Woman Was Created For Man

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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All right. Good morning. If you do have a

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Bible, turn to Genesis 2 .18, and we're gonna be reading Genesis 2 .18

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through 25. Please go ahead and stand whenever you're ready. Today we're gonna be continuing our study on basic truths, and the basic truth that we're gonna be studying today is the truth that woman was created for man.

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Let's read Genesis 2 .18. Verse 18. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone.

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I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

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And whatever the man called every living creature, that was his name. The man gave names to all the livestock and to all the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.

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But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

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And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

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She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

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And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. This is the word of the Lord. All right, let's pray.

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Lord, we do thank you for the opportunity that we have to continue to look at these great truths in Genesis which are meant to help us to understand who we are and why we're here and what you made us to do.

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Pray that you bless our time here today to help us to learn great things from your word. In your son's name I pray, amen. You may be seated.

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About seven or eight years ago, a friend of mine came up to me for counsel as he was wont to do.

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But in his particular situation, he was basically a guy who was in ministry.

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So he was in ministry, formal ministry. He had two jobs. So he was a bivocational pastor.

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One of his jobs was he worked in the military. So he was a man who was given a lot of responsibility in that kind of area.

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And then he was also given responsibility as it relates to the church. But behind the scenes, his home situation was somewhat of a mess, okay?

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So he was a guy who worked about 60 hours a week. He was a guy who worked about 60 hours a week with all of his responsibilities or more.

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That may be on the conservative estimate. But he was a pretty busy guy. And he was married. He had a wife.

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They'd been married for a few years at that point. They had a couple of kids. But every day he'd come home, he'd come home to a house that looked like an absolute wreck.

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That was the situation. So he'd come home. The house was a mess. And when he'd ask his wife about it, she would basically kind of gaslight him, essentially.

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And she would tell him that, you know, you don't know how hard it is to be a homemaker. You don't know what it's like to be a wife.

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These kids are needy. And they have, it takes a lot to take care of them. And, you know, you don't understand.

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And she would say this over and over again to him. But as he would come home, he really felt like he was being gaslighted.

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You know, the same pile of laundry was right there where it was the day before. And that lasted for days and days and days.

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He looked at the sink, the same pile of dishes in the sink that were just piling up and getting bigger and bigger.

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When he looked at her Netflix history, one of the things he noticed was that she was watching hours and hours and hours a day of TV shows.

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I mean, her thing was anime. So she was watching anime cartoons for hours and hours a day. But then she was telling him that, you know, this is just so busy and you can't really understand how hard it is while nothing was actually happening.

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She refused to basically cook for him. She refused to clean for him. She refused to do the laundry. She really didn't do much of anything, but she was a babysitter.

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She kept the kids from dying. So I guess that's something. But I mean, he felt like this was, like something was wrong was happening with this and that she was lying to him.

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And in order to test it, he basically, you know, on Saturday when she would go out to have her me time because it's stressful to be around kids and all that, he would clean the house.

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So as he cleaned the house, he realized that with kids, so while watching all the kids, he could clean the house from, you know, top to bottom in about an hour and a half.

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That's how long it took him while watching the kids and keeping everyone from dying and, you know, feeding them and doing all the things that he has to do.

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It took him about an hour and a half, him an hour and a half to do it. But then he was absolutely puzzled by the fact that she couldn't seem to accomplish that in the course of a week.

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And so, I mean, he's coming to me and he asked me, you know, what do I do about this? She's lying to me. She's spending all her time doing other things.

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What do I do, you know? So I told him, my advice to him was what she had expected him to do was to come home and basically do all of her work that she had been letting pile up.

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And so over the past few months, you know, he had gotten himself into a position where he's trying to help her with her job.

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And what that basically meant was he's doing his 60 hours a week, he's coming home, and he's trying to do all the homemaking stuff that she is refusing to do.

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And so he asked me, what do I need to do about it? And I mean, I told him what any sane person would do, would tell him to do.

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And that is, hey, stop doing anything. Quit doing the dishes. Quit doing the laundry.

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Like, what are you doing the dishes? What are you doing the laundry? What are you cooking? What are you cleaning? What are you doing all that for? You work 60 hours a week.

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You know it doesn't take that long to do all these things. Why are you doing it? I told him to stop doing it. He said, but you don't understand. You don't understand what's gonna happen if I stop doing it.

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If I stop doing it, my life is gonna be miserable, right? My life is gonna be miserable. She's gonna be mad at me.

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I said, just, you stop doing it. Make her do her job. The Bible says that I've seen that there's nothing better than a man rejoiced in the toil with which he toils.

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This is God's gift to man. Like, this is her work. You're robbing her of her dignity. You think you're helping her by taking over her job for her and doing all of her job and enabling her to be lazy and worthless.

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You're not helping her. Stop doing her job. Let her do her job. You do your job. Let her do her job and see what happens.

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So, he tried this plan. I told him, I warned him, this is probably gonna get worse before it gets better.

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Okay, this is probably not gonna be a, you're gonna have to go through some conflict here.

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He said, if I do this, she's just not gonna do anything. She's not gonna cook. I'm not gonna have anything to eat.

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I'm not gonna have any clothes to wear. I said, well, you just look at her and say, I'm not gonna do it. If you don't cook for me, I'm not gonna eat. I mean, you probably need to go on a diet anyway, so just, this'll be a good dieting opportunity for you, right?

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So, tell her, you're not gonna, if she doesn't make any food for you, you're just not gonna eat. And if she doesn't wash your clothes, you're just gonna wear dirty clothes.

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Just put your foot down and say, enough is enough, no more, right? So, he did that, and she was really mad about it, and she basically started cooking all the food that he hated for him.

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You're like, that was her plan for the next few months, to cook all the food that he hated. But it got better.

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I mean, after about two months of them fighting it out and sorting it out, everything got remarkably better, and that was like a pivot point for their life, where everything began to change.

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But I say all that to say that this is a dramatic example of something that I would consider fairly obvious.

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It was a fairly obvious example of role confusion, and I doubt that many people in the room would have told them to follow that plan exactly like that.

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And most of you are probably tempted to scream at me in your mind, saying, shouldn't he help her with her job, and are saying that men should not do any of the housework and cooking and cleaning, while we're missing the main point that you're looking at a situation that is completely and totally imbalanced.

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Now, I wish this was a rare example. I mean, I wish this kind of thing was a rare example that I'm putting forward as something that's gone significantly awry, but it's not.

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Before I, at different points in my life, I've worked in a granite countertop shop, and part of the job of working in a granite countertop shop,

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I made templates for granite countertops. So I went into some very wealthy homes, normal homes.

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I mean, these weren't just like lower -class kind of homes that I was going into on a regular basis. And I mean, for years of my life, while I was in seminary,

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I mean, after I was in seminary and while I was working at churches, I have gone into homes on a regular basis.

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And one of the things that I've found in going into home after home after home after home is a significant majority of homes today are completely uncared for, completely untended.

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And I know that you may not have the perspective I have, because you don't go into homes necessarily on a regular basis, but I mean,

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I would go into rich homes that were completely uncared for and untended that looked like a disaster.

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I'd go into poor homes that were completely untended and cared for that looked like a disaster. I would go into homes where the wives were there, and they had stuff piled all on their countertops that I would have to somehow figure out how to communicate to them.

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They have to move so I can do my job and make the template for them. And they would look at me like I was a crazy person for asking them to move the junk off their countertops so that I could actually do my job, because I was like the only person in their life who's ever asked them to do anything, do you understand?

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This is not uncommon. So you think about the statistics right now of what's happening in our society, there's a comprehensive role confusion that's happened in our society that's reflected by just basic stats, right?

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So if you look at the US Census Bureau report in 2022, here's a report of opposite -sex married couple family groups with children under 15, and it's gonna give you the stay -at -home status of both spouses, and this is for 2022, so it's looking back on the past year, 2021.

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So these are fairly recent, okay? So this is for married families, right?

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Opposite -sex married family. It's a shame that we have to put that there. Children under 15, this is the working status, stay -at -home status of both spouses.

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So mother in the labor force for one or more weeks last year, that's 2021, 71 .5%,

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71 .5%. Mother not in the labor force caring for the family.

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I'm surprised it was this high for the whole year. That's 25 .3%.

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So with the traditional family, that's husband working, wife staying at home caring for the kids, 21 .7%.

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And then the wife, homemaker, husband not working at all, that would be 3 .6%,

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okay? So that's a relatively small amount, but think about this, traditional family is about 21 .7 % at this point.

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The father in the labor force, one or more weeks last year, it's what you would expect, it's what you expect, 94 .3%,

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right, that's kind of what you expect. Stay -at -home dads, I mean, this is a rising phenomenon even within the church where guys are pursuing being stay -at -home dads.

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This is not talking about stay -at -home and working, this is stay -at -home in order to care for the, provide the primary care for the children.

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So 1 .5 % at this point. So you think about these stats, right now

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I've looked at a variety of stats related to this, but give or take, dual income with kids, statistics are about 66%, right?

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That's the posture. Now, where does this come from? Egalitarians, I mean, they obviously reject everything the

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Bible has to say about roles, right? Egalitarians hate the Bible, they know what it says, and there are many times when you think about the way that atheists, unbelievers interact with the

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Bible, particularly when it comes to a lot of the problem passages, unbelievers can be much more honest about what's in the

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Bible than Christians can be, okay? So you look around the state of affairs, I gave you some statistics.

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Mothers of children under 15 are in the workforce at a rate of about 71 .5%.

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The Christian community is, very little to distinguish them from the regular stats in the world, this is just the state of affairs.

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The egalitarian posture, they openly reject the concept of biblical roles. Men and women are viewed as basically the same.

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Household roles are shared, right? So if I were to basically try to define a man's role and try to define a woman's role, an egalitarian is just gonna reject that.

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They're gonna say, hey, there's no, they're the same, right? They can be equally competent to do either role. They openly reject the concept, that's one of the reasons why they hate the

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Bible. They hate the Bible because the Bible teaches that there are gender roles. So they hate it. Now, Christians who believe in gender roles, it's a little more complicated because on paper, and I'm talking to us, okay,

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I'm talking to us. We say we believe in gender roles, all right? We say we believe in gender roles.

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Our church says we believe in gender roles, you understand? Like you formally embrace, there are gender roles, right?

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If you were to take a theology exam, you would check, yeah, it's made men and women different gender roles.

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Problem is, by and large, Christians, even Reformed Christians, almost especially Reformed Christians at times, they reject the ontological foundation for biblical roles, meaning like you reject the idea that man is uniquely competent for his role and woman is uniquely competent for her role.

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Like you may embrace it in certain areas in a very minimal way, but then if I point out other ways, you'll probably get pretty uncomfortable.

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Reject their ontological foundation, like in terms of their being, their makeup. We often embrace a very bare minimum approach to roles, right, so the husband, in Reformed Christian circles, like everyone believes, yeah, the husband should probably work, right?

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Everyone believes that. Maybe he should probably work and provide. We all believe that. It's kind of an added bonus if you can get the wife to stay home, right?

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But you know, life is complicated. You don't necessarily have to do that. I mean, who knows, maybe she can still do her job while working 50 hours a week as a homemaker.

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But then you're not even really allowed to define what her job actually is. But every situation's different.

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Don't want to be judgmental. Don't want to draw harsh lines. That's kind of our approach in general. We've significantly redefined the husband's leadership role.

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Okay, as Christians? So leadership is not leadership in any conventional sense.

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Like, leaders should be leading very different than the home, like, that's the way we understand. Leaders should be, husbands should be leading very different than they would in any other area of life.

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So we've totally redefined the husband's leader role. We basically refuse to hold a woman accountable for anything related to her role.

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Like, I'm gonna say, like, there's nothing. I can't list anything that, I'm gonna list some things the

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Bible holds a woman accountable to do today, and you're gonna be tempted to reject that at every single point, right?

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So there's almost nothing that we will allow to be considered the woman's role. The husband, we think, yeah, he should probably, he should probably work at least a little bit.

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We're probably way more open to stay -at -home dad stuff than now than what we should be, right?

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And we've totally redefined husband's role. And whatever, we say we believe in submission, but whatever submission, like, husband being the head and wife being to submit, it's basically reduced to a husband having the hypothetical tie -breaking authority that he should almost never use.

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So if there's a disagreement, hypothetically, he has the power to veto it, but he should probably basically never use that, or else he's being tyrannical, and he's wielding his authority as the

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Gentiles do, and he should basically be patient and wait and see if he can get her along.

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So summary, husband should probably work a job. He also has hypothetical tie -breaking veto power.

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And if his wife disagrees, he should probably, you know, not really stick to his guns and win her over slowly and see if he can get on the same page.

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Beyond that, there's no real division of labor. The wife basically must be consulted for every decision as she's viewed as just as competent and capable of performing the job as leadership as a husband.

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And obviously, that can't be consistently applied because that's not really the way life works, but husband's job is basically just to be a nice guy and to figure out what his wife wants to do and do it.

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That's kind of what we've reduced leadership to in the church. Why is this all important? It's important because God has spoken about these things to great length in His word.

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That's why it's important. And not only that, because the picture of marriage between a wife submitting to her husband and these different roles that we're gonna talk about today is a picture that's supposed to point us to something greater than that, than that mere earthly picture.

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So Ephesians 5 .22 says, "'Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.'" I can't think of something that's more shocking than that if you actually sit on that and dwell on it.

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"'For the husband is the head of the wife, "'even as Christ is the head of a church, "'his body and is himself its Savior. "'Now as the church submits to Christ, "'so also wives should submit in everything "'to their husbands.'"

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You live in a time that there's almost nothing that you can put in that category of everything, but it is what it is.

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"'Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church "'and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, "'having cleansed her by the washing of the water "'with the words that he might present the church "'to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle "'or any such thing, that she might be holy "'and without blemish.

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"'In the same way, husbands should love their wives "'as their own body, he who loves his wife loves himself, "'for no one ever hated his own flesh, "'but nourishes it and cherishes it "'just as Christ loves to the church "'because we are members of his body.'"

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Marriage is a picture of Christ's relationship with the church, and when we get the picture of marriage wrong in an earthly sense, we're distorting this picture that it's supposed to be conforming to, and there are obviously dramatic consequences of getting these things wrong.

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When you look around the society today, you're living in the wreckage of men and women embracing, men and women totally rejecting their roles.

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Everything that you see, all the problems that you can see are in some way connected to that. Now, I know that we're used to, in the primary and foundational sense, you look at the world, you look at the chaos that you see, it's because God has rejected, or it's because man has rejected

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God as his maker, but what we're not talking about is disembodied kind of errors. There's a logical connection between man rejecting

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God as its maker and failing to fulfill his design that is leading to all the problems that you see, so God's, there's a punishment in the act itself, and our act of rebellion against God and how he's made us is leading to chaos.

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That's the point. So today what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be looking at Genesis 2 again.

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And our purpose here today, as we're looking at Genesis 2, 18, is to basically ask the question about what is being communicated here.

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Now, just by way of note, one of the things to realize is if you're going to study what the

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Bible says about marriage and you're going to study what the Bible says about marriage roles, when you look at the

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New Testament, what you're gonna find is that what you see in the New Testament is constantly pointing back to these opening chapters of Genesis.

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So the New Testament is providing an authoritative divinely inspired interpretation of the very truths that are found here.

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So the New Testament teaching on marriage is not new stuff. I mean, the only thing that's new is the mystery, so to speak, that the husband's relationship to his wife mirrors that of Christ to the church.

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But what you're not gonna find as you look, I mean, and that's not even completely new. As you look through the Old Covenant, what you're gonna find is that there are hints of that all along the way.

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It may not be stated quite that explicitly. But here's the point is just to say that everything you see in the

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New Testament is gonna be, all those observations are drawing on very specific details in the text of Genesis, which we might want to understand.

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So as I said, the basic truth that we're gonna be talking about today is the truth that woman was created for man.

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And it's very difficult to read Genesis 2 and come away with any kind of conclusion but that.

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But that's the obvious overwhelming thrust of the passage that we're talking about, that man was not made for woman, but woman was made for man.

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And this is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, commenting on this passage here today. So Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, eight says, "'For man was not made from woman, "'but woman was made from man.

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"'Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.'" That's what it says. When you open up Genesis 2, 18, this is how it starts.

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It says that, "'Then the Lord God said, "'It's not good for man to be alone.'" And then as we go through, we're gonna see that God makes a woman from man and presents him to man, for man, to be a helper for man, okay?

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So when God looks at the situation, as we've said in past lessons, everything that we've seen so far in the text is telling us that man in his single and solitary state is not good.

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So the basic problem that Genesis 2, 18 is trying to address is the problem that man cannot accomplish humanity's shared mission by himself.

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So what is humanity's shared mission within the passage? At the very least, God has other purposes that the rest of Revelation are going to tell you, but there's this primary purpose that God has for man found in Genesis 1, 28.

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"'God blessed them, and he said to them, "'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. "'Have dominion over the fish of the sea "'and over the birds of the heaven "'and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'"

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Man can't do it by himself, can he? Man does not reproduce asexually.

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He's not like a starfish or something like that. Cut a limb off and grow another one. It's not really the way it works.

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So man can't accomplish humanity's shared mission by himself. He needs a woman, right?

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So that's the basic problem that the text is trying to address. So what happens? Genesis 2, 18. It's not good for man to be alone.

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I will make a helper fit for him. So woman, here's the point, woman is made to help man accomplish humanity's shared mission.

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Now, when you look at that, this is a statement on roles, right? This is a statement on roles. What woman is designed to do, she's made from man and created for man to help him accomplish humanity's shared mission.

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Woman was created to play the role of the helper. Now, at this point, all the egalitarians are outraged because they understand what

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I've said, right? They all know what I've said. And the conservative Christians aren't because we generally play games with the plain meaning of passages, right?

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So when I say this, when I say woman was created to play the role of a helper, what you're tempted to hear,

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I imagine, is something like this. God created woman to help fix man's inadequacies.

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And then parenthetical remark, woman, women have no inadequacies. Now, you may not say it exactly like that, but I know

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I had a young couple who were basically coming to me because of how pastors teach this passage every single time, arguing over this very point, right?

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So the lady came to me and basically was asking me the question, do men need women more than women need men?

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That was the question she was asking. And she was getting that from this verse, right? This verse, it's not good for man to be alone, so man needs a helper made for him.

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So God makes a helper for man to fix his inadequacies. And that's what every pastor jokes about.

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Every time they teach a man is inadequate, he needs a woman to fix his inadequacy. And you know what, that's true.

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There's some truth to that. Man is completely inadequate in certain respects, and he's not completely inadequate in other respects.

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The issue is that man is completely inadequate in certain respects, and woman is completely inadequate in certain respects.

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We're allowed to say the first statement, we're not allowed to say the second, you understand? So here's the point.

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The truth, what is the truth? Man is utterly incompetent to do women's role. Woman is utterly incompetent to do man's role.

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Understand? That's the way it works. Now, if you look at CVs, you look at movies, man is pictured as the incompetent buffoon, and woman is the omnicompetent gift to fix man's inadequacy.

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But the reality is, they're both incompetent to do each other's roles. Now, you know this, you know this.

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Intuitively, you know this with one of the roles, okay? You know this with one of the roles. So let's talk about the role we all know this with, right?

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Woman is obviously a creation designed by God to make children, isn't she?

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Is man competent to grow a baby in his belly?

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Think about it. Once he makes his original contribution to this project, is there anything that he can do to help that baby grow along, right?

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I mean, not really, not really. That's on her, right? Now, if he comes and he rubs her belly and he talks to the baby, is that gonna make the baby grow better or something like that?

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Whatever help he plays is very minimal to the growth and development of that baby in terms of the actual process itself.

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Man is not a childbearer, is he? Man's not a childbearer, understand?

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He's not. Now, how does man help woman bear children? How does she help her to bear a child, right?

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Well, he's gonna make that original contribution, but beyond that, how does he help her to grow that child in her stomach?

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All right, well, he does that through his roles, doesn't he? So what are his roles? Protection.

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The woman is a weaker vessel. If he doesn't protect the woman from danger, what's gonna happen? That birth may get stopped, right?

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Due to the actions of violent men. So he's not helping her grow it inside or something like that.

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He's not doing that. He's helping her through his role. Protection, provision, right? There's some points in pregnancy where a woman has a very difficult time moving, right?

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In order to grow that baby, she's gonna have to eat. How does he help the process? He helps the process not by trying to birth the baby for her, right?

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Not by taking over her role. He does it by giving her provision, right? Protection, provision. How does he help her?

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He helps her by leading her. I know that you live in a world that thinks that man shouldn't have anything to say whatsoever about childbirth and childbearing and decisions that happen in the labor room.

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I mean, in fact, as I've been to hospitals, like the nurses will not look at me. They'll look at her. They'll look at Elizabeth and ask her all the questions because they don't expect any input from man over there on the couch.

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You stay over there and you just, you know, we don't want your opinion or advice on any leadership or whatsoever. But how would a man help a woman in general?

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I mean, there's a lot of emotions that come. There's a lot of hormones that come through childbearing. There's a lot of stuff, right? But men are designed to shepherd their wives, to lead their wives, to help them to think rightly about this trial, to help them think biblically about this trial.

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But man, like here's the point. Man can't step in and build the thing for her.

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She's, her body's building the thing. Do you understand? So here's the point, here's the point

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I'm trying to make. I'm trying to say that we think, when you think woman is made for a helper for man, what you're predisposed to think is man is completely inadequate and woman is designed to step in and either do man's job for her or help him or either take over his job for her or tell him how to do his job, right?

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Like, that's what we think. Whereas when you think about what's actually happened, man is made with certain roles that are defined.

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The way man helps woman, you see, the way man helps woman, I'm using help in a different sense, is by doing his job.

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The way woman helps man is by doing her job. You understand? So now we, like what

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I'm trying to say is we understand that as it relates to childbearing. We understand that as it relates to childbearing. But I want to submit to you today that the same kind of principles that are at work in childbearing are at work with all the other roles.

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Same kind of thing. So God made man to lead, to protect, to provide.

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God made female to follow, to be a nurturer and a caregiver, to be a homemaker.

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That's what he made her to do, okay? We believe with just the making of the baby part that yeah, man can't help with that.

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With a lot of the other stuff, we can pretend like we're stepping in and taking over things and doing all these things, right?

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But it's the same logic throughout. So think about the logic of protection for a second.

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In the real world, you know, when anarchy reigns, everyone understands that why man is made to protect woman. So when government shuts down, it's law of the jungle and all that, right?

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Like when it's just sinful man against sinful man, there's no law, it's all chaos. Everyone knows that man is made to protect woman.

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Everyone knows that. So imagine yourself in that kind of post -apocalyptic scenario. The zombie apocalypse happened, right?

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And it's all chaos at this point. Step into that world for a second. What would you think about a woman who's basically telling man how to, like his fighting strategy or something like that, to protect her from danger?

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It's not really gonna work, right? Like meaning she's not equipped to protect herself, he's equipped to protect her, and there's very real dangers outside of the world, and she can't really take that over for him.

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She's not made to take it over for him. She's not strong enough to take it over for him. I mean,

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I've seen videos of one man like fighting against, like in UFC kind of format, like four women at a time, and one man can take out four women at a time.

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Like that's just, it's just, you take someone like Mike Tyson, he could probably take out 10 women at a time or something like that.

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It's just the way it is, you know? So, but the thing is, man's made physically stronger than woman.

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Woman's made physically weaker than man. When it comes to protection, woman can't step in and like protect man for her.

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Only in very rare occasions, right? Like is she going to be able to do this? And not well, she's not designed for it.

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It's obvious she's not designed for that role. It's obvious that she's not made for that role. Like when you think about these role divisions, they're grounded in reality.

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They're grounded in biological realities. So think about this. Males, girls, leadership, protection, provision.

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With protection, I think you mostly agree with that. That's grounded in biology, isn't it?

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Men are stronger. Woman is the weaker vessel. It makes sense. He's been given that role because it's grounded in biology.

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What about provision? It's the same, okay? It's the same.

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Do you understand it's the same? Think about the curse in the garden. Think about the curse in the garden.

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What is it? For a woman, in pain, you will bring forth children. Right? And then there's a battle for the sexes.

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Your desire will be for your husband or he'll rule over you. What is the curse for men? The ground is cursed on account of you.

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By the sweat of your brow will yield forth its fruit. Isn't it? Look at why are men given a surplus strength?

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What are they designed to do? What are they designed to do with that? Work the ground.

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That's what they're designed to do. I'm not trying to say that all of you guys need to go out here and become farmers or something like that. I'm just, I'm trying to say, what is the original example of provision?

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What is the original example of provision? This man working long hours and hard hours as a work mule in a garden.

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Like, that's what it is. By the sweat of his brow. His work is made more difficult. He's designed to do that. Woman is not designed to toil with the same intensity for the same length of time.

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Now, you guys are gonna, you're gonna say, hey, yeah, but what about all those ladies who, you know, they have the garden and they provide and they do the canning and all that.

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And it's like, yeah, yeah, they have a nice, they do some work outside, right? And then they have their nice shelves and they take nice pictures of, you know, the four or five or six vegetables that they were able to make, right?

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And can and provide for. And you know what? The family did eat those four or five different things all year long, right? But is that all they ate?

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Well, obviously not, because this is a lot of work to provide all the food that a family actually needs.

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We actually have grocery stores to help fill the gap. But here's the point. It's just to say, why is provision, and the

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Bible says a man who doesn't provide for his family is a man of the faith, he's worse than an unbeliever. Why is provision a male responsibility?

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Because he's built to work long and hard hours. If you've been married for any length of time, what you'll realize is that this is actually true.

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You may look at your wife and wonder why she doesn't have the stamina that you have, like as it relates to working. I mean,

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I've worked jobs where I've literally had to deliver appliances for 12 hours a day. All day long, back -breaking, exhausting kind of labor.

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And you know, I was able to do it without too much of a problem. It was kind of, you know, I came home and I was a little bit tired. I was pretty tired and having a hard time communicating with Elizabeth.

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But I mean, I was able to do it, right? Because I'm made to work long, physical hours. And you guys could too. You know, all you guys in here today,

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I imagine if you devoted yourself to it, you could work a long, physically intensive job.

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You may fuss and complain about it because you're not used to it as much, but you could do it all day long and it wouldn't be a problem at all.

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So look, think about the roles. Man is made for the role of leadership, protection, provision. Woman is made for the role of follower, to be a nurturer and a caregiver, and to be a homemaker.

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God has uniquely designed both of them for their roles. And he expects that the bulk of their energies be devoted to these roles that they're uniquely designed for.

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They're not interchangeable parts. Woman is made, right? So it's not good for man to be alone.

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I will make a helper fit for him. Woman is made to follow man. Woman is made to have a follower role.

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She's made to excel at that follower role, to play a supportive role.

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Man's made to be a leader. Woman is not equally competent and capable of being a leader. Man is not equally competent and capable of being a woman's follower.

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Woman is not equally competent and capable of taking on the role of protection. Man is not equally competent and capable of being a nurturer and a caregiver.

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If you wanna understand why that's the case, then just try it. And what you'll realize is that men are not equally competent and capable of being nurturers and caregivers.

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In fact, the more that women expect men to be nurturers and caregivers, the more they realize how insufficient they are at that task and then they fuss at them and nag at them about how poorly they're doing it because everyone has confused their design, right?

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Man is not made, woman is not made to bear the load of being a provider for a family.

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She's not made to do that. When women try to bear the load of being a provider for the family, I end up counseling them.

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That's what happens. Man is not made to bear the load of being a homemaker.

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Go to a college dorm. Just look at it. You know the feel.

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Go into homes. You know the feel of a home that's cared for by a woman who is a homemaker who loves her job. I talked about going into different homes with my job.

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I've gone into sodomite homes where two men are living there together, pretending like they're married. I've gone into those homes who say, well, hey, don't gay people know how to decorate and stuff like that too?

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Is this kind of extreme? It's like, yeah, I've gone into their home. They were decorated okay, but you know what it's like walking into those kind of homes?

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It's like walking into a tomb. I have no other way to describe it than walking into a tomb. And that's not just my biases and prejudice showing.

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There's no life in that place. It may have some nice stuff in there or something like that that looks like they spent a lot of money on, but there's no life in there.

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There's no life in there. It's not a home. And that's obviously the case because this is a tomb.

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Do you understand? There will be no life produced from this place, but they're not made to be homemakers.

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Now, a basic marriage problem is a problem of role reversal. Genesis 3 .16 says, to the woman, he said,

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I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband.

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He shall rule over you. This is the same language that's used of Cain later on.

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God says to Cain, after he starts pouting about God not accepting his sacrifice, he says, sin's desire is to master you, but you must rule over it in a take -no -prisoner kind of way.

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Like, the idea is just to say that the consequence of the fall is there's a battle for the sexes.

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That's what's actually happening. And as I said, this is not simply a problem out there. The egalitarians are honest about their reaction to the roles.

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Christians, even Reformed Christians, typically aren't. We say we believe these things, but in practice, our actions deny it.

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And how this rises in marriage is that typically a woman is going to think that the way she helps her husband is to try to take over his job for her, so his role for her, that's the way the woman thinks she helps her husband, is to try to take over his roles of leadership protection for vision.

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And the way that a man thinks that he's going to help his wife, and all of you have been trained to think this way, okay?

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I'm comfortable speaking the language of generality. There may be one of you who isn't, okay? But look, we're trained to think this way.

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The way a man is supposed to help his wife, instantaneously, when I talk about roles, what you're going to think instantaneously is the way a man's supposed to help his wife is to do her job for her, to take over her responsibilities, to bear the load, right?

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That's what you think. So that's what you think. Man's supposed to help a woman by taking over her role, primarily. Woman is supposed to help man by taking over his role.

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That's what you think, okay? Now, the problem is that we've totally redefined man's role.

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That's the problem, okay? So in this passage, what we're looking at, Genesis 2, 18 through 23, you'll see that man is given a role of authority and a role of responsibility.

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It is man who names the woman, right? Man names the woman, exercising authority over her, just like he names the animal.

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What you see in the passage is that woman is created from man and presented to man. She's created for man.

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That's what 1 Corinthians tells us. Man was not made for woman, woman was made for man.

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And so she's been given roles to accomplish. He's been given roles to accomplish. But the problem is we've totally, in the church, we've redefined man's roles.

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So leadership in the church, like most people think, leadership is reduced to the responsibility of a husband to love his wife.

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Is a husband supposed to love his wife? Yes, amen, absolutely.

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Is that leadership? No, it's not, is it?

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Are my kids supposed to love me? Yes. Does that mean they lead me? Is that how they lead me, by loving me?

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No, that's not what it is. So leadership is reduced to a husband has to love his wife. Leadership is reduced to the responsibility of a husband to serve his wife, which usually means the husband is viewed as the wife's domestic helper who comes home from work to do the domestic chores she's failed to do, right?

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So that's what we think. So because Christ served, a husband must serve too, and the way that a husband serves is he basically does a woman's job for her.

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I can't tell you how many men that I've known who say, hey, I tried to help my wife by doing the dishes, and what ends up happening is

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I become the dishwasher. She'll just wait for me to do them, right? That's kind of how it happens.

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But what I'm trying to say is I'm not trying to say whether or not a man should ever do the dishes whatsoever or not. I'm not saying that.

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I'm just trying to say that what it means to be a leader is not to do your wife's job for her.

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Leadership is something different. Do you understand what I mean? So if you hear me be saying that a husband should never wash a dish,

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I didn't say that. I'm not implying that, I'm not hinting that. I'm just trying to say that's not leading. That may be something that a good leader does in moderation so as not to take over the role.

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That's not leadership, you understand? But that's the way we're trained to think about it. Love is pitted against leadership. So if a husband is basically told that he should never violate the sovereignty of his wife's desires, so leadership is redefined.

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Like you're living in a church where all connotations of authority have been removed from the concept of leadership. And the way, like when

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I talk about these things, men, I say, hey, you need to be a man, you need to take initiative. They instantaneously think, how can

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I take over my wife's job for her? And when women are told you need to be a helpmate, they instantaneously, immediately think, how can

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I do my husband's job for me? Because he needs me. Because without me, he can't do his job. Do you understand how this is all backwards?

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Do you get what I'm saying? It's all backwards. You shouldn't think that way. There are actual roles. The way, woman being a helper to man does not mean she supplants him and his roles.

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She tells him how to perform his roles. That's not what it means. Man leading his wife is not take over her role for her.

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Okay? Those things are not true. So problem number one, we redefine man's role.

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Problem number two, we've gutted man's role from all connotations of authority. And problem number three, we refuse to define a woman's role or hold her accountable for basically anything.

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Is there anything that you would allow me to say today that a woman is required to do? Is there anything?

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Is there anything? Look, brothers and sisters, is there anything I'm allowed to say that a woman is required to do today? That it's her job to do?

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That her job, she should be doing? If I say it's her job to make babies, you'll say, well, if she wants to, right?

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If she wants to. Assuming that's what they feel led. Assuming that's what the, like we don't want to reduce a woman to a baby maker.

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I mean, some couple can't have babies. So I mean, that can't be. Yeah, so I can't say it's her job to make babies, can

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I? Can I say it's her job to be a dishwasher? Probably not.

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Because I mean, a husband should help out too. He lives in the house too and all that. I mean, is that her job? Is her job to wash dishes? I mean,

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I don't know. I can't say that. Do the laundry. I mean, the Proverbs 31 woman, it said her family was clothed in fine purple, right?

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She seemed to be taking care, like she rose early to provide food for her household. Can I say it's a woman's job to cook?

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Only if she wants to. I mean, only if she wants to, right? It's okay for a man to cook too.

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Like, you're gonna say that with everything I say, right? You're gonna say that with everything I say. So much so to the point where we basically don't say anything is actually hers.

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So I mean, I guess maybe she doesn't have to wash the dishes or maybe she should wash it some, but husband probably help her with that.

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Should she cook? I mean, I mean, yeah, some maybe, but I mean, if she doesn't, life is hard and busy and we have other things to do, right?

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Maybe husband should, but husband could help her with that too, right? Laundry, yeah,

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I mean, yeah. Someone's gotta do it, but he needs to help out. Make a home.

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Does she have to work? Does she have to actually be at her house? So what does

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Titus 2 say? It says the older woman should teach younger women to love their husbands and children to be workers at home. Am I allowed to say that a woman should be a worker at home?

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Absolutely, she has to be a worker at home or else she's in sin, no, because you're gonna say, well, what if a guy's a wounded veteran or something like that, right?

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That's what you're gonna say. So does she have to be a worker at home? Well, I mean, what if finances are hard? What if it's tough?

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So I'm not allowed to say that, I guess, apparently. 1 Timothy 5 says, in 1

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Timothy 5, Paul says that the younger widow should marry, bear children, manage their own households.

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Am I allowed to say that that's what they should do without all the exceptions? I don't think so.

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So at the end of the day, I mean, you look at all that, you say, well, what is she supposed to do? Is she supposed to follow her husband's leadership?

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Is she supposed to submit to her husband's leadership? Yeah, provided that he loves her well, right?

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We're gonna make all the qualifications at that point too. Provided he loves her well, she agrees that he isn't being harsh and tyrannical. He isn't asking her to do something that she doesn't agree with.

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We're gonna make all these kind of distinctions. So I don't, I'm just looking at it and I say, I don't know that there's anything that we're left, we have left here, right?

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So I don't know that we know what a man's for. I don't know that we know what a woman's for. We're not really allowed to have any role divisions. We've redefined leadership of all notions of authority.

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So then when we look at a passage like this, which is basically saying that woman is made for man and man is the head of a home, it all just gets reduced to do whatever you want as long as you say that what you're, you believe in gender roles.

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And that's pretty sufficient for most churches today. As long as people acknowledge they believe in gender roles, it doesn't actually matter whether or not you define those things and what things you put in what categories.

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That's kind of the basic situation that we're in right now. So man can't accomplish humanity's shared mission by himself.

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Woman is made to help man accomplish humanity's shared mission. Woman was created from man and for man.

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So the text says, I will make a helper fit for him. And then after God parades all the animals through, it says, but for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.

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And then in verse 21, it said, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man. And while he slept, he took one of his ribs and clubbed up his place with flesh.

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And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into the woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

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She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. So notice some features of the passage.

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One, man plays no part in the building process, does he? He's asleep, meaning he's not building the woman.

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He's asleep. God takes a rib from man, he makes it into a woman. What does that mean?

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That means that woman is a derivative creation. A lot of sentimental pastors will teach this in like a sappy romantic way.

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You say, well, you see, why would God take the rib from man? It's because woman is to be held near his heart, right?

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And isn't that sweet? And isn't that sentimental? And isn't that sappy? But that's not the point. The point is that God takes the rib from man and makes it into a woman.

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Woman is a derivative creation. She's made from man. That's the point.

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She has a purpose tied to man. She's not the strong, powerful, courageous, independent woman that our society is telling her she's supposed to be.

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She's made for man. There's very few things that are more problematic in the world that you live in today to say, is then for you to go around and say that woman was created for man.

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Try to say it. Conley said it at the singles dinner on Friday.

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And there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. There was loud and great lamentation. You're not allowed to say that woman is made for man.

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You're not allowed to say that woman is insufficient, that she's, it is blasphemy in our world, in our society.

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And those were professing Christians, most of them. It's blasphemy to say that woman is made for man.

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She's made from man and for man. Her purpose is tied to man. Woman is presented as a beautiful gift to man.

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She is his wife. Woman, and all that entails that Adam is the head woman is decided to follow.

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Now, can man do his role by himself? No, absolutely not. Why? Because he needs his wife to tell him how to do his role or to do his role for him?

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No, man's made to do his role. Why can't man do his role by himself? If he's made to be a leader, how can he lead if there's no one to lead?

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If he's made to be a protector, how can he protect, be a protector without someone to protect? If he's made to be a provider, how can he be a provider for someone, for no one to provide for?

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Can woman do her role by herself? If she's made to be a follower, how can she follow someone if there's no one to follow?

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If she's made to be a homemaker, How can she make a home when there's no home to be made?

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If she's made to be a nurturer and compassionate, how can she nurture and compassion, like embody the characteristic of nurture and compassion without a home in which to give those things for?

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You understand? So no, man can't do his role without woman. Woman can't do their role without each other.

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And that doesn't mean that they can't step in and give suggestions about how each other should be doing their roles in ways that are better than what they do.

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I'm just trying to say that God uniquely made them for their roles, that's the point. God uniquely made men and women for their role.

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So married men, do you understand what you're made to do? God designed you to be the head of your family.

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He made you for a reason. If you abdicate your role, everyone will suffer.

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You're looking around at the wasteland and the wreckage that has come from men abdicating their roles of leadership.

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He made you for a reason. If you abdicate your role, everyone will suffer. If you allow your wife to abandon her role in order to help you do your role, everyone will suffer.

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Like these roles are not optional. They're not arbitrarily designed. God made you to be the leader of your home.

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He's designed you to be the leader of your home. He's given you inherent strengths and advantages to help you to do your role.

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He's made you to be a competent leader. Sin is going to distort that and make you incompetent.

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And I'm not trying to say that the competence lies within yourself in any absolute sense. I'm just trying to acknowledge basic biology.

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He's made you strong. You're to be a protector. Surely you don't glory in your strength and trust in your strength, but also at the same time, you don't give yourself over to weakness, do you?

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You say, well, God will fix it. He's made you to do that. And you're probably gonna do a better job being a protector of your wife, even if you give yourself over to laziness and become emaciated and can barely move.

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You understand? Like you're still, like you have to let yourself go really, really, really, really far before on balance of probability, your wife is going to excel more at that than you.

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That's the way it works with all the roles, okay? You understand? Do you understand what you're made to do? God designed you to be a head.

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If you abdicate your role, everyone will suffer. Be honest, like if you're a married woman today, how do you see yourself?

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Be honest, like be honest. Do you see yourself as your husband's suitable helper?

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Do you see yourself as having been put on the earth to figure out where your husband wants to go and to make it easier to go there?

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Let me say that again. Let me say, do you see yourself as having been put on the earth not to tell your husband where to go and demand to be included in every decision and listen to and obeyed where you think you should go?

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Do you see your role as being put on the earth to figure out where your husband wants to go and make it easier to go there?

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So analogy of a boat. There's a difference between trying to steer the ship or standing there in the passenger seat telling him where to steer it and grabbing a rope like an oar, isn't it?

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All right, so look. Do you see yourself as having been put on this earth to figure out where your husband thinks

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God wants you to go and make it easier to go there? Or do you resist his every act of leadership, demand to be included in every decision?

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Do you think of help as steering the ship or more likely standing there telling him where to steer or cheerfully grabbing an oar?

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Is the question in your heart and in your mind, how can I make my husband's job easier, not harder?

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How can I be a blessing to him? How can I be a helper suitable for him?

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Not defining that as trying to tell him how to do his job or take over his job, but try to take wherever he's leading and make it better.

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Right? Do you understand that you play the role of the church in the analogy?

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Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Single men, the primary temptations you face are not, like listen to me.

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People tell you that the primary temptations you face are to be hard, domineering, and unyielding. That's not the temptations you face.

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Almost no guys that I meet today are these hard, unyielding, pig -headed guys.

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Almost all the young guys I meet are just, they're so nice. They're insufferably nice.

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The temptations you face are to be soft, passive, needy, emotional, weak, and contemptible.

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That's the temptations you face. The temptations you face are to abdicate your role of leadership, to redefine your role of leadership, to think about the way that you lead is basically just trying to ask your, if you get married one day, this is your temptation.

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You're gonna think that leading your wife means asking her what to do for every single decision, making her make every single decision on the basis of her desires by asking her what she thinks to do.

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You're not gonna be, your temptation are gonna be to have no plan, right? No plan for your family.

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No direction for your family. Nothing that you're trying to accomplish. Your temptation is not to try to fill your home with productivity and come up with God -honoring,

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Christ -centered things for you to do to fill your time to the glory of God and for the good of the world.

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Your temptation is just gonna be to come home, check out, let her make all decisions because it's miserable to try to make any.

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That's what your temptations are gonna be, primarily. And that's what's happening in almost every counseling situation that I have.

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That's the temptation over and over and over again. Look, I know what those women were like at the singles dinner.

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Look, they've never had a man come along and tell them, they've never had a man come along and lead them.

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They've been told their whole life that they're strong, they're powerful, they're courageous, they're independent, they don't need anyone, they don't need you.

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I understand your plight. I understand your situation. You're trying to find a wife amongst a population of people who think that way, and Christians think that way, too.

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I'm strong, capable, independent, don't need you. And you're trying to find a wife amongst that. But here's the thing,

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I mean, look. If things look impossible, God is the

56:57

God of the impossible. Lead the way, like lead the way. You may be surprised.

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I could tell you story after story after story of guys who were confronted with those realities instead of giving up.

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They persevered and they were a means of leading those kind of women out of those kinds of errors.

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You understand? I know plenty of guys who have done that. Don't give up. Single women in the room, single women.

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Now's the time to prepare. You're being lied to. You're living in a world that's telling you that your purpose for existence is to find happiness and self -fulfillment and you don't need anyone to do that.

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They're telling you that you're independent, you don't need a man, that would demean you. Every single one of those roles, any kind of role that I could give you that the

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Bible says a woman is designed to do in the Bible, whatever part she's going to play in this creation mandate that we're talking about, any one of those, you're predisposed and you're tempted to look at all those things as demeaning and beneath you.

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You're predisposed to think, and even if your brain doesn't tell you that it would be demeaning to follow a husband, and in the actual practice of following, if he asks you to do anything that you don't wanna do, you're going to think that you are being mistreated and that you're being demeaned and that you're being treated like a child.

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That's what you're trained to do. That's what you're trained to do. You're trained to think, I don't need a man, I am perfectly fine without a man.

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I'm not made to follow for anything, absolutely not. That's what you're being told.

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You're not made to follow, and that a woman's job of being a homemaker is beneath your dignity and demeaning to you.

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And you're trained to look at everything the Bible calls you to do, provide food, rise early while it's still night to provide food for your maidens, clothe your family in fine purple, all that.

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That's all the stuff we're doing today, clothes and food and all that.

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You're trained to think that those are demeaning and beneath you, and the real value is gonna be found in working outside the home, right?

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And you're gonna be tempted to put all of your energies and efforts over in that area because, yeah, hey, you can't make a man marry you and all that.

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So look, right now is the time to prepare. That's the point. Church, I wish that the church was different in these areas.

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And I can tell you that in counseling situation, after counseling situation, after counseling situation, we're not.

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We've confused these basic truths. We've redefined roles.

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We refuse to put any content to any of these things to our shame, and you look around the world and you see the wreckage that's come from it.

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You go into homes, they're not what they used to be. They're not what they used to be. They're not productive pictures.

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As Christians, you think, you know, we're basically breeding cows for the pagans at this point.

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You know those purple -haired, like, lesbians? They're not having kids. You're having their kids, and then you're, then you're both doing your work thing.

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No one's managing the home. You're both trying to share that, and then you're handing your kids over to pagans to be brainwashed, and then they end up twice a child as hell as yourself, and you wonder how could that possibly happen, and that's the situation.

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That's the situation. That's the stark reality, but that shouldn't be the case. Look, brothers and sisters, Christ has come to die on the cross for us, to purchase for himself a bride, which is the church.

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That's what he's done. He's come to purchase a bride. That's the storyline of the Bible. If you want to understand marriage, you need to understand what

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Jesus has done, okay? The church is designed for a follower role.

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Christ is designed for a leadership role. We submit to Christ in obedience to our role.

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That's the way it is, okay? There are parallels here that you should think through at every single point as it relates to home and marriage, and we would do well to pay attention to those things.

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Let's pray. Amen. Lord, I pray that as a church that we would come to see and embrace and love your design for the family.

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We know that your design for the family ultimately is meant to point us to something greater than this temporary picture in earth, and when you have a husband, you have a wife who are living in harmony with their roles, it's a beautiful thing, and when you have a husband and a wife who are at war with their roles, who have redefined their roles, who are confused about their roles, the result of that is just chaos and confusion.

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I pray that you forgive us for the ways in which we've not devoted ourself to the task of living up to what we were made to be as we should.

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Thank you for sending Jesus in order to provide us free and total forgiveness for all the ways in which we've failed, but I pray that we not use that as an excuse to continue in rebellion against you.

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Open our eyes, Lord. Help us to see. Help us to be what you made us to be.

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We know that you can do abundantly more than we ask or think, and we ask that for ourself, that you help us to see daily all the ways in which we're brainwashed by a pagan culture to ignore everything that we say in your word, though we formally agree with it on paper.