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A Sermon by Mark Evans
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A Sermon by Mark Evans
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The main ideas from this information are that the meaning of marriage goes beyond the relationship between a man and a woman, and is a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the church. The husband's duty is to love his wife unconditionally, just as Christ loves the church. This love should be sacrificial and effective, aiming to sanctify and cleanse the wife. The husband's love should also be a source of respect and submission from the wife. If you have your Bibles, feel free to make your way to Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Last week we looked at the wives, and this week we come to that section of Paul's teaching on marriage that in particular looks at the duties of a husband. And so our Scripture reading for this morning is Ephesians 5, verses 25 through 33. 25 through 33. And these are the words of the all-wise, immortal, invisible God. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband, for the grass wither and the flower fades. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, how wonderful is your word, how truthful, how reviving to the soul, how reviving to a marriage. We pray, Father, that you would give us eyes to see in the ways that we are unrighteous, that you would convict us, that you would correct us, and, indeed, that by your Spirit you would lead us in paths of righteousness, that you would do so for your name's sake, and that, indeed, it would be for our joy. We ask this in the strong name of our Savior. Amen. You may be seated. Well, marriage is one of the most common and enduring institutions. It transcends time and place. It spans across all cultures, all socioeconomic levels. And yet, what is marriage? Right? Depending upon who you ask, you will get a different answer. That marriage is, in some vague way, making a relationship more permanent, more official, more formal, more obligatory. Or, as one post said, marriage grants you the privilege to annoy one special person for the rest of your life. What is marriage? Well, we've seen in Ephesians the most marvelous truth, that the meaning of marriage always means more than man and wife, that the meaning of marriage always means more because our marriages are but replicas of the greatest marriage of all, between Christ and His bride, the church, the great marriage that informs every other marriage. And so, what we have this morning is the meaning of marriage as it pertains to the husband. What is a husband for? What is a husband to do? Why is he to do it? And so, just a word before we begin. Again, if you are currently unmarried, reminder that this is a message for all Christians. Knowing the roles of man and wife will, no doubt, help you to give counsel, encouragement, prayer to a brother or sister who is married, and even more so, encourage you to see the many wonderful ways that Jesus Christ is our head and just how much He loves His church. And so, with that, we will walk through this text in three portions, looking at the husband's calling. Secondly, what are the husband's templates? What's his example? And thirdly, what are the husband's duties? All with the main point that the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. So, firstly, the husband's calling in verse 25. Now, just as with the wife's submission, Paul's charge to the husbands is very straightforward. Verse 25, husbands love your wives. Now, as with marriage, if you ask someone, well, what is the definition of love? You'll get all kinds of answers. One dictionary I glanced at defined love as a, quote, passionate affection for somebody else. But we've seen that true love, biblical love, is steadfast. It's this enduring commitment. And so, just as with the wife, there's not the slightest hint of conditions attached to the command for husbands to love. For no doubt, the temptation is for the husband to say, well, I'll love my wife when she is lovable. I will love my wife when my needs are being met. I would love my wife more if only she was more submissive and followed my headship. And such love, of course, is not love at all. It is contrary to the very nature of love that just as the wife renders unconditional respect, the husband gives unconditional love. Now, unconditional is a word to be careful with. Unconditional does not mean that anything goes or that everything is allowable. It simply means that conditions do not set the pace of love. Conditions are not the up or down regulator of love. That's why a better, stronger word would be covenantal love. Covenantal love, which says my commitment to you arises out of a solemn relationship that God himself has established. And so, of course, when we ask the question, well, where can we find a picture? Where do we have an example of this great covenantal love? We know we look no further than the Lord Jesus Christ himself and his great love for his bride. And when we do that immediately, our false notions of love evaporate. It's unimaginable to think of Jesus saying, well, I'll give myself up for my bride when she gets her act together. I'll give myself up for my bride when she finally gets submission just right or when my needs are met. Then and only then will I love my bride. Such words are unimaginable, unthinkable on the lips of our Savior. And so Christ shows perfect covenantal love that knows nothing of such conditions. Instead, he has this whole-souled commitment to love his bride, this determination that propels him through sweating drops of blood, through the agony of the cross, through greatness of persecutions. So great was his love for his bride. And that is exactly where Paul heads next. He goes on to show us with great specificity what this love looks like as we explore the husband's motivations. Right away, Paul says to husbands, your template, your paradigm to learn love is Christ. As verse 25 says, love as Christ loves the church. And then he explains exactly what he means by the word love in that Christ gave himself up for her. So just to review from last week, we covered that headship means many things, not least of which is authority and responsibility. And so Christ is given as head of the church and over her, he has authority and responsibility. Now, if submission is a dirty word in the popular age, no doubt authority is also a dirty word in the modern age. What did John Mellencamp say? I fight authority. Authority always wins. That is how we think of authority. We're very suspicious of it. But how did Christ as our head wield his authority? Did he take his authority and lord it over the church? Did he take his authority and oppress the church? Did he take his authority and abdicate it by preserving his own life, sitting back and waiting to see what happens? No, he actively, purposefully, willfully gave himself up for his bride. He sacrificed himself for her. And it should be noted that why the cross, no doubt, is the culmination of such love. Every moment leading up to that point was one suffused with love for his bride. And so we see the first part of covenant to love is one of sacrifice, cross-shaped love. And again, the only way such sacrifice of Christ makes any sense at all is in the realm of a covenant, right? If Christ is just some individual, if he's just a Gandhi going around trying to love random people, his sacrifice is meaningless. What makes Christ's sacrifice our sacrifice is that he is there on the cross as our head, representing us, truly dying for us. And so, too, for husbands, you are the head of your wife, not of women in general, but of your wife by way of covenant. When the minister says, I now pronounce you man and wife, that is your ordination. You are now installed as the head of your wife. And so the call for husbands is for your headship to be marked by sacrificial love. Most obviously, that means a willingness to die for your wife. But no doubt what is in many ways more challenging is to live for your wife with this whole soul commitment to blessing her with your love to over and over and over again, say my life for yours. And men, you must know that it is this love that makes your wife's submission a delight and not drudgery. To use military metaphors, if a platoon senses that their platoon leader is out in front, willing to die for them, putting himself second to them, how much more does it compel their respect and their submission? And conversely, if he is in the rear preserving his own life, it compels their disrespect, even their mutiny. Thomas Aquinas once said it well, nothing can provoke love more than to know that one is loved. That is a question for you to ask. I might be provoking my wife, but am I provoking her in the right way? Does she know that she is loved? So covenant to love is sacrificial. Secondly, covenant to love is also effective. It accomplishes a goal. And you see, Paul say that next in verse 26, he accomplished this goal, that he might sanctify us, cleansing us by the washing of water with the word. Now we must clarify, Paul's analogy is not exact, right? It's not a one-to-one correspondence. So the husband is like Christ, but of course he's not identical to Christ. Sorry, husband. So for instance, the husband, of course, cannot atone for the sins of his wife, right? He can't sanctify his wife in the same way that only Christ can. But let's give Paul some credit, right? He's no dummy. He knows that. And so he clarifies for us exactly what he means. You can skip down to verse 28 and see how he connects Christ to the husband when he says this, in the same way, as in in the same way as Christ, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. And again, the only way that loving your wife as your own body makes any sense at all is within a covenant. What did God say to Adam and Eve? The two of you, the two individuals, you are now one flesh. In other words, their marriage union is so real that to love your wife is to love yourself because you are one. Paul is not saying, in other words, hey, pretend that you and your wife are one or just make believe that you and your wife are one so that you can have a better marriage as a kind of mental exercise. He's saying, no, you really are one flesh. That is the reality of a covenant. And if we doubt that, if we doubt that union, once again, just look to Jesus Christ in the church and ask, how real is that union? How real is that bond? We really are the bride of Christ. We really are in him, united to him. He really loves us because we are members of his body. And that is the call to the husband. Love your wife sacrificially, effectively. Thirdly, we see that Christ's love is a glorifying love, a transformative love. You can skip back to verse 27 and Paul says this in loving us, Christ might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Now, again, the husband cannot make his wife holy in the way that only Christ can, but he can and must love her in such a way that she becomes more and more lovely, which is the exact opposite of the worldly wise man. The man who marries a wife and then he sits back and waits to see, hopes to see, that she will retain her beauty. No, this is the very opposite. Covenantal love says, I will commit to loving you steadfastly and watch your loveliness grow and grow and flourish. And so the command is for the husband to love his wife sacrificially, effectively, transformatively. Now, men can be quite dense, admittedly, and so men need concrete instructions, right? You might read those opening verses and go, well, gee, I guess I better love my wife a whole bunch, much more than I do currently. Now, Paul, though, knows that and so he gives us these two very critical verbs to help the husband understand what he is to do. And so you see there, Paul has these two critical verbs in verse 29 of nourish and cherish, nourish and cherish. And you can see why Paul would give this instruction, right? It's not typical for men to be nourishers. You give a little boy a wiffle bat, what does he do? He walks around smashing things and destroying things, right? He does not think, how can I use this bat to be a nourisher? That's unnatural. But it is the most natural thing in the world when it is your own body, right? No one hates his own flesh. And so first, by implication, to nourish and cherish means the husband must put some things off, put some things to death, namely, put off all forms of harshness, severity, unkindness, abusiveness, bitterness, and the like. And it's here we can note the husband tends to have two very common temptations. On the one side, a temptation towards tyranny, right? To take his authority and lord it over his wife, asserting himself in aggressive and harsh ways, to confuse headship with being an overbearing boss, suffocating your wife. And so if the wife is on eggshells, hiding things from her husband, if the kids instinctively say, don't let dad find that out, dad will lash out at us if he finds that out. These are often signs of abuses of authority in headship. And so what does Proverbs say? The heart of her husband trusts in his wife. There's this unreserved trust from the husband. He's not hovering over her, barking out commands. And on the other end of tyranny lays another great temptation, the opposite side, one of passivity, of being passive, for the husband to abdicate his authority, to forsake his responsibility. We saw last week the woman's curse, to rule over her husband. The husband has the corollary of that, to be ruled over by his wife. And so the temptation is for the husband to transfer his authority, his responsibility, to his wife. And so this can often look like the wife is making and owning all decisions, setting the priorities and values of the family. She's unilaterally guiding things, bearing the weight of life. And we must say that every cultural moment is different, right? Every culture has its own unique temptations. And men, in case you've been under a rock, no doubt our culture tends to favor that of passivity. That it's not merely allowable, but even prescribed for men to be passive, husbands in particular. That a man should not see himself as the head, because marriage is just a partnership. Equal partners, equal responsibility. Which sounds so good, so nice, so progressive, but it is the exact opposite of covenantal love. Again, just try to envision the Lord Jesus as our head saying, look, we're equals in this relationship. You have your thing, I have my thing. Let's find a way to meet in the happy middle. It is unimaginable on the lips of our Savior. He always exercises his lordship in the most loving of ways. And that's why it must be said with clarity that while Christ serves the church, he never submits to the church as if the church were the head, right? Christ is the head. He serves the church. He loves the church. He listens to the church. He nourishes the church, but he never submits to the church. And I say that because there is a modern trend in our day to take servanthood, servant leadership even, and turn it into submission, where the husband's role becomes little more than just being an errand boy for his wife. And that's actually far easier for the husband, because he can simply turn to his wife and say, hey, you just tell me what to do and I'll do it, all under the guise of servanthood. What is far harder, far more costly, far more sacrificial is taking responsibility and ownership of everything. And this is where we must renew our minds. The modern husband is trained to think of marriage as a 50-50 split, 50-50 partnership, that if there's a problem, an issue, she bears some of it and I bear some of it. You throw on top of that Adam's sin, man's temptation to be a great finger pointer and say, Lord, it was the woman that you gave me. Before refinement, again, all we have to do is look to Jesus Christ, our head, that he was personally guiltless, that he was individually sinless. And yet what did he do? He took upon himself, not some, not a lot, but all of our sins, all of our iniquities are placed upon him. He is fully, completely answerable for our sins. And so, too, for the husband, he is 100 percent responsible for his wife and family. Now, that, of course, doesn't mean that the wife is personally absolved from her duties to walk uprightly. Of course not. But it does mean that the weight, the burden, the accountability for everything falls to the husband. This is why God comes to Adam first. Headship means start with yourself first. If your first instinct is, let me find the problems out there, let me locate the problems in her, you've already put the wrong foot forward. And so, practically, this means that the head is answerable for things like the management of the home, finances, the pace of life, raising and educating the children, and most particularly, ownership in terms of decisions. The weight of making a final decision, and even more importantly, the consequences of every decision fall upon the head. He cannot turn and say, hey, it was your idea to eat the fruit of the tree. So, the call is to put off tyranny, put off passivity, and instead, put on these two verbs in verse 29. Firstly, love your wife by nourishing her. Now, what does it mean to nourish? The literal meaning is to feed, to provide food for. And that might seem a little odd at first, but just think of the human body, right? The human body needs food for nourishment. We often say water is more important than food, and it is if you're talking survival. But Paul is not interested in marriages just surviving, he wants marriages to thrive. And that requires nourishment, food. And that is what the husband is to provide. And so, that means many things. Firstly, that could mean financial provision. As Scripture says, if a man does not provide for his house, he is worse than an unbeliever. The very rise of the concept of a stay-at-home dad just shows how much we've condoned passivity in this area. Nourishment would also include providing intangible things, things like affection, tenderness, compassion, a listening ear, right? Providing the atmosphere of nourishment. This is why it's so important, husbands, to study your wife, right? To live with your wife in an understanding way. Every wife is different, and so it falls to you, what are the things that nourish my wife? This means, husbands, the longer and longer that you are married, the less and less you should be saying, oh, I didn't know that about you. I didn't know that would upset you. I didn't know you liked that. Also, nourishment is something that is shown. It's displayed. Very often, it is verbalized, right? You know that unfortunate joke about the man on his wedding day, he says, honey, I love you, and I'll let you know if that ever changes, right? Pro tip, that is not nourishment, all right? You see the man, you see Proverbs say, the excellent wife is to be praised. Who is the one leading that praise but her own husband? Maybe you say, well, I praise my wife more if only she was more excellent. But you see, it is precisely your love. It is precisely your nourishment that beautifies your wife. You would not walk out to a garden that you never watered, never fertilized, and wonder, why is this garden barren? So too with nourishing your wife. And nourishment will lastly, above all, include spiritual guidance, right? This washing of water with the word. And when Jesus taught his disciples, what did he say? You are now clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. And so too for the husband, he is to provide spiritual guidance and leadership that is nourishing to his wife. Secondly, relatedly to nourishment, Paul has this command, husbands, cherish your wife. To cherish is to take care of. It is to provide comfort. And again, cherishment is not something that men naturally gravitate towards. But again, just think of your own body, right? You do not sporadically care for your own body. You do not say, well, it has been two weeks, I guess I will brush my teeth now. No, you have this constant, deliberate care of your body. And more importantly, it speaks to tenderness. Just imagine if you got a speck in your eye, right? You would not get out your sledgehammer to get that speck out of your eye, right? You would not get out your hammer and chisel to remove that speck from your eye. No, you would very delicately, considerately, gently remove the object. Why? Because it is your eyeball and it is precious to you. And the glory of your eyeball is not in its brute force, right? It is not a bicep. It is this very tender, delicate, complex thing to you, precious because it is your eye. And that gets us started on the idea of husbands cherish your wife. And we will walk through this in four ways. Firstly, this means that the husband must be putting off all forms of discontent with his wife. Again, just try to imagine Christ whining about his bride. Why can't you be more like this? Why can't you get this right? No, it is impossible, right? Christ rejoices over us as his treasured possession. And so this means the husband must put on a high view of his wife that sees her as exceedingly precious, even cultivating a godly jealousy for his wife. Secondly, this means caring for your wife, particularly when she is distressed. Of course, her ultimate refuge is in the Lord, but God has given husbands to be a source of strength and stability in times of distress. You see this with the Lord Jesus in Matthew's gospel. He looks out over the people and he sees them distressed and dispirited, and he steps up to provide teaching and guidance and to provide security, and so too for the husband. And so what this often means is the husband must put off looking down at his wife if she is distressed, be it a hard day at home, or be it a whole season of life of stress. Because men, we are trained to view weakness as weakness, right? We see weakness as weakness. In other words, we think of exploiting weakness, right? This is how all combat works. Find your enemy's weakness and then expose it, exploit it. But as Peter says, husbands, show your wife honor as the weaker vessel. So the husband's response, the heart of the moment is the greater and greater he is to be moved with considerate compassion, considerate compassion that includes listening well and extending sympathy the likes of our sympathetic high priest. Thirdly, cherishing your wife would also include that all of your sexual desire orbits around your wife. This, of course, means putting off all forms of a wandering eye, wandering thoughts, flirtations, comparisons to other women, and so forth to put that off and to put on the goodness of marriage. As Proverbs says, be intoxicated. That is a command. Be intoxicated with the wife of your youth. And finally, to cherish also includes protection, protection, right? The more a thing is cherished, the more it is protected. You walk in and look at the painting of the Mona Lisa, and it is highly secured. Why? Because it is a one-of-a-kind painting. It is irreplaceable. And that is how the husband should view his wife, that she is more precious than jewels. And so for the husband to protect his wife, firstly that, of course, most obviously means physically that he protects his wife. This is one of the reasons God has made men stronger than women, as well as giving men an urge to protect, so that they can use their strength not for oppression but for defense and protection. And protection, of course, can be expanded well beyond the physical realm, right? This would mean protecting your family and your wife from the parade of dangers of our dark world. There would be things like predatory dangers, internet dangers, emotional dangers, spiritual dangers, influential dangers, even theological dangers in the form of bad teaching. In all of these, the husband is the outer wall. He is the hard exterior. As Proverbs says, he is the wise king who can winnow the wicked with his wisdom in protecting his family and his wife. And so, by implication, nourishing and cherishing can only be done if the husband is present, right? When he is there, right? To love is to be present. How does Jesus comfort us? He says, I will always be with you. And so, too, the husband must be present physically, emotionally, with his mind, with his heart. As we just read from Proverbs, the man who isolates himself seeks his own desire part of passivity is withdrawal, right? Finding things to occupy my time. This is why it's so easy for husbands to throw themselves into work, throw themselves into a hobby. And that, of course, is a fine line. We just mentioned that we are to be out of the home for legitimate reasons, providing for our family. You see, even Jesus take time for solitude. But for all of that, the husband is to be on high alert that he is making the best use of the time to be present, to nourish his wife, and to cherish his wife. And so, there is a word on what is, no doubt, no small task for the husband to nourish and cherish his wife. And we've seen all in all that it's just an imitation of Christ's love for his bride. As verse 29 says, do this just as Christ does the church. And as if to really tighten the screws of Paul's command, as we ask the question, well, why does Christ love the church so much? Why does he love the church so well? Why does he love the bride so much? Verse 30, Paul assures us, because we are members of his body. We really are united to him in covenant fellowship. And that closes the circle that so too is man and wife. They are united to one another as one flesh. And hopefully you see now why theology is the most practical thing in the world, why Paul has expended so much energy to show us the deep, deep love of Jesus Christ, the glory of Christ as our head, that we really do belong to him. We really are united to him, because if you get that wrong, you'll get many other things wrong, not least of which is marriage. And that explains so much of our current state. Right, you don't have to be a brilliant tactician to answer the question, does Satan like marriage? What will the world's posture be towards marriage? To see that in every way, at every moment, our enemy longs to take the imagery of Christ and the church and destroy it, sully it, pervert it. For every marriage is a kind of living sermon, a sermonette on Jesus Christ and his bride. So that's why, just a word to our younger saints, to hold marriage in the highest esteem, that you will be fed the lie that marriage is just a lifestyle choice, right? It's just one choice among many other equally valid choices. And you need to know that is contrary to God's wisdom, that is contrary to God's gift, your right to aspire to be married, that marriage is a great gift of God, an awesome blessing when pursued in covenant faithfulness. That's why in verse 33, here's Paul's parting word to the husband, that above everything else, expend all your energy on loving your wife. Notice Paul does not say, see to it that your wife submits to you. He does not say, husbands, be the enforcers, be an enforcer that enforces submission. No, his parting word to husbands, husbands, see to it that you nourish your wife, that you cherish your wife, that you love your wife. That is your duty. And so, husbands, if your conscience is stirred, if this has not been you, if you have been unloving to your wife, go, confess it to the Lord. Go and confess it to her. And even more so, establish a rhythm of reconciliation in your home. We are to forgive as God forgives us. And how does God forgive us? Mercy is new every morning. And so, fill your home, fill your marriage with that same reality that becomes just the normal pattern of your marriage, to be regularly reconciled to one another. And when that is done, those weeds are kept small, very easy to pluck, and the soil is fertile to nourish and to cherish your wife. And so, as we close, let us lay up in our hearts four uses, four uses of this great section on headship. Firstly, humble headship, humble headship. Sometimes I wonder, why does Paul start with the wives and then the husband in Ephesians? It seems backwards. And there's many guesses to that, but my own thought is that's so as to bring the husband to his knees. And what I mean is that as it begins to dawn on the husband that he is the head, that his wife is called to submit to his authority, to his headship in everything, the only proper response would be one of profound humility. As we've seen, he's simultaneously to be like Christ, and he is under the authority of Christ, right? In every way, he has this delegated authority. And so, that should always compel the husband to lead with a bowed head, to lead with a bended knee in true and enduring humility. Secondly, respectable headship, respectable headship. The husband is to get low so that he can get high. The reaction from a husband upon hearing that his wife is to respect him would be to rise to such occasion, right? The husband should find himself asking, if I am to be respected, am I respectable? Is it easy to respect me? Is it easy to submit to me? It was said of David that his rule was like the sun shining on a cloudless morning, that his rule was like the rain falling to make the grass grow. So nourishing and cherishing was King David. That is what we are to aspire to, to ask, is my headship like that? Thirdly, grace-filled headship, grace-filled headship. One of the keys when you make a goal is for the goal to be attainable, right? You've got to be able to accomplish the goal. If I came up to you and said, all right, man, here's the goal. Lift 50 times your body weight, right? Run a three-minute mile. You would throw your hands up and say, I'm defeated before we even said the word go. And sometimes for husbands, that is how this command feels. If you really take this seriously and you have a moment to go, wait a minute, I'm representing Jesus Christ. What's the point of even trying? I've failed before we've even said go. Remember, Paul is encouraging us. Paul's encouraging you. He's saying you were once dead. Now you are alive. You were once alienated. Now you've been brought near. You were once in darkness. Now you are light. That God himself has prepared good works for the good husband to walk in by way of his grace, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And lastly, sacrificial headship, sacrificial headship. The charge is clear, right? Love sacrifices. That there is no greater love than this, that a man would give up his life for his bride, taking up your cross once, taking up your cross daily. And when all this happens, what is the result? When a wife respects her husband, when a husband loves his wife, what is the end result? The end result is glory, that the wife is beautified, that she is radiant in her splendor, that the husband has a crown on top of his head. And where does all that glory go? To whom does all that glory go? It goes to the one who said, the two shall become one flesh. And this profound mystery is just an image of Jesus Christ and his great love for his bride. May it be so with us. Let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly father, we do indeed praise you that you have given us the Lord Jesus Christ as our head, that we know how far we short, and so we look to him, that he is the one who has truly paid it all upon the cross, that through him we are redeemed, that through him we are set on our feet to do what you have commanded us to do, that we know we can nourish others because we have been first nourished, we've been loved by the greatest love of all. And so we do pray that we would go forth in covenant faithfulness, being full of the spirit, and that we would do so for your glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
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