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Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Our struggle seems to break, Lord, keep our eyes on you. Lord, bless our home, protect our home. Let it be a refuge in this world of sin. Lord, we live in, keep us strong and true. And when we need you most, Lord, draw us most committed to each other. Lord, bless our home, we give our home to you. Thank you for your goodness. Our love was in your plan. Help us face the future, always trust me in your hand. Keep us warm and tender, keep us clean and pure. Drive us to each other's heart and make our love ignored. Lord, bless our home, protect our home. Let it be a refuge in this world of sin. Lord, reign within, keep us strong and true. And when we need you most, Lord, draw us most committed to each other. Lord, bless our home, we give our home to you. Amen. Excellent singing, everybody. Let's go in your psalm. Let's go to hymn number 441. 441, great is thy faithfulness. Hymn number 441, let's lift our voices together on that verse. Hymn number 441, great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father. 441, sing it out together now. Great is thy faithfulness, O God, my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, thy compassions may fail not, as thou hast been, thou forever will be. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand, I'll throw thine in. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Summer and winter and springtime and harvest. Sun, moon, and stars with their voices alone. Lord, will all nature in them unfold with this? To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand, I'll throw thine in. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. Heart and force and the peace that endureth. Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide. Strength for today and pride, hope for tomorrow. Blessings all my woods and cows and peacetime. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies I see. All I have needed thy hand, I'll throw thine in. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. All right, this time we will pass our offering plates around as the plates go around. Let's go to Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter number 3. And as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads. Colossians chapter 3, starting in verse number 1. Colossians chapter 3, the Bible reads, if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ and God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth. Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience, in the which ye also walked sometime when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, two of the which also ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord, and whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done, and there is no respect of persons. Dear Father, let me please fill the pastor with his spirit, and please give us ears to hear, to receive wisdom from the servant this night, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, Colossians chapter three, the part that I wanna focus on, there is beginning in verse number 18, the Bible reads, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. And if you would flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, the title of my sermon this evening is, the head of the woman is the man. The head of the woman is the man. The Bible tells us there in Colossians chapter three, that wives are to submit themselves unto their own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. What does that mean to submit to her husband? It means that he is the boss, he is the leader, he makes the rules, and she is to get under his authority and follow his leadership. And then the Bible conversely tells the husbands to love their wives and be not bitter against them. So to be loving and forgiving is what God asked of the husband, and the wife is told to submit to her husband. Now look at 1 Corinthians chapter number 11. The Bible reads in verse number one, be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I deliver them to you, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. That's a very clear scripture that is talking about authority, right? When it says that the head of every man is Christ, the Bible's saying that we as men are to obey Christ, submit to Christ, follow Christ's authority, he's the boss. Pretty easy to understand, right? But then it also says that the head of the woman is the man, right? So in a marriage, in a household, the mom is not in charge, dad is in charge, right? Wife is not in charge, husband is in charge. The man is, at the end of the day, the head of that household, meaning that he is the leader, that he is the ruler, that he is in charge. But then it goes on to say this, it says the head of Christ is God. Now let's someone somehow think that a woman submitting to her husband is degrading for her, or that it somehow is demoting her to a lower status. Think about the fact that the head of Christ is God. Is Christ of a lower status than God? Absolutely not. The Bible makes it clear that Christ is equal to God. In the Gospel of John, it talks about how the Jews wanted to stone Jesus because he had made himself equal with God, right? The Bible said that Jesus was in the beginning with God and he was God. In Philippians chapter two, the Bible says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And so the Lord Jesus Christ did not count it robbery to be equal with God. What does that mean? It means that he wasn't stealing anything by being equal with God because that status already belonged to him. It wasn't robbery to be equal with God because he was equal to God. And all throughout the Bible, of course, we are taught that Christ is equal to God. But here's the thing about that is that there is still a chain of command where the son submits to the father. And what's funny is that today in our day, people are doing all kinds of mental gymnastics and verbal acrobatics in order to try to get around these clear teachings of scripture. And then I guess it shouldn't really boggle my mind when people are trying to twist this up about the Trinity as well. They get this twisted up when it comes to marriage between man and woman, and then they turn around and get it twisted up with the Trinity. And now you have people saying that there's no chain of command in the Trinity, that there's no authority structure there, that the son is not submitted to the father. What in the world? I mean, how could you get any clearer than this scripture in 1 Corinthians 11 that just spells it out by saying the head of the woman is the man, the head of every man is Christ, the head of Christ is God. Nothing could be clearer, nothing could be simpler than to see this authority in place. Flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And some people would say, well, you know, that's just, you know, when Christ came to this earth and he, you know, was incarnate as a human being dwelling among us, you know, that's when he was subject unto the father. But it's not like he's always subject unto the father. Well, that's funny because when 1 Corinthians chapter 11 is being written, Christ has already lived and died and been buried and risen again and ascended and has been seated up at the right hand of the father for decades. And the apostle Paul didn't say the head of Christ was God, he says the head of Christ is God, showing that that is still the situation. And in fact, even at the very end of the world, look what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 24, then come at the end, verse 24, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the father, when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, for he hath put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is accepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, watch this, this is talking about way in the future, after the millennium, it says, then shall the son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him that God may be all in all. According to 1 Corinthians 15, 28, even way off in the future, after everything's over, after the millennium, after the great white throne of judgment, when all is said and done in the new heaven and the new earth, the Bible says that Jesus Christ himself will be subject unto God the father. But I'm supposed to believe that somehow that was just some kind of a little temporary thing while he came to this earth. No, no, no, it's false. And let me tell you why, because it is not degrading or a downgrade or any kind of a statement about Christ's equality with God for him to be subject to the father. In fact, being subject unto the father is part of Jesus Christ's greatness. Okay, but today we live in a world where people think that, oh, submitting to authority makes you weak or it makes you inferior. It makes you not as good or you're not as equal or whatever. That's garbage, my friend, because Jesus Christ is equal to the father, but yet he submitted to him on this earth. He was submitting to him when the apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians and a thousand years from now, Christ is still gonna be subject to God the father without anything being lost of his deity, without anything being lost of his greatness or of his equality with God. And so people today talk about men and women being equal. Amen. Men and women are of equal value. Men are not more important than women. Women are not more important than men. Men are not more valuable than women. They don't have more value. They're not better. They're not superior. They're not greater in any way. Men and women are equal, but guess what? There is still a chain of command in the home. There's still an authority structure and wives are commanded to be subject unto their husbands. Just as Christ is subject to God, just as the man is subject to Christ. Am I supposed to obey Jesus Christ as I go through this life or am I supposed to just do whatever I want? I'm supposed to be subject unto Christ, right? Okay, well, you know what? If you're gonna sit there and say that wives don't have to obey their husbands and that wives can just go through life and do what they wanna do and be independent, then by the same token, we could say, well, I don't have to obey Jesus Christ. I can just be independent and just go through life and do whatever I want. It's basically the same mentality. You're denying the same clear scripture. If I'm supposed to obey Jesus, then wives are supposed to obey their husbands. And if wives don't have to obey their husbands, then none of us have to obey Jesus. What are we even doing here tonight? Let's go eat, drink, and be married because tomorrow we die. But this is the kind of garbage that is being taught in churches today because they don't wanna stand up for what the word of God has always taught, but they wanna be on some trendy, modern, feminist program that says, well, you know, man and woman is a partnership. I just saw something on Facebook posted by supposed Christians, people claiming to be Christians, and all the comments are supposedly by Christians saying, you know, the husband is not to, you know, rule over his wife, but, you know, they're supposed to be partners. You know, let the faggots be partners. I don't have a freaking partner. You think I have a partner? I have a wife! Oh, this is my partner. That's what it sounds, that's what I think when I hear that word. You faggot. All right, go to 1 Peter chapter three. Go to 1 Peter chapter three, and let's see what we find in the word of God, not what you and your friends and the media and the school system, not what they think is right. What sayeth the Lord is what we care about in this church. Look at 1 Peter chapter three. It says, likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, they may also without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear, whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of planing the hair and of wearing of gold or putting on of apparel, but let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time, the holy women also who trusted in God adorn themselves, watch this, being in subjection under their own husbands. And then you got these people with their little comment, their little picture on Facebook saying, oh, you gotta teach your sons to cook and to clean and teach your daughters to go out and make a living. You know, that way they're not in a situation where the husband's ruling over the wife, but rather, you know, they could be in a partnership. Right, but what does the Bible say? It says, even as Sarah also, verse six, obeyed Abraham, calling him partner. Is that what she, did she wake up every morning and say howdy, partner? No, she didn't. Because let me tell you something, that is an ungodly, worldly, sinful philosophy and it's not found in the Bible. If you're gonna be a Christian, if you're gonna be a Christian, you know what it means to be a Christian? It means you're following Christ. And if you believe that the man should follow Christ, then you better believe that the woman should follow her husband. Because the head of Christ, or the head of Christ is God, the head of the man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man. That's what the chain is. If you break the chain, the chain's only as strong as its weakest link. When you start breaking links in that chain, well then all authority goes out the window. If we're gonna start twisting up the Trinity and saying that Christ isn't subject to the Father, well then next thing we're gonna be saying that women aren't subject to their husbands and then next thing you know, men aren't even subject to Christ and we just all do whatever we want. And that's pretty much where we're at today in America for most people. It says, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, okay. Now what does this mean, calling him Lord? Well it's a very difficult passage. Very difficult, you know. And I mean, I don't even have time to walk you through the years of Bible college and seminary that it would take to understand the nuances of this cryptic, difficult passage. Now actually it's pretty easy, okay. The word Lord means master, boss, that's what it means. And this actually is found in Genesis. If you go back to Genesis, when the angel comes and speaks to them about having Isaac, she's saying within herself, she's saying to herself, you know, how am I gonna have a baby being old? My Lord being old also. So it's not even that she's verbally calling him Lord, like she's not walking up to him and saying yes, Lord. She literally in her heart, in her mind calls him Lord in the book of Genesis. The only reason we know that is because the narrator tells us in Genesis. And by the way, you say, well, that's not as good. No, that's better. You know, I'd much rather have my wife calling me Lord in her heart, because that's what she actually thinks. That's what she actually believes. That's her actual mentality, as opposed to just saying something outwardly. Because you know, once you call someone by a certain name, after a while, that just kind of becomes their name and it just kind of rolls off the tongue and it might not even mean anything. I mean, she's literally thinking of him that way in her heart, because she understands that God has created men and women with different roles and there's an authority structure there. And again, this is not degrading to women, unless you're a feminist, unless you don't care what the Bible says, unless you don't believe that the head of Christ is God. You know, if you reject that, and you have one of these watered down, weak sauce views on the Trinity, where it's like, well, I believe in the Trinity, but person doesn't really mean person. And there's not three centers of consciousness. There's not three persons. There's no chain of command. There's no difference in mind, no difference in will, no three seats of conscious. It's like, how is that the Trinity then? You know, but hey, if you actually believe in the Trinity and actually believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and actually believe that they're all equally God, that the Son is God, the Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but that the Son is still subject to the Father, then you can understand how there's absolutely nothing degrading at all, nothing taking away from your equality at all, by understanding that in the family, the woman is supposed to obey her husband. Now, this makes sense. Obviously, there has to be one leader. If you have two leaders, there's gonna be all kinds of fighting and strife and friction. Oh, and I'm sure you got it all figured out how your partnership can work, because you think it's all gonna be just so wonderful and everybody's submitting to everybody, and we all, but that's not the way real life works. Those of us who actually have been married, those of us who actually have lived on this earth for a little while, those of us who are actually adults, you know what, we understand and realize that at the end of the day, there has to be someone who's in charge. You know, there has to be someone who's ultimately calling the shots and making decisions. And you say, well, that's not fair. I want it to be the woman. Well, get over it. Life isn't fair. Nothing about life is fair. You know, isn't it interesting how we were all born into this world and we all have different advantages and disadvantages? You know, some people are born into this world, really good looking, and then there's the other kind of people that are born into this world, okay? And then you got people that are born into this world and they just have all this athletic talent and that just everything comes easy to them out on the sports field. And then other people who are struggling and not good at sports. Some people just walk into school and they're just acing everything, piece of cake. Other people go in and they work hard and they study and they're just struggling to even pass their classes. Right? This is life. We all are given different abilities, different weaknesses and strengths. Well, guess what? There are advantages to being a man and there are advantages to being a woman. And there are disadvantages to being a man and disadvantages to being a woman. And you got to take the good with the bad. You can't just sit there and say, well, I want it all. I want everything. You know, I just want everything handed to me and I want all the privileges. I want all of the benefits of both. And that's just not the way life works. You know, you say, well, it's a benefit to be in charge. Well, in some ways it's a benefit to be in charge because you're at least in control of your own destiny. But at the same time, it's a big responsibility to be in charge. In some ways it's easy to rest on and rely on someone else to make those hard decisions and to be the breadwinner. And you say, well, you know, you say that men need to go out and provide, make the living and that women stay home. You know, why do women have to stay home? Why do women get to stay home? What is this why women have to stay home? And then these same bozos are like, ah, you would say women have to stay home. They're the same people who's like goal in life is to stay home. I was just at the airport and saw a bunch of idiots lined up to buy lottery tickets. Just all these gray haired idiots buying lotto. And I'm just thinking like, you have gray hair and you're still buying a lotto ticket? Really? Have you learned anything in the last 60 years? Because you know what the lottery is? It's a tax on being stupid. It's a tax on stupid people. You have to pay an extra tax for being stupid. It's called lottery. And you have all these people lined up buying their lotto tickets. You want to know why people are lined up to buy those lotto tickets? Because they want to stay home. It's not because they want to work extra hours at their job. Man, if I could just win the lottery, it'd really free me up. I could work more hours. I could work more. And this could support my work habit. No, they want to get a lotto ticket so that they can stop working. So they can stay home. And then women are like, ah, I got to stay home. It's just human nature to always want the thing that you can't have or something. You know, we men, we go out and work and all we want to do is just stay home and not have to have a job. And then women are told in church, you got to stay home. And it's like, we want to go to work. What? You won the lottery, baby, by getting married to me. You're literally a lotto winner. Lifetime supply of money paid for you. And you never have to work again. Isn't that great? You say, well, you know, they have to work around the house. Okay, look, everybody's got to do something with their time. But he's got to do something with their life. Like, well, I still have to work around the house. Yeah, but you know what? People that are lotto winners, they still have to do something too, right? I mean, unless, what do you think? You're just going to just lay around and just be a blob for the rest of your life? Like you got to do something. That's not a healthy lifestyle. But everybody just wants what they can't have. Think about, you know, when you're a kid, people are forcing you to take a nap. And you're like, I don't want to take a nap. And you're crying and throwing a fit because you don't want to take a nap, right? You know what? You get to be my age. You love taking a nap. You begged to take a nap. I wish somebody would make me take a nap every day. Somebody wouldn't have to tell me twice it's nap time. I'd be like, oh, of course it's nap time. Let's go. You had me at hello. But today we got women today that think it somehow is a punishment to be a stay-at-home wife and have their husband pay all the bills. That that's some kind of a drag, that it's some kind of a sacrifice they're making for Christ. No, actually it's just a biblical lifestyle. So the Bible says Sarah obeyed Abraham, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham. Did I mention that Sarah obeyed Abraham? You're calling him Lord. Whose daughters ye are, as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement. You say, well that, come on Pastor Anderson, that's thousands of years ago. Times have changed. First Peter was written 2000 years ago. But here's what's funny, is that when first Peter was written, Abraham and Sarah had been dead for about 2000 years. So Peter is literally reaching 2000 years into the past and using Abraham and Sarah as an example. And then here we are reaching 2000 years into the past, getting it from Peter. Apparently this isn't something that changes over time. He says in verse seven, likewise ye husbands dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered. Now many women today would be offended at being called the weaker vessel. How dare you call me the weaker vessel? But yet the Bible says giving honor unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel. You see, being the weaker vessel is honorable. Being a woman is honorable. Being feminine is honorable. Submitting to your husband is honorable. This world will tell you it's to be degraded. But no, according to the Bible, it's a position of honor. The Bible is honoring toward women. And you hear this word thrown around a lot, misogyny. Misogynistic. Which if you break down to its Greek roots, literally means woman hating, okay? Because the miso part of that means hate. And obviously the genie part, like gynecologist, that is a word that means woman. And so it literally means woman. And look, there are some woman haters in this world. There are people out there that are truly misogynistic. And in our world today, that mentality abounds. You know what? It's called MGTOW. It's called INCELL. Is that what it's called? Did I get that right? All right, good. It was from the genie. All right. So, you know, INCELL, MGTOW, and all these woman hating Andrew Tate heads out there. You know, there is a woman hating mentality out there. And you know, by the way, a lot of Islamic culture and literature is hateful toward women. And just downgrading women, devaluing women, just acting like they're just gonna commit adultery if you just don't watch them for like 10 minutes or something. You know, obviously there is a woman hating mentality that's out there, but it's not found in the Bible. It's not found in the word of God. You know, the Bible contains some female heroes. They call them heroines. You know, the Bible actually talks about women in a positive light and talks about them being honored and godly and prudent and virtuous and all these good things. It's only the world who has us brainwashed into thinking that if women don't act like men, somehow they have less value. But yet a woman can act like a woman, fulfill the role of a woman, be a stay-at-home wife and mother, and that is the most honorable position that she could hold in this world. I would rather see my daughters grow up to be godly wives and mothers, stay-at-home wives and mothers, and godly submitted wives than to see them grow up and be the president of the United States or the CEO of a company or the governor of Arizona. I mean, it'd be nice to have them be able to pull strings for you when you need them to, but you know what? Hey, it's not worth it because I'd rather see my daughters following the will of God, okay? And what is the will of God? The Bible says, I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. This is God's will for women under 60. Marry, bear children, guide the house, okay? That is plan A. That oughta be plan A in every little girl's mind instead of thinking like, oh, I'm gonna be a CEO, I'm gonna be a power broker down on Wall Street or something. No, you need to get your mind in the word of God and get renewed in the spirit of your mind and realize that actually being a godly wife and mother is the highest calling for a woman. That's a high calling. Isn't it terrible that God wants you, young ladies, to be married to a big, strong man that's gonna pay all your bills? Isn't that terrible? Well, that's just the cross that you have to bear. We all have our cross to bear, you know? I've got my cross to bear, you've got yours. We've all got that thorn in the flesh. Your thorn in the flesh is that you don't have to go to work because you're gonna marry a godly Christian man who pays the bills. You say, well, I wanna go to work. That's because you haven't been to work. You know, those of us who've been to work, we understand the virtues of staying home. Amen. But we go to work because we're supposed to go to work. It's our duty to go to work. And so, yeah, so if you would flip over your Bible to Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter number five. You say, well, I just don't agree with you, Pastor. Okay, fine, then don't agree with me, but you should agree with the Bible when it says that every woman should be subject to her husband. You should agree with the Bible when the Bible said Sarah obeyed Abraham. You should agree with the Bible when the Bible said the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man. That's what I want you to agree with. You don't have to agree with my exact interpretation, but I don't see how you're gonna get around this thing of submit, subjection, obedience, and the man is the head. And yet, I can't even count how many times I've seen preachers try to undo these four facts. I mean, it's just so clear. They're like, well, you know, submission. It's like, well, okay, well then fine. How about obedience? They don't wanna talk about that. Well, what submission means is, you know, you're just submitted to each other and blah, blah. It's like, well, okay, what about obedience? What about Sarah obeyed Abraham? What about wives obey your own husbands and everything? You know, eventually one of these scriptures you're not gonna be able to explain away. You know, I think the head of the woman is the man is pretty much as strong of a verse as you're gonna get anyway. But then again, I thought that about the Trinity too and you know, that people have no problem ignoring that when it comes to the Trinity. So I guess that's why they're willing to ignore it when it comes to marriage. We need to, you know what we need to get back to? We need to get back to actually just going with what the Bible says. Just clear teaching of scripture and basing our belief on clear doctrine instead of philosophy and theology and all of these rational explanations of our faith based on Aristotle or some Roman Catholic monk, right? Yeah, I wonder why that Roman Catholic monk didn't understand marriage to explain the Trinity to us properly. Because he's too busy living with a bunch of dudes. That's why. You know, why don't you let a man who's actually married to a woman explain the family to you? But the Bible says in Ephesians chapter five, it says in verse 22, wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. And by the way, so here's the verse that people try to twist up. Verse 21 says, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Then he switches subjects. Wives, submit your own. They'll try to bring that verse into the discussion on marriage so that the husband and wife submit to each other. That makes absolutely no sense because if husband and wife are submitted to each other, then nobody's submitted to anybody at that point. There's no authority then. No one's in charge. No one's leader. If I'm submitted to my wife, my wife submitted to me, then okay, meaningless. Cancels it out. It's a zero value now. That makes absolutely no sense, okay? What about all these other verses? The head of the woman is the man. Does it say that, well, and also the head of the man's also the woman. The head of God the Father is also Christ. No, it doesn't say that, does it? The actual context here is that if we go back a few verses, we are talking about the church in general and it says, for example, in verse 19, because he's talking to the church at Ephesus, in verse 19 he says, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. We're just talking to the church in general, everybody's singing, everybody's participating, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. That's all one thought. Look at the punctuation at the end of verse 18. What's the punctuation at the end of verse 18? Verse 19, verse 20. That's a comma, isn't it? Is there something on your paper there? 21, what about the end of 21? It's a period, because that's one sentence talking about all that stuff about in the church. Now here's why we're to submit one to another in the fear of God in the church, is because I am not your Lord and master. I'm the pastor of the church, so I hold the highest position in the church, and I am not your Lord, and I am not your master, and I am not your boss. We are brethren. Okay, we are brethren here, and so I am not to lord over the flock. The Bible says that the shepherd, the bishop, the pastor, is not to be a lord over God's inheritance, but to be an example to the flock, and so I'm not here as your Lord and master. I am here as your brother, Brother Anderson, right? So here's why we submit one to another in the fear of God, is because we're on equal footing. We're just brothers and sisters in Christ, and there are different situations where we're gonna be asked to submit to someone else, and vice versa. You know, it reminds me of, for example, when I was in Bible college, and I had a ministry leader that I submitted to his authority on Sunday because he was running that ministry, and so he gave me orders, and I did what he told me to do because he was running that ministry, but then he got a job for the company that I worked for, and I became his supervisor, so on Monday, I would tell him what to do, and on Sunday, he would tell me what to do, and you know what we were doing? We're submitting to one another in that sense. If I go on some kind of a soul-winning trip that's being run by Brother Cooper or Brother Russell or Brother Segura or something, then I'll often jump in and say, okay, what do you want me to do, right? And then they'll tell me, hey, you go over here, Pastor Anderson, you go do that, and I'm like, well, what are you telling me what to do? I'm the pastor of the church. Yeah, because in that scenario, I'm saying, hey, let me submit myself to you. This is your show here. I'm gonna submit myself to you and let you run this thing, and then another time, you'll submit to my leadership and so forth, but you know what? When it comes to marriage, though, there is a clear leader. Yes, I am the boss of my wife. I am the Lord. I am the master. That's what the Bible actually says. It even uses those words, okay? And so the Bible says here that, yes, the church are to submit to one another, and then he says, wives, submit yourselves under your own husband, because obviously that got him thinking about submission. So then the next thing he writes is, oh, and by the way, wives need to submit to their husbands while we're on the subject of submission, but of course, people wanna twist the word of God. They'll grab verse 21, and they'll use it to just completely negate everything that's taught thereafter, but what does the Bible actually say? It says in verse 22, wives, submit yourselves under your own husbands as unto the Lord. So how are wives supposed to submit to their husbands? What does that mean? What does that look like? How do we do it? Well, we have this phrase here that tells us how, as unto the Lord. So here's the question. How do you submit to the Lord? How do you submit to God? That's how you're supposed to submit to your husband. That's what the Bible says, my friend. You submit to your husband as you submit to the Lord. So if you're bad at submitting your husband, you're probably bad at submitting to the Lord. If you're bad at submitting to the Lord, you're probably gonna be bad at submitting to your husband because you submit to your husband as to the Lord. And by the way, guys, you know, if you're dating a girl and she's rebellious against the God of the Bible and she's rebellious against her parents, I wonder how obedient she's gonna be to you someday. Oh, she's so cool. She's such a rebel. She's such a bad girl. Well, you know, that's really cool that she's such a bad girl until you expect her to start obeying you. Now all of a sudden you wish that she would have been obeying her parents. And you wish she would have been obeying the Bible because it's not gonna be cool when you need her to do something for you and she's not willing to do it. It's not gonna be cool when she's got the credit card she'd be in a bad girl. You know what I mean? That's not gonna be fun. So the Bible says that wives should submit to their own husbands as unto the Lord. That's a powerful statement. That's a pretty high standard. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and based on first Corinthians, even as God is the head of Christ. And so Christ is the head of the church and he's the savior of the body. So ask yourself this question. How much does this church need to submit to Christ authority or are we just given a lot of latitude to just kind of do whatever we want? And you know, I mean, yeah, I mean, we kind of care what Christ's opinion is. But at the end of the day, I mean, we're gonna do what we're gonna do, amen. You know what I mean? We gotta be with the times and we've got our own goals. We got our own plan. We got our own agenda. And so we'll take what Christ says, we'll take it into the equation. But at the end of the day though, we're independent Baptist, we're even independent. We're so independent, we're independent of God. Now, who here thinks that that's biblical or godly or right? If I said that, you would say that it was super wicked and it would be super wicked, right? But then if a woman says, well, it's more like a partnership and you know, yeah, I'll take into account what my husband wants, but at the end of the day, it's my life. Yeah, well, you know, yeah, okay. The church is subject to Christ. It's more like Christ and the church submit to each other. He's got to, you know, we need to compromise. So, you know, 50% of the time we do things Christ's way. The other 50% of the time we do things our way. That would never fly in a Bible believing church, right? But the Bible says, Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Ouch. Everything. I wonder what that means. Again, I'd explain it to you, but I just don't think you'd understand. You know what I mean? I just don't think you guys have the training. You guys don't have the Greek, the Hebrew, the Aramaic, the theological training to understand what this means. No folks, it means just what it says. We need to get back to just going with what the Bible says. Aristotle be damned. Right? Theologians be damned. What does the Bible say? It says that the wives are to be subject to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives. Even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Now look, this is the balance on wives submitting their husbands. The balance is that the husband is to love his wife and give himself for his wife and to love his wife even as himself and even be willing to lay down his life for his wife. You see, what we need to understand is that the Bible is putting the husband in authority, but the husband is not an authority for his own benefit or his own gratification. Rather, the husband is supposed to act for the benefit of the family in general. So the husband's not saying like, I'm the boss and so I'm gonna take all the money and go party with it. And then here's your tiny grocery allowance and the rest goes for me and my partying and my toys and everything I wanna buy, everything I wanna do. That's not what the Bible's teaching. The Bible is not teaching a dictatorship that's selfish. It's teaching a benevolent dictatorship. It's teaching a situation where the husband has authority, but he uses that authority to bless the wife. You see, that means sometimes doing what people want is not always in their best interest. You know, my kids may wanna wake up and eat ice cream for breakfast or whatever, but that's not in their best interest. So I'm gonna make, now why do I have rules for my kids? Do I have rules for my kids because I'm just trying to make sure that they suffer as much as I suffered as a kid? Because it isn't fair for them to have some awesome childhood when I suffered. No, the reality is that the reason we have rules for our kids is because we're trying to do what's best for them. We wanna do what's right for them, okay? Now, obviously your wife is a lot more mature than your kids, I sure hope so. I hope that you didn't marry someone who has the mentality of a child. Presumably your wife is an adult, so your wife doesn't need you to micromanage her in the same way that you micromanage your children. You don't have to tell your wife like, hey, you gotta brush your teeth. You know, like your wife has already figured that out. Like she already knows how to take care of herself. She already knows how to live her life. And so, no, I'm not saying micromanage your wife and treat her like a child. That's not what I'm saying, because your wife's not a child. Now look, if my wife acted like a child, I would treat her like a child. If she needed me to remind her to brush her teeth, I'd do it, but she doesn't, because she's an adult, and she is responsible, she's mature, she's smart, and so I'm not having to micromanage everything that she does or something like that. But if I do make a rule, let's say my wife is gonna do something that I don't approve of, and I have to say, look, honey, you're not gonna do that. If I'm saying that, it's for her benefit, or it's for the benefit of the family in general, it's not just because, you know, I just wanna flex on you a little bit right now, so you're just not gonna do it, and, you know, that's just burn on you. That's not what we're talking about, okay? Now at the end of the day, you say, well, but here's what you need to understand, Pastor Anderson, you know, in our family, the wife is more mature than the husband. But here's the thing, it doesn't matter. Let's say the husband is immature, he's still the boss. Why did you marry a guy that's so immature? Why did you marry a bozo? That's your problem, now you're gonna be following a bozo for the rest of your life. But you taking over and being charged is not the answer. Because the Bible makes it clear the husband's in charge, not because he's better, not because he's smarter, not because he is more valuable, but because he is biologically male. Oh, you think just because you have a privy member, you know, you're in charge? Yeah, that is why, that is why I'm in charge. I'm literally in charge because I'm biologically male. That's what the Bible says. See, here's the thing, when the Bible says the head of every woman, the head of the woman is the man, what's a woman and what's a man? Biology. I mean, do we still know that as Christians in 2023? Because I know the rest of this world is confused about what that even means, okay? But for those of us who actually know what that means, and we know, you know, if we want to get really super sophisticated about it, we could say, hey, you know, genetically male, whoa! Or we could say biologically male, you know? Or, you know, I mean, look, people used to know the difference, okay? And I hope we still know the difference. And, you know, being biologically male, that's what makes me the head of my home, not being smarter or better or more capable or, you know, no, it's just that I'm the man, that's it, done. Say, well, says who? Says God! Says the creator of the universe. Like, how do we go any higher of an authority than that? I mean, the creator of the universe should be able to have that prerogative, okay? And so the husband's the head of the wife. The husband is to love his wife, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. So the husband is supposed to be self-sacrificing. So the husband is not supposed to just gratify himself and use the authority to please himself. Rather, he's to use his authority to lead the family in a right direction, to lead the family in a godly direction, to do good things for the family, you know, so that when he goes out and makes money and brings home that paycheck, he spends that money in a way that's a blessing to the family, right? Not just let me do it all for me and nuts to everybody else. No, no, he's supposed to do things that his family likes. You know, I wanna do things that my wife likes. If it's possible for me to make my wife happy, I wanna make my wife happy. If something's gonna make her, why? Because I love my wife, I want her to be happy. So I don't wanna withhold things from her that she likes, unless those are the wrong things for her. And I know, hey, this isn't what she needs. I've gotta make a decision here, I'm the leader, we're not doing this. We're not spending our money on this, we're not going to this place, we're not gonna live this way, we're gonna do things a certain way. You know, so I've gotta be studying the scripture and listening to preaching and praying and figuring out what the will of God is so that I can lead my family according to the will of God so that everybody can be blessed, everybody can benefit. Okay, and this is what it means to be a right leader, to be unselfish, you know? And so, therefore, even though I'm the leader, does that mean that my wife gets the short end of the stick? No. If anything, she gets more benefits, more blessings than I do, because I wanna be generous and self, good night, self-sacrificing, not self-serving. Be self-sacrificing and putting others first, putting my wife ahead of me, putting my children and their needs ahead of just a selfish gratification of whatever I feel like doing. And so the husband is to love his wife, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he may sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, verse 27, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Watch this. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherishth it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular, so love his wife, even as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband. So after this big long discussion about how wives need to submit to their husbands and obey them and how husbands need to love and sacrifice for their wives and work hard and do their best to provide the best possible life, it all gets kind of summed up in verse 33, right? That what is the big responsibility of either party? Because sometimes when you talk for a while, people forget what you were saying. And so it's nice to have this verse at the end that just kind of summarizes. Nevertheless, let every one of you, verse 33 in particular, so love his wife, even as himself. And so at the end of the day, the big responsibility for men is that they love their wives, right? That's kind of like, if you just want to put it all in one phrase, write it on the back of a postage stamp. What's the responsibility of men in marriage? It's to love their wives. That's the big thing that they need to do. Love their wives, right? Put their wife, wife's needs above their own and love their wife and do what's best for their wife. That's what the Bible is saying is the big responsibility. And then what's the big thing that women need to do for their husband and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Reverence. Now, what does the word reverence mean? What does it mean? Think about reverence. If you think about reverence, it, you know, it means respect, right? It means awe, fear, respect. It's sort of like if you walk, it's sort of like if you walked into, you know, some kind of a, well, let's just pretend you're one of these weirdo idolatrous religions, you know, and they walk into their temple of idols or whatever, and they're, oh, you know, cause they have this sense of awe or wonder, you know, we don't do that because, you know, we meet in a business complex. So we don't walk into Faith Forward Baptist Church and be like, oh, you know, oh, oh, oh, we're at Faithful Word, you know, oh, let me just, you know, you know, oh, you know, because we know that God doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, and so that's why we don't care that the lights are fluorescent, and, you know, we don't have stained glass windows, we have tinted windows, cause it's Arizona. You know, we've got some magnificent artwork here, you know, it was painted by Michelangelo's great, great, great, great granddaughter. You know, we just said, we said, hey, make it just like Michelangelo, except no naked dudes, all right. This is what we got, I love it. But here's the thing about that, is that, you know, you think of having a feeling of reverence, it's that kind of awe, it's that respect and awe that people would have in those situations, right? Now, we, when we talk about reverence, we would think about having reverence before God, you know, the Bible says that we should serve God with reverence and godly fear, right? Because our gods are consuming fire. And so reverence is respect, yes, but I think it's a little bit stronger of a word than respect, it does mean respect, and I think that the best definition for it is respect. But I feel like the word reverence is a little bit stronger than the word respect. So, you know, when you think about a wife being disrespectful to her husband, just constantly arguing with him, mouthing off to him, is that reverence? You know, and you think about this sort of sitcom mentality that a lot of us grew up with, where you have all these sitcoms where the head of the household is usually portrayed as a buffoon, right? And his wife constantly has to put him in his place, and he's just kind of a buffoon character. You know, I don't really, I'm trying to think of the examples, you know, of all the TV shows that have brainwashed us, that, you know, women are the only ones with any sense, and the men are just buffoons, you know? Yeah, I'm, now, I wasn't allowed to watch The Simpsons growing up, so I've, to this day I've never seen an episode of The Simpsons, but you know, I've seen enough pictures of Homer Simpson where I think you're probably right about this one, because he looks like kind of a buffoon, right? And I remember we used to watch The Cosby Show when I was growing up, and it's like, you know, he's, this was always, he's always trying to eat a sandwich, and his wife's constantly taking away the sandwich and telling him it's not healthy, and I'm thinking like, that looks like a pretty healthy sandwich right there, you know, like, could be eating a lot worse things, but what was the home improvement, right? And Tim or whatever is just a complete idiot, and his wife is the one with all the brains, you know, this is just a constant trope in these comedy shows, you know, oh, you know, the guy's just totally helpless, right? And what that is, it might seem like just some harmless fun, but it's really just TV and Hollywood programming you into thinking, hey, following your husband's a big joke. Following dad's a big joke. Dad's a buffoon, dad's kind of an idiot, he's kind of a spaz, and you know, we just need to do what we want and use our own understanding. But in reality, we need strong men leading their homes, and we need wives who will reverence their husband. I mean, think about it, like I brought up that illustration earlier about, you know, the Hindus or the Buddhists or other pagans like Catholics, other idolatrous pagans like Catholics who walk into their church buildings and they're afraid to do certain things in that building. Or they'd be afraid to act a certain way. They feel like they have to have a certain decorum and respect because they think that somehow that building is special, right? And then you stop and think about what the Bible means when it says to reverence your husband. You know, it means not to just treat him flippantly and just treat him callously and just act like he's just another person off the street. He's not a person off the street, he's your husband. He is your Lord, he is your God-given authority figure. You are to reverence him, respect him, show him proper deference, and don't just treat him like he's just another guy or something, like he's just some guy, like he's just a nuisance, like get away from me, you bother me. He owns the place, he's the leader, he's the boss. Who gave him that authority? God Almighty. Now look, obviously in today's world, this is not what you're gonna hear out there and this is why we need to be hearing it in church because if we don't hear it in church, we're not gonna hear it anywhere else. You know, the latest Hollywood movie isn't gonna teach you this. It's not gonna have a theme of how wives need to submit to their husbands. You're not gonna learn this in school, you're not gonna hear it on the radio, you're not gonna see it in a movie. There's literally one place to get this philosophy and one place alone, church. Now I'm not saying this church is the only church because any church that is worth its salt will teach you this. Any church that won't teach you this is a lame church and you should go somewhere else because it's so clear in the Bible and there's so many verses about it. So church is literally the only place that you can learn this and so it's important that we preach on this frequently because the rest of our lives, we're getting taught the opposite. And you know, if we live in a world that's teaching all this feminism and teaching wives to rebel against their husbands, teaching parents to rebel against their children and then we go to church and we get some weak sauce, watered down message about well, you know, yeah, I mean, you know, Sarah called Abraham Lord but that was like a different culture and you know, I mean, it's really, we're all just kind of submitting to one another and it's a partnership and whatever, you know. And then you have that, that's not gonna balance out all the feminist propaganda out there in this world. It's gonna take a strong message to balance that out. You know, if I'm supposed to undo in an hour what the world's been doing to you for hundreds of hours or thousands of hours, anytime you watch TV, watch the movie, listen to the radio, read a magazine and you're just constantly getting bombarded with feminist propaganda, constantly bombarded with it, how am I supposed to undo that in 60 minutes? I'll tell you how I can undo that in 60 minutes, with a Bible, with a two-edged sword of God's word, I can cut through all that garbage in 60 minutes. I could cut through a lifetime of all that garbage but if I'm gonna do it though, I better use a lot of Bible and I better make the message crystal clear, I better have that sword sharp as a razor and I better be swinging it as hard as I can and then I'll get it done but to get up and say like, well, you know, yeah, you know, technically the husband is the boss, you know, that's not, people are just like whoop, go right over their head. Folks, I hope this message is clear tonight because the Bible's clear and you know what, if you walk out of here and you say, well, I don't think wives need to obey their husband, you know what, I just wonder like what other parts of the Bible don't you believe? Because there's literally no other way to interpret these verses, it's so clear and it just makes me wonder if you, do you even believe the Bible at all? Do you even think that any of us should even be following Christ? Because if you don't think that the head of the woman is the man, here's what I question, I question whether you think that the head of the man is Christ. But if the head of every man is Christ, then the head of the woman is the man and then maybe you can actually figure out the trinity that the head of Christ is God. That's part of the word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and Lord, thank you for creating us differently, Lord, thank you for giving us men and women in this world and Lord, help us all to fulfill our destiny and to live the life that you have laid out for us in your word and not to as men wish that we were women or as women wish that they were men. Lord, help us not to have these foolish, idiotic thoughts come into our mind of our weirdo, transgender, pervert society. Help that thought to never enter the mind of a born again Christian but help us rather to just be glad that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and Lord, help us to give honor unto the wife as under the weaker vessel and help every wife to reverence her husband and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Amen, let's take our hymnals please. Go to hymn number 442. Hymn number 442, we gather together. Hymn number 442. More for two, we gather together to ask the Lord's blessing. Hymn number 442, sing it out now. We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing. He chastens and ascends His will to make known the wicked, oppressing, He sees them from distressing. He prays as to His name, He forgets not His own. He's died as to guide us, our God, with us joining or gaining, gaining, gaining His kingdom divine. So from the beginning, the fight we were winning. Thou, Lord, was at our side, the glory be thine. We all will praise, holy, thou leader in battle and pray that thou still our name ever will be. Let thy congregation escape tribulation, thy name be ever praise, all for anger astray. Amen, good singing tonight, you are so sweet. Amen, good singing tonight, you are so sweet.