Fundamental Duty of Wives to Husbands

Introduction: The Elder's Duty and the Context of 1 Peter 3

0:04 Now may I urge you to turn with me in your own Bibles to 1 Peter and chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3, and I shall read in your hearing the first paragraph, that is verses 1 through 6. 1 Peter 3, beginning in verse 1.

0:29 In like manner, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that even if any obey not the word, they may, without a word, be gained by the behavior of their wives, beholding your chaste or holy behavior coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be the outward adorning of braiding of hair and of wearing of gold or of putting on apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart. In the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner aforetime, the holy women also who hoped in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose children you now are. If you do well. And are not put in fear by any terror.

1:42 In Titus chapter 1 and verse 9, where the Apostle Paul is describing the requirements for an elder. Among those requirements, he states the following. He is to be a man who holds to the faithful word, which is according to the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in the sound or healthy doctrine, and to convict the gainsayers. An elder is to be one who holds fast to reveal truth, and is able both to exhort, to encourage, to seek to motivate in the direction of the reception and obedience of healthy teaching, but also to convict the gainsayers. That is, those who speak against the heavens, and those who speak against the body of revealed truth. Now, to fulfill this requirement, a man must often be willing to stand against prevailing currents in the world, and, alas, quite often prevailing currents even within the professing Christian church.

3:02 And certainly this is true in our day with respect to the teaching of the gospel, and certainly this is true in our day with respect to the teaching of the gospel. And certainly this is true in our day with respect to the teaching of the word of God concerning male and female roles and relationships in the home, in the church, and in society at large. Now, in our consecutive expositions of the book of 1 Peter, we find ourselves coming this morning to 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. I did not read verse 7 because it is directed, as written, to husbands, but in this section we have seven verses in which there is explicit reference made to distinctive male and female roles and relationships particularly within the marital bond. Now, last Lord's Day, I sought to set before you the larger Biblical context within which Peter is writing, Any biblical writer writes when he addresses the subject of the distinctive roles of men and women, of husbands and of wives. Whatever we read in Peter's letter, whatever we read in the Pauline corpus of New Testament epistles, that is, within the letters of the Apostle Paul,

The Larger Biblical Framework: Creation, Fall, and Redemption

4:28 whatever we read in the Gospels of the teaching of our Lord Jesus, everything that addresses itself to some specific aspect of male and female roles and relationships outside of and within marriage, comes to us in the larger context of the biblical doctrines of creation, fall, and redemption. So what I attempted to do last week is simply to underscore the significance. The significance of those great watershed doctrinal pivots, if I may mix my metaphors and have pivots that are watersheds, as we come to this passage. What is taught in this passage regarding the wife's submission to her husband in no way compromises her inherent, equally shared, created dignity. God said, Let us make man in our image. In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. Secondly, what is taught in this passage in no way exaggerates the inherited moral depravity of the woman.

5:45 When the scriptures indict mankind as sinners, it indicts, or they indict, the male and the female with an equal indictment. And, Thirdly, what is taught here in no way undermines the woman's imparted, redemptive standing and privilege. Galatians 3.28 again is a pivotal text.

6:12 In Christ there is neither bond nor free, male nor female, Jew, Greek, you are all one new man in Christ. In terms of redemptive privilege, sexual, social, economic distinctions do not matter. In terms of redemptive privilege, sexual, social, economic distinctions do not matter. In terms of redemptive privilege, sexual, social, economic distinctions do not matter.

6:29 And everything taught here is within that larger framework. And you must constantly remind yourself of that. As you interact with others, you must bring forward those truths. Because back to so much of the popular polemic both within and without the Church assumes and asserts that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, that if you have one person who voluntarily subordinates himself or herself to another person, unusually perverse, and needs the domination of another, or that somehow the one who voluntarily submits to another must not have an equal standing in Christ. None, none, I say, of those things are true. Now we come to 1 Peter 3 and verse 1 this morning. And I want to take just a moment to underscore again the flow of thought in this passage.

The Flow of Thought in 1 Peter: From General Exhortation to Specific Directives

7:32 After Peter has laid out another series of our great privileges in Christ, in chapter 2, verses 4 to 10, he issues this fresh call to a holy walk. I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul. He urges them, in the light of their identity as pilgrims and sojourners, to abstain from those things that would erode, the healthy state of their souls. And he does this with a view that they would not only maintain themselves in the way of holiness, but that they would validate the power of the gospel before an onlooking world. Then he descends from this general exhortation to a specific area of concern. And that area of concern is the Christian submitting himself to every structure of authority that he contends, in the will of God. Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake.

8:38 And then he breaks it down into three subsets. First of all, be subject to the civil authority. Weather to the king as supreme. Verse 18.

8:51 Servants, be in subjection to your masters. Chapter 3 and verse 1. In like manner, you wise, be in submission or subjection to your own husbands. So the connectives are clear.

9:06 Peter is focusing upon this whole subject of the Christian who is pursuing a life of godliness, a life that validates the power of the gospel, and he is identifying this area, the Christian's relationship, to constituted authority. The citizen to the state, the servant to his master, and the wife to her husband. Now then we come to chapter 3 and verse 1, a text that I am calling a divine directive to wives. In like manner, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.

The Specific Objects of the Divine Directive: Christian Wives

9:49 And we're going to look at this text this morning under two heads. First of all, the specific objects of this divine directive.

9:59 And I ask you to pray that God will help my vocal cords. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

10:03 I'm sorry. I'm struggling with a tickle in my throat. I've asked God to deliver me. I don't believe the devil wants what I have to preach to be heard.

10:13 And so you pray with me as I have prayed that God would undertake in this matter. The specific objects of this divine directive. The text begins with the words, in like manner. And that's an English translation of one simple, Greek word.

10:35 And that Greek word is sometimes used simply as a word to let us know that the author is transitioning from one subject to another. Verse 7, Peter uses it that way. You husbands, in like manner. I've addressed the wives.

10:51 Now next, I'm going to address you husbands. Peter uses it that way in chapter 5 and verse 5. Likewise, you younger. He's going to take up another aspect of the subject.

11:03 He is dealing with. But the word more frequently means in a similar way. Not an identical way, but in a similar way. And it would appear that in this context, Peter is using it in this sense.

11:19 As the Christian is to be in subjection to the legitimate power of the state, as the slave is to be in subjection to his master, in like manner, in a similar way, in a similar way, he, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. Now note the specific objects of this divine directive.

11:44 As the letter is read, everything has been general of the people of God up until Peter identifies the servants as a distinctive class. From his opening words, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect sojourners of the dispersion, all the way through chapter 2 and verse 17, the whole congregation, in all of its inherent distinctions and differences, is being addressed as the people of God. When he comes to verse 18, it would be the house slaves whose ears would perk up when they heard the words, house slaves in subjection to your masters. Similarly, no sooner is Peter done addressing that specific group of people, but addressing them in the company of all the other believers, but that the wives would have their ears perked up in like manner, you wives. This is a divine directive that has as its specific objects the wives who are sitting there in the assemblies of God's people in those provinces of Asia Minor in the land that we now identify as the land of Turkey. But since there's no indication that the congregation would immediately break up and all the wives would go off into a little wifely caucus and one of the elders would say,

13:14 now I'm going to read this part of the letter to you since it's just to you, we need to have a wives caucus to read this and discuss it. Whatever Peter says to these specific objects of this directive, namely the wives, it is written and would have been read in a specific way. It is written and would have been read in a specific way. It is written and would have been read in a specific way.

13:33 It is written and would have been read in a specific way. It is written and would have been read in a specific way. In a setting where not only the wives would hear it, but the husbands would hear it, the children would hear it, the single women would hear it, the widows would hear it, the widowers would hear it, and any other class of Christians sitting there would hear it. You say, why do I make the point that's obvious?

13:52 Well, for the simple reason that though we will be focusing upon what this is saying to wives, as then so now, because we are gathered as the people of God, God would have us all understand his mind with reference to his will for the role and function of the wife within the married relationship. It is evident, you see, that he's not addressing explicitly the husbands. You men will look in vain for a text in the Bible that says, and you husbands bring your wives into submission. Now, I have a sneaking suspicion that some of you husbands have been waiting in the wings with bated breath, waiting for me to put a club in your hands with which you could go home and beat your wife into submission.

14:45 Well, I want to serve you notice, there is no such club in the Bible, and I'm not about to make one. And furthermore, you can't beat a wife into submission with clubs or with words. The submission required here can only be effective when you have a wife in your hands. But when the wife from the heart submits, that's why it's addressed to the wives.

15:09 And you won't find a verse in the Bible that tells men to bring their wives into submission. If you find it, come and bring it to me.

15:19 It's not there. This is addressed to the wives. But it's not just to wives generically. He is writing this to Christian wives.

The Assumed Spiritual State of Christian Wives: Grace-Produced Motives and Power

15:31 Now, I want you to think with me. What have these wives, already heard as they sat there, and one of the elders or one of the officially appointed readers of the church is reading the letter. These wives have heard everything that all the other believers in the assemblies would have heard concerning this amazing salvation that is theirs in Jesus Christ. They are wives whom Peter addresses assuming they have received, all of the unique blessings of redemptive grace in Jesus Christ.

16:12 He assumes that these wives are part of the group described in the opening language. They are elect sojourners, elect according to God's foreknowledge, that is, His love beforehand. They have known the sanctification of the Spirit. They have been brought unto obedience in sprinkling of the blood of Christ.

16:35 He's assuming, that when Peter rhapsodizes about this amazing salvation, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope, by the resurrection unto an inheritance. He's assuming these wives soared with Peter when he soared in this eulogy to God and to His great salvation. When he writes saying, Whom having not saved, seen you love, in whom though you see Him not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. He's assuming every Christian wife in that assembly has had her heart soar with His in this blessing of God for His great salvation. Every Christian wife, when he said, Whom having not seen you love, could say, Yes, Lord, I do love you. Though I see you not, I do believe upon you. I, I do rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

17:40 When he writes further in chapter 1, You were redeemed not with silver and gold, but with precious blood, the blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and spot. The women, the wives in the assembly said, Yes, Lord, I've been purchased by blood. I've been brought out of bondage by the payment of a price. That's me, Lord.

18:01 I know that redemption. I know that, that amazing salvation. And when he writes further in that chapter, seeing you've purified your soul in your obedience to the truth, the wives would say, Yes, Lord, thank you. My soul has been purified by your spirit.

18:21 I have been brought to the obedience of faith, having been begotten again. Yes, Lord, I'm no stranger to the reality of new birth. And when Peter went on to write that you have been made living stones in the living temple, and you are now part of the priesthood that offers spiritual sacrifices, imagine what that meant to these Christian wives. There are many things forbidden to us in society, many things that are inappropriate for us in every sphere of our relationship with men, but we are something that was never true in the Old Testament.

18:59 No woman was a priest. We are now part of the new covenant priesthood. We offer up spiritual sacrifices, we're part of the company, verse 9, who are the elect race, the royal priesthood. Are you getting the idea of what I'm saying?

19:14 When Peter writes, you wives, he's not writing to a bunch of sticks and stones who happen to have a wedding band on their finger and some character at home called their husband. He's writing to God's precious ones, God's begotten again ones, God's possessor of living hope ones,

19:38 God's lover of Christ ones, God's having purified the soul ones, God's having been begotten ones, God's living stone and new covenant priesthood ones. And you say, Pastor, again, you've beaten it thin at the edges. What are you doing? I'll tell you what I'm doing.

20:00 And this is crucial. If you miss this, I've blown it. Time for me to fold my Bible and go home. So, Peter writes to them as Christian wives, assuming, now listen carefully, that in every one of those wives there would be present two things.

20:22 Before he ever writes, and you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, he's assuming when those words be in subjection come, they are preceded by two powerful realities in the lives, in the lives of these women. And what are they? Number one, grace produced motives inclining them to obedience, and grace produced power enabling them unto obedience. That's what Peter assumes about these wives.

The Cruciality of Grace-Produced Motives and Power for Obedience

21:01 That when their ears hear the words, be in subjection to your husbands, the words come upon ears that register in the brain, and sink down into hearts already suffused with grace-produced motives that incline them to obedience.

21:25 Now, what in the world do I mean by grace-produced motives that incline to obedience? I'm just trying to encapsulate what the Bible says happens when the things already written in 1 Peter are true of anyone, including a woman who happens to be a wife. He knows that these wives love an unseen Christ. And what is a more powerful motive in inclining someone to obey Christ than love to Christ?

21:58 Did he not say, if you love me, you will keep my commandments? He that loves me not keeps not my word. Love to Christ is a grace-produced motive and a powerful motive. The believing reception of Christ's love to us is a powerful motive.

22:23 Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, the love of Christ constrains me. It holds me in its grip. It encompasses me and exerts a gracious, compelling pressure upon me. He knows that when he writes, do what I'm about to tell you in chapter 2, within which this exhortation and directive comes, you must abstain from fleshly lusts that war against your souls.

22:52 You must have your behavior honorable and commendable among the Gentiles. He knows that there are grace-produced motives in these wives that they want to commend the gospel. They want to war against anything that undermines the health of their soul.

23:11 This is what I mean by grace-produced motives that is inclining, to obedience. He knows that when he will write further in this passage, that this is the way in which you can please God. This is the way in which you can honor God. He knows that this will touch them at the level of their motivation.

23:38 And then grace-produced power enabling them to obedience. All I'm trying to do with that statement is to catch up. I'm trying to capture what Peter has said. He says all of these believers have been begotten again.

23:52 They have, according to verse 22 of chapter 1, purified their souls by their obedience to the truth. They have been brought to the initial experience of repentance and faith. He knows that they have been effectually called, he says in chapter 2 in verse 9, the God who called you out of darkness into marvelous light. And God never calls a sinner to himself, but that he places his spirit within him.

24:20 And God who begins the good work is committed to carry it on. Philippians 2, 12 and 13. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Why?

24:31 For it is God who is at work in you to will and to work for his good pleasure.

24:39 Now I want you women to be honest, as honest as you will be forced to be honest in the day of judgment. As I begin to expound this passage,

24:51 am I preaching to women in whose hearts these two things are present?

24:58 Grace-produced motives inclining you to obedience?

25:06 I can't answer, but you must. Not openly and outwardly, but before the God who knows you. If grace-produced motives are not inclining you to obedience,

25:19 what grounds do you have to claim you're a Christian? For my Bible says, if any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.

25:31 And is there grace-produced power enabling you unto obedience? Not unto perfect obedience, but unto purposeful, principled obedience that enables you to take yourself by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants or the skirt and say, look woman, you're talking to yourself, not your husband talking to you this way, you're talking to yourself. Whatever you feel of resentment to your husband's authority, whatever you feel about not liking the place God has assigned, recognize all of that is rooted in what you are in Adam, not what you are in Christ. And in Christ, God has given you the power not simply to grin and bear it, to grit your teeth and go through the motions of submission, but God's able to give you the power to do it. The power from the heart to find your joy and your fulfillment in your submission.

26:38 Now that's not there. It's time you stop kidding yourself that you're a Christian because you can talk about Christ and talk about the blood and talk about heaven.

26:49 These dynamics of grace are present in every single Christian.

26:57 They're more heightened at any given point in any individual Christian. They are more highly cultivated. They are more highly cultivated in some Christians than others. I am aware of the biblical doctrine of arrested growth, stages of growth, stages of development.

27:13 But if you sit here this morning, man or woman, boy or girl, this is broader than just the wives, and your life is not shaped by grace-produced motives inclining you to obey the revealed will of God, you're not a Christian.

27:32 And if there is no grace-produced power, enabling you unto obedience, you have no grounds to say you're a child of God.

The Cultural Climate and the Radical Nature of Wifely Submission

27:45 Now I press this at this point because in my preparation it seemed to me this was absolutely crucial, particularly in the light of the situation in which you wives are called upon to obey this divine directive. Let me try to illustrate why I believe it's so crucial.

28:08 Try to imagine a society where drunkenness was an accepted personal and social norm. The society has become so besotten in not only its practice of drunkenness, but in its defense and propagation of the desirability of drunkenness that if you turn on the television to popular talk shows, what do you have? You can count, no matter what channel you turn, somebody's there, either a psychologist or a sociologist or a medical person promoting the benefits and desirability of drunkenness. You pick up Ladies' Home Journal.

28:53 You pick up a more sophisticated Ladies' Magazine. You pick up a less sophisticated one, Family Circle. And there you find popular articles on the desirability of drunkenness. You go to church and you find preachers stand up and say, now the Bible seems to teach that drunkenness is a virtue.

29:12 It's a sin. But you've not been reading your Bible correctly. There is an understanding rooted in some ancient Middle East language that shows that this word over here that seemed to condemn drunkenness really does not condemn drunkenness. But it is speaking about that.

29:29 And when Paul said, be not drunk with wine, you must understand that that had this kind of a sociological and this kind of a cultural implication. And they're twisting the Bible to bleed out of the Bible its condemnation of drunkenness. So wherever you turn, popular talk shows, popular magazines, you go into church and lo and behold, you go to the library and you look up philosophical journals and academic journals. And in there, there are articles by learned people proving that drunkenness as a way of life is desirable.

30:05 Now let me ask you a simple question. If in that setting, the gospel came, God's gospel, with God's law condemning sin, God's grace in Christ announcing deliverance, God's call to repentance in faith, calling people to turn from sin, trust in Christ, and begin to frame their Bibles by the word of God, what would you look for as one of the indispensable marks that someone had really been converted in that society? If you look for anything else, what would you look for? You say, well, it's obvious.

30:45 You'd look for, you'd look for people that accepted the Bible's teaching on the sin of drunkenness and who were seeking by the grace of God to live sober lives, who embraced the Bible's condemnation of drunkenness, who embraced the Bible's positive teaching on the necessity of moderation in the use of alcoholic beverages, the necessity of self-control. What would you think of people in that society who professed they were converted, they talked about their love for Christ, and they were just as drunk as everybody else in that society? What would you think of their profession?

31:25 Are you all following me or is it just my crazy head that works this way? You say it didn't work much. It didn't work much. Well, that's precisely what's happened to the issue I'm going to preach on this morning.

31:37 You dear girls, listen to me, girls. You dear girls, you young women, you married women, you live in a society that is screaming from every direction, there is no fixed role for the woman or for the wife.

31:56 Popular talk shows, learned journals. You think I'm kidding within the church. I have in my hands a book I'm plowing through, not from cover to cover, but selective chapters, 566 pages. Small print out to the margins.

32:18 And you know what this book is? It is a response not to secular pagan pagan, feminism, but evangelical feminism. It is the response of some godly, devout Christian scholars to the tens of thousands of pages written by people who claim to believe the Bible, who would say that what I'm to preach this morning is heresy.

32:47 That's the climate in which you are being called to the obedience of faith, girls.

32:55 That's the climate in which you women are being called to radical discipleship. And if in this area you do not make it evident that you have from the depths of your being out of love for Christ and in the strength of Christ repudiated everything that would undermine your loving embrace of your God-given role, what right do you have to name the name of Christ and make it stick? You see, the point I'm making is confident when he writes expressing the mind of God to these wives that into those years into which this directive would come there was already a state of heart that inclined them to obedience and that had empowered them to obey. Now then, consider with me secondly having looked at the specific opportunities of the divine directive, the unmistakable essence of the divine directive. Two questions. What is commanded and to whom is this submission to be rendered?

The Unmistakable Essence of the Divine Directive: What is Commanded?

34:19 What is commanded? Look at the text. Very simple. In like manner, you wives be in subjection to your own husbands.

34:30 And we had occasion to notice in previous expositions the imperative form of this verb hupotasso to be submitted to, to be subordinated to is given in verse 13. That's the imperative form. Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. You have a participial form in verse 18.

34:51 Servants, in subjection to your masters, precisely the same construction in chapter 3 and verse 1. In like manner, you wives, in subjection. And most of the Greek grammarians are agreed that these two participial uses as it were absorb to themselves the flavor and the pressure of the imperative of the introductory use of this verb in verse 13. But if there were any question that grammatically that was a sound judgment, parallel passages, what you were reminded of in the previous hour, scripture is its own infallible interpreter.

35:31 The imperative use is used in other passages with precisely the same verb. Now, amazingly, this verb, hupakasa, translated here, being submission or subjection is found 40 times in the New Testament.

35:51 You look at every single reference and without exception, it means to submit or subject oneself to the authority or leadership of another, to subordinate oneself to a higher authority. But you know, these people so determined to get rid of drunkenness, have tried to prove it doesn't mean drunkenness. It doesn't mean be subject to. And I will not weary you with the linguistic gymnastics that are done to try to get away from the fact that the Spirit of God is saying to every wife, be in submission to your own husbands.

36:30 Let me give you just a couple of examples of the use of this word where its meaning is clear. Luke 2 and verse 51. Speaking of our blessed Lord in the days of His flesh, He goes back to Nazareth and what does He do? Even after this expression of His consciousness of something of His messianic identity and calling, I must be about the things of my Father.

36:59 We read in Luke 2, 51, And He went down with them and came to Nazareth and He was subject unto them. He was subject unto them. He voluntarily, willingly, cheerfully, subordinated Himself to the authority of Mary and Joseph as His parents. Luke 10 and verse 17.

37:28 The Lord gives authority in sending out the 70 to cast out demons, to heal the sick, to raise the dead. And now the 70 come back in Luke 10, 17. And the 70 return with joy saying, Lord, even the demons, here's our verb, are subject unto us in Your name. They subordinate themselves to us.

37:53 They submit to our directives in Your name. When we tell them to come out of someone, they come out. They are subject to us. Romans 13, 1 in verse 5.

38:06 Same verb is used with respect here to the civil authority. Romans 13, 1. That every soul be in subjection to the higher powers. Verse 5.

38:18 You must needs be in subjection. That is, submit or subject yourself to the authority or leadership of the civil power. Subordinate yourself to this higher authority. In Titus 2 and in verse 9.

38:35 We have this word used with respect to what the older women are to train the younger women. To be and to do. And then he goes on to give a directive to servants. Exhort servants, bond slaves, to be in subjection to their own masters.

38:56 And we could go through the New Testament and show that every usage of this verb speaks of submitting or subjecting oneself to the authority or leadership of another to subordinate oneself to a higher authority. And furthermore, what is commanded here in 1 Peter is in every parallel passage precisely the same thing. Ephesians 5 and verse 24. I won't comment.

39:26 I'll simply read it. Ephesians 5 and verse 24.

39:34 But as the church is subject to Christ, there's our verb, as the church is voluntarily subjected cheerfully, joyfully, consciously, under the authority of Christ, subordinates itself to his authority as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their husbands in everything.

40:06 Colossians chapter 3 and verse 18. Scripture being its own infallible interpreter, its own witness, wives, here's our verb again, be in subjection to your husbands as it is fitting in the Lord. Wives, cheerfully, voluntarily, consciously, subject yourself to the authority and leadership of your husbands. And then in Titus 2 and verse 5, godly older women are to train younger women in the path of godliness, not the path of perpetuating a perverse expectation of society,

40:52 but they are to train the younger women in the changeless patterns of true godliness. And what's involved in that? Verse 4 of Titus 2, that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands. What is commanded?

41:16 Very simply, wives, subordinate yourself to your husband. That's it. The same way the slave is to subordinate himself from the heart to the authority of the master, the citizen, to the state. So, wives, be in subjection.

To Whom is Submission Rendered? To Your Own Husbands

41:34 Subordinate yourself, but to whom is this submission to be rendered? Look at the text. It doesn't say to all men in general, but to your own husbands. To your own husbands.

41:48 In this sense, the same prepositional phrase is found in Ephesians 5, 22, your own husbands. It's found in the Titus 2, 5 passage. It underscores that this directive is not generic, but specific. It is not a directive to all women in relationship to all men.

42:07 Rather, it is to the wife with respect to her own husband. It is to each specific wife and her specific husband. And as we shall see, God willing, tonight, when we expound 1B and verse 2, it has nothing to do with the spiritual state of the husband.

42:33 Absolutely silly.

42:36 Worst case scenario, but Peter, you tell me be submissive to my own husband. He's unconverted. Not only is he unconverted, he's heard the word and rejected it. And in rejecting it, he's got a bloodied conscience and he's not able to he seeks to attack my own Christian faith. He seeks to needle me. He has rejected light, and in rejection of light, he doesn't express common decency to me. Peter, what am I to do? That even if any obey not the word, no wife is exempt. Ah, but you say, what if the husband is going to shoot? No, don't think of a scenario in which the sixth commandment may demand that she flee her husband in self defense. I'm not talking about that. God's not a fool. Don't

43:26 raise such stupid objections. They're irrelevant. The issue is, and I beg you, dear women, to pray God help you to come to grips with it until you see my duty has nothing to do with his state. It has to do with God revealing his will in the Bible.

43:48 And I claim to have a direct connection with that God in Christ, and that I'm going to frame my life by the revelation of the will of that God that I may show that I love that God. I want to please that God. I want to honor that God. And so God says in like manner, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. And there's no parenthesis saying that is that they are seeking to dwell with you according to knowledge. Oh, how much easier it is when the husband is what he ought to be and is seeking to do what God says. Is it a lot easier? Sure.

The Practical Meaning of Submission: Embracing Headship and Rendering Obedience

44:26 It is. It is a lot more pleasant? Yes. Days and weeks may pass in which you aren't even conscious at the level of saying, well, I'm supposed to be submissive to him. But you see, none of that enters the picture. All the text says is, you wives be in subjection to your own husbands. And what does that mean, where the rubber meets the road? Well, as I've tried to analyze the matter in the light of Scripture and to express it in a way that I hope is grabbable, it means two very simple basic things. It means, number one, that you embrace from the heart your husband's God-assigned place in the marriage relationship. You will never be submissive to your husband until you recognize his God-assigned place in the marriage relationship. You as a wife are the only one that can obey this directive and you will never obey the directive until from the heart you see this directive grows out of God's wise, loving, sovereign designation of how a marriage is to function. And it is a relationship in which God constitutes the husband's head and he says to

45:48 the wife, be in subjection to your own husbands. And that's got to be something that you embrace from the heart until you're we can look at that man regardless of his particular spiritual state, his level of maturation if he is a Christian and say, God, you placed him over me. In your providence, I married the bum. But now that I'm married to the bum, you tell me what I'm to do. And I'm not going to be the bum-ass because two wrongs don't make a right. And God will not accept your sin as a justification. For his.

46:34 You've got to embrace that from the heart. And secondly, it means that you will render obedience to his directives except in those instances where his directives contravene the law of God. What's it mean? Be submissive.

46:48 It's an internalization of recognizing his place and if that's real, then it will manifest itself in your rendering obedience to his directives except in those instances where they contravene the law of God. Same thing with the slave. Slaves be in subjection to your masters, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward, even when they are unreasonable and unjust. Unless they demand of you something that means your obedience would violate the law of God, you're to obey them.

47:24 Same thing with the state. Many things the governor may do and say that I don't like, I don't agree with, but I'm to be in subjection to him unless his demand means that I must openly flaunt the law of God. And then we say with Acts 5 29, we must obey God rather than man. Otherwise, this subjection will be manifested in the very way that Peter describes these godly women manifested it.

47:51 Verses 5 and 6, after this man or the holy women who hoped in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands, there's the attitude and disposition. What's the expression of it? Sarah obeyed Abraham. In subjection obeyed.

48:10 And obedience without subjection is a sham. A professed subjection without obedience is a sham. Subjection obedience.

48:22 Now that's the divine directive to wives.

A Challenge to Wives: Self-Examination and Dialogue with Husbands

48:26 To Christian wives. To wives in whose hearts there are grace implanted motives inclining to obedience. Grace implanted power and enabling to obedience.

48:41 Now then, what are we going to do with it? Don't need to know a word of Greek. Don't need to know any Hebrew. As we were reminded this morning in a faithful translation in the vulgar, the common, ordinary tongue.

48:55 Comparing scripture with scripture. We can know the mind and will of God on the issues that are vital to our lives.

49:05 May I give every Christian wife in this place a suggestion. I can't mandate it. But I'd strongly suggest that you go home today and at some appropriate time this afternoon or tonight after the evening service when the kids are to bed sit down with your husbands and ask them two questions.

49:28 You say, now dear, I want you to be honest with me as honest as we'll both have to be in the day of judgment.

49:36 You say, now dear, do you believe that I have embraced from the heart your place as my head? And secondly, do you believe I manifest a pattern of obedience to your directives that makes your leadership a pleasure?

50:00 Now let me ask you once. Are you getting antsy in my suggestion about those questions?

50:08 Are you? I don't know if I feel. Why are you antsy?

50:15 Why are you antsy? Do you have any reservation as to what your husband's answer would be? Then your conscience is already at work, isn't it? As I told my wife, I said, honey, honey, honey, I guess I'm going to close the message.

50:28 And I said, this is what gets me in trouble. Because I won't simply expound the word and leave it out there to float. I'm pressing you to the wall, women. But I'm not doing it because I don't love you.

50:40 I don't want you self-deceived.

50:43 I want you to be real before God. I want you to come to the day of judgment and hear, well done, good and faithful servant. Ask your husband those two simple questions, dear. Do you believe you see in me a woman who's embraced from the heart your headship over me?

51:08 What if he's unconverted? Yeah, even ask him if he can get her to sit down with you. Because it's your duty, even if he's unconverted, as we'll see tonight. And then ask him,

51:19 do I follow your directives so that seeking to give leadership to me and to this home is a delight to you? I know husbands who pop an ulcer every time they've got to give a directive because they've got a contentious, argumentative, stubborn wife. Shame if that wife names the name of Christ. It ought not to be.

51:43 It ought not to be.

A Challenge to Husbands and Single People: Cultivating Godly Character

51:46 I have a request of you husbands.

51:49 After your wife has asked you the questions, you say, turn about spare clay, dear. I want to ask you a couple of questions.

51:56 And you ask your wife then and say, what am I doing that makes it difficult for you to embrace my headship and to follow my directives? That's fair enough, isn't it? If she asks you, do you see me embracing your headship, following your directives? Then you turn around and say to her, now, dear, I want you to be honest with me.

52:20 What am I doing or not doing that makes it difficult for you to embrace my headship?

52:27 She may say, well, really nothing, dear. The problem's in my own heart. Well, fine. At least you've been honest with her.

52:34 She may say, well, dear, I know. I know I'm to embrace your headship and I seek to. But when you go around here like a pompous prig, it's hard at times. You treat me like I had no brain.

52:46 You don't seek my input. You make unilateral decisions and I knuckle under, but I'm not a mindless dunce. I would appreciate it if in making important decisions you consult me. I'm to be a helper answering to your need.

53:01 When God gave me to you, He gave me to you and I've at least got a teaspoon full of gray matter. And when you don't dip into it and use it, I feel insulted and it makes my submission difficult. Well, you listen to your wife if she tells you that, man. That's part of dwelling with her according to knowledge, giving honor unto her.

53:25 Ah, but now some wife says, yeah, that's just it, Pastor. If he would only do this, then I would...

53:33 What follows? What would you? Well, I would do what God tells me. Uh-uh.

53:38 You're doing what God tells you. Never be to be predicated on whether he does what God tells him. If I could get all the couples, who in marital counseling, this has been the issue, if only he would this, then I would...

53:52 No, no, my friend. You don't suspend your obedience to the will of God upon somebody else's obedience. And you've got no assurance you would do it. If you're not doing it out of love to Christ here and now, what makes you think you'd do it in more favorable circumstances?

54:11 You've got to come to the place where you stand before God and His Word, ready to be searched. Use one another as instruments of searching. Having made this suggestion to husbands and wives, I want to speak to you single women. Of all the questions you want to ask about any man that comes into your life, once you have reason to believe on sound, credible evidence that he's the real thing spiritually, that's a given.

54:40 You start looking at him in this light. Is this the kind of character I want to submit myself to?

54:48 Because once I walk down the aisle and the ring is on the finger and the honeymoon is over, I've got no choice. I'm stuck with him.

55:01 And I'll tell you something.

55:04 He may not be six foot two and look like Bo Brummel. He may not be a head-turner. But if he has the Christian character and the understanding and sensitivity to a godly woman and is prepared to give himself to the selfless, sacrificial love of Christ with which Christ loves His church, that's the man you want to let your heart go out to.

55:30 Ask yourself in all of your getting to know that man and your more serious courtship with all the quality control of parental input and pastoral guidance and those are givens. But you before God must make this decision. Is this the kind of man I can submit to with confidence that this is going to be for my highest good and for God's glory? And you single men, what should you seek to be cultivating?

56:02 Ah, you pumple a little iron to put a couple of inches on your chest, that's all right. Put a few ripples in your arms, you could do a lot worse doing something else. But at the end of the day, you need to give yourself to the cultivation of the kind of Christian character and mature manhood that is prepared to bear the burden of being the head and the leader in a marital relationship. And you don't get that.

56:30 You don't get that sitting around playing video games. You don't get that being obsessed with sports and toys and games. You don't get it that way. Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.

Conclusion: The Stakes of Obedience and Commendation

56:50 There's the divine directive explicitly addressed to wives, not to husbands, but not to any old wives but to Christian wives. And the directive is clear. You're in to be in subjection to your own husbands. What's at stake?

57:08 You go back to Peter's exhortation with which this whole section has begun. The state of your own soul and the credibility of the gospel before an onlooking world. That's what's at stake. The good of your own soul and the credibility, the credibility of the gospel before an onlooking world.

57:29 I commend many of you, dear women. You are an example to me and to all who behold you. Whatever you do, whatever your struggles are, whatever you have to confess to God when there are times you'd just as soon kick that husband of yours in the teeth. And there are times, I'm sure, and he probably deserves it.

57:48 But in spite of all of the outcroppings of his remaining sin in yours, you've embraced from the heart this directive. And I commend you and I say in the language of Paul, pray that you abound yet more and more. And you husbands who have such a wife, tell her how grateful you are. For her loving, consistent submission.

58:10 The next time she's tempted to buck, she'll remember that commendation and it'll help her to rein herself in and say, he's been gracious to me. I don't want to disappoint him. May God help us that in an age where the whole society throws over God's order, we may be such as who manifest the transforming power of the gospel in this very vital area of Christian experience. Let us pray.

58:37 Father, we do thank you for your word, that it is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. We pray that you would have deep and lasting dealings with many of our hearts as we continue to meditate upon this portion of your word. Lord, you know at times some of us have almost despaired as we have seen the wholesale sellout in rejection of the biblical norms for the married state. We pray that you would have mercy upon our society, have mercy upon professing Christians who have absorbed the spirit and the thinking and the theology of the world. We pray that in this place your truth, by the power of the spirit, will reign in the heart of every one of your children. Speak then, we pray, through your word and by your spirit, and may our disposition be that of Samuel who said, Speak, Lord, for your servant is here, for Jesus' sake. Amen.