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Sermon: There Will Be a Battle Between the Sexes Date: February 9, 2025, Morning Text: Genesis 3:16 Series: Basic Truths Preacher: Tim Mullet Audio: https://storage.googleapis.com/pbc-ca-sermons/2025/250209-BasicTruths-ThereWillBeABattleBetweentheSexes.aac
Well, good morning. If you do have a Bible, turn to Genesis 3, and we're continuing our study in Genesis on basic truths. It should be page 3 in your pew Bibles, if you have them. We're going to be reading Genesis 3, 16b, so we're going to be reading the second half of Genesis 3, 16, and whenever you have that, go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word today.
Genesis 3, 16b, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. You may be seated.
Amen.
Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for your words that you've given to us, which help us to understand the human condition. We know that we are people who desperately need your revelation in order to understand who you are, what your purposes are for the world, and the ways in which the gospel will help us to live in light of your truth.
Pray for a time here today that you'll help us to learn much from the Scriptures. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear all the good things that you have for us today in your Word. In your Son's name I pray, amen.
Today I have a fairly simple strategy for trying to discuss the passage that we're going to be going through. The first section that we're going to be dealing with are temptations, which are common to women in a fallen world, and then we're going to talk about how despite those temptations, which are common to women in a fallen world, men are nevertheless designed and equipped to be the leaders over their wives, and then finally we're going to talk about how the fall itself is not the last word in all of these matters, but God has a plan to restore harmony between the sexes as found in His gospel and the good news.
But I know that whenever a pastor does teach on a passage like this and spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the common temptations, which might be particularly relevant to women in general, I do understand that there is a reaction that many people have to make a lot of assumptions about the nature of why a pastor would be doing such things, why the pastor would be speaking about these things in this kind of way.
We certainly live in a time where pastors really do not perceive themselves to be allowed to talk about the unique and particular temptations of women. They may perceive themselves as not being allowed to talk about these things due to the fact that they don't, but that doesn't mean that God has not authorized them to speak on these things, and I do think it is a sign of great cowardice today that men are not willing to call women to repentance in the same way that they are willing to call men to repentance, and this really has had a lot of impact on our homes in general, it has had a lot of impact on our churches in general where you have really a generation of pastors who refuse to talk about these things lest they be accused of being a misogynist or being a woman hater in that kind of way.
You may have temptations along those lines as we talk about some of these common temptations and actually deal with some of these common temptations to think that the sermon feels imbalanced, and I would suggest to you that it is imbalanced.
It will, in fact, be imbalanced today, and I won't make any attempt to make it balanced, meaning we are talking about a passage on the common temptations of women today, and I intend to talk about the common temptations of women today, and I don't spend…I don't spend time balancing that out by first talking about the sins of men and how they tempt women towards the sins of women.
I just plan on talking about the passage as it is laid out today, and so I do plan on violating every expectation that we have when pastors in general speak on these kind of topics, and I intend to do so simply because I want to be faithful to what is here, and I want to be honest with what is here, and I want you to know what is here because I think it is very important for us to understand what we are actually looking at.
So this won't be an egalitarian sermon that is designed to give equal weight to different kinds of temptations. We have other passages of Scriptures which talk to other kinds of temptations, and when we get to those other passages of Scripture, we will talk about those other kinds of temptations, but for today, we will talk about the kind of temptations that I think are very present and bound up within the passage that we are going to be talking about.
As I said, we are continuing our topic on basic truths, and the basic truth today is the truth that there will be, as a result of the fall, a battle between the sexes. Now when you think about the way that this passage opens up, it does open up with a way of wording things which may be confusing to us upon first examination.
The Bible says in Genesis 3, 16b, in relationship to the woman, it says, your desire shall be for your husband, and as you read that, it may be that you make certain assumptions about what that is intending to communicate that are not intended to be communicated within the passage itself.
The primary thing that you should take away from that phrase is this, as a result of the fall, wives will attempt to dominate their husbands, that is what you should understand that to be saying. But when you read it, it may not be that that is the primary message that you think is the most straightforward message to be taken from the text.
Now many commentators, when they are commenting on this passage, they point to parallels between the language that is found here and the language that is found in Genesis 4, 7, to tell you something about the nature of how this phrase should be translated here.
So if you read Genesis 4, 7, what you'll realize is Genesis 4, 7, this talks about the nature of sin and sin's desire to master, or sin's desire which is contrary to Cain, and what you'll find is it uses the same two words here that we're going to find in our passage, the word for desire and the word for rule.
So in Genesis 4, 7, you see God giving Cain an admonition and saying essentially that if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, its desire is for you. Many commentators translate that as its desire is contrary to you.
So its desire is set up in an adversarial way towards you, but you must rule over it. Those same two words are the words that are used in the passage we find ourself in today. So just one chapter over, you have the same combination of words.
That's a good indication that whatever is being communicated in Genesis 4, 7 is also the thing that's being communicated in Genesis 3, 16. And what's being communicated there is that as a result of the fall, a woman's desire is going to be contrary to her husband, and nevertheless, despite all that, the husband will in fact rule over him or her.
And what you find in this passage is something that really if you've been married for any length of time, you realize is the common temptation that all marriages face. There is a power struggle that every human being will experience when you get married to one degree or another.
It's not whether or not you're going to experience some kind of power struggle, it's how severe will that power struggle be, how often will that power struggle manifest itself, how many times will it manifest itself, to what intensity will it manifest itself.
It's not really this power struggle, the nature of this battle between the sexes, it's really not a matter of if there will be a battle between the sexes, it's how often will it be there to what intensity will it show itself.
And this really is not something that's completely unique to marriage. If you think about the world that you live in today, you see that we are obviously living in a world where there is a great power struggle between men and women.
There are societal forces that intend to set men and women in opposition to each other as a result of the diversity, equity, and inclusion movements. You find that the world is divided up into oppressor classes and oppressed classes of individuals and males by definition are considered the oppressors in every single encounter and women are considered by virtue of their status to be the oppressed classes of individuals and so you see this same power struggle working itself out in every area of society.
You see this working itself out in homes, you see it working itself out in the church, you see it working itself out in the civil or government sphere. This is just a natural obvious reality of life in a fallen world.
You're living in a world where God has designed hierarchies, he's established hierarchies for our good and for his glory and as sinful human beings we are going to try to fight those hierarchies in every way possible.
And so what you see in this passage is you see that as a result of the fall, wives will attempt to dominate their husbands to some degree. So this is obviously a statement of general truth, it's something that we should consider, it's something we should take in our understanding of what's actually happening in our life and we should make account of it.
In other words, you should not go into marriage thinking that if you as a leader do everything perfect, there would never be a power struggle between you and your wife and yet that's the message that most pastors are communicating today.
If there is some sort of power struggle that's happening, then the assumption is that that power struggle must be the result of some failure on the part of the leadership of the husband. And I would say that in many cases, you know, sin is very complicated, sin is very complicated.
It's just very rare in any kind of marital conflict that you have one person who's the complete villain and then the other person who's the complete victim. That's not really the way that life works in general.
You know, as I've done counseling, you know, most of your marriage problems are about 50 -50 in one way or another. Maybe they're slightly imbalanced one direction or the other but if you talk to a couple for any length of time, you realize there's problems on both ends.
But then the idea though that if there is this power struggle, this power struggle starts to manifest itself, it does exist. The idea that that's always the result of a husband who is not doing his job, I would say that that perspective is short-sighted on the basis of this passage itself.
I mean, this is a passage which is teaching contrary to that kind of expectation. And in fact, I mean, when you think about the way that we commonly speak about these problems in general, we'll say things like, you know, if a husband were to love his wife as Christ loves the church, what woman wouldn't want to submit to that, right?
Like, we'll say things like that. But the problem is that, you know, Christ loved the church like Christ loved the church and as sinful human beings, what do we do? We killed him, okay? So it's not entirely true that if you are a perfect husband, you're going to escape all the consequences of the fall that we're going to talk about here today.
That's simply not the way it works. And yet, at the same time, it's also true that if you are a bad husband, you're going to provide a much greater temptation for your wife to fall into some of the pitfalls that we're going to talk about here today because she realizes that you are not very trustworthy and your leadership doesn't seem to be going in the right kind of way.
And therefore, she's going to be much more intempted to try to dominate you in the ways that may become natural to the fairer sex in that way. Here's the point, because wives can't physically dominate their husbands, they nevertheless still seek to exert control through verbal direct conflict, through the coercive use of intimacy, through wearisome persistence and emotional manipulation.
So this passage is essentially setting up an adversarial relationship between the sexes. It's obviously not the last word, but it is setting up a kind of adversarial relationship between the sexes where you have a stronger sex and then you have weaker sex.
And typically, the stronger sex is going to try to exert his will in the world through his physical strength. Wives they are not exempt from this power struggle. In fact, there will be temptations on their part to exercise control to dominate their husbands and they're going to do so through different ways.
I elaborated on a few. I said through direct verbal conflict, through coercive use of intimacy, through wearisome persistence and emotional manipulation. The first one that we'll talk about today is this.
Wives will attempt to dominate their husbands through direct verbal conflict. Now where do you see this? Where do you see this? Genesis is telling us about these common temptations, but then as you read through the rest of the Scriptures, one of the things you'll find is the rest of the Scripture comments on the nature of how these consequences of the fall work themselves out in marriage relationships.
The Book of Proverbs is a book that's written, among other things, to help a young man to know how to pick a good wife. If you want to understand what the Book of Proverbs is, it's a book that's designed to help a young man pick a good wife.
Very early on in the book, it tells young men to it gives them the information they need to understand the adulterous woman who's going to forsake the companion of her youth. It tells young men about the danger of sexual sin.
It tells them about the importance of fidelity to their marriage. At the end of the book, you see the portrait of an excellent wife, which is put forward for their consideration as something to think about in their search for a good wife.
But throughout the book, you're going to find in four different places that men are warned about the danger of the contentious woman. This four times in the Book of Proverbs. If you think about some of the things that are repeated in the Book of Proverbs, this is repeated on a regular basis with frequency because it is a real issue.
You notice when you read the Book of Proverbs, there is no qualifications that come behind all that. Men are warned about the danger of marrying a contentious woman repeatedly. With those warnings, they're not told that if you find yourself in a marriage with a contentious woman, it's all your fault, man.
Take responsibility for it. You caused this and you're producing this and everything else. That's just not the way it works. Meaning there's persistent warnings about the danger of marrying a contentious woman because contentious women actually exist.
If you marry a contentious woman, your life will be made much more difficult than it would be if you married a woman who wasn't so characterized by that particular sin. Proverbs 21 .9 says, It's better to live in the corner of a housetop than a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.
Proverbs 21 .19 says, It's better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman. Proverbs 25 .24 says, It's better to live in the corner of a housetop than a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.
Proverbs 27 .15 says,. A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike. To restrain her is to restrain the wind or to grasp oil in one's hands. So instead of the weaker sex overpowering the man with physical force, this approach would seek to wear down a husband's resistance through persistent arguing, complaints and contentious speech.
This is a real problem in marriage. It's a real problem that in many ways we've subsidized as a society today. So you're living in a time right now that refuses to speak on these issues as if they are real issues.
And when we do speak about these issues, we speak about them most often as failures on the part of the husband. We don't treat these as real and serious things that actually happen that need answers. For the most part, when a couple comes into counseling today, most people are predisposed to blame any kind of contentiousness that exists almost exclusively on the husband in a way that's pretty short-sighted.
This is…. The point here is just to say that this is a real temptation and it does show itself up in a wide variety of ways and to the extent to which you've been a part of a relationship that works in this kind of way, you understand very quickly what the book of Proverbs is warning you about.
Meaning if you are a leader, if God has appointed you to be a leader in the home, part of being a leader is being charged to make simple decisions in life. You know, in general in the Bible there are wisdom issues, there's sin issues, there's preference issues.
A husband isn't tasked by God to use his authority as a leader to selfishly get his own way in areas of preference issues. He is tasked by God to lead his household into faithfulness to the commands and principles.
Of Scriptures.
And there are times where there are clear commands of Scripture that a husband should be appealing to, putting forward for his family as a path of faithfulness to God. And there's a lot of situations where the right answer involves balancing a lot of biblical priorities and objectives and trying to make simple decisions about what a family is going to do.
If a man is married to a contentious woman, one of the things that he'll find is that every single decision that he makes, you know I'm speaking somewhat in the language of hyperbole, but I'm just speaking the language of things that actually exist in the world.
If you're married to a contentious woman, one of the things that you'll find is that a contentious woman will oppose almost every act of leadership that you attempt to make within a home. So for a husband who is living with a woman who is trying to dominate her through direct verbal conflict, one of the things he'll find is that every time he makes a decision, she's going to have something to say about that, she's going to demand to be included in that, she's going to ask him why he thinks that he has the ability to go down this path.
The point here is just to say that this is a real problem, a contentious woman is a real thing that might happen. And when husbands find themselves in a position of being married to a woman who is a contentious woman, they're going to find that there is a type of misery that comes from dwelling in a home with someone who is utterly resisting your leadership in every way possible, in every way imaginable.
And Solomon, the other writers of Proverbs would spare us from that reality because it is a reality that exists and is a reality in some ways that society we are subsidizing. So the first thing we see is that wives will attempt to dominate their husband through direct verbal conflict.
May want to turn over to Judges 16 .5 because I want to talk about some other ways that wives will attempt to dominate their husbands. And we're going to think primarily in terms of a perfect example of this happening which is found in the story of Samson and Delilah.
So Judges 16 .5, we see that the lords of the Philistines came up to her, this is Delilah, they said to her, seduce him and see where his great strength lies and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him, we'll give you 1 ,100 pieces of silver.
So in this passage what we see is that wives will attempt to dominate their husbands by coercive use of intimacy. So rather than exerting control through sheer strength, this approach influences a husband's actions by leveraging intimacy, either offering it as a reward or withholding it as a punishment.
If you observe male-female relationship dynamics to any length of time, one of the things you'll realize is that physical intimacy is something that men are much more motivated by than women.
Are.
This is a simple biological reality that God has written into the fabric of the world. Women are very wise and they do understand that there are different kinds of motivations along these lines and throughout the history of the world women have realized that they can use intimacy, they can use physical intimacy as a tool to get their way in the world.
They can use that physical intimacy as a tool to manipulate men. They can use physical intimacy as a tool to extort out of men the things that they want from men, and this is a passage that's basically very honest about the nature of this reality.
So as I said, wives will attempt to dominate their husbands by coercive use of intimacy. That can happen in two ways. That can happen in the respect that this passage is talking about, meaning using physical intimacy as a tool to get what you want.
When wives do this, they often engage in what you might describe as bargaining, meaning they want something, they say, hey, I will give you physical intimacy if you give me what I want. So physical intimacy can be a tool that they use to get their husband to give them what they want, whether that's allow them to go shopping and do whatever they want to do or make decisions that they want to make.
A wise and a shrewd woman, I wouldn't say that she's wise in the sense that she understands the way the world works, understands that she may be able to get a lot of extortion out of her husband if she uses this tool in a regular way.
That's certainly not the way that God has intended intimacy to operate in the context of a faithful biblical marriage. I'm just simply saying that women throughout the history of the world have understood that this is a tool that men want.
Men want something, you have it, you can exchange it for what you want. I think that's the way it works. So the primary sense in this passage itself is the Philistines are encouraging Delilah to use that tool to extort out of Samson the information that they want from him and they're going to reward her for that, so she's motivated to use intimacy to get what she wants in that.
Way.
But then the reverse of this is also true. Many women have realized that withholding intimacy also has a way of getting what they.
Want.
So, then you treat physical intimacy in the context of a marriage as a reward for being treated the way that you want to be treated, and there's no end to the kind of standard that you can put that will allow you to withhold intimacy.
So what I mean by that is just to say that the Bible pictures intimacy in the context of a marriage as a right. First Corinthians 7 .3 says the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wives to her husband.
The wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does. It says do not deprive each other except perhaps by agreement for a limited time that you may devote yourself to prayer but then come together again quickly so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
In the language of First Corinthians 7 .3, physical intimacy in the context of a marriage is a right that is owed to both the husband and the spouse, and this right is owed to them by virtue of the nature of the covenant that they made.
So Genesis 2 .24 tells us the definition of marriage. What is marriage? Marriage is two becoming one. For this reason man will leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, two will become one flesh.
Marriage is a one flesh union in contrast to every other form of union that exists in.
The world.
Marriage is a one flesh union. That's what it is. That's the nature of what it is. The nature of what a husband and wife commit to, when they get married, they're making a commitment to be one with each other and to not withhold this right from each other because it's seen not just as some privilege that needs to be earned on the basis of high performance, it's seen as an actual right that the other person is owed.
What I'm trying to say is that wives will attempt to dominate their husband by coercive use of intimacy. They do that by using intimacy as a tool to get what they want instead of seeing it as a fundamental feature of the marriage that's owed to the other person as a result of the covenant that you made with them.
They're going to use this as a tool to get what they want by either giving it out in an exchange way to get certain privileges you want or withholding it, and this is what I'm talking about in the language of 2 Corinthians 7, withholding it like holding intimacy captive contingent upon a husband performing all this list of things that they want, do you see?
The Bible says there will be a battle between the sexes. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband. As a result of the fall, there will be a temptation that you'll have to exert control over your husband.
Your husband may be physically stronger than you, but if you understand the way the world works, you understand that you have certain things that he wants. There are ways in which you can simply take those things that your husband wants way more than what you typically want and hold them hostage and give them out selectively in exchange for power and control.
This is obviously a temptation that many women have faced throughout the history of the world. It's a temptation that's common in marriages, and it's a temptation that shouldn't be so common in Christian marriages.
Point three, wives will attempt to dominate their husband through wearisome persistence. We have a word for this, obviously, it's nagging. But Judges 16 gives us a pretty good example of what you might describe as nagging, which is just a common temptation that women face to try to dominate their husbands.
So instead of subduing a husband through brute force, this approach traps him through endless entreaties, complaints, and emotional appeals, wearing him down over and over again in time until he gives in.
So if you're familiar at all with the story of Samson and Delilah, you realize that she goes through this routine where she begs him to basically tell him the secret of his great strength. The Philistines have enlisted her, promised to pay her a bunch of money if she can find this out for him.
So she attempts to seduce him. When that doesn't work, she turns to trying to dominate him through nagging, essentially. So she asks him three times the secret of his great strength. So in Judges 16 .6, Delilah said to Samson, please tell me where your great strength lies and how you might be bound so that one can subdue you.
And so he gives her an answer, and then she binds him. And then she says, Samson, the Philistines are on you. And so she calls the Philistines, sends them in, and then he breaks the bonds. It's amazing that he goes through this routine multiple times.
I can't even imagine why he would put up with this more times than once, but he seems to put up with it. So after the second attempt, you see, is in Judges 16 .10, Delilah said to Samson, behold, you have mocked me and told me lies.
Please tell me how you might be bound. She goes through the whole routine again. She binds him, sends the Philistines in again. Huh, I wonder if you're trying to get me trapped here. You know, it doesn't seem to dawn on Samson at this point that she may not be as faithful to him as he realizes.
But then Judges 16 .13, Delilah said to Samson, until now you've mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you might be bound. And that's not the end of it. So Judges 16 .15, she says to him, how can you say I love you when your heart is not.
With me?
You've mocked me these three times, not told me where your great strength lies. And notice what it says. It says, and when she pressed him hard with her words day after day and urged him, his soul was vexed to death, essentially.
So what is that a picture of? That's a picture of nagging, isn't it? Wives will attempt to dominate their husbands through wearisome persistence or nagging. The nature of the marriage relationship is that God has obviously designed a husband to be a leader and He's designed the wife to be a follower.
Husband's a wife as a result of this hierarchical relationship that He's established in marriage. One of the results of that is that leaders generally lead, followers generally follow. So part of the responsibility of the husband is to actively lead his home.
If in the attempt to lead your home, you're trying to set a certain direction for your home and that direction is being continually challenged, if in the act of trying to set the direction of your home, your wife is continually trying to get you to change the course, continually complaining about the way that you're going, continually trying to wear you down, to get you to reconsider the path that you think God has put you and your family on, one of the husbands, really they want a happy wife, they want a happy home.
Most husbands really, I'm not suggesting that husbands are free from sin, but I am suggesting that husbands very much do prioritize the happiness of their home and the happiness of their wife in a variety of tangible ways.
Meaning like there's a reason why the phrase exists, you know, happy wife, happy life. If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Like these, I guess that's a southern phrase, am I sure if you say that, I forgot where I'm at, forgive me, I repent, I was speaking in foreign tongues.
I mean there's a reason why these expressions exist and they do exist because in many ways, in many ways, most husbands really are oriented towards wanting the happiness of their wife. I mean there's a reason why even a guy like Samson who's kind of a scoundrel in a lot of ways, this story exists in the book of Judges where there's no king in Israel and everyone does what's right in their own eyes.
I mean Samson's kind of a hedonist, he's a big brute kind of guy who really isn't a picture of godliness in much any way possible, but he, like most men, when you have a woman that you would like to be happy and you realize that she's constantly unhappy and she's continually telling you over and over again how unhappy she is with you, most men, most men I would say do respond in the same way, or attempt to respond in the same way that Samson was in verse 16 where it says, when she pressed him hard with her words day after day and urged him, his soul was vexed to death.
Like meaning most men really do want their home to be a happy home and a lot of men are so willing to have a happy home that they'll surrender all sense of principle, they'll surrender all sense of God's expectations for the home, they'll basically abdicate their leadership within a home because they're trying so hard to have a happy and a peaceful home.
So I mean most men they do go to work every day and they have responsibilities, they have pressure, they come home, they want their home to be a source of safety, they want their home to be a place of peace.
And there's nothing more miserable than to spend your 40, your 50, your 60 hours a week fighting all the problems that exist out there that are a result of you trying to subdue the earth and then you come home and then you realize that you have a different battle that's going on within the home to where wife is constantly unhappy, wife is constantly miserable, she's constantly letting you know how unhappy she is with every decision that you're going to make, she's constantly asking you to basically prioritize her will, her expectation, her sense of where this ship needs to be led.
Wives will attempt to dominate their husbands through wearisome persistence. Now I would hasten to add that as much as men hate the thought of being nagged, I mean there are times where they do bring it on themselves obviously, there are times where they do bring it on themselves because they're just worthless and lazy and refuse to keep their word and so then their wives are in a position where they've asked them to take out the trash 10 times in a row because the husband is a procrastinator and simply will not respond to a simple request and I would say that yeah obviously a wife should not nag in those kind of cases but sometimes there is a type of man who deserves to be nagged because he is basically a procrastinator and lazy and refuses to let his yes be yes and his no be no but that's another topic.
Fourth we see that wives will attempt to dominate their husband through emotional manipulation. I say that this is a very common tactic today, it's something that you should have eyes to see and ears to hear.
This happens in so many ways that it's difficult to describe how often this is happening today and not only is it happening today but then you're living in a society and a world right now that has adopted certain standards that make it so that it's morally right for wives to try to dominate their husbands through emotional manipulation and if a husband doesn't respond to emotional manipulation he is by definition called an abuser because we've expanded the semantic range of abuser to include so many different things at this point to where that word has almost lost its meaning but Judges 16 and 15, Delilah at this point she's tried to seduce him, she's tried to nag him to death, she's going to keep on trying to nag him to death but she also tries to dominate him through emotional manipulation so Judges 16 and 15 she said to him, how can you say I love you when your heart is not with me?
How can you say I love you when your heart is not with me? So notice how that's phrased in a very manipulative way. This isn't really an appeal to, as in the language that Pastor Conley used today, it's not really an appeal to logos, this is an appeal to emotion.
Or you could say it's an appeal to ethos too as well but it says to him, how can you say I love you when your heart is not with me? So rather than physically subduing her husband a wife exerts control by tempting her husband to feel guilty.
Notice how I worded that tempting your husband to feel guilty, selfish or emotionally obligated to comply with her desires. I mean in truth the concept of emotional manipulation really isn't a thing if you think about it in a straightforward way, if you understand what I mean by that.
Meaning like you can't actually manipulate the emotions of other people. I mean you can tempt them to feel certain emotions but then they are responsible for the emotions they feel. I mean it's not like you have some kind of mutant power to step in and change their emotions and manipulate them and produce the ones that you desire.
But certainly you can tempt people to feel certain emotions, certainly. So I mean if you yell at someone and scream at them all day long you're going to tempt them to feel sad. They don't have to respond to that with sadness and despair and hopelessness but you certainly are tempting them.
But the point here is to say that wives will attempt to dominate their husband through these emotional appeals that are designed to basically break down their will, call into question their loyalty, paint themselves as a victim and their husband as the abuser.
So what is she doing there? She's making a play for victimhood. She's basically putting herself in the posture of a victim. She's saying there's something that's deficient about your love towards me. If you really loved me you would do what I say, right?
That's it. I mean this is a ploy that's so often used in the context of church and counseling that it's just difficult to fathom. This is a ploy that's so often used in the home that it's difficult to fathom.
You'll have people who will come up to you and say, like, if you love me you will do what I want you to do. They may not phrase it in that kind of way but that's exactly what's happening. You'll look at them and you'll say I think God wants us to do this on the basis of this passage and then they will respond to that by saying I don't feel like that's very loving.
Have you considered what I want you to do? And they'll do that with no sense of self-awareness to the fact that they've taken their will and they put it in opposition to God's will and they're putting it out there for you and they're making a demand.
They're saying if you love me you'll do what I want you to do. You will bow to my will. And when you try to explain that, look, God makes the rules. I got to do what God says. This is the passage I'm appealing to.
This passage, this passage, this passage, this way that I understand it. I'm trying to be faithful to what God says here. None of that matters. You know, at times people, when they're running this play, what I'm trying to say, when people are running this play, in their minds they have no responsibility to give a better answer for what that passage is talking about.
They will just dismiss it and they'll appeal to what they want. And they'll make their want and they'll turn it into a demand. And they'll basically look at you and say if you don't do what I want it's because you don't love me.
So you better do what I want you to do. And many people, I would say that many pastors, many husbands, they fall right into this trap. They take love and they define it as if I love you I will do exactly what you want me to do.
But the problem is the Bible says, Jesus says to us, if you love me you'll keep my commandments. If we want to love, we have to have a rightly ordered love. God's priorities come first. So as husbands, as leaders, we have to do what God says.
We have to be firmly convinced in our own mind that this is what God says and we have to do what He says. There might be plenty of situations where you and your wife are at odds over the nature of what the right decision is going to be.
And the way that a wife might be tempted to do in light of the fall is she might attempt to dominate you through emotional appeals. So again, rather than physically subduing her husband, a wife will seek to exert control by tempting her husband to feel guilty, selfish, or emotionally obligated to comply with her desires.
Again, we word all this in very emotional language. Most of the emotional abuse discussion nowadays is related to topics along these lines as well. It's very easy. We've expanded the semantic range of abuse so far right now to the point where abuse is basically any time a husband doesn't give his wife what she wants.
If you think I'm exaggerating, then I could give you plenty of examples of how this actually works and how people are doing this in real life. And I'm not suggesting that it's not possible. If you hear me to be suggesting this, it's not possible for a husband to be selfish and controlling and to be mean to his wife.
I'm not suggesting that it's not possible for a husband to be selfish, mean, and controlling to his wife. I'm just suggesting that there's a lot of emotional arguments that are being used by women who are seeking to dominate their husband that we should be aware of.
This is a tactic that actually exists in the world. Women do what Delilah did here. This is an example. It happens. It happens. It will happen in your home. There'll be plenty of times where you're trying to make a decision.
You think on us, Lord, and you might have your wife looking at you and saying, how can you love me and say that? And then you have to sit there and say, well, I love you and I love God, and I think it would be better if we both love him more than we love you, right?
If we don't love him more than we love you, then we're all going to be in trouble. So if you insist upon putting your love, my love for you, demanding my love for you be higher than my love for God, I guess you're going to have to lose.
That's the way it works. I don't want you to lose. I'd rather you just surrender the claim. I'd rather you just surrender the demand. Surrender the demand so that we can both serve the Lord together. But if you're going to make that demand, then the answer is I guess I'm going to have to love God more than you, and if you take offense at that, that offense you're taking is an unrighteous offense.
I'm not hurting your feelings. I'm not making you sad. You're making an inappropriate claim to authority over my actions, and I have to obey God rather than you in this instance. So this is a real thing.
So as I said, as a result of the fall, there will be a battle for a sexist. Wives will attempt to dominate their husbands through direct verbal conflict, coercive use of intimacy, through wearisome persistence, and through emotional manipulation.
But despite all that, despite a wife's attempt to dominate their husbands, husbands will nevertheless rule over them. That's what the text says, and he shall rule over you. Now the fact that man will rule over woman is obvious and plain from the passage.
This is not really a feature of the fall. This being included here is not meant to be a bad thing. There's a variety of ways that people interpret this passage, and I don't know that it's essential that you get it right in the sense that this is one passage where, this is one passage and the whole weight of all male-female relationships do not depend on how you understand this last phrase, he shall rule over you.
Meaning the Bible repeatedly speaks to gender roles, and what you want to do is you want to listen to the voice of God in His repeated testimony throughout the Word, and you might understand this slightly different, and I would say, well, you want to get it right, but there are ways to, even if you get this one wrong, still not overturn a bunch of other scriptures as well.
So let me see if I can explain what I'm talking about here. There is a kind of interpretation of this passage that many egalitarians take, and I would say that this is wrong, and they're using this in an incorrect way to overturn all of Scripture.
So they'll look at this, and they'll say, this is a feature of the fall that men will rule over the wife. So because of Eve's sin, as a result of Adam and Eve's sin, God is bringing consequences to the woman.
One of those consequences will be that men will rule over women, but then Jesus has come, they'll talk about trajectory hermeneutic at this point, Jesus has come basically to overturn all the consequences of the fall, so that hierarchy, like the fact that man rules over woman, that's a consequence of the fall that's going to be overturned in the gospel.
So that's just a feature of life in a fallen world that God has come to overcome. I would say if you do that, you basically, you've taken the whole of the Old Testament, you've thrown in the trash as it relates to gender's roles, and you've taken the whole New Testament, and you've thrown it in the trash as it relates to gender roles.
I would say that, like that interpretation is, I don't know how you go there, how you go there with it. Now some people, they won't go there with it. They'll basically say, what does it mean he shall rule over you?
Well, they'll say that there is this battle for the sexes that I'm talking about, as a result of the fall, wives will attempt to dominate their husbands, but in response to that, man will be tempted to rule his wife with an iron fist.
So they're not throwing out the fact that God has called man to rule, they're essentially saying that man will be tempted to like dominate his wife back, and he'll probably win. Okay, like he's going to win the fight, that's what they're saying.
Now I don't think that this is what it means, but I can imagine someone, there are people who will claim to believe in biblical roles, who will then use that interpretation of this passage as an excuse to tone down all the leadership rulership passages, which talk about man's role over woman throughout the rest of the Bible.
They'll try to use it, not to just destroy it, but to try to tone it down to the point where it almost doesn't exist. Okay, there are people who do that, and then there are people who just basically say, no, this will be a common temptation in the reverse, where men will seek to rule over their wives, but he nevertheless is the ruler of his home too, but he's going to be ruling over her in a harsh way, and I would say that if you take that interpretation of the passage, it really isn't that significant.
Okay, I understand what you're communicating, there probably is that problem in the reverse, that is a problem that does need to be addressed, I don't think it's really what it's talking about here. What I think is actually happening here is, I think it's just, this is just a statement of truth.
This is an inescapable reality, this is what you might describe as an inescapable concept. Woman, as a result of the fall, will desire to dominate her husband, but man's rulership over woman is kind of an inescapable concept, she's not going to win, she's ultimately not going to win.
God has established male rulership in the world, and that's the way it's going to work, and that's the way that it always has worked. Now I think that that's what the passage is saying, and I think that's what makes the most sense, and it's doing the most honor to the passage, and that's the interpretation we're going to go with.
So the fact that men will rule over women is obvious and plain from the passage, it's not a feature of the curse. Notice that in the creation account, woman is made from man and for man. 1 Corinthians comments on this, 1 Corinthians 11 and 8 says, Man was not made from woman, but woman from man.
Neither was man created for woman, but woman was created for man. Notice that woman does not name man, but man names woman. Notice that the Bible repeatedly uses the language of rulership as it relates to husbands in general.
So as you read through the Bible, you'll realize that there is this word patriarch. This is used many times in the New Testament. It's a compound word, pater meaning father, rk meaning ruler, patriarch is a father ruler.
You see in Acts 2, 29, brothers I say to you with confidence about the patriarch David, he both died, he was buried in his tomb, and is with us to say this concept of father ruler. Acts 7, 8, and he gave him the covenant of circumcision, so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the 12 patriarchs, the father rulers.
Acts 7, 9, and the patriarchs, like the father rulers we just talked about, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt, but God was with him. Romans 9, 5, to them belong the patriarchs, Paul is talking about Israel, and the benefits that God had bestowed upon them, and to them belong the patriarchs, and from their race according to flesh is the Christ, who is God over all, and blessed forever, amen.
Romans 15, 8, for I tell you Christ became a God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs. Hebrews 7, 4, see how great this man is, Abimelech, no, I've spaced him, Melchizedek, see how great this man is, Melchizedek, to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoil.
So there is this concept of father ruler that's in the Bible, if you look at the Old Testament, you realize that all the rulers that God has established were men, from start to finish, you see God's pattern in the church, God has established male leadership within the church, God has established male leadership within the home, so much so that Isaiah comments that, about Israel, he says, I'll ask my people, infants are the oppressors, women rule over them, that this is an inescapable concept, this is the way the world works, when you read through the New Testament you realize that there is subject language that's applied to wife that we're tempted to tone down, we've taken submission language of wife, we've kind of turned it into this hypothetical thing that maybe she should, every once in a while, provided that he's on his best behavior and loving her perfectly, submit to him, assuming that she's not really, have strong opinions about it, we've taken submission language and made it basically white unicorn, almost never should be exercised kind of concept, in fact, if a husband ever exercises, asks his wife to submit to anything, he's probably in the wrong, that's the way we treat it, but there is this subject language in the Bible which is pretty strong, so 1 Peter 3, 1, likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be one without a word by the wife, the word there in Greek is, which is to subject yourself, be subjected or be subordinated, what is a subject?
What is a subject? Here's a subject, a person under the dominion or rule of a sovereign, this is pretty strong language, you just look up the words, it's very strong language, to subject oneself, to be subjected or subordinate, to obey, point here is to say that this in many ways is an inescapable concept, it's an inescapable concept because of the nature of the way that God has made men.
When a woman rules in the world, it's because men are allowing her to rule, like do you understand what I'm saying? If you have a man who can physically dominate a woman, if she is going to tell him what to do, it's because he lets her.
Man does not have to resort to manipulative tactics in order to get his way with his wife. Now, when you're living in a society right now that is policing man's authority in that way so hard to the point where they may be scared to ever force their wives to do their own will, and they shouldn't do that, I'm not saying that they should do that, I'm just suggesting, like if you understand the way the world actually works, if you have a stronger sex and a weaker sex and one of them wanted to get their way, the stronger sex is going to be able to get his way if he wants it.
I'm not suggesting he's authorized just to force anyone to let him do his way, but I mean look at the history of the world, you'll see that there's a lot of evil men out there who are forcing women to do things that they shouldn't do because they have the strength to do it.
You watch internet videos and you'll see, particularly in Europe right now, but also in major cities in our country, evil men using their strength to force the weaker sex to do what they want. You'll see videos of men just walking alongside and punching a woman in the face or stealing from her, and then you'll see all the rest of the cowardly men out there who are just standing there watching it happen as if they have no responsibility to try to help her.
But I'm just suggesting that when God has designed a sex that's stronger than the other sex, that stronger sex does have the ability to take what he wants by force in a way that the weaker sex doesn't.
And so then in a situation where a group of men set up a female queen, a female ruler, that woman is not ruling on the basis of her own ability to secure her power. She's ruling on the basis of other men who are going to protect her power for her.
Do you see what I mean? That's the way it works. Meaning she's not able to stop the attacks from the enemy. So when Israelites chose Saul as a leader, why did they do so? Because he was tall. And they understand biology, they understand the way the world works, that two guys of equal fighting capacity and equal fighting capacity and training, if one is bigger than the other, the bigger one generally is going to win.
That's the way it works, if they're of equal fighting capacity. They wanted Saul because they wanted someone who would protect him. So that's the way the world works. So the way the world works is that patriarchy, father rulership, this is just kind of an inescapable concept.
It's the way that the world works. Anytime women are exerting dominance over men, it's because the men are letting them. I did a podcast on this once where I was talking about the problem of wife beating.
I had so many, I'm not laughing at the concept of wife beating, I'm laughing at the reactions I got. I got so many reactions from people basically telling me that right now the problem has shifted the other direction to where women are actually beating their husbands.
And the statistics somewhat bear that out. Statistics somewhat bear that out now that domestic violence really isn't just a male problem anymore. It's just as common with females as with males. But the thing is, when a man is being beat by a woman, he's submitting to that beating in a way that when a woman's being beaten by a man, she doesn't have any choice.
The moment the guy decides he's had enough of it, he can do something about it. And the fact that he isn't doing anything about it, like guys who are in that kind of relationship, when they don't do something about it, it's generally not because they're afraid of her.
It's because they're afraid of other men who are going to take her aside and destroy their lives. Do you understand what I mean? The point is just to say that patriarchy is inevitable consequence. Despite the fact that one will try to dominate man, it really, this isn't the way that God has designed the world to work.
Now what do we do with all this? Well marriage is meant to be a picture of Christ's relationship with the church. Ephesians 5 .28 says, 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 does to the church because we are members of his body. Everything that we've been talking about as it relates to marriage in our study on Genesis about basic truths points us to this mystery.
The Bible says, therefore man shall leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife. Genesis 2 .24, two will become one flesh. Paul says this mystery is profound. 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. Ultimately God had a plan for marriage and that plan didn't culminate in the fall. So I'm talking about some of the consequences of the fall today and I've spent a lot of time talking about some of the consequences of the fall today.
The purpose of me talking about the consequences of the fall today is not just to say, hey it's hopeless, there's despair all the way down, it's going to be hard, be afraid. That's the message that many people in society are hearing today, it's just going to be hard, be afraid.
I'm not saying that, I'm trying to say, hey let's be realistic about the nature of the temptations we face. I'm trying to be specific and tell you, here are the temptations that you're going to face. You have a lot of guys out there, you have a lot of guys out there today who are looking at these temptations and are saying, yeah I see them, they're real, they exist.
Society refuses to talk about them as actual temptations and things that are happening. Society refuses to believe that this can actually happen and if it is happening, they're going to blame it on me.
That's what a lot of men are saying today. Therefore, they conclude, the point is just then, I shouldn't get married. So you have the whole men going their own way kind of crowd. They're saying, I shouldn't get married.
So they're looking around, they're saying, hey I don't, yeah, I don't see a lot of women who want to follow a man, want to submit to a man. I see a bunch of strong, like women who are telling themselves they're strong, powerful, courageous, independent, don't want to submit to man in anything.
So therefore, why bother? It's not worth it. System's rigged against me. Why even try, right? Why even try? Why even go there? That's just going to be a bunch of heartache and that's going to be a bunch of pain.
Problem is that those men are cowards and fools. That's the problem. Those men are cowards and fools. God has told us what is good. He's introduced some problems into the equation, but there's nothing that's, brothers and sisters, there's nothing that's less manly than looking at a man who sees a problem and curls up in the fetal position and wants to quit.
Like there's nothing more contemptible and pitiable than all that. And the reason why is because it is, like part of what it means to be a man is not just to live in the reality of the fall and say, hey it's going to be hard.
Let's complain about how hard it's going to be. And let's talk about how impossible everything is and how scary it all is. That's not what it means to be a man. What it means to be a man is to say, hey, God created this thing.
He said it was good. He said it was very good. After the creation of women, it was very good. Falls made it more difficult. But then he's called me not just to be a crybaby and a wimp. He's called me to look at what Jesus has done on the cross for us, right?
Jesus has come to die on the cross in order to restore harmony between the sexes. He doesn't restore harmony between the sexes by overturning all the hierarchies. He restores harmony by the sexes by saying that marriage itself was meant to be a picture of Christ's relationship with the church.
So just as the church submits everything to Christ, so also a wife should submit to everything and her husband. Husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
The Bible is telling you that marriage itself is part of God's plan for the human race and it is meant to be a picture of greater realities. And that gives you some hope that falls is not the last word.
Just because there's problems out there, that doesn't mean that it's unsolvable. I mean, if you're a young man today, you're looking for a wife and you think that the way you're going to find a wife is to find a woman who's perfectly submissive, who would never disagree with you.
You would always do everything that you say. I hate to tell you that that's really not the thing that you're going to find. But that doesn't mean that, you know, there's only two options. Like the perfectly submissive woman who does everything that you say, or the woman who fights you tooth and nail and is the contentious woman.
There's a broad spectrum between, you know, those two extremes. And you're called to find a wise wife and you're called to lead in these kind of encounters. Marriage is meant to be a picture of Christ's relationship with the church.
The fall isn't the last words, brothers and sisters. Marriage is a good. These are the temptations that you might see. But just because you see one of those temptations, that doesn't mean that that has to be the whole scope of your reality.
It's your job. If you're a husband, it's your job to lead the way out of there. That means you don't get dramatic. That means you don't blow things away in a proportion. That means you understand the basic temptations that your wife might face.
You have gospel answers to those that you're going to give them. And you're going to hope that God will use those for his good and for his glory. And if he doesn't, you're going to keep on going. And you're going to persevere.
Because this is something that God's called you to for the good of the human race, for the good of society, for the good of the church, for the good of the world. If you're a wife in here, you should understand that these are real temptations you'll face.
You may be tempted to be annoyed at me for taking so long and talking about them. That's not the right answer. These are real temptations that you face. You may have a great capacity and temptation to think that when you face those temptations, it's all your husband's fault.
That's what the world's kind of telling you. It's not. He may be a scoundrel on his own part, but you're also a scoundrel. So you're both scoundrels. And that's what marriage is. Two scoundrels being put together.
And God helps clean you up a little bit. And the way he helps clean you up is putting you together in close proximity to each other, so that you're forced to deal with it. You're forced to deal with it.
When I got married, I realized how sinful I was pretty quickly. And if I didn't realize, the things I didn't realize, I started to realize more when I had kids. And you know what? There's still a lot more there that I need to deal with, that I'm learning every day.
But that's what marriage is. It's two sinners saying, I do. And the only hope for marriage is not going to be found. And you being a great person, only hope marriage is going to be found in you understanding the good news that Christ has come to do for you, what you can't do.
And he's going to help you. He's going to help you not to have to live in the reality of the fall, as if that's just the final word. That's your whole daily experience. God has given us hope. He's given us a path forward.
He's given us an example to Christ to follow. And we should look to that. Amen. I pray. Lord, we thank you for your words you've given to us. We know that you are a good God, who delights to give your children good gifts.
We know that marriage is a good gift. We're not naive about the nature of the temptations that we face in this life, Lord, but we know that you've ordained and established marriage as a good. And we pray that you help our people here today to see it as a good, and not to simply be running the script that the fall has provided for us to run, but have hope in the gospel and hope in you.
Your son, say in a prayer. Amen.
