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So let's start off by looking at the wives of bishops and deacons and in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 11, we do have qualifications, believe it or not, for pastor, bishop, deacon's wives. Okay, believe it or not, even though they're not the one entering the office, there is an expectation that your wives have a certain character about themselves. Not only does this reflect upon them, but this reflects upon you as their husband. For the length of time that you've been their husband, you've been their head over your wife, if they're able to show these things, yeah, it's great for her, but it's great for you. If she lacks in these things, it's bad for her, it's bad for you. Men, you cannot detach yourself from your wives, you cannot detach. If there are weaknesses, if there are issues there with your wives, especially if you're desiring the office of the bishop and the deacon, then you need to make sure your wives know what the Bible says and the standard that they are required to live by. So you know, the worst thing, the worst thing I think would be having a man that meets all the qualifications, he's almost ready to go to be ordained, but then his wife is letting, you know, is, you know, what's the word I'm thinking of? Sorry? Lacking. The wife is lacking. You know, man, you're so prepared, but your wife, but here's the thing, you might say, yeah, it's my wife, no, no, no, but then bring it back. No, no, but you're the head of your wife. You should have been addressing these things over the years, okay. Now the first thing that I want to bring up here is that there is no such thing as the office of the pastor's wife. There's no such thing, okay. Your wife is not taking on a leadership position. I know a lot of the, you know, liberal churches these days, you know, would basically, they would call what me and my wife is, you know, pastor Kevin and pastor Christina Sepulveda, you know, and they'll give her the office, you know, and it's like this married couple both have the office of a bishop and that's just ridiculous. It's just, you know, flying against the word of God. So the first thing I want you to understand, and this is something that sometimes wives struggle with when they know their husband wants to be a pastor or a deacon or these things, and they think, well, what about me? You know, what are going to be, what are the expectations upon me? Well, the only true expectation upon your wife is that she would be not the pastor's wife office, but she would be just the pastor's wife, okay. Just the deacon's wife, the bishop's wife. That's all you are. You are just a wife of that man. She's not anybody else's wife, you know. My wife, Christina, she's not your wife, okay. She's not your wife's wife, all right. She's not the church's wife. You know whose wife she is? She's my wife. She's my wife and that is her role. That is what's required from her to be there for me, to be there for the family, to be there for the home, and to also reflect, you know, a mature Christian attitude about her because whether your wife likes her or not, yes, she doesn't have an office, yes, she doesn't have authority, but one thing she must understand is even though that's the case, other ladies in the church are still going to be looking at her as an example, okay. So that's something you just have to realize. Other people are looking at you as an example, looking at your husband, looking at your marriage, looking at your kids, just those things are expected. We see that in the Bible. We see that godly men are there to be examples to the flock, all right. Now, you guys are in 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 11. The Bible says, Even so must their wives be grave. And before I keep reading, this is in the context, if you read the chapter, it's definitely in the context of a deacon. It's definitely talking about the deacon's wife. But I don't believe there's anything wrong with taking this and saying, well, this is obviously also for the bishop's wife, okay. I mean, your bishop is to be the husband of one wife as well. So we can take this as well. Now, before we keep reading that, I'll just finish reading it. So even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own house as well. Okay, now I'm going to read to you from, if you guys actually, let's go there. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 5. Does the wife have a leadership position in the church? Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 5. And the context here again is Paul speaking of himself as not having a wife, nor Barnabas. These guys are serving the church and they're saying, look, we have the power, we have the authority to take, to be able to eat and drink and to take care of our needs from the offering that comes from the church. But then they point to 1 Corinthians 9.5 and they say, Now, one thought that might come, some pressure that might come upon the pastors, is when they take on the role of a pastor, they take on that office, again, that expectation, well, what's your wife doing? Is your wife going to look after the Sunday school ministry? Is your wife going to take care of the kids? Is your wife going to put on programs for the ladies? You know, is your wife going to whatever? Well, whatever it is that people do, there is that expectation. You know, I'm thinking of one pastor who was an assistant pastor and his wife was fearful of becoming, of her husband becoming the senior pastor because she was then, if she took over, sorry, if he took over that role, then she would be taking over the role of, you know, the wife of that senior pastor before and that wife of the senior pastor was running ladies' meetings, was training ladies, you know, they had monthly meetings and she was fearful. Well, you know, I don't really want to take on that responsibility. That expectation shouldn't be upon the wife. You know, a wife has enough to do. You know, God's created her to look after the husband, to raise the kids, to be the keeper at home. You know, it's not her responsibility now to start taking on church ministries, you know. Now, if she can help here and there, that's great. You know, everybody should be helping and serving in the local church, but we see here that when Paul is speaking about himself as the apostles, those that are in authority, that they should be able to lead about their wife. It's not the wife that is doing the leading in the ministry, it's the man, it's the husband doing the leading. And of course, the context here is financial. Not only should a man should be able to look after himself financially from the church, but he should have enough as well received from the church to look after his wife and his family, okay. Drop down to verse number nine. Doth God take care for oxen, okay. So, the pastor should be doing the job and earning, you know, the finances, the income, in order to look after him and his family. It's not he and his wife both trading out the corn, both operating as oxes within the church. No, it should be enough that the man does it and by the work that he was able then to provide for himself and his family. Alright, so go back to First Timothy chapter three now. First Timothy chapter three, verse eleven. First Timothy chapter three, verse eleven. Let's look at the qualifications that are outlined here for your wife. And let me just say this. If you have a desire to be a pastor, let's say you're a single man and you have a desire to be a pastor, you might be thinking, I've got to find a woman who would make a good pastor's wife, okay. Now, I'd say this is foolish. I'd say this is just as foolish as a woman, a single woman, looking for a man to marry who says, look, I want to marry a man who wants to be a pastor. Why don't you just marry the best godly woman you can find? And for the girl, why don't you just marry the best godly man you can find? Just because you marry a pastor doesn't mean you're going to have a happy life. I mean, he might be a great pastor, but he might be a horrible husband. You want that? Yeah, I've got the status of the pastor's wife, but he treats me like rubbish. You know, he cares more about the flock than he does before me. Hey, he spends more time with other people's families than he does with our own family. Is that what you want from a husband, just so you can have the title of the pastor's wife? And the pastor, you know, I'm looking for that woman who's just ready to be that pastor's wife. No, you're missing the point. If you find a good woman, a woman who you can love, a woman who can be submissive to you, then you can teach her, then you can guide her, you can be the leader. This is the training ground. You teach your wife, and then when the kids come, you teach the kids, and now you've got the skills, you've got the experiences to now teach the church and deal with situations. If you're looking for that woman, she's just got to be perfect, you know, just ready to be a pastor's wife, well, you're not then putting any effort to make her compatible with these things that we see in the Bible. Okay, you need to make sure, you know, it's not just finding that perfect woman, it's finding the best woman you can, and then being that leader, being that guide and teaching her these things. The best training ground for any man to be a pastor is to train their wife and train their children. And so in 1 Timothy 3 verse 11 it says, Even so must their wives be grave. We won't spend too much time on this, we did cover this last month, when we looked at the deacons being grave, but if you remember what it meant to be grave, it means to be serious minded, you know, to be someone that's serious, not just mucking around, joking around, everything's fun and games. Now someone that takes, you know, the church and the ministry seriously, she takes her role, what is her role? To be the wife, to be the mother of the children, she takes that seriously. It's not just fun and games all the time, she understands, you know, the seriousness of her position. You know, if she was to be a failure of a mother, if she was to be a failure of a wife, that would damage, you know, the potential for her husband to take on an offer such as a deacon or a bishop. You know, someone who does what she says, you know, she's serious about what she says, she says, look, I'm going to do this, I'm going to accomplish this task, you know, maybe, you know, they offered to do something for a family in the church, then they should do, they should complete that. They should make sure they're good at communicating, if they can't fulfil what they said, make sure they communicate, hey, look, right now I can't accomplish that, but I can accomplish that, you know, next week or whatever it is. Take it serious, you know, what she does, who she is as a person, who she is with the friends that she makes within the church. And she's also great in the idea that, you know, she realises that her husband's job is a serious job. You know, being a pastor is not less important than you working a Monday to Friday 9 to 5 job. You know, it's just as important. You know, you need to still spend those hours preparing, studying, reading the Bible, praying. It's not mucking and mucking around. It's not like, oh, husband, can you go and get me that and get me this, can you go to the shop and get me that? She realises these are the hours my husband's studying, these are the hours he's preparing, these are the hours he's working, it's working, right? Studying, praying for the church, these things are work. This is, you know, it's labour, you know, and this is what a pastor is called to do, to be in service to the Lord, to even mediate in a sense for his church, for the people, for the growth of the church to the Lord God because he's able to do that, he's got the time to do that and he knows that, you know, your husband needs to understand his job is serious, the wife needs to understand that the job is serious, okay? Now, do I work less hours as a pastor than what I did, you know, with my 9 to 5 job? Yes, I do. I actually work less hours, okay? Now, actually I'm not sure because I've got to travel down to Sydney now, it's like a whole day gone, so I don't know, maybe if I include all that travelling time, maybe it's just as much now, okay? But it is less hours but it's not any less serious, okay? It's still work and your wife needs to understand that, she needs the grave, it says, the wives be grave. The next one that comes up and it's so important this comes up for ladies, not slanderers, right? 1 Timothy 3.11, not slanderers. Now, I'm going to get you guys to turn to Jeremiah chapter 6, please. Jeremiah chapter 6. Not slanderers, okay? I'm going to read to you from Numbers 14 verse 35 and we looked recently at the, you know, the children of Israel in the wilderness and in Numbers 14 verse 35 the Bible says, I the Lord have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil generation that are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed and there they shall die. And the men which Moses sent to search the land who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him, look at this, by bringing up a slander upon the land. What does the Bible say, what is this slander? Verse 37. So of course these spies that went out to the land of Canaan to spy it out, you know, they came back with slander according to God. What does that mean? You know, they're the ones that didn't have the faith to go into the promised land. They're the ones that didn't have the faith to say, hey, we're able to conquer the people, you know, the Canaanites. And they came back with this evil report. They're saying, hey, look, we can't take this land. You know, these people are going to destroy us. Hey, these are lies. You know, God had promised them to go into that land. What are they doing? What does God call slander? They're going against his word primarily. They're going against his word, you know. They're telling untruths. They're saying we can't do it when God says, yes, you can do it. They're not telling the truth. They're telling lies. They're deceiving the people. They're fooling the people into thinking or to having a lack of faith. That's the first time that we see slander in the Bible. It's been against the word of God. It's not telling the full truth of things, deceiving the hearts of the people against Moses, against the pastor. And, you know, this happens in churches. Many times the ladies will turn the hearts of their husbands or the hearts of other families against the pastor. Why? Because the pastor didn't say hi to them one day. You know, the pastor just, you know, for some reason forgot to do something that, you know, that they were, you know, they were waiting for the pastor to do. Say, look, the pastor's let me down. They'll turn their hearts against the pastor just like these men had turned their hearts against or had caused people to, the Israelites to turn their hearts against Moses. Now you guys are in Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 28. Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 28. And what I want to show you here is that slander is a characteristic of a reprobate. How much does God hate reprobates? Okay, did you know this is associated with a reprobate, being a slanderer? In Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 28, look at this. And this speaking of course is a prophesying judgment onto Judah. It says in Jeremiah 6 28, they are all grievous revolters. Look at this. Walking with slanders. That's important to notice. It's not just slanders, but they're walking with slanders. They are brass and iron. They are all corruptors. Now the reason that brass and iron gets brought up here is because soon God will refer to silver. Okay, and silver of course is a metal that is, you know, rare. It's beautiful. It doesn't corrupt. But when brass and iron are cheap metals, they're cheap metals and they easily rust and these kinds of things. Okay, they're all corruptors like brass and iron. Verse 29, look at this. The bellows are burned. The lead, so this is another metal, the lead is consumed of the fire. The founder melteth in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them. Okay, the Lord has rejected them. Jeremiah chapter 9 now. Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 3. I just want to show you how serious slander is. You know, God associates this with being reprobate. Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 3. Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 3. And they bend their tongues like a bow for lies. Okay, this is all associated with being a slanderer, someone who tells lies. But they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth, for they proceed from evil to evil. This reminds me of the walking with slanders. They're going from one place to another place, from evil to evil. Verse number 3. And they know not me, saith the Lord. Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother. For every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders. This is again the walking with slanders. And they will deceive everyone his neighbour, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity. So you see, they're trying to deceive the neighbours. It's not just that they have a lie, or a miscommunication, or a misunderstanding. They're trying to cause other people, you know, to be deceived by their slanders. Verse number 6. Their habitation is in the midst of deceit. Through deceit they refused to know me, saith the Lord. And here it is again. Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them. It's like in the furnace. Melt them, and try them. For how shall I do for the daughter of my people? Man, just horrible words how, you know, God speaks of the slanders. Liars, deceitful people, going from evil to evil, trying to deceive their neighbours. That's what a slanderer does, okay? And I can't tell you guys, just time and time again, my whole life, every church I've been at, every church, guess who's always fighting? Guess who's always looking at other people's families and speaking bad of them? Commonly. I'm not saying it's never the men, but more often than not, it's the ladies. It just keeps happening, okay? And now one thing we need to realise with the Bible, when these things come up, it's because God knows we're naturally inclined, we're naturally sinful to do these kinds of things. When the Bible says not slanderers, you know why He puts that in there? Because our wives will naturally want to slander. When they see something wrong, when they see a family not behaving properly, or they see issues with another family, they see issues with another wife, or whatever, they want to talk about it, they want to get it off their chest. And here's the thing, sometimes those things are honest things that are issues, but many times it becomes slander. Sometimes you start to exaggerate the truth, you start telling lies, you start making things seem much worse than they've been before. And they go from neighbour to neighbour, walking with a slander, spreading the news, trying to cause problems within the church. I'm telling you guys, I've seen this in every single church. Please go to 1 Timothy 5, 1 Timothy 5 verse 13. 1 Timothy 5 verse 13. 1 Timothy 5 verse 13, speaking of the ladies here, And withal they learned to be idle, wandering from house to house. That's what we saw the slanderer doing, right? Going from evil to evil, going from neighbour to neighbour, walking in their slander, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. Men, we need to be careful with our wives. First of all, I know we're talking about the wives of bishops and deacons, but this should be the rule for all of us, men. We need to put a stop when we start hearing our wives speaking evil things, bringing that evil report, if we know it's exaggerated. Now look, if your wife is frustrated, something's consumed, something's happened in church or something's happened, you should be there, you're her head to hear her out. What's the problem, honey? And maybe you can even stop the issue right there and then. Many times you're like, you know what, honey, I think you're exaggerating. You know what, no, she's not ignoring you. She's paid attention to you 9 out of 10 times, just that one Sunday she's forgotten about you. And you can bring it back to the stable, bring it back to where it should be. But if you don't listen to your wife, if you don't hearken to her voice, if you don't let her get off her chest, where is she going to go if you don't listen to her? She's going to go to her friend, isn't she? She's going to go to another lady in the church because you failed the first time to hear her out. Now if I hear her out and say, honey, look, maybe you've got a legitimate issue there, but please don't go and spread it to any other lady. Please don't go and spread it to anybody else because we don't know if this is true. We don't know 100% yet. Let's just wait. If there are other issues, and me as a pastor, if I see some major issues, then at the end of the day it's going to be my decision, we're going to look at this later, that our wives are there to help us in the offices that we do have, though they don't have an official capacity. But hey, bring it to my attention, maybe now I can be aware of the situation so then I can address it if it gets worse, if it doesn't get sorted out. So we need to remember this, men, many times when our wives go and speak to another woman about issues, it's usually because you've not heard them out in the first place. Or maybe you've heard them out but you've not done your proper diligence to sort that issue out with her, to make her feel like, hey, my husband's heard me and he's taken it on board. When she feels like you've not heard her is when she's going to take it to somebody else. Let's keep going there. Verse number 14, I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan. When the women are tattling, when they're gossiping, when they're going from house to house speaking of other people, what the Bible says this is, they've turned aside after Satan. They're doing exactly what Satan wants them to do. They're going around destroying churches. They're going around destroying the reputation of other people. And we need to be careful, we need to make sure, especially if you're going to get into this office. And look, it's not that, oh yeah, I'll sort out my wife when I become a bishop, I'll sort out my wife when I become a deacon. You sort it out now. You sort it out now. Because if you don't sort it out and you desire to be a bishop, you don't sort it out, then your wife's actions are going to disgrace you. It's going to disgrace her. Who's going to want to lay hands on you when everybody in the church hates you because of all the slander that's going around? And they know your wife's been involved in a lot of those things. Are your wife slanderers? Are they gossiping? Look, what I learned from this is, again, they're naturally inclined to do this. This is why it's in the Bible. It's why men, husbands love your wives, right? Why is it there? Because naturally we're inclined to not love her the way we ought to. We're inclined to more love ourselves and not to love our wives the way Christ loved the church. And so we need these instructions to get us in line, to get us on God's framework, his pattern to live after. We need to show our wives these things, especially when they're facing slander, or they've heard gossip, or people have come to them with issues that, you know, hey, that's actually not my business. Why do I need to know about this? If this is a business between you and another lady, I don't actually need to know about that. You should be taking that to the other lady there and sorting that. I don't need to know. I don't want to think bad of that person. That's the attitude your wife needs to have. You need to sort it out now before she destroys her reputation and your reputation. Now, you know, if you're asking the questions, you know, because, again, you know, we've got that soft spot for our wives, okay, and we hearken. We saw how men hearken to the voice of their wives and give in and these kinds of things. So, you know, sometimes you might find excuses. You know, your wife may have been involved in slander. She may have been involved in gossip, but you'll find, because of that soft spot, you'll find, well, maybe she was justified in this. Maybe, look, no, okay. As soon as it happens, you need to, as soon as you know about it, men, please put a stop to it, put a stop to it. This is how you know if your wife is a slanderer, okay. This is how you know. And this is something that I've learned, again, being a father, you know. Again, being in business and managing a lot of people. I don't know if this phrase exists as a rule, but this is something I've come up with. I call it the common denominator rule, the common denominator rule. This is just something I've made up, right. And this is something I've learned, especially after having a bunch of kids, is that when you've got a couple of kids, one or two kids, and they're fighting, you can usually sort things out. You can usually work out who's done wrong and who's done right. When you've got a bunch of them and there's, like, you wake up one morning and there's, like, there's already been, like, three fights, maybe four fights in the morning. You know, people are complaining and arguing. The common denominator is usually sometimes it's just there's always that one child that's involved in every single fight that took place. And now I know who the fault is. Now I know who the culprit is. Now I know who's causing problem because every other sibling is not involved in all the fights, but that one sibling is involved in all the fights. That's the common denominator. That's the common problem. That's the one you need to sort out, okay? And this, again, in the workplace, I've had to work with employees. Sometimes I don't know. I don't know who started it. I don't know where the problem is. But then a second fight happens. A second argument happens. A third, fourth conflict happens. A fifth conflict, well, how do I know? It's always that same woman. It's always that same one. Hey, she's the slanderer. That's the one. It's the common denominator, okay? And look, if your wife is the common denominator in the conflicts that you've been hearing about and things like that, guess what? Your wife is a slanderer. Deal with it, okay? Now it's your job to be the husband and say, hey, I need to put a stop to this. Honey, you know, the Bible says this, what we're learning today, you know, we need to make sure this is something that you can change about yourself, okay? We all have to grow. We all have to mature. This is now, look, next time this happens, this is how you're going to deal with it, okay? You need to change that. You don't want it to destroy your reputation, destroy your opportunity one day potentially to be a bishop or a deacon, all right? So the common denominator rule, I'm going to maybe copyright that. That's my rule. That's how I work out problems when there's a bunch of people involved, okay? Anyway, the next thing there in 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 11, not slanderers and then sober, okay, sober. So we've looked at sobriety many times. Let's go to 1 Peter chapter 1. We're just going to keep our focus on 1 Peter here just to look at sober, 1 Peter chapter 1. 1 Peter actually deals a lot with sobriety as a topic. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 13, of course these verses are for all of us, but let's apply it to our wives, okay? 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 13, it says here, Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, okay? So what's sobriety, what's being sober? Having control of your mind, you know, being in control of the emotions, being in control of the environments, you know, just having control. And it says here, be sober and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children, look, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, okay? So as obedient children, now again, let's apply this to our wives. Our wives should be submissive to their husbands, okay? Therefore, we should teach our wives to be obedient under our leadership, okay? You say, oh man, my wife's a bit rebellious, you know, how do I do this? It's easy. It's actually pretty easy. It's hard, but doing it is hard, but knowing what to do is easy, okay? Knowing what to do is basically love her as Christ loved the church. Honestly, if your wife just sees that you love her, you give her security, you give her the comfort, you'd be willing to lay down your life for your wife, it's going to be so much easier for her to be submissive to you. I mean, isn't it easy for us to be submissive to Christ knowing how much is done for us? I mean, we know that, right? Well, it's the same thing, believe it or not, with our wives. I mean, that's why the Bible compares, you know, the relationship between husband and wife to the relationship between Christ and his church. Look at 1 Peter 4, verse 7. 1 Peter 4, verse 7. So your wives ought to be obedient to you, husbands, the head of your wives. 1 Peter 4, verse 7. 1 Peter 4, verse 7. Look at this. Another thing that you're going to find very similar when you look up the word sober in the Bible, sober and watching, you know, come hand in hand many times, being sober-minded, being watchful, you know, being aware, being alert of situations. And I personally believe that women are much more aware. They've got another sense, they've got like this sixth sense about situations. They seem to know when there's danger before men do, okay? They seem to be aware, they just have it, they just have it in them, okay? And sometimes they can overreact and we need to, you know, sort that out, right? But we shouldn't also, we shouldn't ignore the concerns of your wives, okay? We shouldn't ignore them either because they're aware, they should be watching about things. Look at 1 Peter 5, verse 8. 1 Peter 5, verse 8. And it said, watch unto prayer. You'll soon see that prayer is also a key thing that our wives should be involved in. But 1 Peter 5, verse 8. Again, look, be sober, be vigilant. You know, a vigil, that means to watch, that watching, the sober, the watching. There again, why? Because your adversary the devil is a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Alright, so again, we saw the woman going from house to house. What was she doing? She had turned aside after Satan. She had been, you know what happened when she'd done that? She's been devoured by the devil at that point. When she's going out there gossiping about other families, about other situations, she's been swallowed up by the devil, okay? And so, you know, she wasn't sober, she wasn't vigilant. You probably weren't sober, you weren't vigilant either to prevent that from happening, okay? And again, you know, I don't want you to, you know, panic if your wives have been involved in issues and conflicts and situations and gossip and all that. It happens, it happens, okay? But the key thing is we need to fix that, we need to make sure it gets fixed, okay? And if there's been damage, we need to try to undo that damage as well. We need to try to go and rectify those things as best as we can, alright? So the thing that I want to bring to attention here is being obviously sober. We're talking about the wives being sober. They need to be vigilant, watching again. They've got that sense that men, we usually don't have for whatever reason, okay? So, you know, it kind of reminds me of a deacon. Like a deacon is someone that sort of has to be aware, self-aware of situations and being that help unto the bishop. And same kind of thing, that, you know, wives many times, passive wives will notice things in the church that the pastor doesn't notice. You know, honestly, when I'm preaching, when I'm preaching a sermon, like my focus and attention is like solely on the sermon. Like people can be walking in, kids can be getting a bit noisy and restless. It's a little bit distracting, but really my mind's so focused on here that I don't realise what's going on. Sometimes I have people come up to me and apologise, saying, I'm sorry for sleeping, or something like that. Like, you know, especially down in Sydney because it's later, like Tuesday travelling from work and all that kind of stuff. And it's like, I'm sorry, I didn't even know you were sleeping. I'm just so focused on the sermon, you know, don't worry about it, you know. Or people come in late, I'm sorry, I didn't even know you came in, I didn't know you were late or anything, you know, because I'm so focused on these things. And so it's good for your wife. Again, it's not an official capacity, but she's going to be watching. She's going to be able to see things that you don't see, so her, can listen to the voice of your wife. She might give you good pointers, things that are issues within the church that then, oh, I need to fix that, I had no idea, I had no idea about that, okay. It's not that you're stupid, it's just that when you take on these offers, you've got all the responsibilities, you're doing other things. You know, sometimes I see visitors come in and I want to see it, but I'm trying to organise my sermon, trying to organise the things and I'm trying to just pray for the service as well. And sometimes I might forget to greet the visitor, but, you know, it's just because you've got so many things on your mind, especially when the service is happening. And I'm someone that really, I have such a fear when the service is on, I have such a fear when I'm getting up to preach, because I'm always thinking, God, these are the best people in the world, these are the sons of God, please help me to preach the best sermon that I can, please help me not to make a mistake. And so, you know, my mind is filled with all these kinds of things. So, you know, your wife ought to be sober, she ought to be watchful, pay attention to the things she says, if she finds issues within the church, listen to her, okay, listen to her, and you probably wouldn't have noticed otherwise. And the other thing about being sober, again, being watchful, again, you don't need to turn there, I'll just read to you from Genesis 2.18, it said here, and the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him and help meet for him, speaking of the wife. The wife has been made to be a help, meet or suitable for the church? The church? No, for him, okay, for the husband, okay. And so wives, you know, if a woman listens to this and your husband is a pastor or a deacon, you should be watching and helping out your husband. Not in the ministry, but you know, sometimes your husband can get caught up in, you know, can become maybe stressful, he might be overworking, he might be overthinking things, maybe he's not looking after his health, and that's where the wives need to step in and say, honey, look, you need to take a day off, you know, and give him a good meal, you know, make sure he realises, hey, you need to have a rest, especially when, you know, the wives see that the husbands are working maybe too hard, you know, and they can try to put a stop to that, they can be watchful, sober, being that help, meet for the husband, okay. Again, something I noticed with men, we can work really hard and forget, not realise that we're exhausted, not realise we're stressed, but our wives start to pick up on these things and realise you're stressed, you need to slow down. So our wives play an important part to be that help suitable to the husband, whether they're a pastor or not, okay. The next thing that we see there in 1 Timothy 3 is grave, not slanderous, sober, and then faithful in all things, faithful and awfully. Now, we don't have a list of all things here in this chapter, but I thought it'd be good to turn to Titus chapter 2, please. Yeah, Titus chapter 2, verse 1. Titus chapter 2, verse 1, because I want to deal with a couple of things here. And if you remember when we were looking at, we looked at other times of the widows in 1 Timothy chapter 5, because it defines what a younger woman is. And if you remember, you know, the Bible defines basically if you're 60 years and over, that you're more of an elderly person. If you're 60 years and younger, you know, according to the women, the Bible calls them a younger woman. So I just want to just think about that as they're 60 years old, so there's this cut off point between elderly and younger. So when we go to Titus chapter 2, verse 1, Titus chapter 2, verse 1, this is obviously instructions to a pastor, but look at this. But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged men, so here we've got aged men, later on we have young men, we have aged women, later on we have young women. But he says that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged woman likewise, that they be in behaviour as become of holiness, not false accusers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things. Now I'll stop there for a moment because some people read this in Titus chapter 2 and say, well, look, the aged woman, at the end of verse number 3, are teachers of good things. So shouldn't we expect the pastor's wife to be a teacher of good things? Isn't that an expectation that we see here in the Bible? But I want you to notice what it said here. Who's to be the teacher? Who's to be the teacher? The aged woman. And who are they to teach, look at verse number 4, that they may teach the young women. And according to 1 Timothy 5, who are the younger women? Those under 60. So is this saying that pastor's wives ought to be teachers in the church or teachers to the other women in the church? No, this is saying that aged women are to be the teachers to the younger women. And of course if we use that as a guideline, 60 years old, well, this kind of makes sense. Why? Because at 60 years old, you could be, and we saw with the issue there, you could be a widow. At 60 years old, you haven't got little kids anymore. Your kids definitely have grown up into adulthood by now. They've probably left their house. They've probably got their own families. You don't have as much, what I'm trying to say is, these aged women don't have as much to do around their house as they once did. So in order for them to remain productive, in order for them to remain as servants and a help to other believers, hey, a good instruction, hey, an aged woman, you've got a lot of experience, you've raised kids, you've done a lot of great, you served your husband, you've done so well, hey, maybe you've got words of wisdom, you've got words of advice to this next generation, to these younger women. So it's not saying pastor's wives are the ones that ought to be teaching other women in the church. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. You know, if as pastor's wife you're able to take care of the children, take care of the kids, and then you say, you know what, honey, I think I can help the ladies. I'd like to put on a session for the ladies. That's great. I'm all for that. But there's no expectation. There's no mandatory requirement from the Bible in order to do that, because I've heard people use this to basically teach that, that that's the role of the pastor's wife, to teach the younger women. The pastor's wife is probably the younger woman, all right? She might need to be the one that's being taught by the aged woman to raise the children. And look at this. What are they to be taught? Because we're talking about faithful in all things, right? What are they to be taught? Verse number four. What are they to teach? That they may teach the young women to be sober. We saw that already. To love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. We don't want, especially if you're taking an office as a bishop and deacon, you don't want the word of God to be blasphemed by the behavior of your wife. How bad does that look if you're supposed to be the leader in the church? All right, so let's look at these things. I'm thinking about what are these faithful in all things? Well, for me, it makes sense that this would be the list of where she needs to be faithful in all these things. So when it comes to being sober, we've already covered that. The next thing was to love their husbands, all right? Now, here's what happens sometimes in churches, okay? You have the aged women. They see the younger women struggling with the family, struggling with the kids. It's a lot of work. Maybe the homeschooling is struggling. You know what the aged women sometimes do? You know what, honey, you deserve a break. Your husband should be doing more to help you out around the house. You know what? Once you get out of the house, forget the kids for a while, that's the advice a lot of aged women give to the young women. No, help them, instruct them how to manage that heavy lifestyle. You've done it yourself. Well, you should have done it yourself. Now you can be a help to those ladies. Maybe you can help out, hey, would you like me to come? The aged women, right? Because they haven't got families for themselves. Would you like me to come maybe once a month and help you clean up a little bit? Can I come and do the laundry? Can I come and do those things? Hey, that's being a servant to the brethren in the church, but you can do that because you haven't got your own family to take care of anymore. You can be an aged woman. You can teach these things. You can be a blessing to other people. My wife is not going to come to your house to help your wife clean up. She's already cleaning up 10. She's already cleaning up me, my mess. And the mice that we have in the house at the moment, she's cleaning up that mess. We're sorting out a few mouse issues at the moment in our house. The next thing was to love their children, to love their children. Again, the instruction on aged women that I've heard is, they're doing too much. You need to relax or put your kids in the school. No, no. Teach them to love their children. What does the Bible say about loving children? Proverbs 13 verse 24. Hear that spare of his rod, hate of his son, but hear that love of him, chasten of him, betimes. Men, teach these younger women to love their children. How do you love them? By disciplining, getting that rod of correction. Be times early as soon as they disobey. Don't wait. Deal with it straight away. Deal with disciplining your kids. That's showing them love. That's what the aged women need to be teaching the younger women. And that's what your wife ought to be doing if you have an office, is that they are disciplining their children. It's obvious to everybody else, hey, the children, listen to mum and dad. It's obvious that they must be disciplined because look how well behaved they are. Look how they can sit still and these kinds of things. They listen to the instruction of their parents. These things are obvious to everybody else. And what else? It's a discrete. Discrete. Now some of you guys might not know exactly what discrete means. I didn't have this nailed down until this afternoon. But I used to think, and it is tied in, but I used to think discrete meant quiet or hidden. So like if I walked in discretely, it's like nobody realises that I walked into the building today. It does kind of have a bit of that thought, but it's not so much that. The word discrete comes from the word discern. Discern, discrete, meaning it's someone that has wisdom. Okay, wisdom. And I'll just read to you, for example, you don't need to turn there, Genesis 41, verse 39. Genesis 41, verse 39. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, for as much as God have showed thee all this, there is none so discrete and wise as thou art. Okay, so it's someone that can discern. You have wisdom. You have knowledge. You're able to work out what is right, what is wrong. You have discernment, okay. And your wife needs to be someone who's discrete, who has wisdom. Okay, she shouldn't be an airhead, not knowing what to do. You know, oh, my kids are misbehaving, what do I do? No, no, that's not being discrete, that's not being wise. You need to take control of situations. You know, because one day, you know, what happens is, and I know this isn't really her job, but it's going to happen when you have younger ladies come up to, you know, the pastor's wife and say, hey, can you show me, how do you do this? How do you manage the household? How do you homeschool your kids? And one thing I always tell my wife, please always make sure they feel empowered. Whatever advice you give, say, you know, this is how we do it, okay. But understand, Kevin can come home early to help me out because he's now the pastor of a church. Understand that, you know, we've got older kids that are helping the younger kids as well in the homeschool work. So this is how we do it, but your situation's different. You know, your husband might work longer hours. You know, you might have different types of children. You know, your children might learn a little bit differently. You know, if you have kids, you'll notice that kids learn differently from others. And so this is how we do it, but you need to work out how to do it for your family. Here are some tips that I can give you, but please don't do things exactly the same because it's not going to work. That's being wise. You can't just upload your family's schedule and download it into another family. I see, again, many young ladies make these mistakes. They think, wow, look at, you know, sister so-and-so. She seems to have it all sorted out. I'm just going to get all the information from her and do it exactly the same and it all fails, okay. That's not being wise. That's not discerning. You need to gain the knowledge and say, well, this is my family. This is my husband. This is the time he works. This is the time he comes home. You know, this is when I have time to cook a meal. This is the bedtime for my kids. You know, this is the, you know, we have five kids. We have ten kids. We have two kids. You know, how do I sort out my life? You've got to empower. You've got to give the wise wisdom. You know, husbands, you need to step in there and help them to organise their houses sometimes, okay, because, again, you're the head of your house. But that's what it means to be discreet. You have knowledge, okay. The other thing about being discreet, which ties in a little bit with that, you know, being careful when you walk in, being quiet, is sometimes, as well as the pastor's wife or the deacon's wife, you're going to hear information about other people, okay, because, again, you know, someone might come up to Christina, my wife, and say, hey, look, I've got this issue. Can you pray for me? I don't want to tell anyone else in the church right now, but, you know, can you just, I just feel comfortable, if you know, to pray about that. You know, would my wife be wise to come to church at the next service and go, hey, everyone, you know, since so-and-so said this, you know, and just tell everybody about it? No, that's not being discreet. That's not being wise, okay. Or I might have information. Of course, as the pastor, I hear about things. I know about situations. You know, I hear some private matter, and then I might even tell my wife, hey, honey, what do you think about this? We should pray about this together. You know, is then she going to take that and, you know, go and spread it and be a slanderer, be a gospel? No, she's got to be discreet. She's got to be wise. You know, got to be aware of the information she receives and be mindful. How do I distribute this? Do I share this information? Do I not share this information? You know, you got to be wise with the information that you have. So, yeah, discreet can tie in with, you know, being kind of quiet about it. Sometimes you do have to be quiet about certain things because you're trying to protect somebody else. And then the next thing we've got here is chaste, okay. I don't have a lot to say about chaste, but of course, chaste is basically someone of good behaviour, someone that's not indecent or lewd. You know, your wife, especially as someone that holds the office, ought to be seen as, yeah, you know what, she's a good woman. She's not someone of bad behaviour. Next one, keepers at home. Keepers at home, wow. Keepers at home. Now, you know, I really, first of all, I believe every woman, every wife should be a keeper at home. I believe that, okay. But I also recognise that for whatever reasons, maybe mistakes in the past, sometimes women get out there into the workforce for whatever reason, if it's a part-time job or these and that. You know, at the end of the day, it's not my call. It's the husband's decision. It's between her and the husband, it's between her and the Lord, if she gets out there and has a job or whatever. But I truly believe if you're going to be a pastor or a deacon, you have to be in a position where your wife can remain to be a housekeeper. Because she's setting an example, okay. She's setting an example to be a housekeeper. Keepers at home, all right. This is so important because, again, you're setting the example. Other people are watching. Now, if they look at your example, they go, wow, that's nice. She seems to be a good housekeeper. They seem to have it all together, but I decide to go and work anyway. Well, that's not your problem. But if your wife's out there in the workforce, guess what's going to happen to the other lady? They're going to go, hold on, the pastor's wife is out there working. Why don't you let me go and work? It's just going to happen. Whether that's right or wrong, that's going to happen. I truly believe as a pastor, as a deacon, your wife needs to be at home. Be the homemaker, okay. Be in charge of that area. That's going to free you up as a pastor or a deacon to serve in the church more, knowing that the house issues are taken care of, okay. Now, I do a lot of the things around the house as well, especially now that I've been able to come up on the Sunshine Coast. Our shopping trolley is massive, okay. There's no way my little wife is ever going to push that trolley, that shopping trolley. So I usually take care of the shopping now, okay. I mean, I just fill it up, and I basically take that down to the house these days. I take that responsibility now in the house to help her out, but she's got many other responsibilities than before when she used to do those kinds of tasks. So, you know, she needs to be at home dealing with those things. There's a lot of work in the house. And then it says good. So good is kind of like what we saw before, Chase, but, you know, good kind of has to do with moral standards, not being a horrible person, you know. How bad, right? You know, how bad if your wife is just this horrible person that nobody can get along with? They like the pastor. The pastor's okay, but your wife's, man, I can't even. I'm scared to talk to your wife. That's such a bad thing. She needs to be someone that is good with high standards, with moral standards. You know, she's not a bad person. And the next one there is, look at this, obedient to their own husbands. Obedient to their own husbands. That means the wife has to be under subjection to her husband. You know, and I'll talk if the wives are listening to this later on, you know. If your husband wants to be a pastor, a deacon, these kinds of things, you know, you're going to let him down if you're not under subjection. Again, these things become obvious over time. So everybody else, you know, they know is this, who's in charge actually? Is it the man? I think the wife's in charge of the house, right? These things, it just becomes obvious, okay? And again, you know, every family to themselves, every man's the head of his home. If he wants to run it that way, at the end of the day, it's going to be his business between him and the Lord. But you're not going to put a good representation forward. You're not going to be a good example and people may not want you to be the leader of the church because they see you weak as a leader. If you're going to be weak as a leader with your wife, you're going to be weak as a leader in the church, obviously, okay? And then the last one that says at the end there that the word of God be not blasphemed. That the word of God be not blasphemed. So all of these are important for a wife. If any of this stuff is being skipped, you know, faithful in all things, the Bible says, if any of these things are being skipped, then the word of the God is being blasphemed, okay? He's being blasphemed. You know, do we want as pastors, people that are trying to love the Lord, trying to serve the Lord, do we want the word of the Lord to be blasphemed? Of course not. You know, it can be blasphemed by a disobedient wife. It can be blasphemed by a wife that's not a keeper at home. It can be blasphemed by a wife that's a gossiper. Man, what a bad state and there's a lot of pastors like this. A lot of pastors like this where their wives are in control or they're out of control, I should say. And it's obvious. It's obvious and it's such a bad look. So that's what I really wanted to cover today. You know, the wives of bishops and deacons. Now this, of course, is important for every woman. Every woman can learn from this, just like every man can learn from the office of a bishop and a deacon, okay? But if you have a desire for this office, you need to get this sorted out. You need to sort out your wives, okay? Love them. Love them as Christ loved the church. Then they can be easily more submissive to you. Show them what the Bible says. Honey, I have a desire one day, you know, I don't know what day this is, but one day I have a desire to take on this office. Look, you're lacking in this area, okay? When it comes to the slander, you've been involved in every slander over the last, you know, few years. You know, honey, maybe you're the common denominator, okay? Maybe you're the one. We need to sort this out now. We need to start setting good examples, start having a good report, have a good reputation. Otherwise, this might prevent me in the future from taking on that office. Alright, spray?