Well, there could not have been a better song to sing before this sermon for the wives and those who aspire to be wives one day to have on their mind This morning's sermon is therefore from Ephesians 5, as we continue on in this series. And we look at verses 22 to 24, the wife's submission. The wife's submission. This is how it reads, Paul writes, "...be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, So also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Let's pray. Lord, I come before you this morning to pray for all the wives and those who will one day be wives, the younger girls and women here. that they may have a uniquely special time of studying your word this morning as this text is uniquely relevant to them. Pray that you may use your word to be a blessing to all the families in the church to make better marriages better husbands, better wives, better households, that the nature and grace you were talking about with the children, that your grace may redeem that which is broken, and in a great, beautiful way, that we may be helped in this particular area through your word this morning, that you would help them and help us to study together as disciples of you, with hearts ready to hear you and listen to what exactly you have to say. In Jesus' name, Amen. It was years ago that I attended a wedding, one I didn't speak at, in which the preacher, when he began addressing the woman from Ephesians 5, He got to this word submit or subject. And he kind of jokingly said, you know, when I thought about this word and I thought about you, I realized I can't imagine you. Now, y'all are going to take this as a cut down, but she took it as a compliment and everyone there is a joke. But he said, I just couldn't imagine you, you know, anybody knows you doing this. And she laughed, and the people kind of laughed. And so he said, I'm just going to pass on to the next verse. And he did. Well, as that came to my mind this morning, that memory and studying this text, I thought I wanted to begin by saying that I can imagine you, Christian women, who are wives, following this scripture. And I can imagine and dream of the future of those of you who are not yet wise, but younger, one day following this scripture. I thought of what the author to the Hebrews said in Hebrews 6, 9, quote, but beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation. So am I. And I think so should you be. God has given you grace and everything necessary for life and godliness. There's no reason to think that you cannot do this and you're not destined to do that. So on that note then, I invite you this morning to look with me at the wife's submission. The wife's submission as Paul deals with it here in Ephesians 5. verses 22 to 24. Paul deals with it in three parts. He covers three aspects of the wife's submission in this text, and there's one in each verse. So in verse 22, what we see is the command of the wife's submission. Then in verse 23, what we see is the comparison of the wife's submission. And then finally in verse 24, the completeness of the wife's submission. First of all then, Paul covers the command of the wife's submission. Verse 22, he says, "...wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord." Wives. Later he's going to say husbands. Later he's going to say children. Later he's going to say fathers, slaves, masters. But here he begins with wives. The second person, direct appeal. So the wives are addressed by Paul here directly in the church. So this verse that tells us is not directly relevant to all women in general, only to those who are married or those who aspire one day to be married. Those are given a heads up. It's a little joke to wake you up there. The command that he's given is be subject. Be subject. It is a passive imperative. That means it's a command for you to do something, but in a passive way. And in that regard, it's very similar to what we saw with the command to be filled with the Spirit. The way you do a passive command is by not tensing up, and with great energy launching out to accomplish something, and hardening up and exerting yourself, but the exact opposite. Just the opposite. You do a passive command by loosening up, by being soft and malleable. So just as we are not to be stubborn and fixed, but loose and leadable by the Holy Spirit, so wives are here told to be leadable by their husbands. Be subject, Paul says. Let your husband lead you. Be passive to your husband's leadership. It may not need to be said, but let me define the term to be sure at least one time in our history together we do. The term subject or submit. Subject, this root means to throw. Sub means under. So to throw under. Mit in submit means to send, and then so to send under. In the Greek, it's no different. Hupo, taso. Taso means order yourself, and hupo means under. So you put them all together, the picture to go under, to submit, like a submarine go under. The idea is maybe you picture someone is reaching for a cup out of the cabinet, and you're standing there in their way. The command is to duck. Go down, get out of the way of the will of the others. Submit. Go down. Be movable. Be passive. Be leadable. Allow them to get it without you being an obstacle in their way. Get out of the way of His will, is the idea. So, here Paul identifies in the marital relationship, it is not the model of a team. The culture gives us that model. Well, it's a team. It's a team effort. It's not a team. It's an authority relationship. The husband is the active member in the relationship. The wife is the passive member in the relationship. The wife is the yielding one in the relationship. She has the yield sign. The husband has the right-of-way in the relationship. He has the go-ahead. So that means in any decision of disagreement, it's the husband's decision that is to be done. That's what subject means. But let's be sure, we even go further to define and be clear what Paul means here with very particularity and accuracy by asking, what exactly are you putting down? And what exactly are you to get out of the way of when you go down, when you submit, when you sin down? What is this thing you're getting out of the way of? And we can see the answer to this by remembering that Jesus' going to the cross, His act of going to the cross is presented in Scripture as an act of submission, of obedience to the will of God the Father. And what is it that we find Jesus praying in the garden as He prepares for this act of obedience? Not my will. but Yours be done." Not my will, but Yours be done. That is what it means to submit. That is the thing you are to put down and move out of the way. Your will and you are to let your husband's will be done. Now that does not mean that conversation should not happen. It does not mean that the husband should not seek out the voice of his wife. Include her as the most important member of his cabinet, if you will. and always want to know her mind and her thoughts, and if she has a thought and she has a thing to share, he should desire her input and fully know her mind about what she thinks. So it's not as though she doesn't have a voice. It just means at the end of the day, there is a limit. to which the wife can continue to say, I don't want, but I won't. I don't want, but I won't. There's a point at which continuing to speak your will is not submitting. Because that's what submission means. To not submit your will, but to take on your husband's will and your husband's goal in life for your family as your goal for your family. It also does not mean that the wife is less than the husband, is less in dignity, or is less the image of God, or is less a Christian, or anything like that. We know this because Jesus is not less than God. In the very same word, subject, is used of Christ subjecting Himself to God the Father in 1 Corinthians 15. And He's equal to God. So it has nothing to do with your dignity. You're equally made in the image of God. It is pure function. It is a functional role that you play in the marriage relationship. So, it means you yield not just to the things that you agree with. It's not as though the husband is that analogy of the parade where, you know, the leader of the parade with the baton, he looks to see what direction the parade is going, and then he gets out in front of it and starts acting like he's leading. That's not leading. To see what way the wife wants to go always and then go make that decision, that's not leadership. Hopefully most of the time the husband's decisions are pleasing to the wife and in agreement with the wife. But certainly y'all are not clones of each other. And certainly y'all are not going to have all the same ideas on everything. So the point is you have the yield sign in those cases. And he does not have a yield sign. So, it doesn't just mean submit when you agree. It means yield to the things He wills whether you agree with them or not. Then notice this modifying phrase. He doesn't just say wives be subject. He says to your own husbands. This governs this command. You could say this restricts this command. This means the wife is required to submit in this way to no other man. There is no other man on earth she is to have this unique relationship with. It is to one alone. This is a special submission. And so don't think that, oh, well, this is just a general view of women, that women are just be cowering before men. No, no, no. This is a special submission to one man and one man only. He is the one you're called to submit to. And also, your own husband means don't long to submit to other women's husbands. Don't compare your husband to other women's husbands and say, well, if only he spoke like, you know, Janelle's husband spoke. It would be so easy to submit. You're not called to submit to Janelle's husband. You're called to submit to your own husband with every little idiosyncrasy that is his. Matter of fact, that's the Greek word, idios. That is the word. Your own unique husband. And then notice the next modifying phrase. Very significant. As to the Lord. This is a comparison adverb, drawing out some sort of analogy. So Paul is in some way saying, and when you submit to Him, do it in exactly the same way that you submit when you submit to Christ. submit to the husband in a similar way to the way that you submit to Christ. So we have to ask here, we have to stop and ask, what kind of analogy is being made here? Certainly, we have to be careful with analogies in Scripture. And really in all our reasoning, so much error is spread by false analogies. And it happens in Christianity a lot. You see an analogy in Scripture and you just assume that if two things are parallel in one way, then they're parallel in every way. Or if two things are parallel, then they must be parallel in any way that you happen to choose. And people do this all the time. They say, well, For example, the Bible says Christians are like sheep, and that is the truth. But our fallible application of that truth is not inspired. And so people build doctrines thinking they have a proof text. For example, it's commonly used the fact that we're compared to sheep to compare us to being stupid, and ignorant, and dumb. But that's not the parallel Scripture has in mind when it says you're like a sheep. Needy is the point. Needy is the parallel that sheep literally can do nothing for themselves. Nothing. They can't clean themselves, they can't feed themselves. I mean, whoever heard on the Discovery Channel, as I often say, a herd of sheep thundering across the savanna to go kill a prey, they can't. They don't. They literally roll over and they can't turn themselves over. They require a shepherd to meet all of their needs. It's their neediness that's the point. Not their ignorance, they're not dumb, they're just needy. Or you must become like a little child in order to enter the kingdom. And people have used that to say that children are naturally humble. No, children are not naturally humble. Again, children are naturally dependent and that is the point. The point is not children, we must have the great humility of children. No, that's not the point. We must have this neediness, so the same idea. So, people go wild with analogies all the time. I mean, just take one. This is my body. I can think of a branch of Christianity that has really gone wrong with that one. You know, he also said, I am a door. Does it mean he's literally a door? So we have to be careful and realize people do this all the time. Prosperity preachers are known for this. People who don't really get into the text with their sermon, they go find a parallel, and they start drawing all their fallible parallels that they think the author has. We must always ask, if Paul says something, what parallel does he have in mind? when He says it. And that's the one I want to know, so that I can know I am having this verse hit me in the way that it is intended to hit me. You might look, for example, at Romans 5, where He compares Adam to Christ. And He is at pains to show us in what way He means that they are parallel, and in what ways they are not parallel. We have to ask and not fill it in with our own mind. Paul, you said the wife is to submit to her husband as to the Lord. So Paul, tell us what parallel you have in mind. and what parallels he don't have in mind. So we go to the second aspect that Paul covers, the comparison of the wife's submission in verse 23. He says, For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the Savior. of the body, it begins with 4. So here's his reasoning. Here he's going to give us the reason that he says she's to do it similarly to the way she submits to the Lord. Here's the parallel. He says it's similar in this respect, this is the parallel, that the husband is the head of the wife. Headship is the parallel. He's not saying he's God, like Christ is God. He's not saying he was born 2,000 years ago, like he was born 2,000 years ago. He's not saying he's Jewish in his ethnicity. What's the parallel? Headship. The husband is the head of the wife. as Christ is the head of the church. So this is what Paul has in mind when he says, wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. In the same way that you submit to Christ as a head, submit to Him as a head. So then we have to ask and remind ourselves, what is headship? And what way is Christ the head of the church? So, if you turn back to chapter 1, in verse 22, this was the first place we saw this in this letter, and he says, And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him, that is Christ, as head over all things, to the church. So, Christ is head over all things. If you just take the human body in analogy, think of yourself, think of me standing up here. Why are my hands moving the way they're moving right now? Because my head, in which is my brain, sends out nerve impulses to move the limbs of my body this way. My head is the controller of all the limbs of my body. And similarly, in the book of Judges we see something like, you know, we'll make him head and leader over y'all. Head means the controller. And so the idea in Ephesians 1.22, this crazy thought, is that Jesus relates to all creation the way my head relates to the rest of my body. as easily and involuntarily by decision of my will I can move my arm, He can change the planets. He can change the disease. He has all authority and power over all the elements. That's the idea. Matter of fact, in Philippians 3, when Paul talks about the resurrection, he says, He will transform the body of our lowliest state into conformity with the body of His glory by the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. It comes up again in chapter 4, verse 15, where we have this theme of growing up. We are to be growing up. And it says in verse 15, we are to be speaking the truth in love and we are to grow up in all respects to Him who is the head, even Christ. And so I used then that idea, I said, I can think in my brain what it would be like to throw a football like Drew Brees, but that doesn't mean I'd do it. Or you can think of someone with a neurological disease or paralysis or something, their limbs can't match and correspond to what their brain is wanting to take place. And the body of Christ is viewed as underdeveloped and growing in sanctification under the influence of Christ until there's a correspondence that the limbs move in the body of Christ exactly with the will of the head, which is Christ. So in both cases, we've seen it in this book, head means controller. That's the emphasis. So to say the husband is the head of the wife means the husband is the head, the wife is the body. That's the relationship. He is the controller. He's the one who sends out impulses. She is all the members in the house that does the impulses. The husband has authority to be followed in the home the same way Christ has authority to be followed in all creation. The wife is to do the will of her husband because he is the one whose will is to be done in the home. Just as she is to do the will of Christ in all of her life because he is the one whose will is to be done in all of life. That's the parallel. That's what it means to submit to the husband as to Christ. Submit to him as an authority in this sphere of the home. Then he adds this interesting phrase, which is some interesting conversation in the commentaries, he himself being the savior of the body. The best guess anyone has here is Paul seems to have in mind the idea, adding the additional motive, that the will of Christ, which the body is to do, is for her salvation. So the husband is pictured, presumably anyway, as willing things for his wife to do that is for her good, is the idea. So the wife is to do the will of the husband with a mind that this will is good for her. Peter would exhort the women in 1 Peter 3, you are imitators and children of Sarah if you obey your husbands and submit to them as she did, and then he adds, without fear. Without fear. Christianity is not teaching here a breaking of the wife's will. Life is not a horse. that the husband is supposed to get in the pen and wrestle and break her will. That's not the idea. As a matter of fact, it's in the middle voice, the verb, which means the wife is to be voluntarily doing it. with the understanding and the conviction and the faith and the courage and the hope that this is God's will for me, and so on, it is therefore good for me. She is not called to obey something that she believes while she's obeying it is bad for her. She is to get her mind renewed in the idea that He is the Savior of me, in a parallel way that Christ is the ultimate Savior of me. It is good for me. Now, of course, no husband wills things for his wife exactly like Jesus does. No husband makes decisions that are as good as Christ's decisions. But in general, if the husband has a good will toward his wife, and if he is a Christian with those assumptions, the wife can follow her husband's will knowing it's for her good. There's no reason to freak out. Why is there a reason to freak out? There's no reason for a wife to freak out in following this husband than there is for a Christian to freak out in following Christ. He is the controller. We just got through singing. He is the Ancient of Days. He is controlling my life. He commands my destiny. And it's for my good. And that is the reason I begin by faith to walk forward in this will and embrace it by faith and with hope and with love. That is the way the wife is to follow her husband. That Paul is commanding here. Now, when he says the husband is the controller for her good, he is willing things for her good, that does not mean you're going to necessarily get that blender that you want. Or those cabinets that you've been wanting. Or the particular house you've been wanting. Or the particular vehicle Are you going to be able to buy eight dresses a month? We have to be careful, right, with how we interpret and define good, control for your good. It essentially means this, that you and your children will be physically and spiritually taken care of and protected. Okay? you and your children will be physically taken care of and physically protected. No wife, according to scripture, is expected to stay in a relationship in which she is not physically cared for and protected. Nor is she commanded to squelch her spiritual life. Even if her husband is an unbeliever, she must have freedom to be a Christian. 1 Corinthians 7 is clear on this. If a wife is married to an unbeliever, she should try her best to keep it together. and try her best to make it work. But there is one area in which she dare not use it as a way to reach Him, and that is by not going to church. And that is by not doing Christianity. Well, He don't want me to go to church, so I'm not going to go to church and that's how I'm going to win Him. No, you will never win Him that way. Because by doing that, what you are displaying to him is that he is more important in the universe than Christ. His will is superior to the will of Christ. And what is it, after all, if your husband is lost, that you want to occur with him? You want him to make Christ the Lord of his life. You want him to stop being Lord, and you want him to follow Christ above all else. Well, how is he going to follow Christ above all else if you're telling him it's not worth it to follow Christ above all else? Because you're not willing to lose your husband. of which Jesus said, you cannot be my disciple unless you're willing to hate your own father, mother, brother, sister, even your own life. And so Paul tells the Corinthians, if you're married to an unbeliever, do your best to make it work. But if the unbeliever leaves, let them leave. If they leave, let them leave. You follow Jesus and you serve your husband that way, but if he demands that you not be a Christian, If He demands that you not follow the teaching of Scripture, Christ's will over your life, then you have to play the Acts chapter 5 card, we ought to obey God rather than man. I'm sorry, you know that Christ is my Lord, you're asking me to do something sinful, I cannot do it. The idea is you have food, you have clothing, you have shelter, you have gospel. In other words, even if your husband's an unbeliever, he's allowing you to go to church. I mean, this happens. I mean, most husbands will allow this. I mean, because the wife is a better wife as a result of being a Christian. Even if he's a pagan, I mean, he gets the fruits and the benefits of having a Christian wife. So the idea is physically and spiritually taken care of and protected, even if your husband's not the one doing it, even if the sisters and brothers down at the church are the ones ministering to you. You have food, you have clothing, you have shelter, you have the gospel for you and your children. What else do you want? What else has been promised to you by God? Nothing. The cabinets have not been promised. The three-story house, not been promised. The new vehicle every five years, not been promised. College tuition for everybody, has not been promised. Food, shelter, physical, spiritual protection. If you're demanding anything else in order to submit to this man, then your heart has been set on the wrong things. A woman should be expecting nothing else than these things, because these are the godly things of life. She should be grateful to have a husband at all, grateful to have children at all, grateful to be able to be physically and spiritually protected and nourished. She should be greatly contented and satisfied in that. That is a godly attitude. So the comparison is twofold, just to be sure you get them down. Number one, as the wife submits to Christ in her life, because He is the one in control over her life, just in her general Christianity, And number two, his control over your life is for your good. Those two, she is to submit to her husband in her life, knowing his control for her and over her life is for her good. That's the comparison. That's how a wife submits to her husband as to the Lord. In those two ways, no other parallel is mentioned. So listen to me. as a minister of the Gospel with the text of Scripture in front of us. Wives, be subject to your husband's will over your life with these reasons and motivations in your heart and mind, so that when you do it, you do it with faith, you do it with courage, you do it fearlessly, You do it happily knowing you and your children are taken care of both physically and spiritually because you promise nothing else and you desire nothing else. But there's one last aspect of the wife's submission that Paul mentions that we need to mention. He's there staring at us like a pink elephant in the room and it is anathema to our culture. I mean, this is anathema to our culture. There is no way in our culture to spin this, to flavor this, to put sugar on this, to smile when you say this, to eliminate the foolishness of this. But we know something else that our culture views as foolish, don't we? The gospel. We don't say things by sifting them through what our culture views as wisdom. We say the things that we say because God views it as wisdom. What does the world value? Independence of women from men. The empowerment I mean, when you hear women empowerment, I mean, unless you're talking about the Christian blessing upon women in the world, which we'll get into next time, but the typical way that's used in our culture, you should vomit a little bit in your mouth when you hear that word. Because it was female empowerment that cursed the world. Eve, Exalting herself and taking charge of her family is why every tear you've ever seen on any cheek has occurred. We're not for female empowerment. That's the problem. And you see the reversal of that in Mary. She is Eve 2.0. She's the model. We will not let the Roman Catholics have her. No. Imitate Mary. Look to Mary as a godly example. Remember her response when Gabriel came and says, this is the will of God for you, Mary, to bear this son and to do all this? May it be done to me according to the will of the Lord. That attitude. Very different than Eve's. The world values sassiness. We do it. We still don't have this cleansed out of our culture. We do it with little girls. Oh, she's so sassy. And we celebrate sassiness. Sassiness is a sin. Sassiness is not a value for a Christian household to be cultivating in their daughters. Godliness is the value to be cultivating in your daughters. Modesty, humility, love for the Lord, zeal for His Word, service to others. Those are the values. So let's look lastly at this last one. The completeness of the wife's mission in verse 24. It's communicated in two ways in this verse. He says, let's read it. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything." First of all, the completeness is emphasized in the conjunction, but. Which seems to mean something like, despite the fact that the husband's control for good is not perfect. Because he just got through saying it's like Christ being... that was a tall comparison. But the wife is still to submit, is the sense of it. The imperfection of your husband is not a reason to not follow him. Again, is he not providing a situation in which you and your children can be physically and spiritually cared for and protected? If so, then whatever else imperfection remains is irrelevant. And you're called to submit to Him. So let's also mention here that the wife's submission is not dependent on how well her husband fulfills his set of verses that are coming next week. Boy, you have to love me properly and tend to every emotional need that I say you need to tend to, to deserve my submission. That's not biblical. Because Peter tells wives to submit to pagan husbands. He says if you have a husband in 1 Peter 3 who is disobedient to the Word, you know how you win the prince? The way Ariel did in Little Mermaid, without a voice. Like Alistair Begg used to hilariously say, the wife's leaving little verses on the napkins and stuff. But by serving Him, by submitting to Him, Peter says, he sees this. which he no doubt does not see in other godly women, he will know that your faith is real. He will be confronted with your living faith. And at the reckon with this woman that I love, that I have married, she really believes this. And that will be used in his life to save him. The completeness is also emphasized in this modifying phrase, this is the elephant in the room, in everything. Wives are to be subject to their husbands in everything. Well, it means every sphere of life. There's not one area in which the wife may say to the husband, you don't have any say here. Hiding things from your husband is a sin because you're to submit to him in everything. Your dad doesn't have to know about this type of talk with children is a sin. Nothing is to happen in the home knowingly against the husband's will without his knowledge. He's to be submitted to in everything. And so those of you who are not yet married, as Martin Lloyd-Jones said in his sermon on this text, if you are thinking of marrying someone, you need to understand as soon as you marry this man, if you want to marry this man, this is what you're signing up for. To give you a heads up, this is what you're signing up for. to take that man's will on as your will and to serve his purpose of his life. If you're not able to do that, then don't marry him. Because one of the great curses on the world is the broken marriage relationship. Remember? Cursed is this and cursed is that. The marriage relationship is cursed. Her desire, he says, is for the husband. But that, in context of Genesis, means like... Or Cain, sin's desire is to have you, but you must master it. So sin is pictured as this animal that is trying to attack Cain and go after Cain and rise up against him. So the curse of the marriage relationship is women tend to either be rebellious or sexually manipulative. Active or passive to get their way. Men tend to respond to that by being aggressive and just, you know, my will is going to be done in a Donkey Kong kind of way. And just lose it and like, I'm about to start dominating everything. That's the sinful brokenness of the man. Or the other passivity. Okay, I'm gone. I leave. Those are the two things for the man, those are the two things for the woman. In the gospel, Paul is saying, is aimed at breaking both of those by this other way of, number one, no wife, don't be rebellious, and don't be manipulative, trust God. in your relationship with your husband and realize your husband is providing you with physical and spiritual ability to have all that you need physically and spiritually. And if any wife has a husband that is not doing that and she's being abused, she needs to come to the church leadership, she needs to reach out to another sister because God has not called her to submit to that. But if that's not going on, and you just want this and that and the other to go your way, you're called to submit. And if you wonder how important is a wife's submission to her husband as Paul has outlined it here, I thought of the example of the great church father Augustine. Augustine had parents, a mother who was a Christian, Monica. and a father who was a pagan. And Augustine was a pagan. He paid a lot. He was one of the great pagans, a very sinful life. But one of the things he never got off his mind, which eventually was used to bring him to Christianity, and historians will tell us that outside of the Bible, it seems no one has influenced Western civilization more than Augustine. The question is, what influenced Augustine? His mother. In his book, The Confessions, he mentions her submission to his pagan dad. And he was impacted by her faith and her trust in God. And that never left him. That's what eventually propelled him into Christianity and the force for good in the world that you and I, by the way, are still benefiting from today living in the West. Paul is telling Christian wives and all younger women who would one day be married, do you want to change the world? Do you want to make a difference in the world? Do you want to be a person who has impact to redeem all the broken things and make an eternal difference? Look at the flow here. He's saying, be filled with the Spirit. And that looks like singing, thanking, and submitting. And this being filled with the Spirit is viewed as overcoming all the sin in the world, redeeming everything, summing everything up in Christ, pouring grace out on everything that is broken. And one of the ways we do that as Christians is through submitting. And one of the relationships called to that particularly are the wives. So Paul is literally saying, you want to save something? You want to make a difference? You want to redeem the world, change the world, be a difference maker? Submit to your husband. That'll make a difference. Your grandchildren will never forget that. Your children will never forget that. It will radiate that you actually believe and trust and hope in God. That's what Peter said, the holy women of old like Sarah who hoped in God. Submit. The same way Jesus hoped in God and submitted. The same way we all as Christians hope in God and submit. So wives, submit to your husbands because that is how wives change the world. That's how they do it. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for Your Word. which alone has wisdom in the earth. You are the God only wise. There's no other wisdom. All other wisdom is foolishness before You. So Lord, we thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the wisdom it gives us. I pray that You would empower all the Christian women, particularly the Christian wives, that they might have faith in You, that they might have hope in You. As He who loves me keeps my commandments, they may have love in their heart toward You and gratefulness and thankfulness in their heart toward You that You've given them a husband. and that they may have in their minds that so long as this man is providing for me physically and spiritually, for me and my children, he's allowing me to be spiritually in the gospel however I need to, he's allowing me to have all the physical needs that you've promised I have to have, and that therefore, Lord, you've provided for me and you've given me all that I need to be thankful to you and to submit to everything else. Help them to do that. I pray You redeem their marriages and their homes through Your Word, that more and more things may be reunited in Christ. And I pray that, Lord, through their acts of submission and imitating Jesus, their children, their grandchildren, their other sisters in the Lord and friends would see their living faith. and then through their example would be mightily drawn and attracted to you. In Jesus' name, Amen.