Calling out Men to be Lead in Churches and homes Biblical Headship

Somebody's got some business back in nineteen fifty three. Father, we are humbled to be reminded of the debt that we owe and the price that was paid on our behalf by your sinless, spotless, perfect son, who gave his life as a ransom for many. We are humbled and overwhelmed. We are grateful, but we are also reminded that we are just like the people about whom we read today in Revelation chapter nine. You could send a plague that would kill a third of all humanity, and for many of us we still would not repent. We love our sin, and our allegiance is often to our sin. Would you break that in us by your grace and cleanse us of it by the power of your blood. We pray these things because it is our only hope, and we ask it in the strong name of Jesus, who is the Christ. Amen. Amen. Isn't it interesting as we commit to reading systematically through the scriptures, our Old Testament readings and our New Testament readings. As we read through them systematically, oftentimes we come to a day like today, where, on the one hand, last week we read in Exodus fourteen what God did in the midst of the Red Sea. This week we read about the celebration of what God did in the midst of the Red Sea, then three days later that grumbling and complaining, and then we read in Revelation nine about God's judgment. Again we see that consistent picture of the God who judges sin, just as we commit to reading systematically through the New Testament, through the Old Testament, and again as we commit to preaching systematically through the scriptures, and now find ourselves still in the beginning of this journey through Genesis chapters one through eleven, looking at it from an apologetic perspective. And by that again, we don't mean that we are apologizing for anything amen, But apologetics comes from one Peter. Chapter three. Again, Peter says that we're always to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us. And that word there, reasoned response or answer, is the Greek word apologia, and it's from that word that we get our word apologetics. In Genesis one through eleven deals with frontline issues in our culture today. We've looked at the origin and the nature of man. We've looked at man and his relationship to the earth, and dealing with these issues of radical environmentalism. Now we are looking at the issue of man and his relationship to woman, and this picture of marriage and God's design for men and for women and for marriage, and we are once again on the front lines. This is a battlefield in our culture. Marriage has fallen into disarray and has fallen out of favor in our culture. Listen to this from Alesis Detaukville in eighteen fifty one. He said, there is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America. Over a conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated. No country in the world, he says, they're in eighteen fifty one. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Amen, we don't look at marriage that way anymore. Just sixty nine years later, in nineteen twenty, listen to these words from Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. She says, only in recent years has woman's position as the gentler and weaker half of the human family been emphatically and generally question Men assumed that this was woman's place. Woman herself accepted it. It seldom occurred to anyone to ask whether she would go on occupying it forever, accepting her role as the quote weaker and gentler half. She accepted that function. In turn, the acceptance of that function fixed the more firmly her rank as an inferior. Caught in this vicious circle, woman has, through her reproductive ability, found it and perpetuated the tyrannies of the earth. Whether it was the tyranny of monarchy, an allergy oligarchy, or a republic, the one indispensable factor of its existence was, as it is now, hordes of human beings, human beings so plentiful as to be cheap, and so cheap that ignorance was their natural lot. Upon the rock of an unenlightened, submissive maternity have these been founded, And upon the product of such a maternity have they been flourishing. In other words, according to Margaret Sanger, the founder of planned parenthood, the root and the cause of all of the tyrannies of the earth, as women accepting the role of the weaker sex, of women going along gleefully with this concept of reproduction, and because of women gleefully participating in this hideous prospect of bringing forth hordes of human beings, all of the tyrannies of the world have been perpetuated just sixty nine years after Detoxhel made his comments about marriage in this culture. We live in a time, we live in a day. We live in a culture where marriage is under attack, more specifically, where male headship in marriage is under attacked. We hear it all the time, do we not? But why is this so important? And what about the church? Listen to this from Daniel Doriani and Biblical foundations for manhood and womanhood the book that we have in the back, by the way he says. For over eighteen centuries, the church was confident that it understood Biblical texts central to the Christian concept of marriage and gender relations. The churches, leading pastors, theologians, and exegues, held that Ephesians five, for example, taught mutuality and service within the structure given by the leadership of a husband and father. The church judge Ephesians five and other pasts such as Genesis two where we are today and First Timothy two, which will allude to today difficult to perform perhaps, but not difficult to understand. For eighteenth centuries, the church didn't consider Genesis two or Ephesians five, or First Timothy two or First Trinthians Chapter eleven, for that matter, difficult to understand, difficult to perform perhaps, but not at all difficult to understand. They're straightforward. They teach male headship and marriage. However, a handful of Christians began to question this consensus in the eighteen hundreds, but the onslaught began with the onset of feminism a few decades ago. As it often does, the Church started to echo a new cultural movement by adopting the questions and sensibilities of feminism. About a decade after its arrival. Theologians then began and to read teachings about submission and leadership in new ways. Not surprisingly, feminist interpretations of Ephesians five started to appear in commentaries around nineteen seventy. As most of our lifetimes, this shift has occurred. This monumental shift in our understanding of the Biblical roles of men and women has occurred in the lifetime of most of us here in this room, as it relates to the Church and the way that the Church views these issues. Now many of us look out and we're aghast as we see, for example, churches performing homosexual marriages, Churches like the Episcopalian church appointing homosexual bishops just a few years ago, and again aghast at this. But I want you to understand something. Don't miss this point. There was a very short leap from this occurrence in nineteen seventy questioning what the scriptures have to say about marriage and the roles of men and women in marriage to where we find ourselves now, where we're questioning where the marriage is between a man and a woman. It's a very short leap, it's a slippery slope. When you give up on the basic fundamental principles found in the text, you have made an exegetical choice. And by that I mean we've made a choice in the way we interpret the scriptures. And if I make a choice in the way that I interpret the scriptures based upon trends that I see in the culture, then all of a sudden, all of the implications of my interpretation will eventually be played out in every aspect of life. And that is where we are today, because if male headship isn't what we clearly see in the text, then we've employed a new hermaeutic, and based on that new hermeneutic or art and science of interpretation, the next thing to fall is male headship in the church that fell so long ago that now most of us don't even cringe when we see female pastors. We just assume that it's appropriate for women to service pastors in churches, or teachers of men in Sunday school classes, or leaders in their home because their husbands are weak or impotent or absent. We just assume that it's okay for men to be dominated by their wives. Why because once we give up on the foundational fundamental principle, where will we stop? Some of what we talk about this morning may be uncomfortable to us, and those of you who know me know that that worries me greatly. But join me if you will in Genesis chapter two, beginning of verse eighteen, and let's see what the book has to say. As you open your bibles to Genesis two eighteen, listen to this. From Recovering Biblical manhad in Womanhood, John Piper and Winning Grudom write this about the importance of this battleground. In particular, we are concerned not merely with the behavioral roles of men and women, but also with the underlying nature of manhood and womanhood themselves. Biblical truth and clarity in this matter are important because error and confusion over sexual identity leads to these four things. Number One, marriage patterns that do not portray the relationship between Christ and the Church. Why is this important? Why is it important for us to get the roles of men and women right? Because according to Ephesians, chapter five, the marriage relationship is a living, breathing example of the relationship between Christ and his church. And if we are wrong about the roles of men and women in marriage, we are painting a defective picture of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church he died to redeem. Two parenting practices that do not train boys to be masculine and girls to be feminine. That's the second problem. If we don't address this issue, we adopt parenting practices that do not train our boys to be masculine and our girls to be feminine, That do not look at our boys and occasionally say to them, butch up, Sally, you're acting like a girl. Three homosexual tendencies and increasing attempts to justify homosexual alliances. Don't you think for a moment that homosexuality is somehow organic and doesn't touch on this issue of the way we view the roles of men and women. Hear me when I say this, there is absolutely no scientific evidence linking homosexuality to any gene. Four patterns of unbiblical female leadership in the church that reflect and promote the confusion over the true meaning of manhood and women hood. There are biblical roles that men and women are to play in their homes, and there are biblical roles that men and women are to play in this and when we confuse these roles, we pay a price in every area of life. That's why this is important. Genesis chapter two, beginning of verse eighteen, so one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible. I love this. Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. That's just one of my favorite statements in the whole Bible. I just have this picture of God looking at Adam saying, Adam, woin'g gonna make it. You know, we gotta help him. And that's exactly what comes next. I will make him a helper fit for him. He ain't gonna make it. I gotta help him. Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. This almost seems to not fit. There's a statement here Adams by himself, he's alone. I need to make him a helper fit for him, a helper suitable for him. Or if you guys are familiar with the King James version of this, a help meet, a helper meet, which meat means suitable. Okay, by the way, if you're going to talk about it in the King James vernacular, it's not help mate, it's helped meet. Amen. Okay, not that anybody understands either one of those anymore, but that's okay if you're going to use them. It's helped meet, not help make. But it's a suitable helper for him. That's what we're after here. And then all of a sudden we're naming the animals seemingly inconsequential as it relates to Adam finding a suitable helper, because that's not the kind of help he needs. Amen. But is Adam aware of the kind of help he needs? Not at all? How could he have been aware of the kind of help he needs. He would have had no reference point, none whatsoever. I mean, that's like expecting someone in the seventeen hundreds to wake up one morning and say I wish I had a microwave. They would have had no reference point. However, you because you've experienced microwaves. If you were to wake up in a home where there was not a microwave, you would wake up one day and say I wish I had a microwave. Why, because you have a reference point. Adam, however, had no reference point. He has no idea what he needs. But now God's got him name. In animals, it was a gorillas. He gorilla, and is she gorilla? It's the elephant right there, He elephant and a she elephant. That's tiger right there, He tiger and the she tiger. What's wrong Adam? God? Everybody got somebody, and I don't like none of them. Verse twenty. The man gave names to all the live stock, to all the birds, to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him altogether. Oh yeah, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. Ever won a way he did that. Two basic reasons. One so he wouldn't take credit, you know how we do. And two so he wouldn't mess it up, because you know how we do. All right. While he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rear that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, this is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed. So we see here in this picture God bringing marriage into being. And marriage, of course, was God's idea, It was not man's idea. This is the beauty of it. Man didn't come up with marriage. Man didn't invent marriage. Because man didn't come up with marriage. And because man didn't invent marriage, man doesn't get to reinvent marriage. God gave us marriage, so he gets to define what it is, what it's supposed to be. Listen to this from John Calvin commenting on this passage Moses now relates that marriage was divinely instituted, which is especially useful to be known for since Adam did not take a wife to himself at his own will, but received her as offered and appropriated to him by God. The sanctity of marriage, hence more clearly appears because we recognize God as its author. He goes on. The more Satan has endeavored to dishonor marriage, the more should we vindicated from all reproach and abuse, that it may receive its due reverence. I love that the more Satan attempts to redefine and misdefined marriage, the more we fight to define it the way God defined it and to show it its due reverence. We do not have a reverend attitude toward marriage and our culture. We don't We see marriage as something to be avoided at all costs in our culture. We do not see marriage as something to be embraced in our culture. You and I both have run into parents who have wept bitterly because their children had determined to get married earlier than they thought it was appropriate. We do not view marriage the way God intended marriage to be viewed. We do not cherish marriage the way God intended for marriage to be cherished, and because of that, we are not preparing our sons and our daughters for marriage. And here's our rationale. Hi. Rationale goes something like this, Well, you know, there's plenty of time for that, and perhaps God would call them to be single, and so we don't want to force them into thinking about marriage prematurely. Really, I would argue that every little boy and every little girl ought to be prepared to be a husband and father and mother and wife as early as possible. Why I'm glad you asked. If I train my sons to be husbands and fathers, and I train my daughters to be wives and mothers, but God gives them a supernatural gift. And by the way, that's the way singleness is defined in the scriptures in first print each chapter seven. In Matthew chapter nineteen, it's a supernatural gift from God for a person to be able to live a life of singleness. So if I train my sons to be husbands and fathers, and my wife and my daughters to be wives and mothers, but then God gives them this supernatural gift that will allow them to live a life of singleness, they have lost nothing because ultimately I'm preparing them for the relationship that epitomizes the relationship between Christ and his church. So they've lost nothing if I've prepared them for that. However, if I do not prepare my sons to be husbands and fathers, and I do not prepare my daughters to be wives and mothers and God sends them a spouse, I've lost everything. And that's where most people are. They spend their entire lives being raised in homes that don't prepare them to be husbands and fathers and mothers and wives. Then they want to come to me for four weeks of counseling before they get married the case say amen, you ought to say ouch, and we are supposed to just magically do in those four weeks what they should have been prepared for for their entire lives in their homes. Instead, we've raised our children to believe that it's somehow more spiritual to go and pursue life as a single So that now here's how we're raising our young men. This is basically the attitude that we're giving young men in our culture, the attitude that says, one day you'll walk up to a young woman, and you'll say this essentially, I have sucked all of the joy out of life. Now I'm ready to marry you and die. Oh that's not what we're teaching our sons. Yes, it is, because we're telling them have your fun now, see the world, now, serve the Lord. Now, enjoy your freedom now. And after you've sucked all of the joy and freedom out of life, then settle for a wife. God help us. But that's our attitude and our culture instead of them from the time that they're small, that there's nothing more glorious than this relationship that God has given for men and women called marriage, and that they should become prepared for it as soon as possible and as thoroughly as possible. Amen. God defines marriage. God also gives us this picture of male headship and marriage. And I make no apologies for that. And at this church, we make no apologies for that. If you've been around here for a while, or if you hang around here for a while, one of the things that you'll notice is we don't do what most churches do, which is basically say to fathers, you can bring your kids here and your wife here and drop them off and We'll take care of the responsibility that God has given you. No, that is not what we do here at this church. We look men square in the eye and we say I double dog dare you to be the priest, prophet, provider and protector in your home. And we're not going to provide anything to do it for you. We will train you, we will equip you, we will hold you accountable. But it's your job and we are not going to aid you and slacken off. We do not believe that mail headship is about being a domineering man. We do not believe that mail headship is about being an abusive man, although that is the picture that is often painted in our culture. For example, in January of nineteen ninety three, newspapers of the television networks reported and alarming founding. What's that alarming founding that the incidents of domestic battery tended to rise by forty percent on Super Bowl Sunday. You ever heard the statistic that the incident of the battery of wives increases by forty percent on Super Bowl Sunday. So NBC, that was the network holding the Super Bowl in nineteen ninety three, even had promos before the game, trying to urge men not to get so engaged and involved emotionally in the gang that they would batter their wives. Small problem. No studies shows that Super Bowl Sunday is in any way different from any other day in the amount of domestic violence. And though Can Wringle, a reporter from the Washington Post, exposed this rumor as a lie, it had done its work. Millions of American women who heard about it are completely unaware that it is not true. What they do know is that American males, especially the sports fans among them, are a dangerous and violent species. You would be amazed at how many of the statistics that you think you know about male violence against women were completely made up out of whole cloth. There's a book you need to be aware of. It's called Who Stole Feminism? By Christina hoff Summer. It's got a whole section on these myths that are being perpetuated even in our universities today. Is that to say that there is no male violence against women, know absolutely not. There is, and it is horrendous when it happens. But you need to know something. Many of these so called statistics are designed to scream very loudly that marriage in and of itself is abusive to women, that all men everywhere, especially those who believe in male headship, are abusive to women. What they won't tell you is that the happiest women in America are those who are in long term, committed monogamous marriages. They won't tell you that that scientific finding by the Journal of the American Medical Association. They just sort of leave that one out. But the picture we want to pain is that marriage is somehow drudgery for women. Let me say this first of all, I do believe wholeheartedly that the Bible clearly teaches male headship. There can be no argument but that the Bible clearly teaches male headship. I also believe wholeheartedly that because we don't understand biblical manhood and womanhood, we oftentimes don't understand what male headship is. We have this picture me mind, you woman, me speak you do. If you're yelling at your wife, you are not exemplifying biblical male headship. If you're stomping your foot and gritting your teeth, and if you see it, I'm the head of this house. Listen, anybody who's got to tell people that they're ahead of something. They're not General Petraeus the head of all of our troops over in a rat. Trust me, he's not out there going. I'm the commander. Leaders never have to tell people that they're the leader. Man, if you're having to tell your wife that you're the head of your house, it's because you're not. It's because you are not conducting yourself in such a way that she knows who you are because of the character that you exemplify. Male headshift is not about lording it over those whom we lead. Male headship is about being so christ Like that it is evident to everyone around us that we are the head of our home. Male headship is about being the spiritual priest, the spiritual prophet, the physical provider, and the physical and spiritual protector of our households. That's what male headship is. Male headship is laying down you a life for your wife. That's what male headship is. If she's afraid of you, you are not operating under biblical male headship. And if you are not mentoring and discipling your wife, you are not operating under biblical male headship. It is your responsibility. According to Ephesian Chapter five, to wash her with the water of the word. Are you washing your wife in the word? Sir? Then don't you dare pound your chest and say that you're the head of anything. Are you bathing your wife in prayer? Sir? Then don't you dare say that you are her head. From a biblical perspective, male headship is not about dominating women. It is about realizing that they are weaker vessels with whom we have been entrusted and for whom we are called to lay down our lives literally if necessary. That is male headship, and I will not apologize for that. That's what we're called to operate in. Man, is your wife begging you to make decisions in your home? It always amazes me. On the one hand, we want to stomp our foot and beat our chest and say I'm the head when she's saying something we don't like. But on the other hand, when the family is at a standstill and at a crossroads, they're desperate for leadership, They're desperate for headship. And the same man will turn around and say, I don't know what do you want to do? Ask any pastor anywhere who's been doing this for a while, what's the number one prayer request that you get from married women, and he will respond to you that my husband would step up and be the spiritual leader of our home. Pastor if you know a prayer that will make that happen, if you listen. I'm there a woman out there who say I love the Lord Jesus with all my heart. But if a voodoo doctor came up to me and said that they had something that would help my husband be the head of my household, I'd be tempted to practice voodoo. Women are desperate for it. Why because feminism has shackled us as men and we're afraid to exercise the role that God has called us to. But I want to show you this picture of male headship. Look with me if you will. Back in our text, the verses eighteen through twenty one. First of all, the woman was made for the man for the man. Don't miss this because we see male headship in this. In verse eighteen, the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. The woman was made for the man. So we see male headship in marriage through the fact that Eve was made for Adam for Adam. Adam was given headship. Adam was given authority, and Eve was brought alongside as his completer for him, so that he could accomplish what it was that God had called him. To Listen to this one Grinth Ends eleven eight and nine. For man was not made from the woman, but woman from the man. Neither was man created for women, but woman for the man. We see male headship even in this fact that Adam was made first, that Adam was given a charge by God, and then Eve was brought along later for Adam so that she would be his completer in his calling from God. So the woman was made for the man. Listen to wayn Grudam. Adam was created first, then Eve quins in Genesis two. We may not think of this as very important today, but it was important to the Biblical readers, and the apostle Paul sees it as important. He bases his argument for different roles in the assembled New Testament Church on the fact that Adam was created prior to Eve. Look with me, if you will, at first Timothy chapter two, open your bibles, see this one, taste this one, touch this one. First Timothy chapter two. Were there to be any confusion about this. Look down with me, beginning of verse twelve. First Timothy, Chapter two, beginning of verse twelve. You got it. I want to wait till everybody gets it, because this is the battleground in our culture, and unfortunately, it's also the battleground in the church. First Timothy, Chapter two, beginning of verse twelve. I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. He's talking about the New Testament assembly here. Now here's what people want to argue. Well, no, no, no, no, no. Paul was just saying that because in Corrinth, you know, these women had a tendency to go off on tangents and all this sort of thing. So he was just saying that, you know, because of what was happening at that particular church at that particular time. Oh really, what's the principle upon which he makes this statement? Look with me at the next verse. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. In other words, he says women are not to teach men and they are not to exercise authority over men, not because of something that was happening in the first century, but because of the principle that Adam was created first then eve. This is a timeless principle. Women are not to teach men, women are not to exercise authority over men. I don't care how it is in the modern American church. It is grossly unbiblical, and it is based on this same principle. The woman was made for the man. Therefore we see this picture of male headship for the man. Secondly, the woman was also made after the man. This is important. Don't let this one just sort of pass you by same principle. The woman's made for the man. The woman was also made after the man. So we see male headship first, and that eve was made for Adam. Secondly, we see male headship and that eve was made after Adam. You would think that it probably would have been you know, easier. I mean, you know, Adam had to give up a rib or a Hebrew perhaps a side. I mean, he gave up some, he gave up a chunk of meat for this woman. Okay, you would think it an easier is you know, you just make the woman first and then just sort of helped the natural birthing process along. But then you would have had the headship of the woman over the man. The fact that the man was made first, the woman was made for the man, and the woman was made from the man. Both of these point to mail headship. Listen to this. It seems clear then that Genesis too intends for us to understand the formation of the woman as both fully like the man in his humanity, while attributing the derivation of her nature to God's formation of her not from common dust of the ground, but specifically from the rib of Adam and so from the man. So in this we also see the equality of the woman. Don't miss that either, the equality of the woman. Notice what God was doing earlier on look with me back again, start again at verse eighteen there in Genesis chapter two, and I want you to see something you probably overlook. The Lord God says, it's not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. So He's gonna make the woman from the man. He makes the woman after the man. Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. What did he form the animals out of the ground? What did he form eves out of Adam? He did not make the woman the same way he made all the other animals. She has unique equality with the man, unlike any of the other creatures. So the woman is not just another animal that man is to oversee and domineer. No, the woman is from the man. She is part of the man. Therefore, she is completely equal to the man. Which is why Adam's first proclamation when he sees her is this is now, or this is at last, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Eshah because she was taken out of is ish. She is what I am. She's made of the same stuff that I'm made of. So there is complete equality between men and women. Now, there is a difference between equality and egality or egalitarianism. Egalitarianism attempts to erase all distinctions between men and women, especially in the roles of men and women. By the way, if you've ever wondered, this is just a little aside here, because we talked about Margaret Sanger and hook her quote earlier. Margaret Sanger swims in two streams the founder of Plant pariodhood. Number one the stream of radical feminism philosophical feminism, and number two, this other stream of eugenics. Eugenics is the idea that we need to stop the lower races from basically having more children so that we can eliminate the lower races. Okay, that's why right now today Plant Parenthood seventy five to eighty five percent of all of plant Parenthood's abortion clinics are in black or Hispanic neighborhoods. Same principle of eugenics. We need to get rid of the lower races as we consider them. That's the mindset of Margaret Sanger, the founder of plant Parenthood, and it's still being carried out today. But there is also this other stream of radical feminism. So radical feminism says, we're seeking egalitarianism, so there is no difference between men and women. What any man can do and any woman can do, and we should not see distinctions between men and women. There's one area, however, where the egalitarian has a problem, and that's the area of childbearing. That's a distinction that you can't get rid of, which is why the abortion movement is tied to the feminist movement. That's why when you make an argument with somebody who's pro abortion and you talk about when life begins, you may as well be speaking Martian. They don't care when life begins. The point is, and here's the phrase that you hear a woman having control over her own body, a woman deciding whether or not she will have children, thereby placing her in a situation where she can have complete egality with men. If she does not want to be a childbearer, she does not have to. That's why people ignore out of hand and almost completely, the scientific arguments against abortion. You can't argue for abortion scientifically. You lose every time, all day, every day, and twice on Sundays. But that's not the argument. The argument is about radical feminism. It's not about life or when life begins. It's about tearing down all lines of disc between men and women. Which is why the homosexual movement and gay marriage is closely aligned to the radical feminist movement. Because if we eliminate all of these distinctions about men and women in marriage, then we reach the ultimate level of egality when we destroy heterosexual marriage. So so don't miss that. So the woman was made from the man. She was made for the man, and she was made after the man. Finally, where's true? More, The woman was brought to the man. The woman was brought to the man. Isn't that interesting? God makes this woman from Adam from his side, and he brings this woman to her. She was brought to the man. This is another position of headship. How do we know somebody's the head I mean, for example, you know, you know if the president were to call you, would you tell him I'm a little bit busy. Want you come over here? No, you just kind of go. When would you like me to be there? Sir? That's headship, you come to them. God brought the woman to the man. So we see this picture of male headship again and again and again. The woman was made for the man, the woman was made after the man. The woman was made from the man, and the woman was brought to the man. And finally we see in this picture male headship because the woman was named by the man. She was named by the man. Adam names all of these other animals. Now he makes this statement about the equality of Eve, but he still names her. That is an active headshift. Listen to this again. From Wayne Grudel. When Adam says she shall be called woman, he is giving a name to her. This is important in the context of Genesis one and two because in that context the original readers would have recognized that the person doing the naming of created things is always the person who has authority over the things. In chapter one, verse five, look back with me if you will. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. Chapter one and verse eight God called the expanse heaven, and there was evening and morning the second day. Look at verse ten. God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called sees. The next time you see naming going on is in chapter two when God says you are to exercise oversight, Adam, over all of these animals of the field, you name them. I named everything in creation. Now I put you as a steward over creation. You name all of them. He brings the woman to Adam, and again Adam exercises headship. Why because he names her male. Headship is an indisputable fact, not just in Genesis chapter two, but throughout the entire Bible. It is an indisputable fact. And again, when you understand what male headship is, as we spoke about earlier, not this pounding of the chest, not this enslavement of women. Next week we're going to look at chapter three and we're going to see the significance of male headship in the fall. The New Testament does not say because of the sin of one couple Adam and Eve. No, what does the New Testament say because of the sin of one man Adam? Why does it say that? Because headship means the buck stops with you, man. That's what headship means. The buck stops with you. Now, let me just eliminate some myths out there as we draw this to a close. I had a family come up to me not long ago and they were I don't know, just they were well heeled. Okay, they had a lot of money. This family, and there's a lot of this family was sort of struggling. You know, you think people with a lot of money don't struggle. With people with a lot of money struggle. They actually have more stuff to struggle about. Amen. We wanted more problems, and so they have more problems. And one of the things was, you know, they were trying to grasp this whole you know, male headship thing, and the wife was just she's about to pull her hair out, and I'm going, well, what's the issue here? And she goes, he's terrible with money. It's okay, all right, he's terrible with money. So tell me how that's you know, just affecting what's going on with you. He just he won't. He just he can't balance a checkbook, he can't keep up with the finances, he can't this or that and the other. And I'm thinking this, this dude sounds like me. I'm just not at all the accounting type. And I sort of said that and she said, well, see, well how do you do it? I said, well, I just, you know, got to realize that I can't do that and get somebody else to do that. And she goes, but see that's the problem. He's the head. And it makes it even more difficult because I have a finance degree and I'm watching him just do this crazy stuff. I'm going, Okay, we got a finance degree. She goes, yes, you're good with the money in the books and writing checks and that kind of stuff. Yes, he's bad with that, Yes, but you let him do it, yes, he said. Why. She goes, well, because he's the head who told you that being the head meant your wife can't oversee the checkbook. Her eyes got as big as saucers. She goes, you mean I can handle the checkbook? Said, listen to me. Do you think Bill Gates oversees the day to day operations of Microsoft? Of course he doesn't. He's too busy being the head of Microsoft to oversee the mundane day to day stuff. He does what he's good at, and as the head, he puts other people in positions to help him be successful. It would be perfectly within the confines of your husband's headship to put you over the checkbook and just freedom up. And I just told them, you know, y'all real rich, right? She goes, yeah, He said, listen, I probably just saved you about six months of counseling. The way I figure that you carry to zero bring down the three y'all on mean about fifteen thousand dollars. Now we laugh at that, but how many of us have crazy stuff like that in our homes because we never saw male headship before, so we have no idea what it's supposed to look like. So we begin to look like patriarchy on steroids. You know, and all of a sudden, we're burdening ourselves down. We're burdening our wives down because we've defined male headship as something that the scriptures don't teach. Amen, lights, here's the beauty, this beautiful relationship between Jesus Christ and his Church, the Redeemer and his redeemed And in this beautiful relationship between Christ and the Church, you better believe that Christ gives the church her marching orders. And there are things that we do as his bride, but us doing those things as his bride don't detract from his headship over us. They actually add to it. As we bring the gifts and talents and abilities and desires that we receive from God to bear in this relationship as the bride of Christ. And you, as husbands and wives, have been given unique gifts and talents and abilities and desires, employ those to the glory of God with the husband leading the way. Men, you know what your wives need from you more than anything else. Vision They need you to look them in the eye and say, here's who we are and here's where we're going. When they're sitting down with the kids and they're about to pull their hair out, they need to be reminded. I know who we are and I know where we're going, and this is the role that I'm playing. This is why I do what I do every day. You homeschool dads, they need to hear from you. This is the vision, this is the goal. Here is where we're going. This is why they need to learn this, and this is why they need to learn that, because here's who we are as a family. This is the vision that God has given me at the head of this family. And what I need from you, wife, is for you to get on board and for you to take over this day to day magnificent responsibility of training up our children to carry on this vision that God has given me as the head of this family. Now she's got wind in her sails every day. I know why I'm doing I'm doing this because this is who we are as a family, and this is where we're going as a family. And it makes sense to me. Now I'm not just marking time. We're going somewhere and my husband is leading me there. That's the picture, man, not me, mine, you woman, The picture is girl. I would die for you, and I'm grateful to God that he has given you to me because I could not or would not be who or what I am without you. I believe your wife needs to hear that from you today. Women, if you are here and you have been really against and fighting against your husband's headship, repent repent. Man, if you are here and you've been lording it over her and you completely lack all tenderness and completely lack all guidance, repent repent for not treating her as Christ treats the Church. And let's remember the picture that we're trying to paint. Remember who our Lord is and what a privilege it is for us, in the confines of our marriage relationships to represent him to a lost and hurting and dying world who's desperate to see well functioning pictures of biblical manhood and womanhood operating within the confines of biblical marriage. Papa's Gotten Business Vacuum nine scenes fifty three h