Ephesians 5:15-33 The Role & Priorities of the Husband & Wife

I met God in the morning, when the day was at its best, and his glory rose like sunshine with a presence in my breast. All day long, his presence lingered. All day long, he stayed with me, and we sailed in perfect calmness over a very troubled sea. Other ships were tossed and battered. Other ships were so distressed, and the wind that seemed to drive them gave to us a peace and rest. Then I too remembered, with keen remorse of mind, how I too had loosed the moorings with God's presence left behind. So I think I've learned the secret gained from many a troubled day. You must meet God in the morning if you want him through the day. I have made you a copy of the poem. They're at the back. And this is yours, Forrest. I've ordered it. I sent it to you airmail. We lost a dear friend from the church this week. Andy Mercer passed away. Many of you knew Jan and Andy Mercer, members here for many, many years. Brother Jimmy and I will be doing service for them this coming Thursday. Andy and Jan were dear, dear friends. We were in a 4-2 club together for about 30 years, as well as being in this church with them and other places, and traveled with them to the Holy Land about 15, 20 times. Just delightful people, both of them. Jan was a professor at Tarrant College at TCC, and she taught biology and she taught chemistry. She had two PhDs, one in chemistry and one in biology. A lot of people never knew that. She was a very intelligent woman, very knowledgeable of the things of biology and chemistry, taught both at the college. Andy was an engineer, aeronautical engineer, worked with FAA. In fact, he was in charge of the division of radio science for FAA. He had the seat to it, and all of the radios on the airplanes, Charlie, that you guys flew were working correctly. Both of them graduated from Law College in Ruston, Louisiana, Louisiana College, which is the A&M of Louisiana, if you know anything about the schools over there. We lost Andy. He passed away, and his funeral will be on this coming Thursday at, I think, at Hearst? Yeah, it's in Hearst, at the funeral home on Precinct Line, Precinct Line in Hearst, and burial at Blue Bonnet, so you all just be aware of the fact. Please remember Barbara. Barbara was taking a shower last night and decided she wanted to fall, and she did, and cut her leg rather severely. In fact, as soon as I get home, I'm going to rush her, take her out to an ER to see if we need to put a stitch in her knee. She bruised her hand and bruised her arm and just made a mess of it all, and had to call Doug to come help me get her out of the shower, so, you know, it's very difficult to get people up again, so thank you all for remembering her. She is resting presently, and she was doing well when I left, a little bit of pain in her leg and in her chest. I think maybe she hit a chair. We have a chair in the shower. I think she may have hit the chair on the way down. Anyway, you all pray for her. Thank you for doing that, and pray for us as we go to see about it. So those are the things we need to remember in prayer, and we thank you all for praying for us so very much. Today we're going to look at the fourth way that the Apostle Paul is trying to teach us how we are to live advantageously in the kingdom of God. And he does it in the fourth and fifth chapters of the book of Ephesians, and in the fourth chapter he introduces two, and he tells us that we are to walk worthy of the calling wherewith God has called us, and that's basically our relationship to the worth-ship of God. We talk about worship, it really is worth-ship. We are worthy to Him, and so he talked to us about a lifestyle that would be of worth to God. Then he talks about a lifestyle in chapter five that we talked about last Sunday morning, which would be a lifestyle that imitates and simulates the life of Jesus Christ in our life, and he called that walk in love. And he said as you walk in love, you walk as Jesus Christ loves. So as you walk worthily, you walk as God intended for us to walk here on the earth, and then you walk in love, and that's how Christ intended for us to walk, and we talked last week about the various and sundry ways Christ walked, and we too are to walk in the same way. And then last week we also talked about walking as children of light. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. A city that's set on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do they put a candle under a bushel but put it on a candlestick where it may give light to the whole house. Now that's an interesting statement, I won't go there today, but give light to the whole house. That meant it was a one-room house. When you give light to the whole house on one candlestick, it doesn't take a genius long to figure out that's one room, and it gives light to the whole house. Then Jesus said, let your light so shine that they may see your good works, and because of your good works, glorify my Father who is in heaven. John said, in him was light, and the light was the life of men, and that light shined into the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it, and that light is the light of the Holy Spirit. So now you've got the Trinity. We're walking worthily as God chooses for us to walk, we're walking in love as Jesus walked in love, and we're walking in the light of the Holy Spirit who is the indwelling presence that gives us life internally and gives us light externally, and now today he's going to talk about a new society when he talks about circumspect walking. It's kind of interesting, I know Brother Jim and I have talked about this a great deal, we've talked with other pastors and ministers and theological students, and it's kind of difficult for us in the 21st century to really understand what marriage and a wife was like in the 1st century. Now don't start bragging on the Jews because the Jews had a horrible concept of a woman. In fact, I remind you all that a Jewish male when he got up in the morning prayed these prayers, God I thank thee that I am not a woman, I thank thee that I am not a slave, and I thank thee that I am not a Gentile dog, and that was his first prayer every morning. So that gives you an idea of what the Jews thought about a woman. A woman to a Jew was a thing, and they were little more than child mortgage, and yet that was the wrapping of the world, and the whole world was wrapped with that, even though the Jewish people had all of the Old Testament and the law, and even though in the book of Deuteronomy, in the Deuteronomic writers talked about the evil of the world and the evil of the relationship of the world and the evil of getting away from that relationship, and Paul himself even talked about the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit in the book of Galatians, and all the time we talk about what the world is like, we don't talk about fruit, we talk about works, and the work of the flesh is, and Paul gives a litany of them in the chapter in the book of Galatians 5, 20, 21, 22, 23, and then he comes back with the fruit of the spirit, and that's kind of interesting. Fruit and vegetables can only grow in the light. If you have no light you won't have any vegetables, you won't have any grass either, you won't have any fruit, and so we are to walk in the light as he is in the light, and if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then because we're in the light we can bear fruit. If we walk in the darkness, the darkness of the flesh of this world, all we will do is bear and live like the world, and you don't want to live like the world. So those are the three. We walk worthy, we walk with God, we walk in love, we walk as Christ, he loved us and gave himself for us at ransom, we walk in the spirit, we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with him, and the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on doing what? Cleansing us from all sins, and so now you see how Paul is trying to put this together. Now he's getting ready to talk about the way the Christian society is supposed to live. Now during this particular time, the Jews had a terrible thinking process about a woman, they were little more than chattel mortgage, in fact they were bought, they had to give daddy a dowry in order to get the bride, the Greeks were no better, in fact most of Greek houses had four women that lived as a part of that house all the time, the fourth one being the wife who bore children for the man, and the others were just his friends, and there was no problem, every Greek man had four women in his life, one at home to bear children, and the others for whatever he needed them for, a good looking gal to take to the banquets, another one to cohabit with, and others just pick up along the way. The Romans had little or better, the Romans had several wives, in fact we know for a fact that they had a game that they played often times in the city of Rome as to see how many divorces you could get, and how many times you could remarry, and we have historical documentation that one woman in the city of Rome remarried 147 times, and it was just a game, the more you can marry the better off you are, the more women you can have the better off you are, the more women you get the better off you are, and that was the society, and it was a society of darkness, and it was a society of sin, and it was a society of lust, and ungodliness, it was a society of the darkness of this world, now it's into that kind of society on all sides of the Apostle Paul, he's getting ready to tell a church to whom he had preached two years and three months, he's going to write them a letter, and he's going to remind them about what he preached about the society of the kingdom of God, and he's going to talk about the wife, he's going to talk about the children, and he's going to talk about the servants in this latter part of this fifth chapter. Brother Jimmy will pick up on the children and servants next week in chapter 6, I will introduce the wife in chapter 5 as we come to look at verse 17 and following, which says, therefore, by the way, in this particular two chapters of the book of Romans, of the book of Ephesians, there are five therefores, one therefore is in chapter 4, and four therefores are in chapter 5, and every time you run into a therefore, it means I am introducing something about which I just finished talking, and now I just told you something, and now I'm going to tell you something else, it's sort of like the black preacher who was asked one day, how do you preach? He said, it's very simple, I get up, I tell the people, then I tell them what I told them, then I tell them what I told them again, and so I tell them, then I tell them what I told them, then I tell them what I told them again, and so what he's going to do, he's going to tell you what he told you again here a little bit, so he's going to talk about a new society based on the kingdom of God, not based on the works of the flesh, not based on the kingdom of darkness, not based on the king, now if you can think about wrapping your mind around the first century, and Brother Jim and I and others talk about this a lot, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around the first century, and think about the fact that there was no love for a woman at all, and a woman was just a thing, in fact, do you ladies know when you got the privilege to vote in the United States? It wasn't long ago, it was the end of the 19th century, the early part of the 20th century, that's just about 150 years ago, you ladies weren't able to vote, I mean even here in America, we were not that great in taking care of our women folk, oftentimes they were just things, like they were in other places, this was very true, in the Jewish, now although the Jewish people had all the commandments of the law, and although God had given them all of the instructions about how to treat a wife, and how to treat your relatives, even with all of that information, they still sinned, and they had a darkness in their relationship to women, and they just, in fact, before I finish, every woman should thank the Lord Jesus Christ for elevating womanhood, he is the one who took the women out of darkness into the light, and Paul's going to talk about that, now he begins by saying in verse 17, therefore do not be unwise, therefore do not be, back up, go to 15, see that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil, okay, pause right there, we'll stop there, now, this word circumspectly means to walk in a very careful, counted, developed, relational kind of living, and that is a very, very careful kind of living, in other words, what Paul is saying, circumspectly means to watch your P's and Q's carefully, and to watch your P's and Q's especially as they relate to the kingdom of God, and so, what he's saying here is, you need to be very careful about how your life demonstrates the kingdom of God, in fact, it's sort of the question, what gospel are the people in your lifespan reading, they can read the New Testament, they can read the Old Testament, but the one they read the most is the New Testament, and they read us more than any testament, most people have never read the word of God, in fact, it would be interesting if we took a survey in here and asked the question, how many of you have read through the entire Bible, and I'm not going to ask you to put your hands up, I don't want to embarrass me, are you? Okay, and so, although I've read through it many times, and you probably have too, but, you know, how many people have read through the Bible? Very few, some have read parts of the Bible, but very few, so, anyway, the Apostle Paul now is getting ready to talk about a circumspect one, I had a dear friend, by the name of V. Raymond Edmond, Dr. Edmond, in 1963, came to North Richland Hills Baptist Church, where I was minister of music and education, youth, part-time secretary, half-time custodian, and sometimes cut the yard, we were running 131 in Sunday School, Jim, back in 1963, and I came to work there to work on a PhD and be with Hal Brooks at North Richland Hills, I was at North Richland Hills, and Brother Jimmy was here at ULIS, and so we were kind of overlapped with each other there. We had V. Raymond Edmond, who was president of Wheaton College. Dr. Edmond was a missionary to Peru, he was a professor of history at Wheaton College, PhD in history, became president of Wheaton College, and later on became chancellor. One of the most spiritual men I have ever met, he was one of three men that worked with Billy Graham, he found Billy Graham in a revival meeting on the campus at Wheaton. They were having a great revival meeting on the campus of Wheaton, and he said, I kept seeing this blonde-headed tall kid moving from line to line, because we were doing counseling, and he kept moving so that he could get in my line. And finally, he got in my line, and he walked up to me, and I looked at him, and I said, son, who are you? He said, sir, I am Bill Graham from North Carolina. I need to talk to you, I think God's calling me to preach. And that's how it started. And because of that, Dr. Edmond became one of three men who helped Billy Graham decide where his crusades were going to be for his entire ministry. V. Raymond Edmond was a great man. He taught us the book of Ephesians at North Richland Hills. He said about this word circumspect, he said, we lived in a row house in Chicago. Each row house, three stories, had a backyard with a brick fence that enclosed our backyard. Each house had a backyard brick fence. He said the yard was probably 50 by 75. It was a nice backyard, but it had a six foot brick fence on it. And he said every night, just at sundown, old Tomcat would get on the end of the fence, and that Tomcat would start strolling down the fence singing to the top of his voice. And he would sing and sing and sing and sing and disturb everybody in the neighborhood. And he would walk the top of that fence, and as he slowly walked the top of the fence, he sang and sang and sang and just disturbed everybody. He said my daddy did everything to stop him. He said he threw bottles at him, he threw cans at him, he shot him with a BB gun. He said he tried to get rid of that cat, and that old cat would not be ridden. And every night at sundown, here came the cat. I came home from school, he said, one day, and dad was in the backyard with a concrete in a wheelbarrow. And he said he put a layer of concrete on the top of that fence. A little thin layer of concrete on the top of that fence. And he said into that concrete, he put every kind of object of hurt that you could think. Broken bottles, cans sticking up, all kinds of nails sticking. He said he made an obstacle course on the top of our fence as that fence moved along. He said you could not put your hand up there without getting cut. And he said we sat back and waited for Tom to come. He said sure enough, in the dark, here came Tom, down on the end, singing his heart out. He said he came to our fence, did not even stop his song, just kept singing, looked at all of the obstacles that were there, and very carefully put his foot inside a broken bottle. Left paw inside a broken bottle. He said then he brought his right paw and put it in between four nails and a broken can. And then he brought his left rear little paw in and put it into another broken bottle. And his right paw he brought and put it in between nine pieces of broken glass. And he said, Jack, my daddy and I sat there and watched that cat walk that fence circumspectly. You got the picture? And that's the best illustration I've ever heard of circumspect walking. It means to walk with extreme care. And to be sure that as you live, which the word walk simply means, as you live with extreme care, you emulate, you imitate, and you simulate the life and the love and the light and the worth of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as we walk. So now into this he begins by saying, therefore, be not unwise, but understand what is the will of the Lord, and do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Now what Paul is getting ready to tell them here is something that's going to end up with unity. He's trying to tell his dear friends in the city of Ephesus that they are not to be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but they are to be filled with the Spirit. Now that word to be filled with the Spirit simply means to always be full of, always be full of the Holy Spirit, always allow the Holy Spirit to demonstrate himself in and out of your life, always being available in the Spirit to walk with the children of God as we walk with one another in fellowship. And it is because of that we have fellowship with one another. If we walk in the light, if all of us walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And that's where Paul is coming here. He is coming again to that statement that he had in another passage where he said, walk in fellowship one with another in the light. And if you walk in the light as he is in the light, you have fellowship with one. He is moving toward unity. And he is wanting the people in the city of Ephesus, in the church at Ephesus, to come once again to understand that their relationship is not a solo. It is not a duet. It is not a quartet. Their lifestyle should be embraced and inherited into the unity and the lifestyle of the church. And they are to be unified in God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit, in unity of one another in the church. And Paul is trying to help them understand. And he starts talking about singing. Now, Paul does this twice. He does it here. He does it over in Corinth, in Corinthians. What he says in verse 19, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart unto the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he is not talking about singing. He is talking about being in unity with one another. And that's why he says, speaking to one another. And to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, being a part of a togetherness. In fact, it's kind of an interesting study. When you get to Revelation, to Revelation, there is a revelation that says, we will be singing together a new song before the throne. And what the revelator said is that the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, the church, when we are all in heaven, we will be in such unity, we will have such unity together that we will sing in unity together a new song before the throne of God. Now, I put in your paper a little song. It's one that we sing often, probably still do sometimes. And it sounds this way. We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord. We are one in the Spirit. We are one in the Lord. And we pray that our unity will one day be restored. And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. And they'll know that we are Christians by our love. This is what Paul is trying to tell the church in Ephesus, that the people of Ephesus need to see them not walking in dissension, not walking in argumentation, not walking in argumentation, not walking in hostility. But the people of the city of Ephesus needs to see the church of the Lord Jesus Christ walking in the Spirit, one with the other. We had a lady in our church in Lake Jackson, Jim. She tried to make us believe she was the most spiritual person in the entire world. Caroline, if I told you her name, you'd know who she was. I'm not going to tell you her name. We were having a meeting one night. We were building a new building, and we were having a meeting. She was on our decoration committee. She shouldn't have been on any committee, but she was on our decoration committee. And we were trying to determine the color of the carpet. It's not a big deal. The color of the carpet. And she wanted one particular color. And although the whole of the committee had already agreed on the color, which eventually we put in there, she did not want that color in there. And this lady stood up, and I have never heard a sailor cuss as much as she did in that church department. She cussed everybody out. She cussed the committee out. She cussed the pastor out. She cussed me out. She cussed the deacon body out. She cussed everybody out and walked out and slammed the door. And the next Sunday morning, she was in her pew singing the songs of Zion. Now, that's not what he's talking about here. And Paul is trying to tell the church what the Ephesian people who are still in darkness and who still are walking in the flesh and who are still walking in the world, what they need to see in your daily life, not just alone as a solo, but in singing in fellowship with the entire church body, singing and making melody in your hearts unto the Lord. And that, by the way, I can prove to you that that has nothing to do with music. But I'm not going to go there, okay? It has everything to do with unity and with fellowship. And singing together and making melody in the Lord unto him. And he is talking about, we need in the community to be a one face, unified body of believers. Now, aren't you glad we don't have that trouble here? With tongue in cheek. You see, that trouble's in every church. Not just Euless, not just Northridge and Hills, every church. And it's just difficult because there are a number of people who though claim the name of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, do not walk in unity with the church. And the Apostle Paul says, we must be one in the spirit. We must be one in the Lord. We must walk in unity and in fellowship. And that's what this whole, and that, therefore, that precedes that is why it's there. And then he turns to the wife. Now, he's talked about the society. And see, I told you he's getting ready to paint a brand new society. He's getting ready to paint a holy society. A holy society that has as its ruler and leader, eternal God himself, as its commander and general, Jesus Christ the Lord, and as its power and presence, the Holy Spirit. He's getting ready to paint into an unrighteous, unholy, very licentious, vulgar, terrible society, the Roman Empire. He's getting ready to paint a pure, pure relationship. So, he's going to talk about wives and he's going to talk about husbands. And he's going to talk about that until the end of this chapter. And so, this is the first relationship that he's going to talk about. Now, in chapter six, he's going to talk about the family's relationship to the children and the family's relationship to the slaves, the master-slave relationship, the parent-child relationship. And it's kind of interesting, in talking about the wife, the Apostle Paul says the wife must be submissive. In talking about the children and the slaves, the Apostle Paul says they must obey. He uses two different words. Well, you see, ladies and gentlemen, the relationship between a husband and a wife is the same relationship that is between Christ and the church. It's the same relationship. And as the church is to submit to our head, Jesus Christ, so the wife, who is the mother, the one of his love, the person he desires his own, the wife must submit. That does not mean she is to be a rug to be stepped on. To be stepped on. It doesn't mean that she's to be abused. It doesn't mean that she is to have anything other than love from him, but she is to submit to him, so he says it this way. Wives, verse 22, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Now, that's kind of an interesting statement. Why do we submit ourselves to the Lord? Why do we choose time to pray to the Father? Why do we submit to his will? What is the relationship that we have with our Redeemer? Why do we submit to the means of Jesus Christ and his directions to us as to how he lived and now in this society, this society where he is building a pure relational society, well in this society we are to live in purity and to submit to the Trinity. And the husband is to be the head of the home and the wife is to submit to her husband. For he says in verse 23, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church and he is the Savior of the body of the church. Not only is Jesus Christ our Redeemer head and we submit to him through the Father, not only is he our Redeemer head, but he is also the Savior of our bodies. And he is also the Savior of the body that's called the church. Now, just in passing, that scripture has a great deal to do with what Paul will write later in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 through 16, where he says to the Thessalonians that they are to not be unaware of what Jesus Christ has planned for them. And he says to them in Thessalonians, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep in Christ, that you sorrow not as those who have no hope. And he's talking to them about relationship to the head. And he says, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven. With the shout and the archangel and the trumpets of God and the dead in Christ of whom you are so seriously concerned will rise first and we who are alive will be caught up together with them. And we call it the snatching away of the church. You see, ladies and gentlemen, when Jesus Christ came the first time, the first advent, he came to marry you. That was his express purpose. He came as a bridegroom. He came as one who would represent the father, which is what bride grooms in Judaism do. They represent the father. And he was to search for a bride. And in searching for a bride, he was to do some kind of a relationship with her father, the devil, so that he could get a dowry set. Ladies and gentlemen, Christ came the first time to get us. Not to take us home right then, but to get us as his beloved bride and to marry us with his father. He came here to get us. And the first advent was to get us, to get us in the body so that later on, so that later on, when the father said, son, it's time for the marriage supper of the lamb, he can come a second advent to redeem us and take us home. Do you understand? Christ has redeemed you twice. He redeemed you from your sin and brought you into the kingdom of God. Eventually, either by death or by snatching away, he's going to redeem your body from this earth and take you to the father. They are both redemptions. You have been redeemed in the spirit and you are part of his bride. You will be redeemed from this world and part of the eternal kingdom. And so he's saying, wives, understand, you are to relate to your husband just like you are to relate to Christ and the church relates to Christ. Submit to him. Ladies and gentlemen, whatever Jesus Christ says to us, we are to submit to him. Not because of harassment, but because of love. And so he says, husbands, love your wife, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. What in the world is he talking about? He's talking about washing. He's talking about washing with the word. He's talking about spiritual relationships of things that we think about water, but he's talking about a spiritual water. He's talking about the spiritual water of the Holy Spirit. We are inundated in the Holy Spirit. Now, the reason he uses the word water here is because every Jewish bride in preparation for her wedding had to have a ritual bath. She had to have a water bath. And it was imperative that she have a water bath. Now, the water bath did not make her any more bride. The water bath did not cleanse her any more than what she already was. The water bath was a demonstration of her faith and love for the husband, because it was a ritual through which she must walk in order to marry this man. You and I did the same thing with Jesus Christ. He found us. He bought us with his own blood. He raised from the ground in order to redeem us finally into the eternal kingdom. But on the way, he found you the church as his bride, and he took you in. And the first thing he said you need to do is you need to be washed in water. Now, ladies and gentlemen, all of us went through the baptismal pool. That water had no efficacy whatsoever. That water did not save you. That water was not part of your redemption. That water was simply fulfilling the picture that the Apostle Paul is telling the church and emphasis they went through. And he was telling them in the first century. And Dr. Jim and I are telling you in the 21st century, it's the same thing. And we were baptized. We walked through the water. The water had no efficacy. We walked through it because we had fallen in love with the bridegroom because of his great sustenance for us and his great love to us and his great sacrifice in us. And because of that great love for him, we walked through the water in order that we might be part and identified. The water identifies you as the bride of the group. Just like the water, the little lady walked through and getting ready to be in a Jewish wedding, identified her to that group. And she went through the water and she married him and they were unified together. So the Apostle Paul says husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the church. And not only did he love the church, but Christ did something for the church that you will not do for your wife. Now, you might. There are times when men have. There are times when men gave their lives to protect their wives. And there are times now that men give their lives to protect their wives and their family. I can imagine that if the people on October 7th had not been so attacked and surprised that every one of those Jewish men would have attempted to protect his wife and his children because that's part of being a husband. And we at nighttime, when we lay down to sleep, we pray, Dear Father, protect us through the night, and if necessary, do help me to be the father and the husband that I need to be in the event that something comes up and I have to take care of it. You see, it's the same thing. And we love our, we're supposed to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Christ died for the church. Now, I'm going to tell you something with her not here. I'd die for that girl. If I had to, and her name is Barbara. And if I had to, I'd die for her. And I'd do it without any sorrow. Because I love her. Because she is my bride. She, too, walked through the water of the church and she, too, is redeemed. And she, too, is with me in faith. And so he's saying that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. Ladies and gentlemen, baptism did not save you. Baptism simply made you part of his family. The word washed you. The word inundated you. The word filled your being. The word came to you. The word identified for you. The word gave you understanding of relationship. The word brought you to him who is going to be your eternal bridegroom with whom we will live forever in heaven. The word of God is what brought you. And we have been washed in the word. And when you are washed in the word of God, you have been totally inundated and saved. And that's what Paul's talking about. And he's saying the husband would be the same to the wife. He has washed her with his love. He has washed her with his words. I have tried, as a husband, and I know all of you have, I have tried to wash Barbara with words of endearment and words of love and words of appreciation and words of gratitude. Hey, guys, you do it, too. You got it? If you haven't, get it. You wash these beautiful women with your words. I mean, how bad is it to say, darling, I love you. I mean, I really mean it. That is washing her with your words. And she understands your words. And she understands the washing. That's why you ought to tell your wife every day, I love you, sweetheart. I appreciate you. There's so much you do that I can't do. There's so many things. And right now, with Barbara sitting there with a big hunk of her knee cut out that we'll have to have sewn up this afternoon, I'm saying to her, I wish I could wash you with healing. I wish I could do that. So that I can, I'm going to take you to a place where maybe we can. So that's what's happening. Now, that's what husbands aren't supposed to do to their wives. If they need to, they may need to die. Well, quite frankly, when you get married, you have died to self. And you have become alive to your bride. There was a pastor in Oklahoma City in First Baptist Church, Norman, called Preacher Hallock. Preacher was a great athlete. He played football. Back in the early days, this man was playing football in the 20s. He played baseball. He loved to play baseball. He loved to play golf. He loved athletics. He pastored First Baptist Church, Norman, Oklahoma for many, many years, almost 50 years. And one day he wrote a book. And the book he wrote was, The Things To Which I Have Died. And the first illustration in that book was this one. One day on the campus of Oklahoma University in Norman, I saw a beautiful little blonde-headed girl. I went over and introduced myself to her. And she told me her name. And that day, I died to all other women. The things to which I have died. So, husband, you see what I'm talking about? You have died to many things in order to be alive to your bride. Be grateful. Don't take it as an insult. She loves you for it. Okay. Then in 27, it says that you might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So, if he can get the church totally washed, inundated in the word, and walking with the kingdom, then he can present him a holy and righteous, glorious church. No wrinkle. No spot. No blemish. And that's what Paul says you have to become. Then he says, so husbands ought to love their own wives and their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourished and cherished it just as the Lord does for the church. Whoa, this is a very practical approach that Paul is taking here. Do you understand these two words he's just introduced? Nourish and cherish. But to nourish and to cherish. Do you understand the real meaning of those two words and what they mean that we are supposed to do? Actually, what they mean is that we are to nourish by providing all of the necessary activities, mannerisms, food, clothing, necessities, household. We are to provide for them all of the necessities. We are to nourish our wives with all of the necessities of life. That's what the word nourish means. The word cherish means we are to love our wives as we love our own body. You see, I never saw anybody who didn't really love himself. Why do you comb your hair? Why do you take such good care of your teeth? Why do you try to present yourself a whole, well body? Why do we try to dress carefully in order that we might be presentable? Because we want to cherish the people whom we love. And so we nourish our family and we cherish our family. And so we prepare and we do and we cherish and love. And so he says, you are to love just as the Lord, now watch this, just as the Lord nourishes and cherishes. Now, in the Lord's nourishment, may I ask you one simple question that has a very simple that has a very simplistic answer. What has Jesus given to you? Say it Ed. Everything. How much more can he nourish you? He's given you life. He has given you food. He's given you protection. He's given you redemption. He has given you eternal life. He has given you a home in heaven, sins forgiven. He has nourished us and the husband is to nourish the wife in the same manner that Christ nourishes his church. And then you ask the question, well Lord Jesus, how much do you cherish us? Per adventure, Paul said in Romans, that a person might die for someone. Could it be that a man might even dare to die for someone? And then he says, but God extended his love toward us, in that while we were yet his enemies, enemies, Christ died for us. That's how much he cherished us, ladies and gentlemen. Not only has he provided for us everything, but he has also cherished us by giving his own life. And so we kind of get to the end of this passage and I'm nearly through. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Now, Paul here quotes Genesis 2.24. And it's something that all of us pastors have used in wedding ceremonies. And each of us have said to the bride and the groom, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, the Apostle Paul says. This is a great mystery. The great mystery, two people coming together, becoming one flesh. Ecclesiastes 4 says, a cord of three strands cannot easily be broken. And a marriage is between three, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And a human marriage is between three, the husband, the wife, and Christ. And so each of us are in relationship to three strands. What could ever break the three strands of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? Nothing. Therefore, in human relationships, husband and wife, what should be able to break the strands to break the strands of three cords, the husband, the wife, and Christ? And do you remember what is that word in the wedding ceremony? Therefore, let no one, let no man, let no man do anything to end this wedding. Don't let a human being touch this couple. Because they knew that the only way a couple could be shizzered, the only way a groom could be broken, his body could be broken away from his wife, is to be divorced. And the Apostle Paul here is saying, that's going to be very difficult. Because you have three strands that brought you into relationship with the church, and you have three strands that keep you in relationship to your bride. And so he says, this is a great mystery. How God is doing that. And he did it in your life, and he did it in my life. So he comes on to say, nevertheless, let each one of you in particular, so love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. If we cherish and we nourish, if we don't act hostile, if we don't act ungodly, if we act in relationship to our Lord Christ, and we act in relationship to the bride in the same way, then there can be nothing but respect coming to the group. And so, the Apostle Paul talking about a pure relationship that was nowhere around them. Not even in Judaism. The one that had the Old Testament and the law. That relationship was not even in Judaism. Because in Judaism, I thank God I am not a woman. That relationship wasn't there. In Greek, it wasn't there. Four different women. In the Roman Empire, 129 divorces. That relationship was not there. Paul is painting a pure process into the heart of ungodly darkness. And ladies and gentlemen, you know what the beautiful part about that is? Every day I see Jimmy and Carol Ann Draper. And every day I see many of you with your spouses. And every day that we walk together and fellowship together, and we walk in love as he's loved, and we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Christ keeps cleansing us from all sin. As I see you walking, I see the light of Jesus Christ coming out of your relationship. Because she respects her husband. We, as the bride, must respect Christ Jesus, our Lord. Something that that world, in the first century, had no idea whatsoever. No idea. And Paul is saying to the church, Dear friends, you've got to live this way. And there's an old saying, I'm going to tell Jesus. I'm going to tell Paul. I'm going to tell Peter too. You've got to live 100%, 99 and a half won't do. Got it? And as we go from here, we go as worth, as love, as light, and carefully living in a lost and dying world. Bless you as you go. Heavenly Father, because of your great love for us, because you loved us as your bride, because you brought us to yourself as a husband, searches out and finds a bride and brings her to himself. And as he cherishes her and nourishes her, you have cherished us and nourished us. You have given us more than ever we deserve. Not only have you given us life, but you've given us eternal life with the Father. And Father, thank you for the rejection through your blood and the worthiness that you've given us of your Father, the precious of your love that you've showed us how to live and love one another and the greatness of the Holy Spirit's light in our life that we shine out in dark places. Father, thank you that you loved us enough to die for us and to make us your bride. And Father, we look forward to the time when in the kingdom of God, we shall celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb and we shall be forever your bride with your Father, our dad in your house for eternity. And for that, we give you great praise in Jesus name. Amen.