Adam Doomed the World by Listening to his Wife

Adam’s Listening and the Fall of Humanity

Good morning.

If you do have a Bible, turn to Genesis chapter 3, we're going to be continuing our study on basic truths. The verse you should be turning to is Genesis 3, 17a, which is on page 3 in your pew Bible. Basic truth that God has for us today is the truth that Adam doomed the world by listening to his wife.

So when you do have Genesis 3, 17, go ahead and stand for the reading of God's word. Genesis 3, 17a, and to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, have eaten of the tree which I have commanded you, you shall not eat of it.

I'll go ahead and read the rest of the verse. Cursed is the ground because of you, in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

Amen.

You may be seated. Let's pray. The Lord, we come before you as people today who desperately need to hear from you. We know that your words that you have given to us today are words that are meant to help us to understand the world, they're words that are meant to help us to understand the basic human condition.

As people, we come before you desperate to hear what you have to say to us in your scriptures. We pray that you give us eyes to see and ears to hear all the good things that you have for us today. Bless our time and help us to glorify you in everything that we say and think.

In your son's name I pray, amen. It's interesting, if I were to think about the most common complaint that wives have towards their husbands, it would probably be the complaint that he doesn't listen to.

Me.

That's an observation I've made over the years that has borne itself out into counseling situation after counseling situation. It's an observation that seems to be fairly valid as an observation. It's somewhat funny, I was talking to Elizabeth, my wife, this week and I showed her the title of the basic truth that we were going to be considering today and she kind of chuckled at it and her first observation was the observation that I just mentioned.

Her first observation was the observation that, you know, isn't it funny that women's primary complaint to their husbands seem to be the complaint that they never listen to them or that they're not appropriately hearing them.

I think that Elizabeth and I probably are noticing something about reality and noticing something about the way the world works. I don't think it's all in our heads. I consulted AI with this question that I had, which I imagine, I can't remember the exact way I phrased this consultation that I had, now that we have this resource that we can absolutely trust in everything, obviously, but I consulted AI and I did ask, I said what is the most common complaint that wives will have towards their husbands and that was first on the list, okay, so I imagine that even if it isn't absolutely true in every respect it does point to some kind of reality.

Now if you have been married for any length of time or it really, I mean this is beyond just marriage, if you've been married for any length of time, if you've been in leadership positions in any capacity for any time, one of the things that you'll realize is that you might be frequently on the receiving end of this complaint and I will say that, you know, men, they don't often excel at listening and they can often be very quick to offer solutions without doing the work required to know what kind of solution that they're offering, but as I said, I mean if you've been married for any length of time, if you've been in church leadership or any kind of leadership for any length of time, what you'll realize is that this is a frequent complaint that might be leveled against you and you might also realize that when you hear this complaint there are many times where you're tempted to think that there's more to the complaint than what is on the surface of the words, meaning like when you hear that complaint you might be tempted to think that it means something different than what is being communicated at face value, you may be tempted to think that what it means is actually something along the lines of you aren't doing what I want you to do, you understand what I mean?

So when you hear you're not listening to me, I don't feel heard, you might often think what is being communicated is you aren't doing what I want you to do and you might be perfectly justified, brothers and sisters, in suspecting that because there are many times where you patiently listen to the concerns that others bring to you and you've listened to them so patiently that you can communicate back to the person bringing those concerns what they are saying in a way that they might recognize.

I mean so there's plenty of times where you listen to the concern and you present them, this is what I hear you to be saying, is that true? And then they recognize it as true and yet puzzlingly they still don't seem to feel heard and you might respond to that by saying something along the lines of what I just said, it seems like I'm heard what you said, I've listened to what you said, I just don't agree and I'm not taking the solution that you want me to take.

So it seems like what you mean when you say you don't feel heard or you don't feel listened to, it seems to be that what you mean is something along the lines of you aren't doing what I want you to do.

And I will note that if you ever try to take that tactic, it's very, it'll be a very rare occasion where someone comes back to you and says, oh yeah, that's right, that's exactly what I'm trying to communicate, that's not really what happens in most instances.

In fact, they'll probably double down on the accusation that you aren't listening to me and I don't feel heard. Now due to our current cultural understanding of things, this is a very natural situation that can play out in a wide variety of ways and this doesn't simply reduce to just differences in male-female dynamics.

Today, because we have embraced moral relativism, we believe that truth is relative and I know that if you were to talk to a group of Christians like ours in church like ours, we wouldn't think that we could be influenced by moral relativism to the degree to which we are, but you might be surprised to the degree that when you live in a culture and society that is so hostile to the notion of objective truth, it can rub off the standards of communication that are embraced by a society that has rejected the idea that absolute truth actually exists, they can rub off on you in a wide variety of ways.

So the job of the listener today is not simply to listen to understand. The job of the listener today is not simply to comprehend what's being communicated and sympathize with it and then be able to evaluate it objectively and either agree with it or disagree with it.

Those are no longer the rules of communication that we're operating today. The job today is to listen in order to empathize with the concern and validate the concern. So if someone brings you a concern, today you're supposed to listen to that concern and then you're supposed to validate that concern and you're supposed to affirm it as if it's their truth.

Now as Christians we're obviously not going to say, hey, your truth is valid for you, but that is the expectation that is supposed to be taken in any kind of encounter when someone does bring a concern to you.

So considering that's the case, it's very difficult to imagine a scenario where someone brings a concern to you to where if you consider the rules that you're expected, you're supposed to validate that concern, you're supposed to listen to that concern and for them to feel heard, it's not even about them being heard, it's about them feeling heard.

For them to be able to feel heard, you have to validate that concern, you have to empathize with it, meaning step into their world and almost feel it with them. So if you're supposed to step into their feelings, embrace their feelings as your own, validate their feelings as being true, then the natural corollary of all that is that you have done the job of listening and the job of listening means, well, I mean, if you agree with what I, if you validated my concern, if you felt what I feel in this moment, then why wouldn't you take the appropriate action that I want you to take, right?

So it might not be that anyone who's saying, hey, I don't feel heard, I don't feel like you're listening to me is in their own mind demanding that you do what they say, but it really seems to be an inescapable conclusion if you do the work of listening as it's defined by a society that is held captive to the notion of moral relativism, it might be that this really does follow, like if you really do, if you really heard me, you would see that what I'm saying and what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling is right and you need to validate it, you need to affirm it as being true and then you need to, in a corresponding way, take the same kind of actions that I would take because, I mean, obviously, if you love me, right, if you love me, if you care about me, if you want my good and you can see that my concern is valid, why wouldn't you do, take the necessary steps in order to address my concern?

Do you understand what I mean? So that's the situation today. All this points us to the reality that what it means to listen to another person is not necessarily intuitively obvious to us. It's not necessarily intuitively obvious to us in the society we live in today what we're actually saying when we want people to listen to us.

And then in our passage here today, we see that this passage itself is an example of Adam listening to the voice of his wife and it may not even be intuitively obvious to us what is meant there and what are the parameters of listening that are expected for us and how to navigate many of the situations that we find ourselves in today.

And so as we read this passage today, we would do well to reflect on the nature of listening and the nature of the words that are being used in this passage today and think about the truths that God has for us to consider, in particular the truth that Adam doomed the world by listening to his wife.

Adam Listened to the Voice of His Wife as Obedience Rather Than Mere Hearing

Now biblically speaking, when you read Genesis 3 .17, it says this, and the reason why we're spending some time on this today is because we want to understand what it means when Genesis 3 .17, when God's issuing his condemnation of Adam, we want to understand what God meant, why did he include this as an essential feature of why the whole entire human race was led into sin.

We already know the order of events that happen. We already know that God created man to be woman's leader. We already know that woman came to man and presented him with fruit to eat. We already understand that she was deceived by the serpent in presenting him this fruit.

To eat.

We understand that he wasn't deceived when she presented him this offer to sin. He went forward with it with full knowledge, not being deceived at all. We already understand all of these things, but God in Genesis 3 .17, he mentions this as a feature of why the human race has been cast into sin and we should do well to consider.

It.

So Genesis 3 .17, and to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree which I have commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Now listen to the voice of, in this passage, it's a euphemism, it's a euphemism, and it's a euphemism for obey, that's what it means.

So Adam doomed the world by listening to his wife. What I'm trying to suggest is this is a euphemism for Adam doomed the world by obeying his wife. So as we are going to govern our time here today, it would be helpful to govern our time by asking a simple question, and then we are going to talk about different senses in which we are going to give answers to this question, but the question we are going to ask is the question, should husbands ever listen to their wives?

Now I know that when we ask a question like that, the obvious answer is yes, husbands should obviously listen to their wives, but then there is also correspondingly true that in this passage we see an example of husbands are being told not to listen to their wives.

And you are obviously living in a society right now that doesn't seem to have much of any category for that at all, and to the extent to which we do have a category for that, it's almost a hypothetical category that should basically never exist.

So you are living in a society right now, you are living in a world right now where in response to some abuses in the past that we could probably acknowledge as having some correspondence to reality, but might slightly be overstated at times, you are living in a world right now that really is trying to react against the male leadership which was basically characteristic of generations past.

So you are living in a society that is trying to react to those abuses by trying to correct the balance. So right now you are living in a world that really doesn't have much of any concept of male leadership, you are living in a world right now that is dead set on trying to destroy the patriarchy, to smash the patriarchy.

You see this in every movie that you watch, you see this in every TV show that you watch, every book you are going to read, you are relentlessly being bombarded with messages which essentially present woman as omni-competent and man as a hopeless buffoon.

That's the storyline of basically every TV show that you are going to watch, every movie that you are going to watch. The guy is basically a hopeless buffoon, the woman is basically omni-competent, she is capable of not only doing man's job for him but also doing her own job which she doesn't recognize as her job, but she is strong in both areas.

She is seen in the language of our world as basically having a woman's intuition which is almost infallible, which you should in every single case consult and pay heed to. So man is basically considered as offering nothing to marital equations at all.

I promise you there is no bitterness that is coming out of my heart which is pointing out these basic observations. It's just that I have eyes, I watch TV and I understand what is being communicated. I understand that man is being communicated in almost every single TV show as the buffoon.

I remember growing up and you would have the notion of the TV dad in the shows that you.

Watch.

There is the concept of the TV dad who had a job of leading his family and during the TV shows there might be not every episode but on some of the episodes he would give his moral lesson to the family that was supposed to communicate his authority and his leadership.

Over the home.

That thing is gone now. That kind of perspective is gone. You don't have the TV dad anymore. You basically have the omni-competent mom and the guy who just kind of messes everything up and is along for the ride who is basically there to be corrected by his wife at every single point.

So the point here is to say you are living in a society that is hostile to the notion that there is ever a situation where a man shouldn't listen to his wife and as Christians I think most of our impulses are basically to tone that down as if marriage is not two sinners living together who are both in their own ways going to entice each other to sin.

So as we are considering this question should husbands ever listen to their wives, well you need to have in your mind a category that our first human parents fell into sin because there was a role reversal that happened and because Adam inappropriately listened to his wife.

So we need to have a real category for how that can happen and what that means and what are the parameters of that and what are the conditions of that. So how should a husband listen to his wife? I mean that is a real question that you really need to answer and I would suggest that a lot of the answers that we give on this topic are not as thoughtful perhaps as what they should be at times and our instincts kind of default to the world that we are living in without realizing it so that in the world that you are living in there is an expectation that any time a woman says something for any reason you must take heed of it and follow it unless it is just absolutely and overwhelmingly obvious that like in the extreme situations obviously if your wife wants to abort the baby you do not listen to them and those kind of situations but I think in every day to day affairs we basically default to yeah if she says something you need to pay attention to it, you need to listen to it, you need to take it seriously, you need to heed it almost without thinking and that is kind of a reflective attitude and I would suggest that that does not really, if that is our attitude we are not really paying attention to our basic principles of anthropology at that point and we need to have a little more thought with these kind of topics.

But the question as I said the question we are going to try to consider is the question should husbands ever listen to their wife and I want to give a variety of answers. So first, they obviously should not listen to their wives i .e. like in other words listen what does listen to their wife mean they should not listen to their wives i .e. obey their wives instead of God and that is the primary thing that the passage is talking about here today and to Adam he said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree which I have commanded you, you shall not eat of it there is going to be some great consequences not only for you but for the whole human race that come from.

That.

Husbands should obviously, they obviously should not listen to their wives i .e. obey their wives instead of God and this passage is a clear example of it. In the coming weeks we are going to spend about three weeks Lord willing going through some of the entailments for what happened as a result of this, what happened as a result of Adam being the first man who failed at his basic duty of being a man, his basic duty of leading his family in accordance with the commands that God had given them.

We are going to spend some time talking about the entailments of that for the rest of the world and for themselves but I mean at the outset we have to realize that this actually is a real problem. This actually is a real problem and as a result of what we learned about last week we realize that due to the nature of the way the fall works women are going to be tempted to insert their will above God's will in a wide variety of situations in the Bible.

As I said that is not a unique temptation to women, men also have a temptation to insert their will above God's will. It goes both ways but you just have to acknowledge it is a reality that goes both ways.

Listening to Your Wife as Hearing, Understanding, and Accepting Requests

So when you consider this passage a husband obviously shouldn't listen to his wife, i .e. obey their wives instead of God. Whatever God says goes. I mean this passage establishes the authority of God above his creation.

So God's authority above his creation is absolute. Because God made man and woman, as we've learned in the opening chapters of the Bible, man and woman don't belong to themselves in the primary sense, they belong to God.

What God says goes. He is the creator. He is Lord. You live in a Christian world today that talks about making God Lord of their life but then you do have to understand that we don't make God Lord of our life, He is our Lord regardless of whether or not we want to recognize it.

What He says goes. His authority is absolute. He is the potter. We are the clay. If He gives us a command He expects us to follow it and when we do not follow it we can't look and turn to Him and say, hey I didn't follow it because this creature made a claim above me that supersedes your claims.

That isn't the way it works. God's authority is absolute. So there are situations that many men will find themselves in where a man will be forced to pick between God's commands and the will of their wife.

That's a real situation. That's a situation that can happen. This is a situation that happened to our first parents. It's a situation that honestly is very common to life. It's a common situation. There's been plenty of men throughout history who have looked at the scriptures and thought this is what God wants them to do.

Not just in like clear black and white sin issues but then in the basic issues of wisdom and how to lead a family and what priorities to establish within a home. There have been plenty of situations where you have husbands who think to themselves God has commanded us to do certain things or God has revealed in His word that it would be wise to do certain things.

And then they are forced to pick between God's pleasure and the happiness of their wife. I mean I've had many, I have many friends over the years who have invested significant portions of my life investing in who personally had convictions that in order to honor the Lord their family needed to do, have family worship.

In order to honor the Lord we need to go to church here instead of going to church here like to the other place. I've known many guys who have gone into ministry because I did go to seminary. I've known many guys who have gone into ministry and the whole time they seem to be dragging an unwilling wife behind them trying to pursue the things of the Lord when they have an unhappy situation that's happening at home which is a distraction to them.

I've known plenty of personal friends who have gone to very bad churches because their wives wouldn't be happy going to good churches. It's a real thing. So I'm not suggesting and if you hear me to be suggesting that a guy's perspective is always right and always governed by scripture and a woman's perspective is always wrong and not governed by scripture, I'm not saying that at all, I'm just saying that there are plenty of situations that we should be able to realize where men are trying to lead and because I have a little bit of a public platform I hear about it all the time and they'll tell me about the ways in which they're trying to lead and the ways in which their wives are trying to fight them and prioritize their own perspective.

These are things that happen and you see these things happening in the scriptures in a wide variety of ways. Like Eve prioritized the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life over and against God's commands and because man is oriented towards the happiness of his wife in certain ways, he wants a happy home, he wants a peaceful home, he wants, he may not, he may not be as wise enough to know how to get it but certainly most men are probably peacekeepers as it relates to the happiness of the home in their current life right now but the point here is just to say Adam, he knew what God said.

There's a claim being made of authority for his wife, he gave in to that and this is a story that's happened in the Bible in a wide variety of ways. I mean you can think about the situation with Sarai and Abram where in Genesis 16 -2 she says, Behold now the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, go to my servant that it may, that I may obtain children by her and the same phrase is used here, it says and Abram listened to the voice of Sarah, that's the same phrase that you see here where God is saying because you've listened to the voice of your wife, not every idea that your wife has is going to be good, that we have to acknowledge, not every idea that she has is going to be good.

First Kings 21 -25, there was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab whom Jezebel, his wife incited. So these are real problems, brothers and sisters, these are real problems in the human race has been remarkably affected by these things.

Think about how Adam and Eve, their actions, the actions of Adam in particular of abdicating his headship, giving away authority over the leading of his home to his wife in this instance. Think about how it's remarkably affected all of us in the world that we lived in and the quality of their life, the quality of our life, these certainly had major ramifications.

You think about the situation with Sarai and Abram where she's telling him to go into his maidservant to obtain children by her. Think about the disastrous consequences that came from that. Think about the disastrous consequences that came from Hagar now despising Sarai, looking upon her with contempt and scorn, division and pain within the family.

All these things are not good. Think about all the disastrous consequences that came from Ahab listening to Jezebel. This is a real problem. So should husbands ever listen to their wives? Well first, they obviously shouldn't listen to their wives, i .e. obey their wives instead of God.

Second, they obviously shouldn't listen to their wives, i .e. obey their wives, i .e. place themselves under their authority and obedience to their commands. Do you understand what I mean? So if listening to the voice of your wife is a euphemism for obey, well a husband shouldn't listen to his wife, meaning obey her as if she is the one in authority over him and he's the one who's not in authority over her.

So in other words, what I'm trying to suggest is it's not just that Adam shouldn't obey Eve when she asked him to sin, it's just that obey is an inappropriate word to describe the nature of how a husband should respond to his wife.

Do you understand what I mean?

Period. Period.

Okay?

So biblically speaking, there are authority structures that God has ordained and established. And the way it works biblically speaking is that commands go down the authority ladder, requests go up the authority ladder.

Do you understand what I mean? There was a time at one of our children, I can't remember who it was and that's probably good, but it was one of the boys, but they were asking Elizabeth for milk and as a parent when you have multiple children, like a little bird squawking at you from multiple angles while you're trying to do things, there are times where you hear what they're saying and your brain is in a completely other place, like somewhere else, and you're staring at them with like a bovine expression on your face to where you understand they communicated with them, but your brain hasn't kind of kicked in or whatever.

But one of our children were asking her for some milk. And I often do this with my kids to where they ask me something and I look at them and I was doing something else and they're staring at me like, what's wrong with you, can you.

Respond?

But one of our kids was doing this and they were young, I mean they were pretty young at that point, saying, hey, can I have some milk? And after multiple attempts, they just kind of got exasperated and they said, get the.

Milk.

Mom, get the milk. Now this is obviously inappropriate for a child to talk to their mother in that kind of way. You may understand on a human level that that makes a kind of sense to a person living in.

A fallen world.

But the problem is just to say that in authority relationships in the Bible, commands go down the authority ladder, requests go up. And this is a consistent pattern in every authority relationship. So Luke 7, 8 says this, the centurion is looking at Jesus and the context is he's asking him to heal his servant and Jesus is basically saying, hey, I can come to you to go heal.

Him.

And he's looking at Jesus and saying, hey, you don't have to, you don't have to come. All you have to do is just say the word and he'll be healed. I understand this how, well, Luke 7, 8 says, for I too am a man set under authority with soldiers under me, and I say to one, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes, and to my servant, do this, and he does it.

So that's, the reason why I'm bringing this up is just to establish that in every authority relationship, he's saying, I am a man under authority. I know how authority works. How does authority work? Well, the person who is in authority over the other person, he exercises that authority by saying to one, come, and he comes, to the other, go, and he goes.

This is why, as you read through the Bible, you'll see in every authority relationship you find yourself in, in Ephesians, they all work the same way. So wives are told to be subject to their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling.

Him Lord.

Being subject to someone means placing yourself under their authority. The word there, hupotessa menai, means to subject yourself, to obey. That's what it means. As Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.

Being a leader involves exercising authority, and the way that you exercise authority is you tell people to do certain things. And certainly you can tell people to do things in a commanding, self-centered way, or you can tell them to do something in a sacrificial, other-centered way that is, has set itself towards God's glory and for our good, but the point here is just to say, whenever you exercise authority, you give instructions.

When a husband asks his wife to do something, she should understand that to be a command that she's supposed to follow. It's not a request that's optional for her, right, that she can take or leave. It's not really the way it works.

When a husband is in the legitimate authority over his wife, when he says, hey, can you do this, she should understand that to be a command. Children are told to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right.

When parents ask their children to do something, give them instructions to do, a child should treat that as if, not as if it's just a suggestion, hey, can you clean your room, right? I may phrase that in the form of a question, but if I were to say that to one of my sons, they should interpret that to mean not, do I want to clean my room, but as a command from me and therefore a command from God that they need to go clean their room right now.

The same thing is true of servants. Servants are supposed to obey their earthly masters with fear and trembling. What I'm trying to suggest is that commands always go down the authority ladder. No matter how they're phrased, they should be treated as commands.

Requests go up, so Luke 17, seven, well, any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him, when he's come in from the field, come at once and recline at table. Will you not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while eat and drink afterwards, you will eat and drink.

Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded, so you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants, we have only done what was our duty. Jesus, his own example related to these things is to say in John 15, 14, you are my friends if I do, if you do what I command you to do.

Over and over and over again, Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. You say that I am your master and Lord and you're right, for so I am. When we come to Christ, we come to him acknowledging he is Lord and that means he's an authority over us and that means he gets to call the shots and whatever he says goes.

His authority is absolute over us in a way that a husband's authority over his wife is not absolute, a husband's authority over his children is not absolute, there are limits.

To it.

A master's authority over his servants is not absolute, government's authority over citizens is not absolute, God's authority is absolute, Christ's authority over us is absolute in that way, whatever he says goes and it's right for him because he's an authority over us to give us commands and it would be wrong for us to approach God in prayer in such a way as to essentially say, get the milk, exclamation point, right?

When we come to God, we come to him not making demands of him, but making requests. So Esther 5 .4, there's an example of Esther coming to the king who is her husband making a request and Esther says, if it please the king, let the king and Haman come today to a feast that I prepared for the king.

Esther 7 .3, the queen answered him, if I found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish and my people for my request. Commands go down the authority ladder, requests go up the authority ladder, point is to say, should a husband ever listen to his wife?

They obviously shouldn't listen to their wife, i .e. obey them. They obviously obey them instead of God. They obviously shouldn't listen to their wives, meaning place themselves under their authority and yield to their commands.

I mean, there's a very limited sense in which they should in relation to conjugal rights, but that being aside, putting that caveat aside, a husband is a legitimate authority over his wife. He should not be obeying her will in that kind of way.

She's perfectly within her rights to make requests of him that should be treated as requests. So, there's that. So, should a husband ever listen to his wife? Well, they obviously shouldn't listen to them, meaning obey instead of God.

They obviously shouldn't listen to their wives, meaning obey their wives, meaning place themselves under their authority. But they certainly should listen to their wives, i .e. appropriately hear what their wives' concerns are in order to understand.

Listening to Your Wife as Understanding and Accepting Her Requests

So, here's the point. God is omniscient and we are not. God doesn't learn anything from us. God's understanding of us is perfect, is complete. His understanding of us is perfect and complete before the foundation of the world.

He doesn't really need to do any work whatsoever to understand us. Sometimes parents will say to their kids, you know, I understand you better than what.

You do.

And I would say that as kids get a little bit older, that card seems to lose a bit of its effectiveness. I mean, there's a sense in which some of that might be true, but also a certain sense in which they may not have enough information to know really what's going on with you.

But the point here is just to say that as it relates to God, God's omniscient. He knows all. He doesn't learn anything from you. He doesn't need any new information from you. He understands your situation perfectly.

He understands when you're making excuses for things that you shouldn't be making excuses.

For.

He's able to read the entirety of your messy situation and all the variables that go into that messy situation. He's able to read the entirety of that situation, perfectly divvy out all the rights and the wrongs and execute perfect justice with your situation.

Everything He does for you, because He's a good Heavenly Father who delights to give His children good gifts, everything that God does for you is done for His glory and for our good. There is no sense at all in which we can give Him information that He doesn't have in order to help Him to better govern our lives.

His governance of our lives is absolutely perfect. It's absolutely based on perfect understanding that is flawless. He doesn't need to ask questions of us. In fact, I mean, with Jesus when He was living here on the earth, we see over and over again Jesus, particularly in the Gospel of John, claiming that He didn't need man to testify about Himself because He knew what was in man and knew what they were capable of.