkness.

57:03 - 57:24 Read in full sermon

The point: It is absolute wickedness for you to refuse your place of subjection, regardless of your husband's bad example or weaknesses.

He notes that many girls struggle to adjust to their role as wives because they lacked a proper example in their own homes, emphasizing that these things are 'more caught than taught'.

That's salt in the midst of putrefaction. Why are so many girls having problems adjusting to their role as wives? Because they didn't see an example in their own homes which they could pattern themselves at. For these things are more caught than taught.

57:24 - 57:41 Read in full sermon