The Family in the Imperative Land: Wives Submit

Genesis 2 and Revelation 19: Marriage, Creation, and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb

Old Testament reading is in Genesis chapter 2, starting in verse 15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make 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.

And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. 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, took one of his ribs and closed up in its place with flesh. 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, so she shall be called woman. And 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.

The New Testament reading is in Revelation 19, 6 through 9, and that can be found on page 1039 in the Pew Bible. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters, and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out.

Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure.

For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, Write this. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God.

Please remain standing.

Ephesians 5:21-33 and the Call to Be Filled With the Spirit

Well, thank you again for your singing. I ask you to open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 5, please. Ephesians chapter 5. We'll read from verse 21 to 33. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 21. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

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

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Sorry. That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so 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.

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

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

O Father, as is evident, I need your help. I pray, God, that your word would be magnified, and that your truth would be exposed. We live in such a society and a culture that hates this doctrine, and so hates the Lord.

And we have a church that so often is influenced, and we don't celebrate the things that we should celebrate, and we don't honor the things that we should honor. So I ask you, Lord, that we'd be influenced by the Spirit working in us to not be taught or catechized by the world, but to be taught by your mercies and grace found in Jesus Christ, delivered by the Spirit.

So help us, Lord, to listen. Please, God, help me to say something of value. And I pray that together we would look to Jesus Christ and marvel, and that we would, Lord, by marveling at you, have families that flourish.

That is a center of gospel activity. So we thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. So we are in the land of the imperatives here, and we're in our longest stop of the land of the imperatives. And what I mean is that we are in a section of Scripture on the family, which is over 20 verses long.

And I think it denotes the importance of family in the Scriptures. It denotes the importance of family from our God, as family is the first institution that He has created, and most vital for the health of the church and society at large.

Enough cannot be said about the fundamental vitality of the family for a thriving church and a thriving society. I saw a flag down the road. It's a Trump flag that says, Save America. And it's just so embarrassing, sad to me, the idea that one man, and especially Trump, could be the one to save America.

If we really want our society to be saved, we need strong families. And enough cannot be said about that. If we want a healthy church, we need strong families. For God has ordained the family to be the nucleus, the foundation of the strength of church, of society.

Programs can't save us, the church. Having certain exciting pastors and speakers can't save us. No, indeed, we need strong families. God has put a lot of weight on the health of the home for strength in the church and even in society.

And, of course, with the importance that we see laid out before us, God does not leave us to wonder at what makes a healthy and happy home. We are not left guessing. Oh, I just wonder how a home, how a family should look.

Rules are commanded in detail in the Bible. And the mechanism to enable these roles, I meant to say roles are commanded, roles are commanded in detail in the Bible. And the mechanism to enable these roles in the family to come together well for the prosperity and health and happiness of the family, the mechanism is submission.

That word is very important. The lowering of your own will for the sake of someone else's will. The mechanism to make the family strong, healthy, happy is that very embarrassing and almost a curse word in our world today.

It's that word submission. Submission is the key ingredient that will determine the health and happiness of your home. It is vital. It is everything. Since the family is so important for the church, Satan, who hates the church and wants to destroy the church, has attacked the family.

And we don't need to look too far around to see the destructiveness of Satan and his war on the family. Beloved, it is to destroy the church. So since the family is so important for the church, Satan, who hates the church and wants to destroy it, has focused his attack on the family.

And like any wise strategist in war, he went after a vital sector in the family life, and that is submission. Any craziness that you see in the family today, any craziness that you see what supposedly is supposed to make up family or supposed to be the life of the family that we see in sitcoms, which is embarrassing, any craziness that we see in the family today, it began with a very simple attack on submission.

It started with an attack on the mechanism of happiness and vitality in the family, submission. And this attack is seen in a lie, and I want to put up the lie of Satan and then put up the truth that we'll see in scripture today, and that lie is submission is an evil imposed by husbands on wives to exploit them, keep them down, and keep them from happiness.

Now let me repeat that again. The lie from Satan to attack the mechanism of the health of the family is submission is an evil imposed by husbands on wives to exploit them, keep them down, which is the reason for their unhappiness.

But the truth is very much opposed to that. The truth is submission is good. It's a good. It's good, and it's practiced by everyone, and it gives meaning and empowers wives, and it's essential to their happiness.

Again, submission is good. It's not evil. And it's practiced by everyone, not just a particular few, and it gives meaning and empowers wives, and it's essential to your happiness, wives. And so the question I want to ask, as we're seeing that played out in the verses before us, is do you, wives, or future wives, do you not only put up with submission, but are you eager to find your meaning and happiness in it?

You see the difference there? Because most of us in here probably aren't too influenced by liberalism and progressivism that tells you that submission is a curse word. And so do you just put up with it, or is it something in which you're eager to find your completeness, your meaning as a wife, and your happiness in it?

I want that to be rattling in your brain as we go through these verses. So let's see the first one. The first lie is submission is an evil imposed by husbands on wives, the truth being that submission is good, and it's practiced by everyone.

Let's look at that in verse 21 of chapter 5. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So notice this is like the tail end of the last section of the imperative land in which we talked about what it means to be full of the Spirit.

And what it means to be full of the Spirit is to be submitting to one another, right? To be acting out in righteousness by the Spirit. It looks like everyone eager to submit to one another. And so submission is not just a little part of just a select few that gets submission imposed on them so that they can be exploited, like is what's taught by the world today.

It's only a certain few that are told to submit, and it's for the exploitation for the man. No, that's not biblical. That's not true. That's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that we are to be eager, being full of the Spirit, to submit to one another universally.

And what drives that desire to submit is because it's out of, in verse 21, reverence for Christ. Reverence there is like fear. It's phobos. Or phobo, I'm sorry. It's phobo, phobo. That's where we get the word phobia.

It's fear. Out of fear, and we talked about what it means to fear the Lord, right? To fear, to admire, to honor, to be amazed. The word in ESV is reverence. The total amazement of our Savior, of our Lord, which marks every single true Christian.

As we look in amazement to Him, it drives a desire to submit to others. Now why is that? Why would a look to Jesus and be in awe of Him cause us to want to submit universally to each other? Well, let's look at Philippians 2.

Look at that with me. Philippians 2, just a couple pages to the right. To see why a reverence of Christ would draw a desire to submit to one another universally. Look at verse 3. Do nothing, in Philippians 2, verse 3.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. That is a very good verse on submission. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility or lowering yourself, count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each one of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves. And this is the root, or this is where we find it. This is a reverence of Christ.

Which is yours in Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

So therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at His name every knee should bow in heaven on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

You see, the reason why as we look to Jesus Christ and we have a desire deep within us, out of reverence for Him, to submit to one another, is because we're looking at the God, the Son of God, who humbled Himself to take on flesh, to submit to the Father, and even to serve the church, salvation.

We're looking at the One who is high above everything, far beyond we can imagine. All things were made by Him and for Him, and yet He submitted to the Father and served the church their good. And so as we look at the Jesus Christ who has done this, we are so amazed by that, that it draws the same sort of desire to submit to serve one another.

You cannot have a Christian who's amazed by Jesus, but not amazed by His servant heart. And so as we look to Jesus, a thing just draws out in our hearts to want to serve one another, each one of us serving the other.

Matthew 20, 20 through 28. Look there sometime. Remember, Jesus has to correct. I will go there. Matthew 20. Just listen to me if you'd like. Remember, the sons of Zebedee come up and they want the power of authority and power.

Jesus has to correct His disciples. And He says in verse 26, He says, It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave.

And then notice how He roots it in the reverence of the Son of Man. Even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. And so those who follow the Lord follow in His steps of being amazed by Him by submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

So where submission is a curse word to the world, an evil, to Christ, He made it His delight. It delighted the Lord to take on flesh, humble Himself, and to submit. And to serve. And those who fear Christ will make it their delight as well.

So notice, again, the lie. That submission is for the select few to be exploited. It's not true. The truth is that submission is a good practiced by everyone. Now, I almost don't want to mention it now, but we'll see the particular goodness of it exposed or experienced in the wives.

So, like, it changes everything. As you look at submission as a great good that Jesus delighted in, it changes how it then reads in verse 22 when it says, Wives, do this to your own husbands. In fact, that word submit is not even in verse 22.

It's just assumed from verse 21 of Ephesians 5. So let me say that again. Ephesians 5, verse 22. Wives, that word submit is not even in there. It's just assuming it from verse 21. So as we have a good view of submission, that God loves it or Jesus loved it so much that that's what He did when He came down, right, He honored that, and then carries over well to wives, then do this to your husbands.

But see, if we have the mindset of the world, we will think that this is like a terrible thing from Paul. In fact, I remember talking to one liberal pastor when I was in my undergrad, and I had to work at his church for a bit, unfortunately, and he said, I don't know how much I can really believe Paul because he says things like this, and he pointed to this verse.

It was hard for him to fathom that Paul could say that, and we would listen to that today. It's because he believed the lie that submission is a curse word. But whenever we follow Jesus in reverence to Him, and we see that it was His delight to do so, we see it as a very delightful thing.

Wives submit to your own husbands. That's a delightful thing for wives to do, not a curse, so that they can be exploited. This is a good thing. This is a precious thing that wives would submit to your own husbands because we all have a desire to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ so that it bubbles over to wives submitting to their husbands.

And we'll talk about what it means for husbands to have a submitting attitude for their wives, right? Husbands are to be leaders of their wives. That is biblical and good, and there's a submission involved with that.

I almost don't want to get too lost in this right now because I don't want to lose focus of the text before us, but suffice it to say that husbands, as leaders of your wives, you should find it joy to limit your will for the will of your wives.

When all things being considered, this has nothing to do with her growth in the Lord. It's nothing that you had to lead to be firm on something. It's just simply an indifferent item. Husbands, you should delight in submitting your will to your wives.

I don't care what color my walls are. My wife cares more. I delight in giving her that, right? Or vacation. I delight in giving her that, right, what she wants to do. There's more that can be said about that.

But there is an aspect in which submitting your will to the other is something that we do out of reverence for Christ. It's universal. And so when we get to the particular verse 22, it is a beautiful thing that wives would submit to your own husbands since Christ delighted in submission.

So wives are to delight in submission as well. Now, the lie about this, as we'll correct with the truth, wives in verse 22, submit to your own husbands. The lie is submission exploits wives and keeps them down.

I cannot tell you how many times I've heard that, that a submitting wife is only to be exploited and it keeps them down. It keeps them from their full potential. It keeps them from their full meaning that they have.

And the truth is submission gives meaning and empowers wives. And what do I mean by that? Well, where do we get our meaning? Where do we get our meaning from? From whom? Well, it can't be from anyone else but our creator himself.

And so as we see the very beginnings of a husband and wife and when it first formed, we could see that God is the one who gave it, breathed its meaning. And so if we want wives to have their proper meaning, they are not to find it from the culture, but they're to find it from the God who has given it meaning.

And we see this played out in Genesis. Let's go there and see that played out in Genesis 2 where the husband and wife was first, the institution was first made and the first need for submission or being a helper.

Look at Genesis. Genesis chapter 2, we went over this in Sunday school. I was kind of worried that Tim might say something that I would have to correct myself with later. I don't think he did. I think I'm good.

So Genesis chapter 2, verse 15, the Lord God took the man, that is Adam, and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord commanded man saying, you shall surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.

From the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. So there we have Adam working the garden. He was to work it in righteousness. That was his work to do. But look, there's a problem, so to speak. In verse 18, the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone.

So there we go. The need for wife is coming forth, right? He puts him in the garden and he says at the same time, it's not good that Adam would be alone. There's a need here. He needs someone. And in fact, he wants Adam.

He says, I'll make for him a helper fit for him. But he wants Adam to experience that too. He wants Adam to experience the same thing that God already knows to be true. And so that's why now out of the ground, the Lord God in verse 19, 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.

And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds and the heavens to every beast of the field. He had to look at all the creation and really examine them to name them.

But part of that was to what? To grow a concern or something in his heart saying, none of these are for me though. This is exactly what happened. The man gave names to all the livestock in verse 20 and to the birds of the heavens and every beast of the field.

But for Adam, there is not found a helper fit for him, just like God had said would be the case. And so with that great potent need of a wife and her role to be a fitting helper and submission to him, with that need just screaming out of the text of scripture, God, the Lord, makes good on helping the man.

In verse 21, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept, he took up his ribs and closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

Look at that. God is the first one to bring and introduce the woman to the man, just like we see in marriage ceremonies today. And I love the first words of Adam. It's now in verse 23. And what's the context?

The first words of Adam is a song of praise to his God for providing such a needed helper to him. I love the first words of Adam is one of praise and worship as he sees his beautiful bride and says, yes, this is my needed helper that I was longing for as I was looking at all the animals.

This is her. And he says, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And so the conclusion from Moses is, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

And so we see the very beginning. Again, we're asking ourselves, what does it mean to have meaning and to feel complete as a wife? And we know that the world would say that to be in a submissive role is one in which it devalues your meaning, it keeps you down, right?

That's the lie that we hear. But we see in scripture, your service, oh wives, as a helpmate, as a submissive helpmate to your husband is one of great value, one that drew great desire and longing and praise from Adam and should result in the same for your husband today.

The fulfillment of a wife is to be a helper for her husband, which was needed at the very beginning. And it's within that context. Look at Proverbs 31 with me. Look at Proverbs 31. It's within that context of a helpmate for her husband and the celebration of that role as we see in Genesis 2 that there is such strength given to the woman.

Look at Proverbs 31. This is a woman who delights in her role as a helper for her husband. And what we see in this chapter, in this set of verses, is not a weak woman with no meaning. We see a woman who delights in the fullness of her status, of her role as a helpmate.

And we see her strength within the confines of that meaning. Just read this and let it just ooze a meaning and strength coming forth from this woman. In Proverbs 31, verse 10, an excellent wife who can find she is far more precious than jewels.

The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant.

She brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard.

She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle.

She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out the hand to the needy. She's not afraid of snow for her household. For all her household are clothed in scarlet. She makes bed coverings for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple.

Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant. Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Do you see a weak woman there? I don't.

I see a woman who celebrates her role as a helpmate and does it well and there's only strength coming forth from her. In fact, her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also and he praises her saying many women have done excellently but you surpass them all.

Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of the hands and let her works praise her in the gates. We see that true meaning for the wife is not found in whatever man has said true meaning is found.

True meaning is found in what God has instituted for the marriage and that is for a certain role for a wife, a certain role for the husband and to celebrate those roles and to find their strength and fulfillment in those roles.

And a woman who delights in the role of submissiveness as she delights in Christ her strength, her meaning is found in that blessed role. And the husband, the proper husband just like Adam praises and says finally I have a helpmate finally I have a helper so this man in Proverbs says you do excellently my dear.

So it is a major and corruptible lie that a wife's role of submission is not going to give her completion or will keep her down rather we see that her fulfilling the role that God has given her.

Will complete that role.

And it will empower her instead. But we see as we continue this thought meaning and purpose goes beyond this kind of physical element that we're talking about here, right? That we see in Proverbs 31. Meaning and fulfillment is seen in the fact that the wife's role reflects the relationship between Jesus and the bride.

And so let's see that in Ephesians chapter 5 go back there with me please. Ephesians chapter 5, return there. And we see that again in verse 22 wives submit to your own husbands but notice Paul doesn't just have in mind the beginning of creation and the roles given by God although that's certainly involved in that but he also has in mind the completed thing in Christ Jesus as we see in verse 22 as to the Lord.

He's saying that wives your desire to submit to your husband should be as to the Lord it should reflect a relationship with you and Christ with you wanting to glorify or reveal something about Jesus. And he explains what that is in 23 and 24 when he says for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church and his body and it's himself that is the church's savior.

So now as the church submits to Christ so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. And so as we see the meaning, the full completion of being a wife we see that you as wives in your submission get to reflect the picture of the church's submission to Christ.

And since you have a reverence for Christ, since he is your savior since you are in awe of him since he is your ultimate husband in the heavenlies since your focus is upon him you delight in the meaning that I get to reveal the relationship of the church to Christ by me submitting to my own husband that delights you.

Your submission to Christ causes you to delight yourself to submit to your husband as you say this is how I get to reveal Jesus Christ in my marriage. As the church submits to Christ in all things so I get to reveal that beautiful reality in my own submission of my own husband.

Think about how beautiful it is that Christ takes a people that hate God and hate him, forgives them, gives them the spirit of forgiveness to cause them to walk righteously before him. What a beautiful transaction that is that we see in scripture.

And wives you get to reveal that in your submitting to your husband. How is that without meaning? How is that a lowered meaning? Shame on anyone that would say that that's not full of meaning. That is putrid talk because it is revealing the beautiful relationship with Christ and his bride.

Let that remind you as you are struggling because you're not your husband's not Jesus he's not and it's difficult sometimes but may you be driven by a meaning that is I get to reveal the church here. So let us turn away from that lie of feminism of liberalism whatever you want to call it.

I would say that submission devalues your meaning and keeps you down. It doesn't. It gives you the meaning a wife. It gives you meaning and within that meaning you find your strength. And so we see the final lie that we'll answer here is that since follow along with me.

Since submission is an evil imposed on wives to exploit them and keep them down it is a source of great unhappiness. And that's the final lie that we'll look at with scripture today. So again let me repeat that.

Since in this lie since submission is an evil imposed on wives to exploit them to keep them down it is a source of great unhappiness for you. In other words if you're a young woman now and you're looking to be married one day you know what you'll hear.

To be such a submissive wife that is a doomed failure thing that will cause you to be unhappy. You will not find your happiness there. But the truth is that since submission is a good given to wives to have meaning and empowerment it is a source of great happiness for you.

And honestly the proof is in the pudding. There is a direct connection between feminism and unhappiness. Have you ever noticed that? You will never meet a happy feminist. Ever. It'll never happen. But wives who reflect Christ with her role you'll see all sorts of happiness there.