Love Your Husband: By Liking Him as the "Husband"

Let's go to Titus chapter 2 as we continue through this exposition of Paul's original letter to his associate Titus.

Again, he's left Titus on the island of Crete. There's a number of new congregations been started on the island of Crete, but they needed a lot of help and he literally says to Titus, I want you to go set things in order Titus. And the Greek of that phrase set things in order means set things straight or straighten out some things in these churches. And we've been unfolding a number of things, but just as Paul did when writing to Timothy about the Ephesus church and just as Paul did when writing to the Corinthian church, he puts a pretty weighty emphasis on the women of the church. And as I told you in any godless culture, it's the women of the church that seem to be targeted the most, the most thoroughly, the most frequently, the target of Satan's attack.

That God might pull them or rather Satan might pull them away from God's truth and God's Word. So here we have the same thing happening that happened with Paul writing to Timothy while in Ephesus and then Paul writing to the Corinthians. Now Paul writing to Titus overseeing the churches on this island of Crete, he talks to the women.

Let's look at the text Titus 2 verses 3 and 4. As he tells us there, older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good. You could say so that they might be qualified, the older women that is, be qualified to encourage, teach or train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure workers at home, kind of being subject to their own husbands so that the Word of God will not be dishonored. But I've been enamored with that phrase of the older ladies teaching the younger ladies to love their husbands.

And just what all does that mean? And the more I meditated and studied, the more came to my heart and mind about how the enemy, Satan, the world, the flesh, fights against God's constructs, God's construct of marriage, God's construct of the role of the husband, God's construct of the wife. And so this has turned into a series within the exposition. So we're talking about love your husbands. And last week we talked about love your husband by liking his manliness, by the older ladies teaching the younger ladies to embrace, be fond of, make it attractive that he is a man. And God made men very different from women. Ladies, you're supposed to like that.

You're supposed to be fond of that. And you know the whole spirit of our age is radically opposite of that. Now we come to a second installment of love your husbands by liking him as the husband. When Paul writes to Titus and says, Titus, now help the older ladies, guide the older ladies to teach the younger ladies to love their husbands, the word for love there, we'll talk about it more in a minute, has the idea of liking him, not just the cold drudgery of honoring him as the husband. Not just the cold duty of keeping the law to submit to my husband.

No, no, no, no. There's a higher plane of motivation for God's children than that. You actually like God's idea, the construct of husbands. Now let me begin by saying this, headship or authority is woven into the fabric of deity.

Did you hear that? Headship or authority is woven into the fabric of deity. You can't have deity, you can't have God without authority. That's foundational to what he is and who he is, or the word headship. I mean, before the world began, God was head.

He had all authority. And then when he created all that is, he was head and authority over that creation. And then as a reflection of his perfections, he wove into his creation structures of headship, or structures of authority.

It's just foundational to who God is and it's foundational to how he's made up his creation, including mankind, of course. He made Adam and then he made Eve. Adam was under God and then Eve was under her husband. Under God through her husband, Adam.

Headship. And in Matthew 8, 8 and 9, there's a real insight here as this centurion, Matthew 8, 8 and 9, comes before Jesus. And he says, Lord, I'm not worthy to come under, or for you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my subject will be healed.

For I am a man under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to this one, go. And he goes. And to another, come. And he comes. And to my slave, do this. And he does it. And you know what Jesus said about this? He said, that is the greatest faith I've seen in all of Israel.

Interesting. What was great about his faith? I think that the key aspect was the man understood God's ordained structures of authority. The man said, I'm a man under authority. I get authority, Lord Jesus, so I know that you can just say the word because you have authority and heal this one who's sick in my household. So God-ordained authority in the earth is that which makes God's invisible authority visible.

God's invisible authority becomes tangible or visible when we honor the authority and the authority structures he's given in the earth. Now I struggle with words. Preparing sermons, I'll spend sometimes hours juggling words around thinking, does this word really say the best I can, is this really the best I can come up with to amplify, explain, or set forth the biblical truth I want to preach about? So when dealing with the word marriage, or today in our purposes the word husband, just what do we mean? Or whose idea is marriage?

Whose idea is the position and the role of husband? But I didn't like idea, though that's okay. I didn't like concept. You can say the concept of marriage or the idea of marriage, the concept of the husband, or the idea of the husband. I think a better word is the word construct. Construct. The husband is God's construct. The marriage is God's construct. Construct simply means gathering together parts to make one thing. So God put together several things to make one thing.

That's a construct. Marriage has a lot of different parts. But God calls it one thing, marriage. And the husband, the role, God's plan for the male in the marriage relationship, called the husband, is God's construct.

So this construct of marriage, a man unites with the woman, and there's unique roles for the man, there's unique roles for the woman, there's the responsibility of the home and child rearing, etc., etc. Who came up with the home? Who came up with that? Or we can go to the husband.

Here's the husband. God's word teaches he's to be the leader of the home, he is the teacher of the home, he's the provider of the home, he's the protector of the home. Who came up with that? The old phrase, well whose idea is that?

Well I'm glad you asked the question. It's God's idea. And better, it's his construct. He puts all the components together and says, now this is the role of husband, the position of husband. He puts several components or elements together, now this is the role of the wife, and the function of the wife.

These are God's idea, not man's idea. And of course today, the entire concept of marriage is being challenged. Everything about what a wife is, is being challenged. Everything about what a husband is, is being challenged.

And just write quickly, I'll run through some things that came to my mind. There are some people who teach serial marriage. I remember hearing a college professor not long ago say, what we really need to do is begin to have just serial monogamy, where you have one person for a while and then you get tired of them, you trade them in, get a better model, then you're married to another person for a while, then that gets a little old, then you're married to another person for a while. And I thought, brother, what kind of display of human dignity and excellence is that? All this nonsense about living with someone before you get married. Well, that's really of high dignity in class, isn't it? What you're basically saying is, I'm going to live with you, but I want to keep the option open.

If another person comes along, I might want to try on them too and do better than you. Girls, don't be sucked in by that lie. The happiest marriage, this is the most sexually fulfilled marriages, are those who are committed for life and strive to maintain their purity until the marriage ceremony. And then there's always polygamy, been around forever, having more than one spouse. And then there are those who espouse open marriage, will be married, but we're open to other relations with other people in the homosexual so-called marriage relationship. They've even coined the word monogamish. Monogamish means that we're married, but any time we're apart, we can have sex with whoever we want to. It's almost unheard of to have a serious faithful relationship among homosexual partners. And then there's the no marriage relationship or commitment at all. You just kind of live your life and, quote, love the one you're with, end of quote. You just follow your lust wherever it leads you. That means you have now fallen beneath the dignity of animals.

God doesn't even allow that among the animal kingdom. It's pure hedonism that my pleasure is the highest purpose of life. You're going to have to get off of this thing, child of God, that happiness and pleasure is the purpose of life.

It is not. Honoring God is the purpose of life, and then that brings happiness and pleasure along the way, but not every day. Yeah, I thought most of you were married. How could you possibly marry anyone who believes that person's role is to keep you happy? Or if he doesn't or she doesn't keep you happy, then you can opt out.

No, you can't. That's not the construct that God has given us. Well, then there's, of course, authentic marriage, true marriage. And by the way, there's only one marriage.

There's only one kind of marriage that has ever existed. God created marriage when he made Adam out of the dust and he made Eve out of Adam. God designed it. It's his construct.

He took the parts, the roles, put them together, gave them their assignments. It's his creation. It's his design. And then thirdly, God ordained it. That means it has sanctity.

It is sacred. He's ordained that it be this way. And he created the marriage relationship, the roles within the marriage, first of all, by his wisdom and for his glory and for our well-being.

I like the phrase human flourishing. You flourish better in life, long term, when you honor God's constructs that he's laid out. Genesis 2 24 reminds us, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. That's God's construct of marriage.

Now let's break it down into the context of Titus chapter 2 verse 4. Older ladies teach the younger ladies to love their husbands. So today we're talking about older ladies teach the younger ladies to love God's construct of the husband, not your subjective viewpoint of what a husband is or is not, not even what his idea of what a husband is or is not, but love God's wisdom that God designed the construct that is the role of the husband. Again the word here in our text, love your husband, just the word phileo, it comes from that root word and it has the idea of brotherly love or fond affection, which means you ladies have to work on yourself to where you finally esteem, are fond of, are like what God did in doing it this way.

I'll have a lot more to say about this in this message's second part next week because it grew into two parts. But the key to this capacity to begin to really like, be fond of, be attracted to this construct of the husband is the new birth, Christ in you, because you ain't gonna do it. But Christ in you can enable you not only to do it but to embrace with fondness the construct of husband. So let's begin with the truth or the construct of the husband here.

And when we talk about the husband, of course, the Bible is not talking about the husband, it's just that identifies the male person in the partnership. No it doesn't. A lot more to it than that. A lot more to it than that. And some of these radicals today who say, well you know the wife can play a lot of those roles that the husband is playing. No they can't. You're not God, it's His construct, leave it alone.

If you want to do something else, fine, it's a free country but don't call it marriage. God's already taken that word and He's already developed the construct that word stands for. So let's leave your puny little university education and godlessness out of this and let's let God be God on these truths. Well, Roman number one, let's talk about the witness of history, all right? The witness of history, and we'll be very brief here, just touch on some things. And primarily we're looking at the Old Testament history and Israel are the Jewish people of antiquity in particular and how the husband was viewed in those days.

Where did this come from historically speaking? Well in ancient Jewish custom the husband is seen as commanding his family, he is seen as instructing his family, rebuking his family, loving his family, providing for his family, protecting and blessing his family. Now in the Old Testament the word husband is often a translation of the Hebrew word ish, i-s-h is the transliteration, and this was a common word for male, just the male, the man. And so in antiquity scholars tell us it was common when a woman talked about her husband, she didn't call him husband, she said, this is my man. He's got a nice ring to it, that's my man.

Not your man, he's my man. Now there's another word used for husband in the Old Testament, and that of all things is the Hebrew word beil. And the word beil means chief or master. And so it comes over to head, head of the household. Now he was the head of the household both in social matters and in spiritual matters.

An illustration would be that in the ancient world, and this I'm talking particularly about the Jewish world, but it was probably common in all cultures, the father who was head gave his daughter who was under his headship to another man that he therefore would begin to be her new head. And that's where you get the idea that I have taken a wife. That meant something. It meant she was under another man's headship, I've gotten his blessing, now he's given her to me, I've taken her. And the idea of taking her means I've taken responsibility for her. I've taken the role of providing for her, for protecting her, for leading her, for loving her.

Her dad used to be responsible, that's been transferred over to me. So she changes her name because she leaves the affiliation and the headship of her father, and she comes to put herself under her new husband's name, and now she's a part of a new lineage. She left the old, came over to the new one under her husband. So God built societal structure around these family units that were headed by husbands. They were the head of the household, and then also as time went on, one husband not only became the head of his household, he became the head of his whole tribe, his lineage. The tribe of Dan, the tribe of Benjamin, the tribe of Asher.

We could go on and on. You know the Bible has a lot to say about the 12 tribes of Israel. The point was, in God's ordained structure of male headship in the home, there will also be lineages out from that one home where there'll be a multitude of people in that lineage, and they would all come into the headship of the one man who God used to begin that lineage, whether it was Dan or Asher or Benjamin or whoever it might be. Now the husband was also, as I mentioned, the spiritual leader of the home.

The husband, for example, was responsible to take the sacrifice to the priest, and he took it on behalf of himself and his wife and his children and whatever servants or slaves that might make up his whole household. Now in the ancient world, the Jewish men failed in the total concept of headship. In other words, they misused or often misused the concept of headship, because in the old world, the husband's headship was an absolute authority over the wife, over the children, over the servants, and all who made up of his household. Now the New Testament affirms the honoring of a husband's headship, but it does not allow the husband to abuse headship. To note this affirmation, for example, in Genesis 18 12, Sarah, who is listed or mentioned in the New Testament as a role model for godly women, the Bible says in Genesis 18 12, she laughed herself, saying, after I've become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord, in being old also? Here we have just an example of what was common in the ancient world, a wife calling her husband lord. Now the Bible doesn't tell ladies that you have to call your husband lord, and I'm not telling you ladies you have to call your husband lord, but I am telling you you have to honor the truth of God that your husband has headship.

For Sarah and the woman of antiquity, that often included phrases like my lord. Now I thought something interesting as I read that came out to me, and that is the scholars tell us that the Jewish home and the way the Jewish men related to their wives was quite virtuous compared to the polytheistic paganism of the other peoples. You just didn't find any kind of generally known spirit of kindness and care and love for the wife and the children among the pagan polytheists of that day as you often found in the Jewish households.

One scholar wrote it this way, compared to the polytheistic homes of other nations, the Jewish households were nurseries of virtue. Now we know they failed a lot, but God's law required certain duties, certain respects, certain care that the husband must give his wife. And brothers and sisters, like I've told you over and over, this book is the great liberation of women. Before the Jews had the written text, it was common throughout the world that women were not much more than slaves or property. But when God gave his revelation through the Old Testament, maturing and growing and progressing through the New Testament, we see the true and great liberation of women. If you think Christian truth holds women back, go back to antiquity and tell me of another system that was better. It wasn't the ancient Romans or the ancient Greeks. It was the Christians where women saw their equal worth in the eyes of God, and that's what the text teaches.

I'll talk more about how that works in just a moment. So in the Old Testament, a man came together with his wife to a woman. He becomes the husband.

She's not just a woman anymore, she's also a wife. And God had a construct for each of them individually in their role and for the marriage union together. And one of the beautiful things the Old Testament marriage relationship was to do was to reflect the relationship that God had with Israel. God was the head, the husband of Israel. Israel was the wife of Jehovah, her head. And so the marriage in ancient Israel was to reflect that.

And then of course also the Old Testament picture of marriage was to be a foreshadowing, a type of the completion, the perfection of marriage that we find in the New Testament with the empowerment and love of Jesus Christ ruling it. Are y'all with me, church? This is good stuff. This is good stuff. The world doesn't get it.

They don't have ears to hear. If I'm getting ahead of myself, I can't get to that particular good stuff until I cover this next good stuff. So the witness of history to this role, this construct of husband.

Now, older ladies, look what I'm giving you. Take notes. You'll be asked at the judgment seat of Christ, did Jeff Noblitt teach these things?

And you have to say, yes he did, but I didn't take notes. You're to help the ladies understand that from the beginning this has been God's pattern with God. It's been God's pattern with God's people. So you should like it.

You should have a fondness for it. Well Roman number two, husband and headship are practically synonymous. Husband and headship are practically synonymous. This is seen in many ways. One way it's seen is in the ancient term of husbandman.

It used to be a common term in the old days. The husbandman was a person who had authority who was in charge of the livestock or the crops. He was the husband. Matter of fact, in the Old Testament, God calls himself the husbandman of Israel. I am responsible for you.

I am your head. Now often in these farms or agricultural settings the husbandman was not the owner. The husbandman was the one who was a steward under the owner who had the authority over the crops or the livestock to please the owner.

And that's a great lesson for us men and women alike today. The husband is head of the household but he doesn't own his wife. He doesn't own his children. He doesn't own the household. God owns it all. He's just the steward to fulfill his role to live out the construct of the husband and therefore be the husbandman of his household.

It's not really his. He bears a responsibility for it. Now the husbandman, of course, of the marriage of the home is the man and he's responsible, not the wife. She doesn't bear the main responsibility of the home. She doesn't bear the burdens of providing for it, protecting it, leading it. That's not her burden. That's why so many of you ladies are caring too much.

You're carrying too many burdens God did not mean for you to carry. Now there can be headship without a husband. What I mean by that is the world's full of this, is it not? There's structures of authority all around us. The coach on the ball team has a headship but he's not a husband in that sense.

The president of the company or the civil authorities in town, they have a headship. However, while there can be some headships without being a husband, of course, there's no such thing as a husband not having headship. Once a husband is not functioning under the burdens and responsibilities of the construct God gave him as the husband, he ceases to function as the husband. Now, so God didn't just create man or male beings and then females and say, now y'all get together and we'll call it marriage and y'all just figure out how this thing works for you.

No, no, no, no, no. God says, here's the way I've designed it to function. Now there are varieties within the parameters God's ordained in his construct. God's construct brought us marriage and God's contract brought us the role of the husband and the role of the wife and he has a lot to say about what it's to look like. Now, specifically for our purposes, we're talking about the construct of the husband, the role of the husband, and maybe when you talk about a construct again, you talk about parts that come together to make one whole and the parts that come together to make the one husband are, first of all, he's got to be a man.

He's got to be the male person. There are no husbands but men, period, exclamation point. Just like there are no wives but women. Never has been.

Why? Because it's God's construct. He gets the right to call all the shots. He gets the right to define it the way he wants. And not only is he's a man, he's the man who has headship in the marriage relationship and in the home and he has the roles of leading, teaching, providing, and protecting in all of these in love. And so there you have the concept of marriage. There you have the construct, the parts of the husband. Now, interesting, 1 Corinthians 11 3 gives us this truth. Christ is the head of every man. The man is the head of the woman and God is the head of Christ. And also, 1 Timothy 2 13, in the context of the men being the head, Paul writes, for it was Adam who was first created and then Eve.

Both of these clearly asserting God's intention of the husband having headship in the home. Now, some amplifications from 1 Corinthians 11 3. Again, that Christ is the head of every man, man is the head of a woman, and God rather is the head of Christ. What was happening was that the women in the church at Corinth, to whom that verse was written, the women had found great liberation in Christ. It was a radical idea in that day that women stood equally before God with the men.

But Christianity taught that. It was a radical thought that. So they were excited.

We are joint heirs with our husbands before God through Jesus Christ. They should have been excited. That was a radical liberation for women of the day. It was not until Christianity came that women could sit in the meetings with men, the religious meetings, and learn alongside the men. Radical for that day. The Romans didn't do it, basically.

The priests didn't do it, and the Jews didn't do that. However, these ladies in their excitement that now we have equal standing as made in the image of God, Christ is our Savior just like He's our husband's Savior. Wow!

Hadn't heard anything like that before. Christ loves us just like He loves our husbands. Wow, the ladies would say. What a liberation! Christ died for us just like He died for our husbands. And Christ is taking us home to be glorified with Him on equal status as redeemed human beings before God just like He died for and will redeem our husbands. But in their immaturity over this liberation, they overcompensated. They got out of the ditch of thinking, I'm beneath my husband before God.

Got excited. Let's say the pulpit recommends truth. Ran right to truth and then jumped in the ditch on the other side and begin to think, well, wait a minute. Then that must logically mean all of the aspects of honoring men are now wiped out. It's all to be done away with. And Paul says, no, no, time out.

Time out. 1 Corinthians 11 3. Remember, church, that even though you're now equal and standing before God and saved the same way the men are, God's structures in the earth of headship and authority still apply. So Paul writes to them to bring them back in balance. And again, he did the same basic thing when he wrote to Timothy about the Ephesian church.

He's doing the same basic thing or did the same basic thing when he writes here to the Corinthian church. The ladies were doing the same thing there. And now the ladies on the island of Crete are experiencing the same thing.

And it's a natural thing. And matter of fact, does it not happen to all of us after we're converted? We get excited and then we blast off with truths we're learning and we fail to understand that there are also balancing truths in the Word of God. So Paul is saying, ladies in the church at Corinth, ladies in the church on the island of Crete, our church is on the island of Crete, and ladies in the church at Ephesus, your liberation in Christ does not cancel out God's original plan for headship. God designed men for headship. God designed women to need that headship. If you remove yourself from God-ordained headship, not only do you dishonor God. Matter of fact, verse 5 of Titus 2 says, ladies, so that the Word of God will not be dishonored.

The point is, ladies, if you veer away from God's original structure for marriage in the home because you're overemphasizing your liberation in Christ, then you are going to dishonor the Word of God. And secondly, it will definitely turn out to your detriment. It will be hurtful for you.

Can I say something, ladies? Often the hurt is not seen until your children start growing up and your children's children start growing up. And then you see, I didn't honor God's structure, and now my children don't seem to want to honor authority. My children don't seem to want to respect God's authority, or the police's authority, or their parents' authority, or the Word of God's authority, or the pastor's authority. Sin always hurts others.

Always, always hurts others. Well, now there's another truth in 1st Corinthians 11, verse 3, if you could put it back up just again, where he said that now Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head, has headship of the woman, and God is the head of Christ. Now there's a beautiful point here because here he's saying Jesus Christ co-equals God with God the Father, but yet he completely submits to God the Father's headship, submission to authority within the Godhead. So here we have Jesus, the same essence God as God the Father is God, but for the purposes of God's work in the world, Jesus comes under the Father and completely submits to him. In the same way, ladies, you're the same essence as your husband's, but in the purposes of God for his glory, you're good, your family's good, your husband's good, society's good, God wants you to function under a husband, under headship.

Isn't that powerful? Ladies, I don't know why you don't say, well what's good enough for Jesus is good enough for me. If he had equality to God the Father, but he submitted, then I can too. So older ladies, are you helping the young ladies grasp the glories and the truths of God's construct of the husband and his headship?

Well, Roman number three. I think this is my last one for this morning. Headship responsibilities illustrated. Just ran across this in my study.

I thought it was so powerful. Headship responsibilities illustrated. In Matthew 21 42, Jesus says, quoting from the Old Testament, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone. And this came about from the Lord and it's marvelous in our eyes.

Of course, that's referring to Jesus. Jesus is the chief cornerstone. All that God's building builds on Jesus. He's the foundation for it all.

But there's something interesting here. The word chief in that verse, he's the chief cornerstone, is the exact same Greek word as head in 1st Corinthians 11 3 that we were just looking at. Where God is the head of Christ, but the man is the head of the woman.

So the word head from that verse is translated chief in this verse. Now, of course, the point of this teaching here is that the Jewish authorities, and in a real sense, the Greek and Roman authorities, were building the kingdom of God on earth, they thought. But in building the kingdom of God on earth, they left Jesus out.

So you're not part of this building. We can build it without Jesus. And so God has rebuked those Jewish religious authorities and every other builder in the earth by saying, not only did you mess up by leaving out Jesus, you got to understand, you left out the chief cornerstone of the whole thing. You left out the foundation of the whole thing when you left out Jesus.

Nothing works apart from Jesus. Now, when you think about a cornerstone in a building process, in the stone structures of this age, and you think about the chief cornerstone, two thoughts should come to your mind. Number one, the chief cornerstone was laid first and the entire building was aligned to that chief cornerstone. Nothing would be straight or sound in that building if the cornerstone was not right. Everything was aligned to the chief cornerstone. Secondly, it supported the weight of the entire structure.

If the substrate in the cornerstone was of poor quality, then it would collapse and the whole building would collapse, because the weight of the building rested on the cornerstone. Of course, the primary interpretation of the text is, so the weight of our salvation and the weight of God building his church in the world all rest on Jesus, the true, strong, perfect cornerstone of God. But in thinking about that word, chief, being the same Greek word as the word head when he talks about men have a headship of their wives, I thought, there's an analogy here for the husbands. And actually, there's an analogy here for the wives. The husband is like the chief cornerstone of the marriage in the home. If he's not straight, the home suffers. If he's not solid, the home suffers.

If he's not solid, the home suffers. So the alignment of the structure depends on the husband's leadership. It depends on his teaching. If he doesn't lead right, if he doesn't teach right in the home, the building, the building of the home will not be square and true and strong. And men, that means fundamentally get your family in a Bible preaching, practicing local church. That's a great extension, a primary and essential extension of your teaching of your household. But not only does the weight of the teaching and leading fall on the husband, the weight of protection for the family rest on the husband, the weight of the provision for the family rest on the husband, the weight on the security of the family rest on the husband.

Are you ready? Listen. The weight of accountability to the almighty God who gave us these constructs falls primarily on the husband, not the wife. Ladies, don't challenge that headship unless you want that accountability and you don't want it because you're not designed for it. So that's a heavy load on the guys. Men are like boat motor propellers. They only work when there's pressure.

If there's not the pressure of the water, the propeller doesn't spin and get the friction and push the boat forward. And here's what Satan's lying to us today in. Take it off of him. Take it off of him. Take it off of him. Take it off of him.

So he says, all right, I'll piddle around. I'll stare into space. I'll watch ball games and I won't be the head.

But here's the problem with that, guys. You still bear the weight of accountability at the judgment seat of Christ because God made you the key cornerstone of your home. Older ladies, teach the younger ladies these glorious truths that God's put the weight on the husband.

And you should, I don't know how you could not be fond of that. How could you not say, I like that God put that on him and not on me. I glory that God put that on him and not on me.

A little tongue in cheek, I'm not suggesting that you wives go home and say, I'm not going to work this week. God's put that weight on you. I'm not saying that. Is God saying that? I'm giving you the Word of God and that's my responsibility. I would say that far more of you need to seek God about how you're organizing your roles and responsibilities.

Does it line up? Listen to me, with the maker's construct. Now, I don't mean to go into this now, that's for a later session, but there are some super women out there.

I don't know how you do it. You seem to have a heart and a conscientiousness of your love for your husband, your love for your husband, your love for your children, your commitment to keep your home, and you've been able to have some employment outside of the home. If that works and God's good with it, praise the Lord, but you know what we've done for several generations. Church, are you listening to me?

First of all, I'm not out here to condemn you or to put you down because, by the way, there are some ladies who have some employment outside the home that do a better job than some of the ladies who sit at home all day. Amen. So see, that's why I always told you the Bible didn't make it just to say, don't you wish, we don't really figure, don't you wish God would just say, okay ladies, you can do these four do's and these five don'ts, you go to heaven and God's happy and you'll be happy. But it's not like that, is it?

There's struggles and there's wrestling and there's praying and there's discerning. I did ask our staff in the last few weeks, I said, how often have you had a wife brought in for discipline by a husband because she was not keeping her home well? You know what the answer was? Never.

Never happened. Now it comes up in counseling, but we have brought in several men who were not providing and protecting their wives and their children and disciplined them for it. And by the way, if you don't want to provide for your wife and children, you're in the wrong church. We're going to love you enough and love God enough to hold you accountable. Well, I'm doing the best I can.

Well, you may need to get two jobs, I don't know. Man up. Man up if you have to.

But I thought, why? Why has there never been a husband bring a wife in? Because the culture's taught us that the role of the wife can kind of be in flux. You'd stop the average person on the street and you say, should a man provide for his wife and children? Just about all of them say, well, of course.

Ask them this question. Should a wife stay at home, submit to her husband, and keep the home and love her children? Well, now wait a minute now. We ain't done that. No, no, wait, that's all.

Here you go. Amen. The husband's role has not been nearly attacked. I'm not saying husbands are doing that much better. I'm just saying the husband's role has not been nearly attacked as the construct of the wife's role in our culture. And what hurts me the most is I think far too many of our ladies are carrying far too much burden and weight. God put it on the husband. How does that work out for you?

I do not know. Don't call me and say, well, Jeff, what do you think about it? I don't want to hear it.

Open the Bible, you go to the Lord, and if you've got a piece about it, then you do what the Lord gives you a piece about. Well, that's part one of loving your husbands by liking the husband construct. Ladies, from what you've heard so far, can I get a lady's response here while you're putting your stuff away, not listening like you were this moment ago? Aren't you glad God put that on him?

Amen, ladies? Oh, but you can't look at that text without realizing that Jesus is the spiritual cornerstone. And the weight of all your failure as a husband rests on him. The weight of all of your weaknesses and floundering around as a wife rests on him. The weight of all the condemnation a triune holy God should pour on you has been rested on him. And I'm telling you, he can handle it. So no matter where you are in your journey of honoring God, draw a line in the sand that passes under the blood, and I'm going to press forward to please God even more, knowing that all my guilt, all my condemnation, all of my shortcoming, all of the judgment is resting on Jesus, not on me. That's wonderful to know. That's wonderful to know. Older ladies, teach the younger ladies to like the construct that is the husband.