The Theology of Marriage, Matt Slick

and able to direct me and guide me and things like that. We're live, okay. All right, and here she comes,

Miss America. My wife, I could put the camera on her, but she would get me, I'd get in trouble. All right, so what we're gonna do tonight is the theology of marriage.

I wanna tell a little bit of a history about this, but before we do, we're gonna pray and talk about it. And then I've got stuff to go through, all right?

There's a lot here. This is probably gonna be a two -hour study. And, but there's a lot here.

And we'll say, let's pray, and then we'll get into it. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the opportunity,

Lord, to study your word. And I ask, Lord Jesus, that you would, let's just bless us and bless the hearers.

Lord, that your truth would go forth, that you'd be glorified. I just ask, Lord, for wisdom and the ability to communicate what needs to be communicated according to your grace and by your standard of righteousness that is revealed in the word and through the person of Jesus.

We thank you, Lord, and we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so if you guys can hear me in,

I just wanna verify the audio. Just type in that you can hear me, and hopefully it'll be good that I can hear you,

I can see people. This takes a few seconds, but we'll continue. So the reason

I'm doing this is, for one, I like theology, I just have. And also, years ago, okay, thanks,

Kevin. So Nick and I, my wife and I, we had problems in our marriage early on, a lot of problems.

We went to a marriage counselor. I might talk about that later. So I've sat on both sides of the desk being counseled and counseling.

And over the years, if my memory serves me right, I've counseled 36 couples, marriage couples.

And 32 of them, the man has been the problem. The male's been the problem.

Majority of the problem. It's never the case that it's only one or the other, okay? It's always the case that there's two, but it's like, usually it's 80 % the guy, 20 % the girl, you know, that kind of thing.

And this started having an effect on me, and I started noticing things. I talked to my wife about it, and she'd say, well, how'd the counseling go?

And my counseling sessions were two to four hours. It would never be just a half hour or done.

Oh, time's up, see ya. I'd say a minimum two hours, just because we just take time to talk, and I would never accept any payment.

I don't accept payment. However, I was successfully bribed by one woman with chocolate chip cookies.

She got treated really well that night. And I would give homework, and I would ask intimate questions, but I'd only counsel when they're both there.

And if one wanted to be counseled in private, I generally would say no, and unless it was a special circumstance, and then

I had to ask the spouse for permission to do that under certain conditions.

I would never be alone with a woman, you know, et cetera. All right, so I started discovering various things about the issue of marriage, and I started discovering that I was teaching counseling, and I had to keep backing up to lay foundations down.

And I kept backing up, well, this is because of that. And then I'd talk about, well, that's because of this. And then it just came down to the doctrine of the

Trinity. So what I'm gonna do is start with the doctrine of the Trinity. I'm gonna go through some issues of the

Trinity, and then move into theology. You just got to bear with me.

I'll say this, at once, I remember this very clearly, a couple was sitting before me, a marriage couple, and they were having problems.

And I said, let me teach you theology for 20 minutes. Just let me teach you theology for 20 minutes, and then we'll get into this.

And they're like, well, don't we want marriage counseling? And I said, just bear with me. So I did this for about 20 minutes, and when

I was done, the guy looked at me and he said, now I know what I'm doing wrong. And it was very clear, because the theology of marriage is based on the theology of the

Trinitarian union of God. So let's get into that. So I've been working on a statement for a while now on the nature of God, and I've already expanded it past this, and it's becoming an interesting study.

I think it might be worth just going through this, but nevertheless, there is only one God in all place and all time, there are no gods before him and no gods after him.

He is the one and only uncreated necessary Trinitarian being, eternally consisting of three simultaneous and distinct persons, the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three persons share the same divine nature. Neither person derives his substance from the other or both of the others.

The Trinity is not comprised of parts. Each of the persons have different functions involving election, redemption, and application of salvation.

The Trinity is spiritual in nature, non -contingent, unchanging, transcendent, and sovereign.

God has nothing against which he may be compared and defined, therefore that which is good is revealed by God's nature and what is consistent with his holiness and righteousness.

There is no condition in which the Christian God might exist or could not exist, since that would not be the

God of the Bible. He is self -revealed in creation, scripture, and Jesus. He is the ultimate source of all truths, all actualities, and all potentialities.

In the Trinity are unity and diversity, which are, you guys won't get this, which are equally basic and mutually dependent upon one another.

That's a philosophical thing for some other stuff. God's incommunicable attributes stress his transcendence and his communicable attributes stress his imminence.

I'll get into that. God is neither included in space nor absent from it. God created the universe as well as people.

He does whatever he pleases and ordains all that occurs. He possesses infinite knowledge, wisdom, presence, and power that manifest out of his good and holy nature.

Therefore, that which is good is known by comparison to God's nature, which is also holy and righteous.

Since he is the ultimate standard of all that is good, he will judge all people. Those who have by faith trusted in the self -revealed atonement of Jesus, who is

God in flesh, will be saved from God's righteousness and eternal condemnation, and those who have not will face eternal punishment.

All right, now I'm gonna go through a couple things here. I'm gonna scan through this and bring up some points because you need the foundation of truth in order to understand the foundation of marriage.

So God is a trinity of persons, three persons. There's a doctrine called the perichoresis.

The perichoresis is the teaching that the three members of the Godhead, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all interdwell each other and subsist inside of each other.

Yet there's not three parts. There's one thing, as we call this divine simplicity.

And so they indwell one another. Now think about this in relationship to husband and wife becoming one flesh.

Now, of course, we don't have a perichoresis in our essence because we're separate in person, but we are made in the image of God, Genesis 1, 26 to 28, and what's called the communicable attributes, and I'll get into that.

So we can see the perichoresis, don't forget, the Bible says the two shall become one flesh.

And so the hint here is that the union of marriage and sexual union implies the oneness of the married couple who are also two, not a trinity, but two.

This is emanating out of the essence of God. So I mentioned what's called the communicable attributes.

The communicable attributes of God are those attributes that he possesses that we can participate in.

So God loves, we can love. God hates, we can hate. God is rational, we can be rational.

They can be communicated to us, and this is what it means to be made in the image of God. The non -communicable attributes are those attributes that belong to him alone that cannot be communicated to us.

God is all -knowing, we are not all -knowing, unless you're, no, bad joke coming up, I won't do it.

He is everywhere, at all places, at all times, and we are not.

So the incommunicable attributes demonstrate and reflect his transcendence. Transcendence means that God is not dependent upon space and time or limited to space and time.

So these incommunicable attributes, his omniscience, omnipresence, they demonstrate that transcendent quality.

Imminence means the involvement of God in the world and how he relates to that world and is a provisior of the world and its upholding.

So the communicable attributes are where his attributes become ours inside that world. So the incommunicable reflect his transcendence and the communicable attributes reflect his imminence, his relationship to us in creation.

And good, someone's putting in words there, good. Referring to the relationship of the three persons of the

Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to one another. Good, Jeff, I hope that's, keep putting good ones in there. I hope he's not a, we have cultists sometimes who come in and Charlie's recovering from surgery.

So hopefully he'll be good. If there's any problems, people can just signal me and I'll kick them out.

All right, now, so that is that. Now, Jesus said in Matthew 12, 34, he says, "'Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.'"

So God spoke, he said, "'Let there be light.'" And God created the world and he put

Adam in the world and then had Adam do things. He had

Adam name the animals. And then we found out that there was a problem.

And the problem was that he could not carry out what we call the dominion mandate. So this is found in Genesis 1, 26 to 28.

Then God said, "'Let us make man in our image "'according to our likeness and let them rule "'over the fish of the sea and over the birds in the sky "'and over the cattle and over the earth "'and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'"

God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.

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

So this is what we call the dominion mandate. The dominion mandate is the statement of God, what he wants for Adam and ultimately

Eve to do, man and woman. But notice he says man first and then man and woman.

There's a reason, has to do with federal headship, male headship and representation. Now, so it says in Genesis 2 .15

that God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. So he gave man a responsibility of work.

This is what men are supposed to do, is work. And he said, "'Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.'"

So this is a demonstration of the submission of Adam to the will of God.

Now we're gonna go to Genesis 2 .18 to 25. "'Then the Lord God said, "'It is not good for the man to be alone.'"

He's talking about this one man, Adam. "'I will make him a helper suitable for him.'"

Now, stop right there. So Eve's purpose is to be a helper for him.

This is important because a lot of women don't realize this and a lot of men don't realize this.

So what we're supposed to do is man, normatively speaking, the man is supposed to carry out the will of God in his creation and his work in the world.

And the woman is to help him do that. That's normally, that's norm.

Now, sometimes the men die early, the wife's gotta take over, sometimes there's divorce. And we understand there's exceptions and there's issues.

But what we're talking about here is the normal state of things and how God designed it. And this is before the fall.

And the fall is gonna have a deleterious effect on everything. Deleterious means hidden harmful effects.

So he wants to make a helper suitable for him. "'Out of the ground, the Lord formed every beast "'of the field and every bird of the sky "'and brought them to the man "'to see what he would call them.

"'And whatever the man called a living creature, "'that was its name.'" Now, this is designation of authority.

He had the authority over the animals because he named them. And this requires a bit of intelligence and knowledge and some other stuff.

And incidentally, think about this. 98 % of all species that have ever lived are extinct.

98 % are extinct. And so, when it says, people have said, well, how can you name all of them?

Maybe like, or Frank Torch, you know, for like three days, you know, straight. And then, you know, there's all these names of all these creatures.

And so they think he probably did it by species, you know, like canine or bird or whatever it was, he would do stuff like that. And then you get to leftist, wackos and cultists.

And so, the man gave names to the cattle and all the birds of the sky, to every beast of the field.

But for Adam, there was no one found, there was not found a helper suitable for him. Now, this is a designation, a differentiation between man and the animal realm.

There's a difference, they're not to blend, hence bestiality is wrong. So the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept, then he took one of the ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.

The Lord God fashioned a woman, into a woman the rib, which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man.

And the man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now, in Genesis 2 .18,

God said, it's not good for man to be alone. Now, I could launch into some stuff and I think of what's a little bit about the nature of the

Trinity and what personhood is. I've done this before, I'll do it a little bit again right now.

The Trinity is three persons and in the persons you can have fellowship. If God was one person, it wouldn't make any sense because if God is one person eternally, then how does he have fellowship?

How does he manifest a trueness and completeness of personhood? Fellowship, intimacy, communion, awareness of others, things like that.

And so the very nature of the Trinity designates that it's not good for anyone to be alone.

It's not a good thing because God says out of the abundance of his heart, it's not good to be alone. It's not good for the man to be alone.

Now, God in the inter -Trinitarian communion forever had this intimacy and this mutual fellowship.

And well, we'll get into that stuff. And so God took a rib from Adam and Adam named her woman, signifying his positional authority.

Now, this rubs a lot of women wrong and I just say to them, too bad.

And the women say, well, you know, that means the guy's the boss. Not necessarily, you gotta understand.

And it'll come in, you'll see how it works later on when we get into this. And so, but he has that authority.

And then in Ephesians five and we're gonna Colossians three, there we'll go through some scriptures that talks about the wife being a submission to the husband, but we'll get to that.

Now, the dominion mandate is where, excuse me, the dominion mandate is where God said to Adam, you are to go out to the world, you're to cultivate the garden and subdue everything.

Now, this cultivation and subduing is not to be done the way it's done here today.

We rape and pillage the land and garbage and heaps and all this kind of stuff. It's not how it's supposed to be done, but that's another topic.

The Bible talks about various issues related to that, but nevertheless. So he cannot carry out the dominion mandate because it says, he said, subdue the fish and the birds of the sky, cultivate the garden, take care of the earth.

One guy can't do that. But he can do it if he has children, but he can't have children by himself, hence the woman.

And so this designates and reveals that the woman's purpose is to help the man carry out the dominion mandate.

And of course she bears children, men can't do that. I don't care what the wacko liberals say.

And so in this, God set up marriage. The marriage is then created by God for the purpose of carrying out the dominion mandate.

Not and, it's not good to be alone. And so it's also a fulfillment of the inter -Trinitarian fellowship represented in the communion of persons in the communicable attributes that we have as people.

So you can see, you go, oh, marriage is very much, and the fellowship inside of marriage is very much a reflection of the

Trinity. It makes sense. If God is not a Trinity, you're having problems.

You almost have an arbitrary establishment by God for marriage, but I'm gonna get into that side note.

So in Genesis, that's where we find the first marriage, Adam and Eve, and his purpose, dominion mandate.

And the complementary roles of male and female, of man and woman, he's to work and take care, she's to help him in the provision of children, et cetera.

Now, as you guys know, I run karm .org, and I've been working on it for 25 years.

And my wife helps me in that. She does stuff I would hate to do.

She is nice to people. She cares about people, all that gushy, mushy stuff.

I like theology. Now, what she does is she answers the phones and she does, oh, the thought of just sitting here all day and getting a data entry and putting it into a field and then do what

I feel, no, thank you, no, thank you. And she does that. She does a good job at it, right?

And so it really sets me free to be able to do what I'm called to do. I just, a small example.

And variations of that can happen in marriage. So a man could be a mechanic, he could be a pilot.

It doesn't matter what he is. And a wife, generally speaking, will stay home and raise children because this is something

I really don't like about what the world is doing nowadays is how it degrades women for having children or even being in the home.

And raising children is one of the most important things to do in the entire planet. And women need to be revered for that ability and that calling.

And I'm not just saying this because there's one, two, three, because we're outnumbered here by women. I'm saying it because it's what

I've said before. It's what I believe. And I also say when I'm talking about this, that I like the idea of when a woman comes into a room that the men stand up.

And I think about it, the woman, the female, is the gender that bore the Messiah. And it's a wonderful thing.

And I remember when Anik, my wife, gave birth the first time, I watched her go through travail.

I watched her go through contractions. I remember her laying there. I remember the pain.

I remember the moaning. I remember so much of it. And the yucky stuff that goes along with all of it and all the stuff.

And then after hours of this, there's this brand new baby. And then I remember being stunned as I watched this baby come out.

And here I am observing. I'm distant. And she's doing all this.

This baby comes out. And then they check the baby really fast. You know, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And then gave it to her immediately.

She held this baby. It was just inside of her. And then soon was breastfeeding.

And I remember being very impressed. Yeah, you hear about it theoretically, but I watched it.

I remember thinking, my wife did this. What did I do? A little something nine months ago.

She's the one who carried and she's the one who went through all this. And now she's nursing. She's giving life to this baby.

And I remember this because I was up all night and I was whiny and complaining because I lost a little sleep that night.

And so she, yeah, you get to whine a little bit, you know. And so I went home at like nine o 'clock in the morning and I actually worked at the very hospital that she had the baby at.

So it was kind of cool. I could get in and out when I wanted and do all kinds of stuff. And in fact, I even wheelchaired her from the entrance up to the delivery room, which for me was,

I gotta do something. Okay, well, anyway. So after having watched this miracle, truly miracle,

I went home and I couldn't sleep because I'm amped. I turn on the TV and I'm watching something, just whatever, not paying attention.

Like I said, baby, you know, I gotta go to sleep. I'm gonna go back. Maybe I'll get a baby, you know what I did. And I'm focusing on the

TV. And all of a sudden I realized there's a woman, a foxy babe woman. She's gorgeous, sexy.

She is advertising a car. And I immediately remembered my wife, hair looked like a bird's nest and the clothes were disheveled and she had this baby.

And I thought, which one is more beautiful? Well, that was easy to answer. And I looked at that woman on the screen.

I said, she's drawing lust out of men to sell. And it's the opposite of what she's there for, what women are for, to be nurturers and care and giving.

And said she was taking. I never forgot that. I never forgot that. But marriage, you know, is a great thing.

And inside of marriage is the bearing of children. And I honestly believe that women have a great privilege.

And my wife can verify this, that when we were in San Diego and before we moved here, we had what's called the mom's group.

It was a bunch of moms that got together and then it evolved into the guys going to the husbands and called it the mom's group.

And whenever the mom's group would get together, 10, 15 families, whatever it was, the guys would invariably go into one room and talk about sports.

And the women would be in there talking about babies. And I was in there with the ladies. I was. And it took them a while to get used to this guy going, and what about breastfeeding?

You see, if you'd like that, how about that? And your delivery, did you have an episiotomy? How about, what was that like? And I was truly interested.

And they're like, and after a while they go, yeah, it's just mad, you know, because I really just love the idea of birth.

It's a wonderful thing. And this is how it needs to be revered. It does need to be revered.

And it is, it's a wonderful thing. All right, now, a little more theology.

In the Trinitarian communion, in Hebrews 13, 20, it talks about the blood of the eternal covenant.

What is the eternal covenant? The eternal covenant, what I believe it is. The Bible doesn't say what it is.

I've formed it out of what I've, my studies. That it is where the, in the Trinitarian communion, or choose for salvation, that's

Ephesians 1, 4, 2 Thessalonians 2, 13. And that he, to the son, the elect.

So Jesus said, as many as the father has given me, of them I will lose none, John 6, 39. And that, and the

Holy Spirit would convict the world and apply the redemptive work where he would indwell us. So it is the covenant, the eternal covenant, a redemptive work where he would set, there we go, it's back.

Oh, you missed it, it was really good. And so the father would elect and give them to the son, the son would become incarnate.

And then, I don't believe for everybody, but for the elect only.

And then the Holy Spirit would apply the redemptive work. There's a covenant. So a covenant is a pact or an agreement between two or more parties.

So when I do marriage ceremonies, as I almost did yours, but I've had an emergency, I couldn't do it, a month ago, just about, okay.

And so when I've done marriages, what I try and do, okay, that's interesting.

Making sure the technology's working. What I try and do is make sure that people understand the bride and groom to be, understand the covenant aspect of their marriage.

And I talk about that. And I try showing them what that is, because it's a contract, it's an agreement.

Now, the 10 commandments are a covenant document. The 10 commandments, let me get in here.

And there we go. The 10 commandments are what's called, the 10 commandments are what's called the

Suzerain Vassal Treaty Pattern of the third millennium BC. And that means that there's, this is who

I am. This is what I've done. The stipulations of the covenant requirements, that I, Lord your God, have brought you out of the land of Egypt. You did this.

You shall have no other gods before me, for if you do, I will visit the judgment on them. So each of the party got a copy of the covenant.

And the 10 commandments were a covenant sign. In marriage, here's my covenant sign.

It's a ring. And so covenants have signs biblically. That's just how

God works. Now, covenant is reality because of the nature of God. Because God, who knows all things, and is holy, can never lie.

He can only always speak truth. Therefore, he can never break his word. Therefore, when he speaks, whatever he says is always true.

The only way you can know absolute truth is if the infinitely knowledgeable God reveals it to you. And since the infinitely knowledgeable God has revealed it, then we can trust that what he says is absolutely true.

All right. Okay, good. I'm just making sure the technology, because it looks like it's a little wigging over here.

And I think what I'm gonna do is leave this right here, and I'll still be in there. All right, I'll go in later.

Now, marriage is a three -way covenant. Like I said, a covenant's a pact or an agreement between two or more parties.

So when a man and a woman marry, not a man and a man, not a woman and a woman, not a man and a transgender something or transgender, but a man and a woman, they get married.

They're covenanting with each other. They're making a covenant. They're promising to,

I'll be faithful to you, you be faithful to me, I'll provide for you, sexual relations in between us only, no one else, things like that.

And that covenant is there. So that's one form of the covenant. The other part of the covenant is, and you will kill yourself and not others.

You're not gonna have relations and do all that for everybody else, okay? And also, when we're

Christians, we do it properly. We have a covenant with God, because we're promising before people before God.

Now, the nature of that covenant is very, very serious. And I'll tell you that my wife and I had marital problems early on, pretty bad ones.

And the reason we're still married is because we have a covenant before God. And neither one of us was gonna abandon the other, and neither one of us was gonna commit adultery.

So we were stuck, and we had to work it out, and we did. Now, and I'm saying everything's perfect, but we worked it out, and here we are, 34 years later, well, we've been married 34 years.

All right, so when we have a covenant that we base upon the nature of God, we realize that God takes that marriage covenant very, very seriously, and we as Christians have to do the same thing.

We take it very seriously. If you don't feel like being married, too bad. You are in, you make it work, and there's ways to do this.

That's where counseling comes in. So this is what marriage is. And all right, got that, got that.

So initially, the marriage covenant was for the man to provide and to work, and the woman to bear and be a helpmate.

There's more, but those are the basic things. So when the fall occurred, when sin entered the world, those things were messed up.

But the jobs are still the same. The roles are still the same. So God said to Adam, he said, well, there you go.

Now your work will be by sweat and toil, and you're gonna have thorns and thistles in the ground as well.

That's the proof that the sin entered the world because thorns and thistles were there. And then the effect upon the woman was childbirth pain and something very interesting.

To the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain, you will bring forth children.

Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. That is a really interesting statement, and we're gonna get into that later.

And I've seen this, I've read commentaries, I've studied the Hebrew, I've looked at it, and I have an opinion about what it means because why is that statement there?

And we'll get into that. Now, divorce rates.

I got some, actually some good news. I just did some research tonight. In 1920, there was one divorce for every seven marriages.

That's 14%. 1940, there was one in six marriages. That's 17%. 1960, there was one divorce every four marriages.

That's 25%. In 1972, there was one divorce in every three marriages.

That's 33%. 1977, there was one divorce in every two marriages. That's 50%.

Now, the divorce rate is 39%. It's actually gone down. How about that?

That'd be an interesting study to see why. Yeah. Maybe because people started realizing.

Who knows? Okay. All right. Yeah. Now, the roles of men and women are under attack.

I'm gonna talk about this a little bit. I was talking about this preaching someplace.

I forgot where. I was preaching, and this topic came up about men and women's roles in the sermon and how men are under attack and women are under attack.

Both are under attack, but men more. And this woman afterwards came up to me, and she was elderly, and she made this point, and it was like a light going on.

She said, guess where the first place was where the attack on men began in our society?

And I never thought about that. I said, well, where? And she said, the

Flintstones. The Flintstones cartoons. You don't know about that.

It was a cartoon, and there were people from cave men and women, they're really old.

And it was humorous. And he, Fred Flintstone, was a doofus, was an imbecile, and she was always correcting him.

And she said they couldn't start that directly. They had to start it indirectly. She said this, and I never forgot this.

She was an elderly woman, and I just, that's an incredibly good insight. Even before that was the

Honeymooners. The Honeymooners before the Fred Flintstones? Honeymooners? Okay. Honeymooners were actually before them?

Yes. That's true, because what was his name? I think it was Bazebot. Yeah, he was incapable, always doing things wrong.

Yeah, so that's right. So think about this. This means that the attack on men is ultimately demonic, because it goes against scripture.

Now, what I'm gonna be doing is talking like this more and more. What are the biblical scriptural roles?

What are the demonic influences? And how are they manifesting in the world? There is a great deal of demonic influence.

All you have to do is watch TV, and you can see all kinds of crap. But when it comes to men on TV, men are imbeciles, portrayed as incapable, incompetent, don't do anything right.

They're the objects of ridicule. They're to be looked down upon. You tolerate them, and you put up with them.

And this is how men are portrayed. The other way they're portrayed is murderers, all right?

In fact, my wife and I watch Dateline, and who's the ones who are murderers?

90%, 95%, it's the guys, right? And so guys are failures.

In fact, that reminds me, one of my favorite little, I used to watch Saturday Night Live years ago, but not anymore, haven't watched it for years.

But I remember one skit, and it was funny, and it had a book title that they were gonna discuss.

It was a mocking kind of a skit thing. The title of the book was Women Good, Men Bad.

And I got a kick out of the title because I thought it was funny, but it still tells you, which reminds me of a comedian, a woman comedian who got up once and said that men are always the problem, menopause, menstruation, and all that stuff, and it was pretty funny.

Mental health, there you go, and their mental problems, it was funny. But things are funny because there's truth in them, and then there's an exaggeration that goes along with it.

And well, yeah, men certainly blow it, but women do too. But here's the thing, how are men to treat women lovingly?

When they mess up, it's lovingly. And how are women to treat men? With respect, and most women don't know what that means.

And so there's a deficiency there, we're gonna get into that. Since the Trinity is the role model for the intimacy and fellowship and design that leads to marriage,

Jesus is the role model for how we as people are to behave. In particular, men.

Now, this is where I get uncomfortable, this is where I don't like talking about this, because I see how much

I fail, that's the truth. I'd rather teach something where the women are always the failures and not me, which would be a short message, but I like the idea because I'm a sinner.

But the truth is, when we compare ourselves to Jesus, well, we recognize our failures, that's what it is.

And I wanna step back for a little bit and say something here, this is important. When I say this,

I do marriage counseling as well. Adam and Eve were in the garden, she sinned first, she rebelled against God, she then gave the fruit to Adam, he then sinned, they hid themselves, but the pre -incarnate

Christ, that's who it was, came and said to the man, where are you?

Not to the woman, what have you done? Not to them, what have you done? But to the man, where are you?

Because he is the one who's in the position of leadership and responsibility, he's the federal head.

Federal headship is the teaching that the male represents the descendants, not the female.

Romans 5 .12, sin entered the world through one man. Romans 5 .18,

through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men. 1

Corinthians 15 .22, in Adam, all die. In Adam, all die, okay?

Through Adam's sin, everybody were made sinners. That's Romans 5 .19.

So because of what Adam did, not because of what Eve did, but because of what Adam did, that's why this world is in such bad shape.

And you could, there's some jokes in there I'm just saying. I could say something, I'll get in trouble.

My wife's, no, I'm kidding, she's a good woman. Except for taste in men, she's a good woman. Okay, so how did

Jesus exemplify manhood? I'm gonna focus on this a little bit.

He worked, he was a carpenter. He taught, okay?

He healed, he forgave. He also, believe it or not, praised women.

A lot of people don't realize this, that women were the ones in the Gospels who first connected and figured out who

Jesus was really, what was going on. They're the first ones who got it. The guys, after the resurrection, the guys are hiding, the women are out.

Now there's a cultural reason too. A lot of people don't realize that because the men, you gotta understand, the men were taken more seriously, were more of a threat, they had to hide.

The women weren't taken as seriously and could get away with more than a man could get away with, so they could be out there. And so they would use that to do things that men couldn't get away with.

And yet they were still the ones out there. And they could get in trouble too for saying Jesus was the Messiah. So it wasn't like it was no big deal.

It was a serious thing. And women who stepped out of line were often beaten, okay? So not that that's okay, they weren't really beaten.

They could be disciplined, let's just say. There's some stuff about that. But nevertheless, so he praised women, he did that.

He loved young people and the children. He endured temptation, he prayed for others, and of course he died for us.

Now, I've watched a film recently, it's the third time I've seen it, called

The Red Pill, which I recommend people watch it. And it's on Netflix.

And one of the things they do in there is discuss, in this film called The Red Pill, it's done by a feminist, really, it's really interesting, is that men are expendable.

Men have the highest rates of suicide, the highest rates of work accidents, the highest rates of mental depression, the highest rates of this.

They're the ones who were killed in war. They're the ones who killed in jobs. They're the ones, you know, the Titanic sinks women and children first, okay?

Because men are largely expendable. Men are the ones who take greater risks.

And that's what we do. We take greater risks, you know? You know, hey Dave, can you jump from that house to that house?

Yeah, it's only 40 feet, it's only 30 feet down. Give it a shot. Okay, you know, and we men will do it, you know?

And they wake up in the hospital. Well, I tried. You know, and the wife comes along. Did you actually encourage?

Yeah, he did it. And so, you know, we're kind of stupid that way, but that's because we measure ourselves by our accomplishments as well as our failures.

You know, we like to risk, and that means we go to the moon, we cross oceans, and we take out the trash so we get in trouble.

Now, so as I've already said, masculinity is under attack. And all you have to do is watch

TV. Now, this is important. This is really important. I would suggest that men and women both watch

TV for a while and just see how men are portrayed. They're either buffoons or murderers, or basically

Arnold Schwarzenegger who can tackle alien creatures, predators, destroy them. They've got great muscles.

You know, Brad Pitt, he's really handsome. You know, George Clooney. And what's the other one?

Oh, what was his name? I said the kitchen once when I was in the kitchen with a guy, all the ladies were in the kitchen there, and I said, hey, honey.

She's not listening. I go, ladies, you know, I'm talking. No one's saying anything. And then

I said, Mel Gibson. And they all stopped and listened. They all stopped talking and paid attention to what

I said. They did, I swear. I didn't say it any louder. I just said,

Mel Gibson. Okay. And so what we're supposed to look like is

Mel Gibson or Brad Pitt and have the body of a smaller version of Arnold Schwarzenegger really cut with lots of abs.

And I just have ab, but men are supposed to have abs. And then the women will like them.

Photoshop's amazing. Photoshop is amazing. And that's right. It is right. And that's right.

So men are mocked. They are despised. They are considered to be weak and incapable.

What do you think that does to women who see this all the time? Do you think that it might seep into their minds and their hearts and their attitudes about men and about their husbands?

And don't forget, it works the other way too. Because we have these babes on TV and they got the big ones and this and that and they're sexy.

And so we think that's how my wife's supposed to be. And it could do the same kind of a thing because my wife is like that. So I don't have to worry about it.

You know, that's the problem. All right. But it can happen that way too. They can become objects and they can be objectified and judged by standards that are not biblical, but are secular.

And so secularism, because it's ultimately demonic, is always seeking to undermine the truth of who and what the male and female's roles are inside of marriage and outside of marriage.

But we're talking about marriage. Now, where women, as I already mentioned,

I happened to went home after my wife gave birth and I still remember it just fondly and I've watched her give birth four times and I'm amazed.

And I still love talking about that. I just, it's awe -inspiring.

It is. Well, there's a curse that God gives to the woman.

Your desires will be for your husband and he will rule over you. Now, what does that mean?

Most of the commentators I've read are of the same opinion, that because it says he will rule over you after it says your desires will be for your husband, the word desire is tashukwa.

And it means, it occurs three times, desire, longing, craving. It says of a man for a woman or a woman for a man and also of a beast to devour.

Now, depending on a few circumstances, I could, I wonder which one might apply.

No, I'm kidding. I'm just, notice I dig a hole for myself frequently and get myself in trouble. But that's how the word is used.

And mashal, rule, it means to rule, have dominion power. So some think that what's going on is that the curse of the woman is childbirth and the thing that she's supposed to do has been stained.

The thing he's supposed to do has been stained. He's supposed to rule properly over his wife, but he doesn't do that right, which is why he has to learn what love truly is because only in love is true rulership manifested.

And in submission of the wife in respect for her husband, in submission, the only true way to know that is in the relationship she has with her husband and God and knowing his headship over her.

And without these, there's an imbalance. So go through this, sees the women want to rule over him, mold him, change him, and be the leader of him.

Now, that's not to say don't ever do that if a guy's a slob and is a lazy jerk.

Of course, she should work to improve her husband, but how's that to be done is a different way.

We'll talk about stuff. So there's also been a degradation in womanhood.

Now, the travesty of abortion, it's a travesty.

And women, generally speaking, are much better at nurturing than men, generally.

They're better givers, they're better nurturers, and they just have that wonderful kind of caring and you feel it kind of a thing where a guy, you don't want to get too close, as my wife observed once, while you hug your buddy, you're hitting him too.

I'm loving you, but I'm hitting you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And girls don't do that with each other, they embrace.

There's a real difference. And women give, they give life right out of their own bodies and they nurture life out of their own bodies.

So what's abortion? Abortion is the opposite of that. Abortion is killing that life in your body that you're to nurture.

I remember once, and some of you old enough to remember this, I forgot her name, but she was a woman who had three children,

I believe it was, and put them in the backseat here in America, backseat, and drove,

I mean, the van drove her over into the lake. Remember that? When I first heard about that,

I mean, if a man did it, that's shockingly bad. This could sound weird, but I can get it why a guy would do that.

He's not a wife, he's not a mom. Moms don't do that. But when she did it,

I was floored. How could a mother do that? It was incomprehensible to me because it never entered my mind that a mother would do something like that.

And then she blamed somebody else and she got caught. And I remember how stunned I was.

But think about it. Women are killing the babies inside of them. Why should it be so shocking if they kill the babies outside of them?

And I can trash abortion. In fact, two nights ago, I was talking with a woman about abortion online.

Someone asked me to come into a chat room and can you, you know, they're having trouble with this abortion stuff, and just laid it out and just destroyed their arguments, destroyed them.

And women have this wonderful calling to nurture and to give life, to just be the bearers of life.

And we, in a sense, we men, are the supporters of that. And both of those roles are very, very important.

All right, now, when we get into marriage and we get into what we're called to do now, we're gonna go into that.

I'm gonna read out of Ephesians 5. And then I'm gonna read out of Colossians 3.

And we're gonna spend some time talking about this stuff. Ephesians 5, 22 through 33.

Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. That's the standard, isn't it?

As to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is also head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body.

But as the church is subject to Christ, so the wives ought to be to their husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church.

Who's the standard again? Jesus. Remember what it says. Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the

Lord. As you're subject to the Lord, you're subject to your husbands. We're gonna talk about this. Husbands, you love your wives as Jesus loves you.

Now, which one's harder? I think it's for the guys myself. But because, well, we'll get into that.

That's what I think. But maybe I'll take it in mind. Because maybe women will say, no, we're married to guys. That's how tough it is.

Who knows? But verse 25, husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

Excuse me. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are the members of his body.

Now, just notice this. Okay, hold on a sec here. Sorry about that.

How much is spent on the wife's duty versus how much is spent on the man's duty? The man's duty is about twice that of the wife.

Now, why is that? I think it's because of the curse, because he was loving properly, and now he's not.

And women need to be loved, men need to be respected. And the nature,

God said, is said to be love and we're to emulate, so it's a greater responsibility to be loving, because it reflects the character and the nature of God.

God is love, 1 John 4, 8. Since the males are the heads in the home and are the ones representing

Christ in the home, that's what it means to be in that position of headship. I'll get to that later. Therefore, he is to emulate love better than his wife.

I'm not gonna ask my wife if I'm doing a good job with that, because I know what the answer is gonna be. But my standard is

Jesus, and I'll tell you, I frequently fail in that area. I'm a sinner, but I try in love, but there's different kinds of love.

We'll get into that a little bit, not eros and phileo or agape, but in the decision of love.

But nevertheless, in verse 31, for this reason, the man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is great, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

Marriage is a reflection of Christ and the church, isn't it? Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife, even as is himself, and his wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

More is talked about in love than is respect. And I'm trying to understand why, and I don't have a good answer yet, except to say maybe it's because of the responsibility the husband is greater than that of the wife, and more is said about it, because Adam and Eve in the garden, she sinned first, he sinned second, and the pre -incarnate

Christ said to the man, where are you? I think that's why. All right.

So what are the roles of the husband in this? The roles of the husband is to love his wife, to provide, we know this from other stuff, but to love his wife.

Now, if we go to 1 Corinthians 13, 4 -7, love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous, does not brag, is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, does not seek his own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Now, I know there's women listening saying, that's right, my husband needs to improve in this. Well, here's a question for you.

How are you doing in this? Because it applies to both. Because both are to love each other.

Are we, are both patient and kind, not jealous, not bragging, not arrogant, not acting unbecomingly, seeking their own, provoked, take into account a wrong suffered, not rejoicing in unrighteousness, rejoicing with the truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, endures all things.

I think God stresses the weaknesses in each gender. We men need to be better at loving, the women need to be better at respect.

And I'll show you why and what that latter thing means. And I gotta confess, there's a reason I'll spend some time on that.

It's because in my experiences in marriage counseling on the other side, it was always the case that the male got ripped up and shredded, chewed up and beat up excessively to the point where I stopped.

I said, I'm done. I've talked to other men who said the same thing repeatedly. It's just time for the man to get beat up.

And I'll tell you after a while, men just get tired of it. I'm done, it doesn't matter anymore. I cannot tell you how many guys

I've talked to over the years who said, oh yeah, it's just a beat up the man session. Well, that got me thinking, why is that?

Because it's easier to beat up the man than the woman because a woman is delicate and we're to guard the women. I think counselors naturally will gravitate towards protecting the female and the man because he's bigger and stronger, he's supposed to love.

But they don't talk about respecting. I'm gonna get into that. I'm gonna maybe shock some women with some things right out of the

Bible. And so what I like to do is do a balance. But when I'm marriage counseling, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

But what I'll do when I'm marriage counseling is the squeaky wheel is getting that grease, but I gotta jump out of that sometimes and go to the other person, whichever side it is, because it could become overwhelming for too much.

And you come back in and I watch body language and I see how people are doing and try and go that way.

But never, that's another thing. That's just more technique and stuff. All right, so we know that the man has to love his wife.

Now, if I were to ask the men, which I'm gonna do, just to verbally say, what are some of the ways you can love your wife?

What would be some of the ways that you love your wife? Be patient with her, right?

Come on, give me some other ones. You're just newly married. So you gotta better get this right. She could be taking something else, right? Yeah. Help.

Yeah. Help. Encourage. What? Protect. The wife?

Protect. Oh, the husband for the wife. Protect her, right? Guard her. Provide, right?

And also there's something else that's really important. Make her feel safe. Not many people recognize that because we guys are bigger and stronger.

We're more dominant and women need to feel safe around their men. That's hard to do sometimes because they feel safe differently than we feel safe.

Because I could get mad at Dave here. We get mad at each other and posture, but it's not a threat.

We feel it differently. We can't do that with our ladies because they perceive it differently. So, okay, I can learn.

Don't do that, okay. And so we've gotta be careful that way. That's another thing, all right? And when we talk about these things, women go, yeah, because I see you with women nodding your head.

That's right, that's right, that's right. And they're probably saying to themselves, man, Matt sure knows a lot about this.

He's so good at this. How did he get that wise? Stuff like that. I'm sure that's what's happening. And my wife, make sure she's not getting too sick over there.

Oh, she's so lucky. Now, what's that?

She trained you well. She trained me well, that's true. One time she said to me, what was it,

Monique said? She said, one of the things I like about you is you have so much confidence. And I said, oh,

I was so worried if that was okay with you. And she goes, sorry. I was really worried about that because I wasn't feeling like this was okay.

And she goes, just go away. What's that? I always know what to say.

And so at any rate. So that is what, we can talk about this.

Maybe the ladies might have some other things you might want to add about how we men can love our wives better. Do you want to add anything or we pretty much got it?

Or what? Want to add some stuff? Listen. Listen? What'd you say? Listen?

Okay. So that's a different one. Listen. I'm hard of hearing, so.

And selective hearing. I think security is big because actually

I think Hitler used that. Hitler used that to gain women. Confidence, he listened.

Yeah, security. It was social. Security and listening. So if I listen to my wife and give her security, she'll do what

I want. Okay, baby. Came right out of the, so listening is important, yeah.

Yeah, I think it's mutual and I think it's true. That's good advice. That's good advice. Well, it's not just listening, it's hearing.

What? Hearing. Okay. Because there's a difference between listening and hearing. Actually, there's a difference in Greek for that.

One is akoulo, I forget the other word, but one of them means to hear a sound, other one means to hear with understanding.

Hear with understanding. But you see, the lady's speaking these weird codes. And, you know, so once, once my wife started talking to me about a dress at a store and I just stared like this.

For a full minute, I was, you know, flat lined. And then she said, are you listening to me?

I go, what? And got an army hit for that one. But yeah, you know, that actually speaks to me because I don't know if I ever listened to her enough.

You know, I do hear, I do listen to what she says, I study, but I think it's a different kind of listening. A feeling kind of, you gotta tell me what it is.

Empathy kind of listening. Empathy kind? I can fake that. Yeah, I can fake it.

You know when you're faking it. You know when I'm faking it? Crap. I'm in trouble. That's gonna be, this is hard.

Man. Okay, note to self, be more empathetic in my listening. I'm not just joking around,

I'm actually making a note, okay, to do this when I talk to my wife because I always learn and women often have very good things to say and often teach, you know, have a perspective that I don't have.

And that's the truth. And I remember once I was talking to a couple about marriage and my wife came in and came in late and they wanted to have some, she had some great insight.

She really did. Not like I was surprised. It was like, I was surprised, but not because it's my wife, she's a girl.

It was, I was surprised, that really was good. You know, like anybody could, that was really good.

You know, that was, I wish I'd have thought of that. It was like that. And so women have abilities and insights that men don't have and vice versa.

We men are gonna make sure that we listen to our wives and actually listen to them. That's a good reminder. It is a good reminder.

Yeah, it is. It is, it's a good reminder. Now that my wife has heard me say that, she's gonna say to me like, you're listening.

Okay, I'm gonna listen with empathy. How does that work? So I'm gonna practice it. Empathy, I gotta look that word up.

Well, you know, I'm a researcher. I can fake, I mean, look it up. So we'll see. All right.

So what does it mean to respect the husband? Let's have the ladies try this one first.

What do you think it means to respect your husband? What? Let him lead.

Let him lead? That's not bad, actually. That's pretty good. What? Support. Support, that's pretty good.

What? Be uplifting. Oh, that's, I'm surprised you said that. Women, women, yeah, not women.

I've never heard that from any woman. That's a true, that's a very important one. Uplifting. That's a big one for men.

Yes, it is. Not tear them down. Because they tear them down different ways. That's right.

Uplifting, very good. And let them lead. That's an interesting way to say, because, you know, you're from Albania, but to let them lead is an interesting way of saying, because we say that in English, too.

Do the women allow them to lead? Is that what they do because they're in leadership? I guess they're gonna let their husbands do it?

That's something to think about, you know? And so what's some other stuff? Support, okay, all right.

Anything else? Yeah, it is.

It's for both, both of them, yeah. Yeah, marriage is mutually sacrificial, it is.

My mom said something interesting. Marriage is not 50 -50, it's 60 -60. And I never forgot that because I got what she meant by it, you know?

That's true. 100 -100? No, I think it's more like 80 -60, something like that.

She makes better sandwiches than me. Okay, here comes some more hole digging I'm gonna get myself into. So let's sidetrack a little bit and go back to the issue of Christ.

The way we're to love our wives, we men are to love our wives, is the way

Jesus loves the church. Our standard is Jesus, and that's how we're to do that.

With the adulterous woman in John 8, He forgave. It's hard to do sometimes, but He forgave.

He was very patient, and He was loving, and He was kind. And of course, He appreciated the women.

He really appreciated them. And it is something that we men sometimes fail to do, is appreciate our wives.

And I'll tell you, I don't appreciate my wife as much as I need to. And I think that she might need.

Women are different. When you marry to that woman or that woman, you have different sets of problems because people are different.

That's how that works. But the norm is to appreciate. And that's part of what loving is, because that's what

Jesus did. And He didn't yell and scream at His wife, but He did at the

Pharisees. And I know it was the case that the women around Jesus felt safe and secure.

They could trust Him. In fact, one of my favorite passages in Scripture, seriously, I guess

Luke 7 is when the woman came into the house of the Pharisee Simon and let down her hair in public and kissed the feet of Jesus.

And what did Jesus do? He praised her. He praised Him. And rebuked the religious leader.

It's my favorite stories. She never speaks, but she did by example.

And that's also a very important subtopic of when women want their husbands to change.

Lecturing isn't the way to do it, but the example of quietness or something like that, we'll get to that later. So Jesus is our example.

Jesus is the one we're to emulate. And every time I teach this,

I beat myself up because I recognize this is how I'm failing. These are the areas

I gotta improve. And I'm serious. In fact, I knew before I came out here, this was gonna happen.

And listening empathetically, that speaks to me. That's a couple of words. It's like, that's true, okay?

And being patient and having them feel more secure in our presence and uplifting.

But the thing about that is it's a constant job to do. And we get tired and we get cranky and they get cranky.

We know what marriage is like. We know what troubles are like. We know what our sinful selves are like.

We understand this, all right. And we have to make excuses, but we have a reality.

And this is where marriage counseling comes in and things like that. All right, so when we talk about the respect that a woman has for a man, the standard is her respect for Jesus.

She is, now get this, she is to respect her husband as she would respect Jesus. Now, women, when

I first say this, they, what? You can't be serious. And I'll say, well, why can't

I be serious? Because it says, what does it say? It says, okay, be subject to your own husbands as to the

Lord, right? The Lord is the standard. There's a theological principle in the home, in the

Bible about the male in the home. The father, the husband is automatically the head of the house.

And he is over the wife. He's not better, he's over. And she's been submission to the husband.

And what that means, we'll get into. And people will react to that very negatively. And I say, was

Jesus in submission to the father? Because in John 5, 19, John 5, 30, you can only do what he sees a father do.

Whatever the father does, not my will, but your will be done, Luke 22, 42. Jesus was equal in the deity to the father, yet he was in submission of the father.

There was no sin in that. One was not better than the other in that.

It was positional, and that's the thing. And Jesus exemplified that.

Now he is the head over the church. Now there is a nature difference between Jesus, God in flesh and us.

But the standard of respect that a woman is to have for her husband is that she's to see the husband as a form and representation of Jesus in the home.

Now, one of the first things a woman will notice is he doesn't do a very good job at that. And that's the truth.

So what I'll often do is talk about this and I'll say, well, wives, isn't he supposed to love you unconditionally?

Yes. Are you supposed to respect him unconditionally? No. Well, what?

Why the double standard? Because what is it, respect him, we'll get into this. You know, because he's not like Jesus.

He's not like this. So he's not worthy of the respect, so I won't give it to him. There is no condition to this.

It's the command to do it because it's a weakness in women because I believe they want to rule over their husbands and so they're to respect him as they would

Jesus because they will submit to Christ willingly, but not to their husbands willingly. Now, these words are loaded with all kinds of potential for being misused.

Does it mean that the husband is to drag his wife around by the hair, throw her into the kitchen, say, make me sandwich woman?

No, not at all. Okay. Not at all.

He is to emulate the love of Christ and the condition of Christ and stuff like that and a woman will feel far more secure and trusting to a man who is like that to her.

And women are pretty forgiving. You know, once they realize the man's doing a pretty good job, then they're a lot more loving, which is a problem because they sometimes, because they're a little bit more emotional, will have more of a conditional love.

It's based on their feelings and you're not worthy of respect because of how I feel about you and the reason

I feel this way about you is because of what you did or didn't do. Now, if a man beats his wife, of course, there's no respect for that and he should be jailed.

And, you know, things like this, we're not talking about these exceptions and he berates her and accuses her and is mean to her.

No, no, no. What we're gonna talk about here, what the design of respect for is in the biblical context and how it's supposed to be.

As I've said before, when God is here and man and woman are here and they're moving towards God, they're moving towards each other because the closer we get to Christ, the more we see our own failures and the more we'll become like Christ and the better things are gonna be.

And in my wife and I's marriage, we had problems and I'll say that I was most of the problem but, you know, she had her issues too.

But as we kept our eyes on Jesus, we came closer to Jesus, we grew closer to each other. There are tough times, there are good times.

We've been, we've stuck out, we've been through the death of a child, we've been through car accidents, we've been through serious moves, we have been through financial stresses.

We have been through a lot together and we're still together. And we still have a lot to work on because we're both sinners.

But we're, our eyes are on Christ, we're committed to each other because we're committed to Christ. That's just how it goes.

And this is how it's supposed to be in a marriage. Now, getting back to the respect thing, look at my notes here.

What I wanna do is go to 1 Peter 3 and I'm gonna read something here in a little bit.

I'll just read it now. One through seven, in the same way you wives be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives.

Now, let's stop there for a minute. I wanna tell you ladies a little psychology about guys. You don't have to lecture them.

They already know, mostly they know, okay? When they mess up, they know they mess up.

So one of my favorite stories is from a friend of mine named Nathan. And I wasn't there, but he tells me the story every now and then.

I love this story. He was in his four wheel truck. He and his wife were out in the woods with another couple, another vehicle.

And there was a snow berm that they had to drive over. And his wife said, you can't, you won't be able to make that.

He goes, I can make it. But you see, blah, blah, blah, because it's too big. He goes, no, we can make it.

The snow will compact. We'll do this. And he's telling me the story. I know what's happening.

I know it's gonna be he messed up because he's telling me the story. What's interesting is he's gonna brag about his failure.

Isn't that a weird thing for guys to do? It is, but I'll tell you why guys do it. So anyway, it goes on.

And I'm like, I'm going, and she's sitting there. She didn't have to tell me. And he was such a jerk.

He was this, he goes. And so I got in the truck and she goes, but you shouldn't do this.

You know, I don't think it's gonna make it. He goes, duly noted. And he said, duly noted.

Then he drove and got stuck on the berm right away. So he had to eat crow and he forgot his shovel and he forgot some rope to pull himself out.

So he's telling us, not only did he blow it that way, but he blew it in other ways.

Now, when I'm hearing this, I'm laughing and he knows I'm laughing, not at him.

I'm laughing with him because that could have been me because that's what we guys do.

No, we can make it. I can jump that 30 feet from that roof to roof. Not a problem. Watch me, one skip.

And you know, the wife goes, I told you not to. Well, I thought I'd try it anyway. So we guys are like that.

And so he was bragging about his failure because we men measure ourselves by our successes and our failures.

Why? Because we do, we accomplish, we risk, we challenge. And we men know that with that comes failure.

And successes. And so that's why we can brag to each other about how we screwed up. You may have listened to guys talk sometime and they'll say, yeah,

I caught this fish, you know, last week, it was this big. You know, there's another guy in there.

Well, I caught one this big, you know. Well, really, I caught one this big.

You ever see, there's a movie where the guy was impersonating a president and he was in a warehouse and he put these things on his arms and he could control these big mechanical arms.

And then he goes, I once caught a fish this big. And it's like 30 feet wide, you know, and everybody laughed.

And I got a kick out of that because that's what we guys do. But then, you know, we'd be sitting there going, you know,

I'll use the fishing theme. Yeah, and I put my fishing pole down to fix this and I stepped on my brand new $185 fishing pole.

And then I got so mad, I threw it in the water. And then I realized my $300 reel was on that same pole.

And, oh crap, you know. And so, you know, the guy's gonna be laughing going,

I can beat that one. And the guys will talk about, no, that was stupid.

I'll show you what stupid was. And that's what we do, you know. No, I threw my car in, it wouldn't start right.

And, you know, we do that because we risk. See, guys know, this is for the ladies.

A lot of ladies need to hear this, but guys, we know when we mess up. If our women badger us about it or make us feel like we're, you know, whatever, forget it.

We're not gonna wanna take any risks or do anything around them anymore. Because why? Because we're gonna get ridiculed.

And we don't want it. See, when a man, you screw up in front of another man, he's gonna laugh.

But the laugh is not because he's mocking. The laugh is because it could be him. And we both know that.

And so my friend, years ago, a couple of years ago, we're out fixing the sprinkler out there in the back.

And so this big headed sprinkler had a big spring and he's pulling on it and it won't come out.

The directions, you know, pull this out, pull this out. And it won't come out. We're both getting entranced by the mystery of why this will not break loose.

So he's pulling, he's pulling harder, harder, harder, harder, harder, snap on his fingertips all around this thing.

It hurt, he told me how bad it hurt, but it hurts. I can imitate him. It hurts so bad that he went like a monkey, okay?

I'm falling over and I am almost peeing in my pants. I'm laughing so hard at his pain.

Okay, and we still laugh about it today. Now, could it have been me? Yeah, would he have laughed?

Of course he would have laughed. Would I have laughed about it later too? Of course. And so I don't have to remind him, you know, you were stupid because you should have done that.

You should have known that. That's a different attitude. It's an attitude of, dude, what were you thinking? You know, because we go,

I wasn't, of course I wasn't. What do you think? You're a guy like me. Why would we think about it, you know?

And so, you know, we do stuff. In fact, I'm gonna tell you when I did, just another fun story.

I was out fishing on the Seal Beach Jetty, Long Beach Seal Beach Jetty. And it's like a half a mile out in the ocean, a deep dark, and it was like creatures moving out there.

That natural geographic had to see in his rocks. And it was just horrible out there. We'd get there at midnight.

We'd go for bass fishing and we'd carry this stuff. We'd carry this stuff like that. My friend and I, we'd go out there and we'd sit down.

And the rats would be like this big. And they'd come around and we'd throw, you know, firecrackers at them and stuff like this.

We'd do all this stuff. And I had this anchovy and one of those knives that you could cut through the air with.

You know, you see the fourth dimension open up and kind of close, a fillet knife, right? And I got this frozen anchovy and I'm cutting it.

I put it on the rock. Don't put it in your hand. You don't put it in your leg. And so I put it on a rock and it won't cut.

I'm like, man, this is weird, man, this is weird. Very careful, I took the knife, put it on my fingertip. Nothing, I didn't hurt myself,

I know better. That's very sharp, brand new knife. It won't cut. So what

I did was I then took the anchovy and put it on my finger like this.

And then I cut and the blood was running down my arms and dripping.

And I was so mad at myself. I still have a scar. I was so mad at myself for being so stupid.

And even right now I'm bragging about it. That was so stupid. And I bet you some of the guys are going,

I could top that. Once I cut both my legs off, you know, and I just saw them back on myself and they were backwards.

So you see, we know. How should a wife show this respect?

Show the respect by not ridiculing, not even with eyes or body language or tone. We already know.

If they're encouraging, men are gonna want to take more risks and do more.

And then they have to be, it's tough for women because it's easier to sit back in a chair and point.

And once they do it wrong, go, I told you, guys don't like it when other guys do that. Well, you know, we're not friends anymore.

Get away from me. I'm not gonna hang out with a guy who's just gonna ridicule me. And they're serious about it. There's teasing ridicule.

You know, dude, I would have done that better than you any day. You know, that's a tease. And we get it.

So what does this respect thing mean? I'm gonna show you something here. Let's go back to 1 Peter 3, starting at verse two.

And the women who, by their behavior, change their men, by their behavior, okay?

They're exemplifying certain things, respect and adoration. As the men observe your chaste and respectful behavior, that's what speaks to us.

Your adornment must not be merely external with braided hair and wearing gold jewelry or putting on dresses, but let it be with the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

Now, I'm gonna say this. I think a lot of women fail in that area, having a gentle and quiet spirit.

And I think a lot of them do. I'm not saying men don't have their problems. And men aren't, you know,

I think is a big one is making their wives feel secure and safe. And be patient with them. We don't have any problem going over those things.

But if I talk about something like this, you can't talk like that because you're a man. You don't know anything about us. A lot of times that's what

I get. For in this way, in former times, the holy women also, notice they're holy women also, who hoped in God used to adorn themselves being submissive to their own husbands.

Holiness and submissiveness are related here. Just as Sarah obeyed

Abraham, calling him Lord. All right, women, let me ask you. Would you call your husband's

Lord? Huh? If he wanted. Now that's a resentment kind of a thing.

If he wanted me to. Yeah, okay. Oh, okay. But why did

Sarah call Abraham Lord? It wasn't Lordship that he's the king and I'm gonna bow before him.

That's not what's going on. Think about who Abraham was. Abraham was the one called out by God out of the

Ur of the Chaldees, called out by God himself. God chose him. Didn't choose Sarah, but chose

Abraham, says now move, go do this, go do that. That means she was specially called by God and she was submissive and would call him

Lord. She's not calling him Lord because he's so wonderful and great. You got muscles and all this, but because of his position, his position.

So the husband in the home is automatically in that position. Now, should we have the wives call him

Lord? No. But the attitude here is one of understanding the

Lordship that the husband has in the family. Now, what if he doesn't exemplify it properly? Do you still show him that Lordship or submit to that Lordship?

Women will say, well, no. It should be, yes, you should. Just as if she is not being very kind, it doesn't excuse him not to be loving.

To the condition of love as is Christ's love, which is not conditioned on who we are, but what's in him, just the same as the respect given is not conditioned on how great he is, but upon his position.

Well, what do you do if he's an unbeliever? Should a Christian wife respect her unbelieving husband?

Absolutely, yes. Well, what does that mean? It means to uplift him, to speak well of him.

Not talk bad about him behind his back to other women or to other people, or be disrespectful in tone and things like that.

It does not mean, of course, you can't correct him in the privacy of their own home and say, you know,

I didn't like it when you said that, or whatever it might be, and he should listen, because a lot of times women have good insights, and that's how it should be.

But this idea of Lordship is because the husband, by default, is the head of the family, that's the position of respect that is to be given.

Here's something few women really know about. If you say to a man, either verbally or body language or tone, you're an idiot, you fail, you can't do this, men have this tendency of doing what it is you want them to do, of becoming what you expect of them.

And I like to say that men are generally better at everything than women. We're better aviators, better weightlifters, better mechanics, better doctors, better rapists, better mafia guys, better murderers, better drug dealers.

We excel in everything, you get my point. It's not to say that men are better in everything than every woman, but we excel in what we do, and when we go bad, oh, we can really go bad.

And so women have to realize that men, what they do is very often become what the pressure around them says to become.

Because it's difficult to stand against the flow of things because they're under such attack in their masculinity, which

I joke, my wife said, hey, you're so confident. Oh, I'm so worried about that, thank you. It was a joke, but you see, there's truth in that kind of a thing in the world because men are under serious attack, and I believe women are largely oblivious to it.

Not completely, but largely oblivious because they're like frogs in the water. The water's getting warmer, they don't realize, and the same thing happens with how the men are to the women, not loving them, because they're supposed to respect one another, but not loving them as they're supposed to be loving in Christ.

We both have these issues, but you see, the thing is it's easier to list out how a man fails with his wife, and a man, what he's supposed to do with the wife, if we have those, we see books with those, we go to conferences with those, you get this listing out, but you rarely ever hear the failure of the wife and the marriage, but respect and things like that, and that's why

I'm focusing on this a little bit more because it's so rarely dealt with. I'm the only one I know who's ever dealt with it this way, and when

I've taught seminars like this, or asked, not seminars, but Bible studies over the years,

I've asked the ladies, have you ever heard this before? They say, no, they've not heard it before, and this is what

I've routinely gotten, that's not to say that others haven't spoken it, but just in this impromptu non -scientific survey, because I believe that men are on such attack because of the heads, that you undermine the head, you undermine everything, and women can be participants in undermining their own husbands, not on purpose, because women, you know, they're good

Christian women, but it can happen. If they consider their husbands, and look at their husbands as Jesus, as Jesus walking across the living room floor, you know, the rug there, of course, you go, wait a minute, that's just not right, there's something wrong there, but if you get my idea, you go, well, okay, he's obviously not

Jesus in about every single way there is, but he's in that position, and I'm supposed to guard, to consider him in that position.

So, I asked this, I remember the last time I did this at a Bible study I taught in Boise, it just kind of coincidentally worked, maybe you were there that day, where the women were kind of on one side, and the guys were kind of on another, it kind of worked that way, there was a little bit of mixture, but it was emphasized that way, and I said, okay, ladies, no, no, no,

I remember where that was, it was at the church that I was teaching at, not downstairs, but above,

I taught at another place, but at any rate, it doesn't matter. So, I said, okay, so, women,

I said, don't answer this, I said, men, what would you do if you come home one day, or one night, one evening, and your wife says to you, you know,

I've been listening to this guy named Matt Slick, and he was talking about this thing of respect, and lordship, and how

Sarah called Abraham Lord, and like that, and so what I'm gonna do is, is there, right, okay, what

I'm gonna do is call you Lord, not in a mocking sense, periodically, I'm gonna do it, it's gonna sound awkward, but I think

I'm gonna try it sometime, I won't do it in front of people, because I don't, you know, cause issues, or what the, you know, but I'm gonna do that, and I'll mean it in the respect of scripture as the head of the house, in that respect, and I said to the guys, what would you think of that?

And all the guys are going, we don't want that, and I knew that,

I go, and they go, ladies, why don't, why don't they want that? Why wouldn't they, why are they going, eh?

And they were kind of clueless, a little bit, they weren't sure, and I go, men, why? Because then we gotta behave like it, and so men become, whether it's right or wrong, they're supposed to have their eyes on Christ, not be that influenced by their wives, but this is just reality of marriage, is they will often become what you expect of them, what you do to them, and the same thing works with the wives, if you're berating your wife, she's gonna become depressed, if you are ridiculing your wife, she's gonna become rebellious, she's, you know, it's just not one way, both of these are true, but the issue of respect,

I have discovered, in my opinion, over the years, in my experience, few women know what it means to respect their husband.

If you put Jesus there, and you say, how would I respect Jesus? It would be things like, you'd submit to his teaching and his wisdom, of course, in the man case, unless he's wrong, if he says, yeah, let's go, you know, do the swingers couple, no, we're not doing swingers, but, you know, as Jesus would be loving and intentional, it's gonna, you'd blend this, you know, he's intending to love, he's intending to lead, he's intending to emulate

Christ, and he's gonna fail, and boy, I'll tell you, isn't it so easy for us to remember the failures of our spouses, and then judge them by those failures, and remember the failures instead of the good, and yet Jesus says, love, or Paul says, love does not remember a wrong suffered, and yet, we do that,

I think women are more guilty of it than men, I do, that's my opinion, and the reason I say that is because guys have a way of compartmentalizing more easily and moving on, so if I get mad at a buddy, in fact, a buddy of mine,

I, a guy, big guy, a couple years ago,

I said something in a context, and he called me on it, he goes, I don't know, you know, you said this, and you said that, and we had it out, we talked, and we set it all straight, and we respected each other all the more, and that's fine, and then the thing is, we move on, we're done, but I've discovered that a lot of times women don't have that ability to move on as easily, why?

Because they're more emotional, I'm not saying it's bad, it's just more emotional, we fall on our strengths as well as our weaknesses, where a man can move on, well, he's a little bit not empathetic enough sometimes, a woman can be way too empathetic and hold onto it long, too long, so it, you know,

I'm not just picking on one, but this is something that needs to be talked about, and both of them come to emulating

Christ, as I'm supposed to emulate loving my wife as Jesus loves her.

Well, already, you know, I wanna say, I give up, not gonna try, I can't even do it, but that brings me to something, when my wife and I were going through counseling, and she sat to my left, just right next to me, and he was across, he was my professor at seminary, and she didn't wanna go to counseling because he's my professor, he's gonna show favoritism, little did she know that that was not the case, and so we're sitting there, and this is the truth, and she knows this, and I've used this example many, many times,

I literally said to him, I don't love her anymore, I don't wanna be married to her anymore, this is during seminary, where I'm learning how to be a pastor, and how to teach people about loving and everything, and stuff like that, well, you know,

I did love her, but, you know, and it was more anger than anything else, and she's not that, and she's all kinds of crap, and I said,

I just don't love her anymore, I just wanna be married to her anymore, and she wasn't that shocked by it, that she really didn't wanna be married to me either, okay, and he,

I'll never forget this, he leaned forward, and he said, Matt, what do you think love has to do with being married?

And I remember thinking, this guy's a moron, this guy has no clue what he's talking about, you have to love your wife in order to be married to her, you can't just be sticking, and I've got this, it's all into my head,

I was perfectly rational, but I was wrong, and he said, Matt, does

Jesus, he started with Jesus, does Jesus love you because of how good you are? Does he love you because of how nice you are?

Does he love you because of how consistent you are? And instantly, I knew he was right,

I knew I was wrong, and he was handing my rear to me, and rightfully so, it was such a quick shift in my understanding as he taught from Christ, and within,

I mean, seconds, not minutes, seconds, he had convinced me way before he was finished, reading me off these lists of failures, are you loving, are you because you're good -looking, because your body's this, because you're patient, because how great kind you are, or because, you know,

I'm just like, he didn't have to go any further, he's right, but he kept going, you know, he didn't know what had happened in me, and it shook me up, it's one of those moments that's changed my life, because he was right.

And so I think he really saved our marriage, you know, I don't know how it would have gone, or, you know, we love each other to a degree, and we're committed to Christ to far more degree, but nevertheless, this is the means that God ordained.

And I remember going out to the parking lot, and I was going to choose to love her, because that's what he said,

God chooses to die for you, he chooses to be patient with you, which are all the attributes of love, he's choosing to love you, isn't he?

Like, oh my goodness, this guy's brilliant, he's so wise, and I know so little,

I am so wrong. Oh, I'm telling you, he just ripped me up, and he was right, and he was right.

I still remember, and he dealt with her a little bit on some stuff, but that's not the point,

I still remember getting outside, and I still remember this, like I still see it, I forced myself to go over to the door, and open the door for her, so she could get in, because that was the beginning of my choosing to love her again, and I did, and she got in, and she had to do the same kind of a thing,

I wasn't any great guy, and she had to struggle with that stuff too, but let's just say

I was the bigger problem, and I was, and I remember that, and she got in the car, and I remember walking around, it's a long walk on the back of the car to get in, and then a long drive to go home, and a long set of days to come, but it was what was necessary, and then

I went back to seminary, of course, to learn how to be a good, godly Christian man to teach you about love and forgiveness, but it was a great lesson for me to learn.

See, we can choose to love, and if I don't feel a love for my wife one day,

I'm going to love her anyway by serving her, by helping her up or down, because she's got medical issues, by trying to be more patient with her, by trying this and trying that, she doesn't see the struggles

I go through internally, trying to do this and trying to do that, and she's got her issues, because she doesn't have a lot of medical issues, and working these out is tough sometimes, but I always remember that time, you had to choose to love her, not that she's hard to love, she's a good woman, except for taste in men, she's got a lot of good qualities, and of course

I love her, I'd give my life for her, but there's another level of loving which a lot of men fail at.

Oh yeah, I remember I was counseling with a couple, and he was just snotting on her, and I'm just waiting, and I'm letting it get out, he's just talking, meh, meh, meh, meh, meh, you know, this and that, and this and that, and I said, let me ask you a question, he says, how do you feel about her?

He goes, well, you know, I think, you know, I don't know, I've been married to her anymore, I don't know, I said, okay, let's just say that after the counseling tonight, you go out to the store, you're walking, and you see some guy, you turn away to look something, and you see some guy, he's got his fist pulled back, he's moving towards your wife, he's gonna hit her, what would you do?

Rip his head off. I go, why, if you don't love her? And he went, uh. Because we can love in different ways, she, you know, someone did something to my wife,

I'm going down swinging to protect her. Okay, I am, I'm gonna go down swinging, okay?

But then I get mad at her that night, and why the incongruity? Because of the failure of my own heart, because of my own sin.

And so love is easy for men in one ways, but difficult in another.

And it's a real difficulty for us to manifest, and we gotta do it all the time, even when our wives, on a rare, very rare occasion, are not that lovable.

It's so rare, I think it was a green moon the last time that happened, I don't know, it was weird.

But it's rare like that, so, you know. I want sandwiches later, which is why I'm gonna kiss up here, because, you know.

And so, and then of course, with the respect thing to the, for the wife or the husband, because wives make mistakes, it's easy to follow a leader and point out his mistakes.

It's not easy to be in leadership and not make mistakes.

And I've got plenty of instances of things that I could bring up where I've done leading and been wrong, and just been wrong, you know.

And here's a small way, you know. I like the idea of a clean stove.

We got the glass top stove. My wife goes, I think it'll be harder to clean. Maybe, but I'd like to hug it.

I wish I'd listened to her and got the other thing, okay? Now, she doesn't rub it in my face, and she doesn't, you know, that's fine.

But next time I get a stove, I'm getting the kind that, you know, that's right. The other kind, it's easier to clean and stuff like that.

It's a small thing, but it represents other things. But you see, so when a man messes up, the wife isn't supposed to be sitting there,

I told you so, because then he's not gonna wanna do anything. Whatever you wanna do, dear, is fine.

Just whatever, I don't care. Because he doesn't want that ridicule anymore. But he'll do, he'll take those same risks with his guy friends, because his guy friends aren't so judgmental.

Women are judgmental, why? Because they're more emotional, and they remember more. So I illustrate the girl's emotions as a gigantic hairball, eight kabillion hairs all in his nest, this hairball.

You pull one, everything else is affected. That's the girl's life, okay? A guy, no, he's just like a line, you know, and a limp, mushy line, just cut in these places, and you put these different sections.

You can just do stuff like that, you know? We're just like these lines, but I just cut them off.

But girls are more intertwined. I'm not complaining, it's just a reality of what it is. And guys need to know that, which is why we need to be more empathetic.

We guys don't need as much empathy, but we do need more respect, because we look at things in that respect, that way.

If you're gonna respect me, then let's see it, you know? And I'm gonna love you by showing it, and vice versa.

So I could go on, but you guys get the message, right? Okay, all right. Now, I'm gonna read some scriptures, because they apply to all of us.

And I don't like reading these, because they expose my own failures.

And I'm just gonna go through them, okay? And I'll end up with a little comparison of some stuff.

And that'll be that, all right? You ready? Yes. Okay. Now, Colossians 3 .2,

set your mind on the things above, and not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God.

We've died in Christ. Federal headship, I could teach on this quite a bit, but it means we've died with Christ. We've died to sin, and selfishness, and conceit.

We've died to those things, because Christ doesn't have them. We've died with him, and they're dead in us. Now, personally,

I think there's some zombie work going on inside of me, because that what I think is dead is still creeping around.

Colossians 3 .5 -7, therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them, you also once walked when you were living in them.

I'm not supposed to live in those things in any way anymore. I'm not. Colossians 3 .8,

I do not like this verse. But now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.

Now, for the most part, that's pretty easy. But internally, I'm not that great, because the standard of God is holiness.

Be holy for I am holy. Now, we could say, well, you know,

I'm pretty good. I don't get angry very often. I'm not very wrathful. I don't speak bad about people very much. I don't slander very much.

I'm not very abusive in my speech. I mean, just about once a month. I'm okay, because that's my standard as myself, because I'm a good humanist, and I'm ignoring the standard of Christ.

And that's what we do, you know. I'll do my best. God takes care of the rest, right?

That's the same mentality. By grace, through faith, you're saved after all you can do. Book of Mormon, 2

Nephi 25, 23. I'm a load of crap. Here's Colossians 3, 12, and 13. Colossians 3 is a horrible chapter.

It is so convicting. Oh. So, as those who have been chosen of God, that means elected to salvation, holy and beloved, ay -yi -yi, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Oh, I'm failing at every one of those. Not just being humble, because I'm failing at every one of those.

I can manifest instances of them, but I'm not manifesting them as I should.

Bearing with one another and forgiving each other. I don't like to forgive. Once my wife and I had an argument.

She happened to be wrong about something. It was a green moon again. And she asked me to forgive her, and literally,

I did not want to. The reason was because if I did, I couldn't bring it up anymore. For real.

I mean, talk about a wretch. And I knew that, and I was upset.

And I'm going, man, how deep is this crap in me? It's there.

I remember that. I never forgot that. It really showed me what I was really made of, sin.

Verse 13 again. Bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the

Lord forgave you, so also should you. All right, let's go to Ephesians 4, 31, 32.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.

This is really annoying stuff. It really is. Because I was thinking

I was doing pretty well, since I know a lot of stuff, and I have a Master's of Divinity. I've written books. I'm on radio. I figured

I had it all together. And then when I read stuff like this, as the

Lord has forgiven you, as Christ has forgiven you, he's the standard, of course. I instantly am reminded.

No, I got a long way to go. And it's true, you know. We all do. I mean, it's just how it is.

Oh, man. We didn't read it earlier, but I will now.

Colossians 3, 18 and 19. Wives, be subject to your own husbands as is fitting in the

Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. And then

James 1, 19 through 21. This you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear.

Yeah, that's what you're talking, that's right. Slow to speak. That's hard for me, because I'm a talker. And slow to anger, for the anger of man does not accomplish or achieve the righteousness of God.

Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness and humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

The interesting thing about the scriptures is their power. When we know who

Jesus is and we compare ourselves to Jesus, we instantly and permanently are reminded of our failure, because he's perfect and we're not.

He's holy and we are not. We can think that we're doing pretty well in some areas and we might be.

We might be far better now than we were 10 years ago. We might be less bad than we were 10 years ago.

But that's like saying, I'm gonna jump across the Grand Canyon. And five years ago,

I could jump 10 feet, but now I can jump 12 feet. See, I'm getting better. Never gonna make it, because the standard is infinite perfection and purity in the person and work of Christ.

Well, then why try? Because we're in him and we've already died to sin and we're to live as our

Lord lived because we follow him. And as he said in Luke 9 23, pick up your cross daily and follow after me.

If you're not willing to do that, you're not worthy of Christ. It's easy to put that cross down on a daily basis while I'm mad at my wife or mad at my neighbor or mad at the whatever or angry and righteously about this or that.

It's easy to do that. It's hard to train ourselves in righteousness and train ourselves in such things as love and patience and kindness.

Now I do know a lot and I'm not stupid. And I used to be able to go out and trash people with apologetics and knowledge and argument of skills.

Colossians 4, 5 and 6 and 2 Timothy 2 24 to 25 were two pericopes, two sets of scriptures that the

Lord would bring to my attention. Conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.

Let your speech be with grace, seasoned as it were with salt so that you may know how you should respond to each person.

And then a second Timothy 2 24 and 25, the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome but be patient to all.

And with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. If perchance God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.

Well, those verses spoke to me because that's not what I was doing. Now I'll say that people say to me when

I'm interacting with them, they'll say, you are so patient. I could not be as patient as you.

And so that I say, thank you Lord for working that in me. I've got a long way to go.

I need to work it with my wife. I need to work with my children. I need to work with my friends. This is what it means to be a

Christian. And it's hard to do. We've got to realize it's hard to do but we also have to realize that our hope is in Christ and our expectation is in Jesus, not in our own ability to do right or not do right.

We don't measure ourselves or I compare myself to Dave or Dave or my wife and say, why this and you that or not or whatever.

You know, obviously I'm better than you guys but that's not the standard I wanna use. There's a little bit of pride, just not much.

I've been working on it. I'm proud of my humility, been working on that too. But our standard is Jesus, right?

Our standard is who Christ is. And when we do that, oh man. And we are always obligated to follow what he has said, not what we say, not what we think about ourselves.

We can say, yeah, there's been progress and we give glory to God for that progress.

And that's where it needs to be. So let me summarize and say some stuff here. I got a chart on two pages.

In the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit and then husband, wife, man and woman. Okay, in the left and right. Trinity, same in nature, they're

God. Husband, wife, the same in nature, they're human. The Trinity, the same in purpose, to glorify the self.

And our purpose is to glorify God in our marriage. With God, he's the creative action.

He creates life. What we do is we continue life. Okay, it takes two to continue the life that God has given.

God is sovereign in all things but we are supposed to be sovereign on earth. The eternal covenant of the

Trinity and yet we have what's called a temporal covenant till death do you part. The three -way covenant between the father to the elect, the son to redeem the

Holy Spirit to apply the redemptive work and the three -way covenant with marriage, a man with a woman, a man and a woman with God, a man and a woman with society.

In God, there's eternal fellowship and in marriage is temporal fellowship because it's ended by death.

But after death, we go to heaven, we're gonna have fellowship there. But you get the point. So what we're talking about here is, there's more

I could get into, but this is good enough. This was a good basic level to understand the theology of marriage.

It's useful, it's necessary, it's convicting and it's true. And when we study these things, we might be able to recognize what our spouses need to do.

But more importantly, what do I need to do? As I say to people who call me on the radio or sometimes call the office or they'll say,

I'm trying to find a perfect wife, I'm trying to find a perfect husband. I'll say, oh good, pray that God would give you the perfect wife, perfect husband or pretty good one because there's none that's perfect.

But I get what you mean. But more importantly, you should be praying to be a good husband to the wife

God would trust you with or you to be a good wife for the husband that he will trust you with. Because what we want to do is have

God do things for us, for our convenience and our comfort instead of being changed internally for the betterment of someone else.

Completely different philosophical thought. The world says love yourself first where God says you love me first and you love others first because love is other centered.

God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son, John 3, 16, John 15, 13.

Greater love has no man than this but he lay his life down for his friend. Love is other centered.

And so when we're both in the marriage couple situation, loving each other as Christ does, then things will go a lot better.

Not perfectly because we're sinners, we make mistakes but we're to be loving. And if we emulate Christ in that, things will be fine but pretty fine.

More better than normal, right? Okay? Okay. So I'm gonna jump back in this one thing.

If you guys have questions and stuff you wanna ask the listeners have any questions, just let me know.

Just talk. You guys have any questions or anything or no? Digesting.

What's that? Digesting. Digesting. So God say to the man to love.

Yep. And to the woman to submit. The God says to love the man, the man love the wife. What does it do with the role that God give to them?

Because I mean, the wife still she has to love the husband. Yeah. We generally, what we believe is that men are less, are not as good at loving the way women need to be loved and in a biblical way.

And so that you're instructed to be stronger in their area of weakness. The way women are instructed to be work in their, be stronger in their area of weakness.

They don't respect their husbands enough. Men don't love their wives enough. Does that make sense? My answering? Okay. I think that's what it was.

I think that's what she was asking. Was that what it was? Cause I was trying to listen. Cause remember you spoke softly and I have really loud ringing in my ears.

So I was trying to read your lips. So anybody else here? Have you discussed remarriage with ex still living?

You can remarry your ex provided neither one of you have been married to anybody else. Okay. Your mom would have hit you in that last remark.

Okay. Let's see. Let's go down. So I believe one of the biggest problems in marriages is uncommunicated expectations.

Yeah, that's true. And if we put God first in the needs of others before our own, then we will treat each other.

That's very true. Expectations that we have, because we put upon another what we think we ought to do or what we want them to do.

Not what we're willing to do, but what we want them to do for us. That's very true. I'm included in my notes because it's a very, a very...

Hey, David Sherman. Hey Dave, how are you doing, buddy? This is David Sherman that I know.

Dave Sherman and I have known each other since we were 12. For real. And he's down in LA.

And we used to do everything together. Hey Dave, how's it going, buddy? We just talked a few. Oh, your mom would have hit you for the last remark.

That's right. That's why Dave said that. Okay. Yeah. Because he knew my mom pretty well. That's right. That's right.

I would have got a smack upside the head. That's right. Okay. Have you discussed remarriage with ex?

Let me see, buffering. You're buffering? That's interesting. Let's see. It's not difficult for me to love my wife.

She is a much better person than I am, in my opinion. Randall says,

Matt is hysterical. That's right. Karen says, no nagging ever.

Let's see. With burners. That's a stove thing. My wife's gonna, we'll go ahead and get another.

I'm willing to get rid of that thing. I've got so much work to clean up. Have you discussed, okay, we've got that. All right. That's convincing stuff.

Reminds me how forgave my dad for all the stuff he did to our family. Yeah, I had to do that with my mom and dad.

There's some reasons there too. Matt's right. To love as Christ is super hard. We'd rather be called honey, babe, and sweetheart.

I call my wife hun. I go, hey hun, how you doing? I want her to call me great one, but she just doesn't go that far.

I gotta go, prayers to all. I've been slick for at least 15 years, someone said.

Having my future wife periodically, whenever I meet her one day, just sounds odd. Having my future wife periodically,

I don't know what that means. Probably means praying for. Love does not remember wrongdoings.

How would you know? That was Joanne, she's so gentle.

I would definitely agree with the rest of you guys. God can still heal your marriage, absolutely.

Husband, let's see. You're a wonderful mother. Your boys do need you. And you're okay, let's go down here.

Is being separated from spouse sinning? No, because my wife went down to LA a couple weeks ago.

I was still here. She was doing visiting friends and family. Being separated is not...

I think that means separating as in, like one in one house, one in another. Yeah, I know.

And I was doing that on purpose, because what I try and get people to do is be more specific in their questioning.

And as being obstreperous. Yes, I know. Which means it's likely irritating and annoying, which I like doing, but you can leave this fall for it.

It depends on the reason for the separation. If one of them is abusing the other, and there needs to be a separation for healing time and counseling, then it's fine.

All right. Let's see. Hey, Matt, any advice for young singles?

Yes, get my book on Amazon, How to Woo and Win Women by Being an

Obnoxious Jerk. It's on Amazon. It's a real book, you can get it. And you will learn everything you need to know about getting a woman to marry you, because you have to confuse her and being obnoxious and irritating, because women are helpless against that.

And then after they're married, about a year later, they go, wait a minute. And then they realize it. For young singles,

I could talk about young singles another time, but I would do this. Dylan, I would say, ask

God to make you what he wants you to be in order to be a good husband. And to learn to be loving and learn your doctrine too, because you want to be able to lead doctrinally, because you'll be the one responsible in the marriage for that kind of stuff.

And there's more too, I could say, but there you go. Does God bless all marriages? I would say, yeah, uh -huh.

But not all marriages are blessed, because not all marriages follow the blessing of God.

I think a marriage is a blessing, as are children. And it's sin gets involved and does some bad stuff.

And people do bad stuff in their sin. My stepson is married to an actual witch. Oh. Well, then if he's

Christian, he needs to be praying, and we need to talk, because it gets more serious when you're praying against witchcraft, because it shakes up the spiritual realm a lot.

If there's an abuse of husband, do you forgive and pray or do you leave? Depends on the kind of abuse, because different levels of abuse.

Because one woman might consider the abuse of a husband to be a frown, where another woman would say, that's nothing.

But, you know, so there's, you know, it just depends. But if a man's beating his wife, she should get out and call the cops.

And then I think she might have the freedom to be able to divorce, but not the obligation to.

Because if a man is beating his wife, he's threatening her life. And that is the violation of the breaking of the covenant to protect and things like that.

And get out of there. When this would happen, it did happen in the Old Testament times, guess how they took care of it?

What, I read this someplace, I heard it, or I heard somebody, a guy told me, he's researched, that when a man was abusing his wife, there wasn't much you could do, because the way the community was.

So the wife's brothers, or it didn't have any brothers, they're cousins, would go and just have a nice little talk with the husband about it.

And then they would leave, and then the wife would nurse him back to health. They would just talk, and then she would go drag him back into the house and tend to his wounds.

And that's how it was often taken care of. You weren't expecting that one. Did you get that?

You understand that? That's right, nurse him back to health. That's what David, she goes, yep, that's right. And vice versa.

Yeah, because women can be abusive. Yes, they can. In that film, The Red Pill, they actually show a thing of the

CDC, the Center for Disease Control, they did research on male and female abuse, and men abuse women more, but it's not by much, it's very close.

It was really surprising. But men don't report it as much because there's a stigma.

They're embarrassed. Yeah, they're embarrassed, and you can't do that kind of a thing. And then they had a film, it was really interesting, a bunch of women in this room, and someone just said, do you beat your husband?

And one goes, oh yeah, I do. Oh yeah, I'm violent to my husband. She goes, oh yeah. And she had no remorse, apparently.

Goes, yeah, I do this, I beat him, he won't fight back. And one goes, yeah, I do that too.

He goes, whoa. I want my wife to beat on me.

I want her to, because it's love. She hits me, I give him an arm hit. I do something stupid, she goes, stupid.

And she hits me in the arm, but then she goes, ow. And then, so, I get in trouble for that. She hit me, though, you got me a couple days ago.

She actually just, she went, oh. And I was like, yes, I was so happy.

She's brass knuckles. What's that, a taser?

Oh, no, she would want a taser with a portable battery on a wheel behind us.

I'd be going along, she'd be going, like that. I'd be just, like that. She'd be tasing the crap out of me.

Yeah, that's what my wife would be doing. She'd do it just to watch. Hey, watch this, everybody.

Okay, that's what she'd be doing. Smile if it's true. Dave, what,

Dave, what? She knows Dave, Dave, you know. We've known each other for umpteen years.

Can a non -married couple attend a couple's fellowship? I don't see why not, unless there's some rules. I would say, yeah, do it.

Let's see, my brother would have done that had I told him what I lived in previously. Okay, don't know what that's about.

If, abusive husband? My brother would have done that, had, would have done what? My brother would have beat up the husband if he had known the husband would do that.

How do you girls do that? I don't understand how that even means. Do you think that makes sense?

How do you know? What's going on my side? Yeah, it was so obvious.

I'm changing the Bible study day and time. I'm not telling you. Man, I thought you guys had my back.

You weren't even paying attention? Thought opportunity. Yeah, opportunity, there you go. I'm glad you just got in there and threw some dirt on the hole

I'm already in. Thanks a lot. All right, let's see.

If two true married believers, okay, are having very difficult times in their marriage, does it mean that one spouse may have married the wrong spouse?

Yeah, because there could be conditions when you should not marry somebody else. And you say,

I recommend you don't do that because it's not biblical. They might be true believers and stuff, but once you're married, that's it.

That's your spouse you're in. That's the thing. There's times I've recommended, do not marry that person, it's a bad choice.

And it could both be believers, because it doesn't mean they're perfect, okay? She understood,

Joanne says, dang it, how do the girls get that? She was exactly right, thank you.

Jo, then she says, you're exactly right. Thank you. I wish

I could say something chauvinistic that would be good, but I can't. Hey, you girls are gonna get that,

I don't get that. Anique, she'll be talking and then she'll start to lose track.

What are we talking about? I have no idea. She goes, don't you remember? Three days ago, we were talking about this.

Yeah, my grandson complains about that constantly. Your what? My grandson. Grandson, yeah. Yeah, grandma, you're talking about something that has no relation to what we're talking about.

Where did that come from? Why are you talking about that? Hairball. Because it came up in my head, that's why. The guys think more linearly, girls think more hairball.

Guys are logical, girls are emotional. You know, just basics. You talked about it, so you're excited.

Digging that hole. I enjoy digging my own hole. Okay, anybody got any more questions or comments you want to answer?

Hope you guys are enjoying my stupidity. Are you doing this from your house with people visiting you? Yes, Dave.

Come on up, Dave. You've never been up to my house. Come on up. Come on up, we can go fishing and shooting. Yeah, that's

Dave. Maybe we've got stories. Dave and I have got stories, lots of stories. We used to hang around together. He saved my rear and stuff.

We were involved in the occult together. And now he's a Christian. He's been married. One of his wives died.

One of them got married and divorced. There's a lot of stuff. And he's a good guy. He works in ER.

You're still working in ER, right? But it does relate. You remember, I have to say it when I think it. That's probably a woman.

That's saying that? That's correct. Yeah. And what's she talking about? Because if you don't say it when you think it, you lose it and you don't say it.

It doesn't get said. It goes back in the ball. It goes back in the hairball again.

It's gone. That's what you got to do in mnemonic.

That's what my wife says. Yeah, you have that.

What do you mean, wow? Oh, there's some things you're better off not said.

There you go. Maybe it's a good thing. That's right. That's right.

Well, that's been happening to me more lately. From here to go to the kitchen. Why am I here? That's happening a lot.

I have a question, but I'm trying to think of how to say it. All right. Exactly right again. That is weird.

Could you please repeat again, again, again, again.

Repeat again. About the marriage similar to the Trinity, please. Oh. I should put all my notes online.

I think my Bible study notes, people would look. I need money for it though.

You see, that's the thing. I got to get cash. You take it off.

I got to work at five. So? Well, let's go to sleep. Let's go to sleep.

Okay. Well, thanks for coming. Yeah, I go to sleep. We got to decide what we're going to work or teach on next.

You're welcome. Anytime we do Bible study. Sure. All right. Oh yeah.

So in the Trinity, as well as the husband and wife, they're both have the same nature.

God is divine. David Sherman says he has to work at 3 a .m. Any thoughts on dealing with lust?

Yeah. Okay. In the Trinity glorifies self, in marriage you glorify

God. In the Trinity, God is the creator of life. In marriage, we're the continuers of life.

In the Trinity, God is sovereign over all things. But in marriage, we're sovereign over the earth.

In the Trinity, there's the eternal covenant. And in marriage, there's a temporal covenant. And in the

Trinity, there's eternal fellowship. But in marriage, there's a temporal fellowship. But there's fellowships. It kind of has to do with the relationship between the non -communicable and the communicable attributes.

All right. There's that. Any thoughts on dealing with lust? Yes. Lust is a very, far more difficult thing for the average man than the average woman.

A lot of people don't know this. The male brain has twice the size of the visual processing area than the female.

And it's really kind of interesting. My wife needs lights on everywhere. I don't mind having it dark.

I can see very clearly, very easily. Driving down the road, I don't need any extra lights. She needs, she can't see things as well.

And it might just be her. But I've noticed other women have the same kind of an issue at night and stuff like that driving.

I don't know. I'm just kind of trying to confirm. But so that gives you an idea why guys are, ooh, look at her, look at this, because we're more visually oriented.

And I think that's probably a contributing factor to that. So when we lust, the thing to do is what a professor of mine said in seminary, in class, when he talked about this, he says when he sees an attractive woman, he prays, he says,

Lord, protect her from my lust and the lust of others. And I never forgot that.

I went, first of all, wow, he's a sinner like me. And two, that's the right response.

Protect her from my lust and the lust of others. An instant prayer. And then there's other things we can do and talk about the issue of lust and retraining the mind, rehearsing in the mind proper actions.

But if you're a young male with hormones that are doing jumping jacks and pushups at the same time, it becomes very difficult.

It's just one of the things that testosterone does to the male. It's, women just don't know. They just don't know what it's like.

And it is like an animal that's in us alive and eating its way out. And it's strong.

And so men have to deal with this. And so I have had more private discussions on that topic with men.

And women need to know about it too. You should sell these Bible study notes for like $5 for a download of each week on your carm site and text or word format.

Yeah, maybe I'll do that. I can do it on Patreon. Maybe on, yeah, I could. I like giving away for free, but I do need to be supported.

But at any rate, Dollar, you should make our T -shirts. That's another thing I want to do is get a

T -shirt business going because I have a lot of sayings. Women's for months or so much worse. Read that again.

Women's for months or so much worse. So their monthly time is so much worse for them?

Is that what they're trying to say? I don't know. That was Dave Sherman, my buddy. Oh. Women's hormones are much worse than ours by a long shot.

That's what Dave is saying because they go up and down on hormones. And that's just what it is.

I remember several times my wife, menopause and things and not wanting, not complaining, but there'll be plenty of times where I've been with her and I'm just like, don't move, don't say anything.

And I'll back up slowly, looking left and right, backing away.

And she goes, what are you backing away for? And I stopped. Look at her, what are you stopping for?

And then she goes, you can leave. Okay. And then I just leave. Because you're just wrong.

You're just wrong. And that's happened with her a few times. Well, like your animal, we have it too.

Yeah, men actually. We have hormones. Yeah, we have it too, men do too. You know? Yeah.

Men don't, I mean, people don't know it, but men have the same hormone cycle as women do time -wise.

It just doesn't go like this. It just goes like this. But at any rate, yeah, and there's been times, my wife has been hormonal because of the girl stuff, which is fine, fine.

And it's like, what do I do? But for the most part, she's been pretty good. I've been blessed that way.

But I knew of one couple where he told me, he said for one week prior, she was horrible.

One week during, unbearable. One week after, horrible. And then those other weeks, she was normal.

So one week out of a month, she was okay to live with? Yeah, that's what he would say. But he was exaggerating, but, you know.

Okay, I've been battling against porn lately. Please pray for me that God would bring me deliverance that's affected me spiritually.

Yes, it will. And I should do a talk on that sometime. And every other way, it changes how your brain works too.

It does, it does. It takes a lot of work to beat it. And I used to be addicted to it when I was very much younger.

No more though. There is a, whoops, let's see.

Whoops, not that. There is a ministry, a friend of mine who lives here.

He happens to be close, and he does addiction counseling. And porn is a form of addiction.

And reformation, something, oh,

I can't remember it. I can't remember it. It'll come to me.

It's Chad Prigmore. You can look up Chad, Chad Prigmore, and look up reformation,

C -H -A -D -P -R -I -G -M -O -R -E, Chad Prigmore, and just look up reformation.

There's a word, reformation associated in there, and you'll find it. And it'll take you to Romans 12 .2

or R12 .2 ministries. And that's where he does his counseling and stuff like that. Because he used to be into drugs a great deal, and an alcoholic.

And it's all conquered by the grace of God. I had a pastor who was addicted to porn.

He had to get rid of a television, his laptop, computer, and his iPhone to beat it. Yep, that's what you do.

Yeah, Chad Prigmore, that's right. One, I think I don't know if it's one, I think it's one

O, one O, okay. Why do I want to, man, that is driving me crazy.

Chad Prigmore Reformation. Because the website forwards,

The Way Ministry. Yeah, just type in Chad Prigmore, and you'll see The Way Ministry, The Way R.

Recovery Reformation. What? Recovery Reformation. Recovery Reformation. Thank you.

And that'll help you a great deal. Or he can help. So, I think we've had some victories here and there.

Praise God. You will have victories. You will have victories. I saw a newspaper once that said more women frequent adult porn stores than men.

I don't know if that's true or not. If it is, it just shows you the degradation of our society when women become as bad as men or worse.

That's really bad. Yeah? That's scary.

Yeah. Let's see, David, try living in our head when we're still, we still got hormones.

I'm old now, but I remember the hormone agony. Yeah. Must be like a science fiction thing with a horror thing and puppets going in there with sand creatures probably.

I'm guessing. Okay. All right.

I guess that's it then. Almost 10 o 'clock here. And I don't see any questions and stuff. Bible says to flee fornication.

And this electronic age is difficult to do. That's true. You have to be very aggressive, and you stop what, you just have to close the doors that provide the opportunity.

And so you can hold yourself accountable to your wife. You can hold yourself accountable to friends.

You put filters on your internet, filters on your phone, or you get a phone that doesn't allow you to see stuff, and you do what you gotta do.

You decide to tackle it, and that's it. And then you talk, if you're married, you talk to your wife about stuff, about availability and some things, because that can help too.

And the wife's gotta be scantled on that side too, because it can be difficult for the wife for a lot of reasons.

And they have to, there's a lot there. Have you heard of Life Word Mission Church? No. Is it a cult? I don't know.

I haven't heard of it. Raymond Cancery. I'm hitting this. Okay. Okay, Dave, God bless, buddy.

He's hitting the sack. Dave. Okay, Ramon has a question. Okay, let's do Ramon's question, then we'll take off. We'll close it.

People just stay here and we talk anyway. But like last week, we were here till midnight. We were, till midnight.

I wouldn't let anybody leave. No, we, good conversation.

We had good witnessing stuff online. That was with the guy, right? What's that? Was that last week, the guy we were, yeah.

That was good. That was good. I was telling my granddaughter I got him on the way over, and he kept contradicting himself.

Oh, man. And contradicting himself. Yeah, do you think? Over and over and over. Be quiet.

Yep, he's just irrational. Okay, I'm waiting just a little bit for a question.

All right, but I don't see it coming up. We'll give it another minute, and then we'll close up if we don't, nothing happens. All right.

Hope you guys enjoyed the study. Let me know what you thought, if it was a good study. And we gotta decide what you wanna talk on next week too.

Okay, that's really good. How could you encourage people who live in a situation to get married based from the scriptures when they say, why do

I need to get married? We're already living together because they're sinning against God. If they're already living together, why don't they get married?

If they're committed to each other, then make it official. Yeah. You're welcome,

Joanne. You got one. Is it okay for a couple? Do you watch porn together? No, it's not,

Dave. No, it's not. They cannot watch porn together. Nope. Their eyes should be only for each other.

Only for each other. That's how it should be. That's one of the things I recommend that husbands pray about their wife.

Let my eyes be for my wife. And it'll change. When your wife walks by in an old raggedy towel, you go, hey, she runs, you know, it works.

Okay. All right, everybody.

All right, I'm gonna pray, close, and then that's it. I'll close it up. And we'll figure out what we're gonna talk about next week.

Lord Jesus, thank you. And I ask for your blessing on the memory, the hearing, the teaching of what is from your word.

And I ask, Lord, that what is from you would be remembered and retained, and that what is from me would fail and just go into nothingness.

Lord, we look to you. We seek you and ask for your blessing in our marriages and for those who wanna get married.

thank you, Lord, for the wisdom that you have given us in your word. In Jesus' name we ask, amen.