household, today the fundamental building block of a Christian household, a Christian marriage, and we will Pray first and then dive right in. Let's pray to the Lord. Lord our God, we know that you are our great teacher, that it is your word, that it is the word of life, that it is living and powerful, that it is inspired, God-breathed, that it is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path, that it is more precious than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. That by it comes the life and not only the power of life in a new beginning as your word which is Your gospel is the power of you our God unto salvation to everyone who believes But Lord, it not only stands at the headwaters of our life, but it shapes the entirety of our subsequent life in Christ. And we pray that we would grow in our understanding of it this morning, especially as we seek to think how to live by your word in our marriages. And we pray for these blessings. And so we also pray and especially pray for your Holy Spirit's help. And in Jesus' name, amen. So, we are on a second lesson concerning the Christian household, and what I want to do is a little bit of review from last week and then move on into the lesson today. I'll say one thing, we're going to be looking at marriage. I'm not going to be reviewing, for example, everything From our fall marriage conference. Oh that reminds me. I wanted to do something this morning How many of you made it to the fall marriage conference? Hands up and so a good number of you good and How many of you did not get the book we handed out at that conference? Anyone not get the book we handed out? It's called Gospel-Shaped Marriage. One. Only one. Two. We have some copies of that. Three, I see a three over there in the training room. If you did not get that book and you like to read, that's the second qualifier. I like to hand out books to people who will read them. We have copies for you, and if you come to me after this class, we can get you a copy of that book. It is what I would call a pithy book, brief, not a long read, a great, well-crafted, Chad and Emily, who did the conference, who wrote that book, Chad is a wordsmith, and he's very, very careful, and Chad and Emily together were very intentional on not making it a very long book, but a pithy book. And it's a great little review for Christian marriage. It follows the Puritan William Gogue and a lot of its principles, and it has a lot of, it's actually a fun read at the same time. It's very engaging and applicatory. If you don't have it, we can provide you with a copy this morning after the class. So we are talking about the household principle in the Scriptures. And I want to do a little bit of review from last week and maybe shore up a little bit in that review our idea of the Christian household and covenant theology. But let me just remind you of what we studied last week. We looked at the biblical concept of the household from Genesis all the way to the epistles. And we saw that God is a God who is interested in dealing with, in covenant, with believing households. And that has always been the case and will always be the case. And that this lies back of, for example, some Presbyterian practices. I'll give you two of them very simply. One of them is the baptism of children. Another one would be a simple one that's maybe not universally practiced by Presbyterians. But it would be the idea of the inclusion of children in our public worship. One of the things we don't have at Covenant here is something a lot of people have called Children's Church, where we do have Sunday school. We love to teach our children, particularly focus at teaching them at their level. But we love to have our children as a way as much as they are able to be in our worship services. And that flows from this household principle, that this is a place where believers and their children gather under the word. And those two outworkings of this principle are quite simple and straightforward. Let me give you some examples we looked at. We looked at Adam and Eve. We looked at the principle to be fruitful and multiply. We looked at the inherent idea of a household there. We looked at Noah and his family saved in the ark and God having dealings with a household there and we read that in Genesis 6-9 and also in Hebrews 11. In Genesis 17 we saw that God explicitly had promises for Abraham and his household, for his seed after him, for an everlasting covenant. And we saw specifically that our beloved Baptist brothers and sisters who primarily see in Genesis 15 and 17 and all the way through 22, a central promise of a seed, a singular seed, which we would agree with, but I think miss the fact that there's a broader principle in the text which is unavoidable, which is that God was dealing with Abraham's house, and look at Genesis 14 and verse 14, where Abraham's household, maybe it's later in Genesis 14, I can't remember the verse. Abraham had 318 trained men in his household, so the first circumcision was that of Gentiles, and it was a new, all the nations of the earth would be blessed, and that it would not have been at all about Isaac. As a matter of fact, it would be anachronistic to read backwards into the text to say that this covenant purpose of God to deal with Abraham and his house was about Isaac only. Because when it began in Genesis 17, he wasn't even born. And we see there then God's intention to deal with households. We saw Zacchaeus. Salvation has come to his house because he is a son of Abraham. We saw the Philippian jailer and Lydia, the seller of purple. Salvation comes to their houses. We saw in Ephesians and Colossians that the Apostle Paul seamlessly, without hesitation, uses the exact same language of the Abrahamic Covenant to deal with the households of the New Covenant as he speaks to parents and children after them, under the headings both in the letter to the Ephesians and Colossians of saints, that they're set apart, which is also what he says to the Corinthians, your children are holy. And that's a very strong word. What does it mean? that your child would be holy. How could it be that God would attach this very strong word in the New Covenant to your children, which cannot be taken away. It's right there in the text. And we would say that the answer to that is the covenant of grace and God's special dealings with the believing household. There's a text I didn't read last week that would sum this up, maybe from the old covenant, and I want to read it to you. It's an important text I didn't mention. But when God is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, the angel of the Lord, the Lord himself, and two angels come to Abraham, come to his house, and Abraham receives them. He shows hospitality to strangers and entertains angels at the same time. After that, as his company is departing, the men rose from there and looked towards Sodom. This is Genesis 18, 16. And Abraham went with them to send them on the way. And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? So this is an important question. Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? All the nations of the earth will be blessed in him. I want to remind you that this language of all the nations blessed in him has already been realized in his household, in the broad household principle. and that Isaac still has not yet been born. So you have to put this in the right place in the history of Abraham's family. Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. And then, listen to this very powerful language. For I have known him in order that. Let's pause there. What does it mean to be known? I have set my love on him. I have brought him into saving communion with myself. Abraham, by faith, had received the promises, Genesis 15 and six. It was accounted to him for righteousness. He was living. under God's favor, having received mercy in that covenant of grace. And this communion between Abraham and God has a telos, or a purpose. In order that, it's not static. And what's the purpose or telos? In order that he may command his children and his household after him. that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice. And then there's a very important phrase here, that the Lord may bring to Abraham that which he has spoken to him. Why is that phrase so important? Here's what we would call the instrumentality of the covenant of grace. People often ask questions of Presbyterians and they say, well, what does it mean to baptize your children? What is happening here? We clearly teach in our confession that the moment of the administration of baptism is not to be confused with the moment of regeneration, when God brings someone from death to life. As a matter of fact, it's an outward sign of an inward reality. And we don't confuse those two things and conflate them. That's what Rome does. And Rome makes the water the instrument, as it were, of salvation. And we are saying rather that this is the declaration of the promise of salvation and that the thing itself that is needed is the work of the Holy Spirit. You must be born again. But we recognize from language like this that God in covenant brings that promise near to the Christian family in a special way and that He uses means to bring forth His saving purposes. That's why at the end of Genesis 18-19 the Lord says, I have known Him in order that he might instruct his household, that the Lord may bring to him what he has promised, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him. And so there is this happy marriage of promise and means that exists. In other words, not only the promises, but the way in which God brings those promises to pass, which is the teaching of the Word. This is the great doctrine of the covenant. Now, let me talk about this a little bit more. The organic nature of the covenant of grace. This is what I wanted to read last week and I didn't. From Herman Bovink. I want to read you some quotes on this covenant idea. The covenant of grace pronounces the deep and beautiful truth, this is in its broadest sense, covenant idea, that Adam has been replaced by Christ. The two federal heads in the scriptures. that the humanity that fell in the person of the first is restored in the second and That not just a few separate individuals are saved as it were disconnected from one another but that the elect under Christ as the new humanity called in the new covenant the body of Christ is And ultimately, the world itself is saved. And he doesn't mean all humanity without distinction, but ultimately a new humanity, a new heavens and a new earth. That not only the persons of the elect, but also the structure of the organism that they form in Christ is derived from the original creation in Adam. That there is in the covenant of grace in view not only individual salvation, but the gathering of the body of Christ. That the covenant idea encompasses individual salvation and the broadness of the gathering of the church. If we read on, for that reason the covenant of grace does not simply leap from individual to individual. but perpetuates itself organically and historically. It is never made with solitary individuals, but always has implications for descendants. When God makes covenants, it's never made, and those are natural descendants, not just a spiritual idea. It is a covenant from generations to generations, nor does it ever just encompass the person of the believer in the abstract. But that person concretely as he or she exists and lives in history, including everything that belongs to them. For example, it includes not just him or her as a person, but also him or her as a father or a mother, a husband or a wife. It's interesting in 1 Corinthians 7, getting to marriage now, Paul says that even the unbelieving husband or wife, that there is something in this principle of how God works, that there is a sanctifying influence of the believer on the unbeliever. Now, that does not mean a saving influence directly, but it means that there's something about being under the umbrella, as it were, of God's covenant dealings that brings, at least temporarily, blessing to all those that surround this person. It encompasses not just him or her as a person, but also him or her as a father or mother, as a parent or child. with all that belongs to him or to her, with his or her family, money, possessions, influence and power, office and job, intellect and heart, science and art, with his or her life in society and the state. This idea is broader than just me as an individual coming to Christ, but that God has intentions. For example, a simple, another simple intention is your money. Everything changes about your possessions when you come to Christ. You use it for Him. All that we have, all that we are in service to God, for God. Time, money, talents, house, food, drink. Most would say yes, but some it seems would be less quick to say yes, that our children belong specially to God. So being a Christian changes everything. It's not just as something that happens inside of you, regeneration, but something that transforms you and your life. And whether you're married or single this morning, this principle is true. This idea of the covenant. Now after the fall, we concluded with this, the household remains a conduit of redemptive blessing to the next generation. And the gospel to the nations runs through families. It always has and it always will. Family line after family line conquered by the gospel. So when a young couple comes to faith, or even one parent, I already alluded to this, And they seek to raise their children in the fear of the Lord. What is God doing? Calling, making alive, teaching you the beauty and glory of Jesus Christ. Your immediate duty under God, Deuteronomy 6, is to teach that gospel of Jesus Christ and press it upon the hearts of your children, praying for the spirit to work. And God's purpose and plan of this, according to his word to Abraham, is in order that the Lord may do what he promised. And that these things cannot be unraveled and torn apart, but it is one grand purpose of God as He establishes His promise. Now let me say this. This is more than read the Bible to your kids. It's good for them. Hope something rubs off on them. It's not what it is. It is more than just pray with your kids, it sets a good example for them, hope it rubs off on them. This is God establishing his promise, the promise of the gospel with you and your children. And he is active, his work runs in these channels, working from generation to generation, raising a people for himself. Let me pause there. That was a bigger review. I wanted to read those quotes. It's foundational to the idea of the Christian household and God's work in households. But any questions on this idea, this covenant idea, before we jump to marriage? And again, we're not going to spend a lot of time on marriage in this class because of the conference in the fall, the book I'm going to hand out. But I want to put marriage into the context of this bigger picture in a moment. Just a request. At some point along, I think you will. But if you want to plan on it, I hope you'll spend a lot of time on, okay, and then when you have a child who's not a believer. Because that's Baptists and Presbyterians when they talk past each other. I think it's right there. I really appreciate what you said this morning. I hope you'll follow on that part of it. Well, I can actually try to elaborate on that right now. It's interesting. I don't want to belabor the point differences just between Baptists and Presbyterians all morning. However, because here I'm gonna move into commonality. If we think about things plainly, any believer who knows the Lord Jesus Christ wants their children to know Christ, right? that belongs to anyone who truly knows the Lord. That instinct is one of your deepest impulses and most profound prayers. I would also say that your Baptist or Presbyterian, you both pray for your children that God would convert them, right? The third thing is that More pointedly to your question, there is, how would I put it here? Let's talk about baptism for a minute. There's sometimes when people say baptism may, the baptism of children may be a detriment to them because it would lessen the urgency of their understanding and need for regeneration or personal faith. You've kind of, You've kind of said, well, you're already in, don't worry about it. And so the idea of the heart, needing to be right with God, which could lead to lostness because of the word presumption. You presume salvation. The other side of it is you can do exactly the same thing if you baptize a child at 12. What we're talking about is the problem of the human heart, which is not solved by when you baptize. There can be rebellion against the Lord and against the good Christian teaching of a home, regardless of your view of baptism. Does that make sense? Or when to baptize. In other words, this does not solve the problem. The problem of having great privileges and then turning away from them is a very sobering problem. And that problem exists clearly, for example, in the book of Genesis. This is anticipated in the scripture. So God has dealings with Abraham. Then we have Isaac, and Isaac has two children, Jacob and Esau. and Esau's lost. He's a picture of lostness all through the Scriptures. As a matter of fact, the mystery of Esau is the following, that in Romans chapter 9, The Lord quoting the prophet Malachi by his Holy Spirit through Paul reminds us that there's prior to these outward administration, the covenant of grace is a mystery of a divine election and predestination where there could be lost children of the covenant. And this mystery runs deep and should humble us. It is why I as a pastor am particularly unhappy with any theology that includes infant baptism that refuses to preach the free offer of the gospel to children, if that makes sense. Every generation, you parents need to know that you are praying for God to do a mighty work in them individually and You should not be, what's the word here? You should not be presumptive and neither should they. You should be tender hearted and pray. And you should recognize the reality of the corruption of the human heart and the ability of ourselves or our children to deceive ourselves or turn away from the Lord. And so I don't know if that helps shape, does that help answer your question to some degree? This is not, what I'm trying to say to answer your question, I'm not trying to present a theology of the household in which we can ignore the urgency of personal saving faith in Jesus Christ. And if that does not happen, there's lostness in a Christian home. if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that should be a riveting thing in your house. Yeah, and this is one of the reasons when I pray for my own children. I get on my knees and I say, Lord, all of my efforts and my labors and even my prayers are not the ground of my children's salvation. But I would humbly ask that you, according to your covenant of grace, you said to Abraham you'd be a God to him and to his children after it. I know what that requires. Lord, you must be born again, John 3. So be pleased to work in my children by your Holy Spirit that they would love you now and forever. And that should be the prayer of every believing parent. Now, the tricky part is in our decisionist American culture is that you can find, how would I put this? How would you determine whether or not, how would you be comforted that your child was a Christian? A lot of people are like, when they're four years old, he suddenly came to me or she and said, I'm a sinner and I need a savior. Well, I'd be thrilled by that. I have a six-year-old daughter and she talks about the Lord and I'm very thankful. But my hope of Naomi Clare's salvation is not rooted in what I can see or discern. My prayer for her doesn't change. Lord have mercy, but when I see those things, I thank him. I also do not, I'm getting way afield, I'm trying to talk about marriage, I also do not, it's a good question, it's not your fault, but these are important things. I also, there's nothing in me that would be like, well, I don't think that's true, on the one hand. We humbly thank the Lord for what we see, and then we pray for that to grow. And we recognize that anything we see is according to covenant mercy. I am allergic to the idea of continually asking a young child, was that really real? Is that really real? Is that really real? At a certain point, you can convince them that Christ is not really for them, it's not really real because they haven't had enough of a saving experience according to your, no, you're directing them to look away from themselves to Jesus Christ all their life. and not trust any experience, but to trust Him. And that's a big difference. It kind of runs against the grain of our age. Our age is like, you need this mountaintop experience? Once you've had it, you're in. There's a lot of different experiences people have, a lot of strong feelings people have. Jesus saves, and salvation comes by faith in Him, full stop. And you say, look to Him. And if your little child says, I'm looking, you say, keep looking. You don't say, is that good enough? You think you're looking is good enough? No, it's not. It's Jesus who saves. On the other hand, if I have a child who's just living in open rebellion against my authority, let's say even for a short time, I will tell them other things, which are very sober, which is you need to turn and repent. How can this be compatible with Christian life? And there's an urgency there. So anyway, I hope that helps answer the question to some degree. Let's try to get to marriage, which we might have to do more next week. Let's talk about Christian marriage, the formation of a new household. We talked about it briefly that there's this household idea and then the formation of a household. I want to talk a little bit more about how God particularly forms new households and then uses marriage in this bigger picture of generational dealings of mercy. What is a marriage? Haha, good question. In our day, it's like, what is a woman? You know what's beautiful about our confession of faith? God, in His mercy, has the framers of our confession, I don't know if they anticipated the absolute craziness of our present day, But I can tell you that God in His providence and His Word certainly anticipated the ability of the human heart to twist everything that is good and beautiful. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman. 1640s. They nailed it on. They nailed it right on the head. Very simple definition. It's in our confession of faith. If it's not that, it's not a biblical marriage. We'll get to that later. Our confession has a very simple definition of parties. One man and one woman. Anything else is against God's created order and against God's revealed will. How do the one man and the one woman Become married. How long is it, I always ask this question in premarital counseling, how long does it take to get married? It's one of my favorite questions to ask. How long does it take to actually get married? If you go to a, what does it actually take to take two individuals, one man and one woman, and make them husband and wife? How fast do you think I could do that as a pastor? Five minutes. Hmm? Five minutes. Yeah, probably under five minutes. As a matter of fact, it's a crazy thought experiment. I mean, I would never do this. Am I being recorded? Probably. I hope no one ever quotes me out of context. I mean, you could actually take a Christian man and a Christian woman who met, and an hour later you could Have them married within five minutes. Now, I'm not gonna do this, okay? I'm not recommending this. I'm trying to get to something. What makes the marriage? Why can't it be done in under five minutes? That means you can dispense with the processional, the recessional, the wedding party, the dinner afterwards. You can actually dispense with the sermon, probably not with prayer. What do you need for two people to get married? What has to happen? Vows. In the wedding that was just here a couple weeks ago, Christian and Elizabeth, did you notice they called their vows, they didn't call them vows. Anyone notice this little difference in their ceremony? They called them oaths. You know why they did? That's because our confession says vows are made to God, oaths are made between one another in the presence of God. And when I read that section to Christian, he said, we're calling ours oaths. And if you know Christian, that goes with his thinking. Not that it's that big of a difference. I could live with either word. The promises made in the presence of God and witnesses are an act of covenanting, which by the divine blessing, will, and will of God forms a marriage. It's an act of covenanting, and at the heart of it are promises made, and it doesn't take long. When we put these two things together, the Supreme Court's decision in 2015, Obergefell versus Hodges, is a complete and utter fiction. And I want everyone to hear this. As our culture is steeped in an intentional propaganda campaign to redefine marriage, destroy marriage. I mean, two men can no more get married than elephants can fly airplanes. I mean, it's not a thing. It's just never, ever capitulate to calling that marriage. Don't even call it. Don't call it gay marriage. It's not marriage. It's so-called marriage. It's not a thing. It doesn't exist. It's not possible. It doesn't form anything. It's a fiction. It's a desecration of what God made. It is actually an abomination to the Lord. It's an invitation of His judgment. And there's nothing, if in June this city starts trying to celebrate these things, don't recognize that this is a campaign of the kingdom of darkness to undo what lies at the heart of the created order, which is this idea of one man and one woman in a marriage. And I don't mean you need to be rude about it. and belligerent. What I mean is that you need to steel yourself never ever to give one inch to the present propaganda that's permeating our age and trying to have you think in some way that this is a marriage. I was listening to Al Mohler last week. I think it was Friday, Thursday, or Friday. And there was something I liked in, some of you listened to the briefing? Anyone know the briefing? Al Mohler's daily kind of news thing? There's something I really liked in it, and there's something I really didn't like. What I really liked is that he was pointing out that there was something that actually made me weep as I listened. Two men, so-called, married in New York. No surprise that it's in New York. The story's from New York. Always comes from New York or Los Angeles, it seems, or San Francisco or similar places. They had purportedly gotten married, and they had adopted a little girl, two of them. The little girl was three and a half, and they're in a story, and they're all perplexed about this. And she was crying that she wanted a mother. Three and a half. Three and a half years old. And the whole article was about, I mean, it was just, it was an absolutely crushing thing to think about. There's a little girl who's actually been stolen from her mother. And the part I didn't like about Moeller, he had a line in there, he said, I'm sure they're loving her and taking care of her. And I'm like, no, they're not. Their first act was to tear her out of her mother's arms, whoever her mother is, so that she would never see her again. And now at three and a half, she already knows that there should be a marriage, there should be a man and a woman. And then they were on like, basically it was the fault of society's propaganda and somehow this child. God will judge such evil. Don't ever be ashamed of the truth. Be unafraid to say it often and publicly, plainly, it's plainly and unequivocally ludicrous to think that there's such a thing called gay marriage. Getting back to the text, or getting back to the class. Marriage is tied to the eternal purposes of God and the covenant of grace. It's the formation of a new home. We saw that last time, Genesis 2, 28. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and shall, to use the old King James, cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. The man and his wife were naked and not ashamed. This idea of the power of this new beginning is profound, and it is culture, society, and church shaping. And when you put together, well, marriage has in itself the principle of all the things we've been talking about because it has in it the promise of, not in every case, God gives children as he wills, but the promise of new generations. You can't separate the idea of marriage from procreation. And we'll get to that in a future lesson when I talk a little bit about life in the womb. and marriage and life. But marriage is at the heart of the foundation of a Christian household, and it has, from it flows, life. I want to focus on two texts that I don't think we read that highlight, and one of them is one that we don't often think about, though you probably heard me quote it. It's from Malachi. The prophet Malachi says something profound about God's activity in marriage, and I want to say this, read this text. When Malachi is rebuking Israel, Malachi chapter two, for their marriages breaking up, As a matter of fact, where he says that he hates divorce. It covers one's garment with violence. Therefore take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously, and this is to husbands who are leaving their wives. The Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion, and I want you to hear this language, your wife by covenant. And then this powerful language, did He not make them one having a portion of the Spirit? And this, I think, is what our Savior has in mind in Matthew 19. What God has joined together, let not man separate. And we're going to elevate this idea of the formation of a new household, not just to the volitional act of taking vows, But behind it is divine providence and creation. I was listening to a comedian and he said, how do you pick your spouse? And we like to think that we surveyed the seven billion people in the world and found the one that we like the best. He said, reality is a lot different. He said, actually it went like this, you only know people probably in a 50 mile radius, and most likely it's going to be someone that, I mean, now we have the internet, but you get the idea. You actually have to meet the person, and there's no way to meet the 3.5 billion, well, let's say, 1.5 billion eligible age women in the world, let's say for a man. Providence places you in a place, in a time, in a culture, in a language, and you're most likely to be bound by that. And then there's the question of people that would actually say yes to you, which makes the circle much smaller. Significant problem. And so what I'm getting at is We have to think about providence. God brings people together. And you can pray for that if you're praying to be married. And then you have to think about his activity also in the act of covenanting. He made them one with a portion of his spirit in their union. That there's divine providence that leads to a divine activity of marriage, which is why Jesus said, what God has joined together, let not man separate. and why the bar is high for biblical divorce. There is something called biblical divorce, and that's reality, and we understand the fallenness of the present age, and we don't live in a perfect age, but we want to recover a high theology of marriage here. I had a question last time about multiple generations. Is Clay here somewhere? Clay? I don't know if I'm going to answer it now. I have it in my notes. But I haven't forgotten. I'm going to have to move on because of time. I want to talk a little bit about the Christian household and marriage and the generations in broad strokes. Again, I'm not trying to answer everything about marriage, but marriage and the covenant idea. First of all, there's covenant. Second, God is the one ultimately who in providence, creation order, and providence, bringing two people together, and in the act of covenanting is active in every way. And it reflects his order. And from it flows a new household, and especially children. And this means that one of the primary duties of a husband and wife, if you've been given children, is to remember that your marriage is instrumental in God's covenant dealings across the generations. And so you have duties, first of all, as parents. You are to be those who first work on your marriages. If a marriage forms a new home with or without children, then the breakdown of a marriage is the breakdown of a home. And the relationship itself is to be guarded, kept, and cherished, worked on. It is for the good of the two involved It's for companionship, for mutual encouragement, for enjoyment of marriage. A marriage itself without children is a whole intact family and household. And its intactness is very helpful for the spiritual good of husband and wife. And if children have been given by God, and I'm going to add this, it is also fundamentally important for their spiritual development. It's not necessary to have a believing spouse or an intact marriage for believing children. It's not necessary. 1 Corinthians 7. But without this, there's often great difficulty, trial, and heartache. Much prayer and pain has been, much pain leading to much prayer has been experienced where there is heartache. Usually, if there's a broken marriage, there's great spiritual suffering of children, the next generation, profound suffering. And I would say this to you parents who go through rocky periods in their marriages, which reality is, when you put two sinners under a roof, you make a promise that you can't leave. What does that mean you have to do with sin? I mean. Can't leave. There's probably some people in your life you're like, I never want to be with that person again. But your spouse, hopefully you don't say that, but you might if you get in a bad way one day. I've seen it before. you have to deal with things. You must turn back because of the covenant and find a way to forgive and grow and learn together. And marriage has that at the center of it again and again. And it's worth preserving and saving marriages. It's a thing that has value not just for yourself but for society in general and for the cause of the church. We should have a high view of marriage. It's a gift. and it can be restored by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. So marriage, an intact marriage is pivotal to, and very important, but not ultimately necessary, 1 Corinthians 7, to the salvation of the next generation, but intended to be helpful in a picture of Christ and his church. This also leads to duties of parents to lead your children to God. As a husband and wife, you have a duty not only to love and care for each other, but perhaps your highest duty is this next generation that you're pouring into. Loralee and I, we have three great privileges I can think of. One, to know Christ, to belong to him and his church, to be married to each other, number two, and number three, to have children and teach them the fear of the Lord. And all three of those things bring us tremendous amount of joy, and we love to do them together. We enjoy it at every age. We're still learning and growing, but we enjoy it. And in the Christian home especially, we have an illustration and model of greater things, salvation. Let me, I'm trying to, I'm working through my notes quickly, hearing rumblings of chairs and looking at the time. I'm trying to be better. I was rebuked last week, I went too long. I want to read something about the Christian home and maybe give you an idea of how it works, this marriage and a father and a mother and children together, and how it's illustrative also of God and his relationship with his people. There's these intimate connections. I want to read from B.B. Warfield. By Christ Kant's emphasis on the fatherhood of God and by his employment of the helplessness of infancy and the dependence of childhood as the most vivid emblems provided by human society to image the dependence of God's people on his loving protection and fostering care, our Father in heaven has thrown a halo over the condition of childhood. children in a home under parents. It is only from Jesus that the world is properly learned to appreciate and wholesomely deal with childhood and all that childhood stands for. For in the gospel, we see that we are the children of God. Which means that in a marriage, in a home, this idea of rearing children for God's glory is profoundly, as with husband and wife, is profoundly linked to these greater ideas of the gospel itself. A couple things about child rearing. You can have a marriage. and not have children, and that's an intact marriage. You can have a marriage with children, or you could be a single believing parent with children. In all these cases, even though there can be a brokenness in the thing, there still is a duty required. I'm talking in particular about broken homes. The realities of these conditions do not change the design of God for what ought to be and should be. It's a time of great privilege for you parents, a great opportunity for service. It's a lot of hard work. If you've had children, it's a lot of hard work. Loralee and I learned again. Miriam, whoa, she keeps us going. We've had a new experience six years after having Naomi of having a little child in the home. Miriam just turned one. Yeah, this past week, wow, time flies. Her birthday was on Tuesday. Loralee's birthday as well, just this past week. They have the same birthday. And we've learned all over again these principles. We've been taught again, we've been humbled again. God uses the marriage and children that come from it and the Christian home together to give you great privileges and great opportunities to serve Christ. It's a time of great challenge and self-denial. He who is married, Paul says, cares about the things of the world. She who is married cares about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. Marriage is spent in self-sacrifice to the other. And it is a labor and a labor of love in which we're praying for God to work his covenant purposes in the picture of that marriage as a picture of the gospel and in the work of that marriage and particularly raising children. It's a ton of work. I have a little aside here to parents. Every now and then I see a parent who's like, I'm sick of this. I'm like, ooh, please don't ever say that in my presence. I will be kind. But I know it's tiring. I'm very sympathetic. But never forget the inestimable privilege you've been given and the precious nature of these little souls that are under your care and that it goes like this. It's fleeting and it's gone. Sometimes I see dads, I'm going to rebuke dads here, who are unwilling to take up the work of parenting because they're too tired out. They're like, I just want to go home and sit on the couch. My wife can discipline that child. Ooh. Get up and do some work. Stop running away. I'm getting distracted for future classes. Let me get back to my notes. Marriage and child-rearing in the covenant of grace in one way is to illustrate the gospel, not only in husband and wife, but in the self-denying life that you're called to live as you follow Christ. I was thinking about this. I was thinking about how many things Deloralee and I do just for ourselves right now in life. Is there anything I do that ends up being just for me, like me time? And I would say nothing. and I wouldn't have it any other way. There's always something, because I'm a husband and a father, that is done for others, including every prayer I pray. And this is part of life in the covenant of grace. You've been given these duties, and it's a life of self-denying service to pour into others. You ever go fishing with kids? This should not be called fishing. There's another word we have to invent for it. Why do I say that? It involves taking hooks out of kids' heads, untangling an interminable number of fishing reels, telling children they have to put their own worm on the hook, and they won't do it, and a million other things. But they all want to fish. And when I was a young parent, I would just get mad. I'd be like, I've been out here for three hours, And I haven't fished for one minute. Now, 25 years in, I'm like, that's why I said no longer called fishing. It helped me greatly. It is a different activity. It is an instruction class. It is a self-denial suffering. Sometimes the hook gets stuck in me. I mean, it's just a different thing. Parenting, marriage and family, you should think of it in a sense that way. You have to walk into it and say Christ has served me and loved me. He's placed me in this small picture of his greater covenant community. In a marriage and in child rearing. there is something instrumental. As God said to Abraham, I've chosen you in order that you might teach your children, that I might bring promises. And that flows out of a life of self-denial, and especially so in a committed husband and wife to each other who embody and picture the gospel of Jesus Christ. constant service to others. God in his good and wise providence has ordered our households, he's made them all different in this church, but if I talk about marriage and the covenant of grace, at the center of each household with children should be ideally, and I know it's a fallen world, God can bring restoration even out of fallenness, a husband and wife committed to each other to show forth the gospel, and out of that marriage to Instruct, teach, pray for another generation to rise up and bless the Lord. Questions? I almost finished on time, but questions. Go ahead, John. I'm not sure if you're going to cover this later, but can you speak to authority and decision-making, love and submission? Yeah, I can, I certainly can. I don't know if I can answer that right now. What I would do is, did you get a copy of that book that I recommended? I intentionally am not delving into the details of marriage. I'm trying to give a high level view of the Christian home and family and how it functions together. I could do another lesson on that. I would say read. There's two chapters, one on men in marriage and women in marriage in that book, which would be helpful to read and review, and you can ask me any questions about it. That might be the easiest place to start. I would love to answer that question. It could be another 40-minute class. In other words, I'm not trying to put it off. You know, I am... There is not a reference, and I would have to look that up. I don't recall. And now I'm gonna have to search all of Warfield this week. I think, my best guess, it comes from the two volume shorter writings. But I'll try and chase it back. The connection between the home and family and the larger family of God is what I want you to think about and how marriage is at the center of that home. These are broader principles I'm trying to teach rather than the nuts and bolts of how to have a good marriage. But to think about, we're gonna move towards Now the children idea and parenting as we go from here. Why don't we pause there, bring me your questions, text me your questions, email me your questions. I've got Clay's on deck here from last week, he emailed it to me. It would be very helpful if you texted and emailed me questions. I would like, so as we move along, I would love to be able to respond to some things, and I may start the next sessions just by answering questions. And maybe I can even pick up yours a little bit. I like questions, feed them in. I hope by the end of this you're going to be better equipped to understand the nature of the Christian household in context of the covenant of grace and better equipped to take up your place in it, the role God gave you, and to do that work as unto the Lord praying for his covenant mercy. Let's pray together. Lord our God, we are grateful to you for the great gift of marriage. We remember that it is an exalted gift from a perfect world, and mysteriously from that perfect world, a perfect picture of Christ and his bride. We pray especially that you would help us, for in the fallenness of this world, Lord, we in so many ways make profound messes of things by our sinful rebellion. And we pray for your help and grace that we might be restored and continue a life of repentance and a closer walk with you that would result in marriages that better reflect the glory of the gospel. We also think of their function in history as you bring children and then instruct parents to teach those children. We pray that you would help us to see these structures, delight in them, resist the world's destruction of the same. And Lord, love them. We pray for those here who might be praying about marriage, that you would lead them to a godly spouse in your good time. And we also pray that the world's mockery of this state, but also the often failures that we see around us would not discourage us to pray, but instead that we would look to you in faith and ask for this good gift. We pray now that as we go on to worship, that you would help us to worship you in spirit and in truth. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen.