A Plan for Your Family: God's vs. the World's, Part 2

The solution to the conflict in marriage is a spiritual and it starts with letting the Holy Spirit. Control your life letting the word of Christ dwell in you richly obeying the spirit of God is revealed his will through the word of God. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can reverse the curse in a home can to topple the gender norms it's clear that our society does not have a biblical view of sexuality, marriage and family. Not even close. The question is when it comes to your marriage and family, are you following the world's plan or God's John MacArthur helps you answer that question today on grace to you as he continues his current series. It's a collection of messages from five decades of John MacArthur's preaching ministry.

We titled it. The New Testament beginning to end. If your Bible is nearby, turn to the book of Ephesians and here's John and other errors in other cultures marriages have done better than in our contemporary world. Not too many years ago people stayed together. That was the standard way of conduct that was what society expected out of people and that's what happened.

That does not mean that there was any less conflict because of fallenness. There will be conflict.

The solution to the conflict in marriage is spiritual and it starts with letting the Holy Spirit. Control your life letting the word of Christ dwell in you richly obeying the spirit of God is revealed his will through the word of God. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can reverse the curse in a home where you have a spirit filled person in the home you have hope.

Never try to pick a fight with a spirit control person ever try to pick a fight with a totally joyful person that just as rising joy in their hearts ever try to pick a fight with somebody was thank you for everything, even the conflict ever try to pick a fight with somebody was totally submissive, very difficult. Where that exists there's hope.

It's a spiritual issue. Conflict goes where the Holy Spirit dominates and Paul in verse 22 is going to launch into the specific conduct of a wife or husband, but it wouldn't be fair and it wouldn't do justice to the apostle Paul. If we didn't at least for a few moments. Consider the kind of world that he was writing to.

Because certainly, the argument comes out well you know this stuff is ancient history.

This stuff is way back. It is really doesn't comprehend the kind of world that we lived in that we live in that they live in a different time with different perspectives and I think you need to understand what was going on so I give you little bit of history I know that I may indulge myself on this from time to time.

I happen to love history when I went to college I decided that I couldn't.

I couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted to minor in I wanted to major in religious studies and and so forth and I did that, but I couldn't decide what I wanted a minor, and so I double minored in history and Greek and I've always had a fascination fascination for history and I think through the years. If if if I'm ever very interesting to listen to it, it's probably because I have gone back into history, and reconstructed some of the backgrounds make the Bible live and that's very very important so that the Bible speaks for itself and it was written in a time and in a context which demands our comprehension. So let's set a little of the scene to which the apostle Paul was writing and you'll see some amazing parallels. Let's talk about the Jews. First of all obviously there were Jews in the church in Ephesus and this was a circular letter and got around to all the churches and eventually not only all the churches in Asia minor, but all the churches everywhere and is still getting around to all the churches everywhere, but there were many Jews in the early church and they too needed to understand the biblical view of marriage, the Jews themselves had a low view of women. It did not come from the Bible but then a lot of their religion. By the time of Paul and Jesus did not come from the Bible they developed their own apostate religion and part of it was a very low view of women. In fact, there are Jewish prayers used by Jewish men every morning of their lives, and in one of these prayers.

There was one line that illustrates their attitude. This is what it was God. I thank you that you have not made me a Gentile slave or a woman now. They perceived a woman as lower on the human level than a man, a woman was an object, not a person. A woman had no legal rights. She was in the absolute power of her husband to do with her what ever he wanted whenever he wanted in New Testament times that among the Jews divorce had become tragically easy and tragically common, and they supported it with with a passage from the Old Testament, you know, wanted to be fast, hideous about their devotion to the Mosaic law. They quoted from Deuteronomy chapter 24 in verse one. When a man takes a wife and marries her.

And it happens that and I'll give you what the old translation is, she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her NAS transit Indies translated indecent some uncleanness and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, stop right there. No, you notice that that's a that's really an apophysis or merely an introductory statement of something else, but they took it as if it was a command basically are certainly an allowance and they simply said, if you find if your wife loses favor in your eyes because you find some uncleanness in her, then you can write her a divorce and send her out of the house is a lot more to that passage than that it was not intended to permit that it was intended to forbid the fact that if that happens, and she remarries she can never come back and marry that was really the issue but they didn't get that far.

They just said there is if you find some indecency, some uncleanness, uncleanness, shipper out, give her a bill of divorce.

The question became what is the uncleanness. What is the indecency strict rabbis most familiarly represented by a rabbi named Shim I strict rabbis said it refers to adultery. And that's all it refers to. If she commits adultery.

You can divorce her, but liberal rabbis said it refers to absolutely anything and that it's a vagueness is intended by God to allow you to fill in the blank.

This is represented by a famous Rabbi named Hillel sought throughout the sort of rabbinic history.

Even till today. Jews argue over the view of Shim I and Hillel Hillel said that of a Minuteman can divorce his wife if she spoiled his dinner it, it meant that she could divorce he could divorce his wife, get this. If she spilled his dinner because of course a spilled dinner is a spoiled dinner he could divorce her and she put too much salt on it.

He could divorce her as she walked in public with her head uncovered, he could divorce her if she talked with men in the streets. I like this one. He could divorce her if she spoke, disparagingly of her mother-in-law, and this is really good. He could divorce her if she ever argued with him. Rabbi Achenbach even went further, he interpreted the phrase to mean that a husband could divorce his wife if she became unclean in his eyes because he found somebody prettier not take a guess which was the most popular view among men. Shim, I had very few followers. Hillel had many, so divorce became rampant in the time of Jesus. Women were discarded all over the place and they were victims of such discarding left with nothing.

All a man had to do at the time of Jesus the time of Paul was simply to hand her a bill of divorce and all it took to get one of those was to have a rabbi write it in the presence of two witnesses, and it was done was that you go to the rabbi. He writes it might be a little cash involved two witnesses are there, it's done. The only alimony or support that was required was the return of the dowry and it was a done deal.

Jews were fast, hideous, by the way, about following the technical side, making sure you get to a rabbi and get the documentation, but their hearts were full of cruelty and wickedness.

In Matthew 531. Jesus refers to this common custom, it was said, whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of dismissal. That's what you offer one of divorce your wife.

Just make sure you do the paperwork and soul. Just do the paperwork and I think just in fairness to Jewish history in different eras of Jewish history. There were different views but at the time of Jesus. This was the prevailing view so divorce was the solution to any conflict, short-term or long-term, and consequently the whole institution of marriage was threatened and by the way prostitution was rampant in Jesus time. Even among the Jews. Now let's look at the Greeks. The Greeks had a very similar approach to this they didn't have to worry about any Old Testament technicalities. They didn't have to worry about finding a verse to misinterpret to justify what they did, they just lived in blatant disregard for any marital fidelity. Prostitution was an absolutely essential part of Greek life there religions were just loaded with prostitutes and it was believed not only did you commune with the gods by drunkenness, but you commune with the gods by having sexual relationships with a priestess/prostitute Demosthenes no less than that famous orator said, we have courtesans for the sake of pleasure. We have concubines for the sake of daily cohabitation and we have wives for the purpose of having children legitimately and having a faithful caretaker for our household affairs. You have the babies and you pay the bills and that was it.

The Greek man found his pleasure, and even his friendship outside his marriage. His wife was a housekeeper and a baby maker's pleasure outside his marriage sexually his friends outside his marriage, home and family life were almost extinct and fidelity was nonexistent. There was no legal procedure for divorce just put them out.

So when Paul lays down the principles that he's laying down here. He is really running head on into the culture. This is why Paul writing to the early churches emphasizes the sin of fornication so strongly as you read the Pauline letters, the center for fornication comes up again and again. He talks about Corneille. The verb form for new owed to engage in sexual sin references to prostitution, harlotry, sexual perversions of all kind. Because the world was dominated by those things.

The Gentile world.

It said it's not hard to to remember that when you read his epistles.

How common that kind of stuff was its just a part of life. The word porn new overpour nailed the root means to prostitute Corneille is a woman for sale. Parnassus is a man who lies with a prostitute or a male prostitute, a gigolo or a homosexual. It was just everywhere. Corneille is a common word in Pauline vocabulary, according to citizenship law of 451 BC.

For example, now were going for 1/2 centuries before Christ inhabitants of Athens, for example, didn't have any citizenship rights if their parents were not both Athenians for many, this meant material disadvantages so that nine Athenian women had no hope of getting married if you weren't an Athenian woman. You didn't get married because you couldn't produce children who would be citizens and no man wanted to have children who couldn't be citizens of Athens, so nine Athenian women became prostitutes.

In fact, they were a professional class called header ride, which in Greek means of a different kind of the ancient world. For example in in Athens was just loaded with prostitutes. Married women were uneducated, they were regarded as chattel use for keeping the house, and having children slavery, which was rampant in that Greek world allowed men to take slave girls basically for no other purposes than sexual fulfillment. Mistresses widespread prostitution harlotry sexual sin of all kinds was all over the place in Greek culture.

They encourage the Athenian women to fulfill their sexual needs with slaves and indulge in lesbian love by the way, also spreading all over the ancient Greek world long before Paul and still there during Paul's time was cut Ophelia men having sex with young children, prostitution existed as a form of worship and the fertility cults that was Athens moved to Rome for a moment the degeneracy in Rome.

If anything was worse. William Barclay was done a lot of background history rights for the first 500 years of Rome.

There had not been one single case of divorce on record. The first recorded divorce was that of spurious Giannoulias Ruger 234 BC, but at the time of Paul Roman family life was wrecked. Athens was way ahead of the game. 451 was another couple hundred years before Rome endorsed by Paul's time Seneca says women were married to be divorced and divorced to be married. The Romans did not commonly date their years by numbers. They dated their years by two things men dated their years by the name of the Roman consuls who ruled in the women by the number of husband's Jerome tells of one woman who married the records that we have found on this who married her 23rd husband and she was his 21st wife. That's kind of how was Emperor Augustus demanded that the one woman should divorce his wife, one man should divorce his wife. This is Emperor Augustus while she was pregnant so he could have her Jerome Cargill Pinot was written a little book called daily life in ancient Rome and in the book he says there was rampant feminism in early Rome that led to continual demoralization. Some women he writes avoided having children for fear of losing their good looks, sounds familiar, some took pride in being behind their husbands in nothing and even vied with them in tests of strength so you had women involved in building up their physical strength so that they could compete with her husband. Some women carried our lives apart from their husbands never blushed to charge into a male world to compete by the end of the second century, Cargill Pinot rights. Many Roman marriages were childless. He writes if the Roman women showed reluctance to perform their maternal functions. They devoted themselves. On the other hand, with a seal that smacked of defiance to all sorts of pursuits which, in the days of the Republic men had jealously reserved for themselves. Women didn't want to be in home again. This is the curse working itself out. They wanted to dominate. They wanted to be defiant and they started charging into areas where only men up to that time had been allowed to go. They quit their embroidery rights there reading their songs, their playing of instruments and they put their enthusiasm into an attempt to rival men if not to outclass them in every sphere that sound familiar, some plunge passionately into the study of legal suits or current politics, eager for news of the entire world greedy for the gossip of the town and the intrigues of the court well-informed about the latest happenings in three-story and China weighing the gravity of the dangers threatening the king of Armenia or of Parthia with noisy effrontery they expound their theories and their plans to generals, clad in field uniform while their husband silently look on juvenile another writer criticize the women listen to this, who joined in men's hunts with spirit in hand and breasts exposed.

They took two pigs sticking, especially those who engaged in fencing and some would you even believe in female wrestling. I don't know if they did it in the mud or not, but they did. He writes what modesty can you expect in a woman who wears a helmet and delights in feats of strength. These women took the gluttony and they took to drunkenness.

Before long rights, Cargill Pinot women began to betray the pledge which they should have made to their husband and which many of them in marrying had had the cynicism to refuse to make to live your own life became the formula which women had already brought into fashion by the second century BC. We agree, long ago, says one lady that you were to go your way and I mine. You may confound the sea and sky with your bellowing. She said to her husband, but I am a human being.

After all, sounds familiar, equal rights, equal everything unhappy marriages were innumerable divorce was epidemic juvenile again writes this is an ancient Roman writer. Thus, thus, does she lorded over her husband but before long she vacates her kingdom. She flits from one home to another wearing out her bridal veil marriage literally became a form of prolonged prostitution divorces were so common from Roman jurists that a series of them. Not infrequently led to the lady returning after many intermediate stages to her original bridal bed. He writes well you get the picture. It is against this kind of background, which is basically because of the fallenness of the human race is against this kind of background, so similar to ours today background of infidelity. A background of divorce, a background of incest, homosexuality, adultery, prostitution, pet Ophelia all that stuff is against that background, the Paul writes these not here saying what everybody believed is not reciting the common view is calling men and women to a kind of life that was the absolute opposite of what they were involved. Reminds me of when I went to Northridge Cal State Northridge to speak in a philosophy class. The professor was a former rabbi with a PhD in philosophy asked me to speak to the class on biblical Christian biblical sex ethics knowing that that's a great way to get your head chopped off in a secular university was a very challenging opportunity.

After having laid out what the Bible says.

I said of course none of you will agree with this because you don't have the internal commitment by virtue of knowing God having a transform heart and love in Christ, to be interested in maintaining the standards but just as they are countercultural today. They were countercultural in Paul's time is important to realize that what we've got going on today is a whole bunch of individuals demanding to do whatever they want. Living out the fall. Listen carefully without any cultural restraint in some cultures, even hours. Years back. There were some cultural restraints, no more so now you're seeing the reality marriages just a fight for rights but not by God's definition. God has a completely different plan and that plan unfolds here and just to give you the that the basic principle of that plan. All I need to say is it is an authority and submission plan.

Somebody is responsible to lead the other to follow has nothing to do with inferiority at all and only has to do with harmony. The woman is not to seek to usurp the authority and dominate the husband. Husband is not to unkindly and insensitively rule over whenever this is allowed, it creates massive chaos as we are living to a test in our own day when the divine pattern is followed the whole relationship is right. It's important to understand the simple principle in marriage that the spiritual foundation determines everything.

Secondly, there is an authority submission relationship, but it is not burdensome is not difficult. It is not abusive.

Finally, it is best illustrated and I'll close with this first Corinthians chapter 11 by the relationship between Christ the Lord Jesus Christ and God the father first 2011 three I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man and the man is the head of a woman and God is the head of Christ. There is no inequality between God and Christ there equal there's no inequality between the man of the woman.

One is an authority and one is in submission and when it is carried out properly. It is magnificently beautiful. The woman pursues she runs for the protection.

She runs for the affection she runs under the leadership the shade. The provision of her house and he leads her with such tenderness and such sensitivity and such care and such gentleness and such strength and such consistency and such fidelity and such faithfulness that she just relishes his presence. There is no fear on her part. There's no abuse. Thus, there is a willing, eager submission magnificent picturing Sonos absolutely magnificent. All she can do is complement the all he can do is complement her. They both understand their roles. Perfect conflict comes, it is easily resolved because they adore each other say well how can a person level comes from a transform heart disease, grace to you with John MacArthur.

I'm your host Phil Johnson Johnson, the teacher here for over 53 years. He's also Chancellor of the Masters University in seminary. Today's lesson from the book of Ephesians is part of John's current series titled the New Testament beginning to end. John, when you describe what the Bible says about marriage.

You often point out that marriage not only honors God. It also benefits society and helps individuals thrive. So explain what you mean by that will be obvious to everyone that God designed a mother and a father because that's the primary way that you creates society that is civilized in functioning and to say nothing of passing on righteousness from one generation to the next.

But on the other side of it. Just look at our own country and realize that 18.5 million children in America grow up without a father in the home. 18.5 million 80% of all single-parent homes are led by single mothers, 85% of children and teens with behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes and 70% of all adolescent patients in drug and alcohol treatments originate from homes without fathers and an even more interesting statistic than those in some ways is that 90% of all homeless and runaway children come from homes with no father. It's devastating not to have an intact family and of course when you have a society like ours that is at its leadership level bent on the destruction of the family. No society can survive that family is everything, not only in the society, but particularly in the church of Jesus Christ where we need to be strong and uphold the divine standard. Yes we do and thank you John friend.

We know it's only through God's strength that churches and families can stay faithful in a corrupt world. That's why we're committed to building up people like you, with God's powerful word.

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