Most people are unaware, most people are unaware of how dishonoring it is to God Almighty to reject the doctrine of headship. Most people are unaware that Christ is the head of man and man is the head of woman. And that when they reject the doctrine of headship in marriage, when they reject the doctrine of headship and home, they have simultaneously rejected the counsel of God that is built into the creation order. This is very serious business. This is why there's such a terrible attack against manhood and womanhood and against biblical roles.
And This passage of scripture gives us a case study of headship in the home. So I would like for you to open your Bibles to Numbers chapter 30. And I would like to talk to you a little bit about Numbers 30 before we read it. First of all, Numbers 30 reveals the heart and the counsel of God on a very, very difficult family matter. It actually troubleshoots a really common family problem in any home that I've ever been aware of.
What do you do when the will of a daughter runs contrary to her father? What do you do in the home when the will of a wife runs contrary to her husband? So it's a very revealing chapter that explains the details of the heart of God regarding authority and leadership, particularly when a man is not pleased with the decision or actually even the vow of his daughter or his wife. So from a daughter's perspective, this passage of scripture is an application of the fifth commandment. To honor your father and mother that it may be well with you and It it pictures the New Testament counterpart Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right honor your father and your mother which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training, the admonition of the Lord. Numbers 30 is a practical application of everything else that we read regarding these very difficult relationships in the New Testament. So for wives, what it does is it displays a real life situation and it examines one of the practical outworkings of the doctrine of headship. In that sense, it explains one of the practical outworkings of the Gospel, because we know that a wife submits to her husband as unto the Lord. This is a gospel preaching moment that we come to in this passage of Scripture.
"'For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church, ' says Paul in Ephesians 5, 22-34." Now, before we read the scripture, I want to talk about headship, because even though male headship in the home is promoted in scripture, throughout scripture, It's perhaps the most unrecognized and most misunderstood biblical doctrine in the church today. This passage of Scripture is a shot across the bow of feminism and a lot of the thoughts that we've had about home life. And the American Heritage Dictionary of Cultural Literacy defines feminism like this. The doctrine and the political movement based on it that women should have some economic, social, and political rights apart from men. Feminists teach that men and women are the same.
Feminists teach that they must do the same things and have the same roles. The Bible says something very different than that. The Bible does communicate very clear gender roles that are different. Feminism also proclaims the idea that women should be independent in it. In fact, the worst feminists make men totally irrelevant for anything, including having babies.
And it's a doctrine of feminism that's crept into the church in so many ways that, like I said before, I'm not even confident we're aware of how feminist we are in our thinking. But to make matters worse, explaining male headship is often terribly disfigured and misrepresented in the preaching and the teaching ministry of the Church. But nevertheless, the Old Testament and the New teach a doctrine of male headship, and it begins in Genesis, God made Adam responsible for the care and the virtue of his wife, and she was His helper, not his leader. And Numbers 30 is a very helpful corrective to a culture that has lost its mind regarding the biblical order of manhood and womanhood. And we are, in our culture, as the prophet Isaiah described, as for my people, children are their oppressors and women rule over them.
This, by the way, he was not praising the culture when he said this. He says, oh my people. Think of the language that he fills this with. Oh my people, those who lead you cause you to err. And he's talking about the women.
The children and the women. They are leading you astray and destroy the way of your paths. Isaiah said that in Isaiah chapter 3 verse 12. Teaching Numbers 30 is particularly relevant as well because of the view that many men are given in the modern media. And Often the men in the church are not much different than the sitcom dads who, in the popular television shows, they're responders, they're consumers, they're not governors, they're not producers, They're not life-giving agents in the home.
Instead of the title head, these sitcoms' dads would likely be given the title, Couch Potato. So instead of brimming with wisdom, they're portrayed as buffoons, sarcastic responders to the next silly thing that comes up. So instead of taking action as prophets and priests and kings, these men are passively watching the show go on without contributing very much to the direction that's happening around them. They're hardly ever portrayed as men having strength, men having thoughts, leadership, principles, sacrifice. They are irrelevant, and that's their irrelevant lot in life.
They just seem to roll on down the stream of life without any resistance or concern. And perhaps this cultural image is why reversing an unwise decision of his wife in Numbers 30 or a daughter is unthinkable to the modern father. The modern father really is terrified to cross up his wife and his sweet little daughter, who has him wrapped around her finger. Now, there's actually a lovely side of that, to have your daughter having you wrapped around her little finger. But there's also a wicked wrong side of it that ends up equaling family idolatry and lack of leadership in the home.
So if a father or a husband crosses up the will of a daughter or a wife, there is angst in the home. Because a wife and a daughter can't conceive of that happening. How could that be right? I am woman. Hear me roar.
Now, in our day and age, authority of any kind is despised, but there's a kind of authority that's more despised than any other kind of authority. It's male authority. Particularly in the home. That's why we have something going on in our heads when we hear different words. In most brain synapses in the 20th century, the word headship trips to the word authority.
And then it trips to patriarchal male domination. And then it trips to abuse. That's what headship, that's what the word headship does in most of our brains. And this is what ideological feminism has done to us. It has changed the categories and destroyed the thinking, which is why we so need to have our thinking renewed by the washing of the water of the word.
But at the end of this kind of thinking process, you get this kind of calculus. You get headship equals abuse. That's the calculus of the modern mind. Headship equals abuse. Male domination, patriarchal, patriarchal leadership.
That's what we think of naturally. And honestly, if you use the word headship or patriarchy, That's what they're going to think about. And what's amazing to me is that the calculus never goes the way it should. The calculus, if you read what the Bible has to say about headship, the calculus should be headship equals Christ equals tenderness equals mercy equals long-suffering equals protection equals nourishing, cherishing, dying, sacrificing, equals love. The biblical calculus is, headship equals love.
How far we have drifted in our thinking about this. So Numbers 30 presents one element in the calculus of headship in the home. God has built into his creations a specific way to express love in families and in churches. And he does it by establishing representative heads. If you look at the Bible, you see that God does this.
He establishes representative heads who will actually stand in his place. He sets a husband as a head of his wife, but he's not a head on his own. He's a representative head. He represents the Lord Jesus Christ. God does the same thing in his church.
He puts representative heads. They're not Christ. Elders and pastors and shepherds are not Christ. But they stand for him and they must humbly take from him, not create their own. So God works generally, in many ways, through representative heads, to serve one purpose, and that is to serve as conduits of wisdom and love to those who are under his care.
And so instead of accepting the world's calculus on headship, what does the Bible have to say about headship? What should headship look like? What kind of headship does the Bible promote? We have a joke in our church. We got it when we were preaching through Ephesians chapter five.
It goes like this. You're the head of your family. You may be a weak head. You may be a strong head. You may be a knucklehead, but you're the head of your house.
And this is the way God has wired the world. He places representative heads over those that he desires care for. Jeremiah records the deeds of godly headship in this way. But let him who glories, glories in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight." There in Jeremiah 9.24 is a beautiful vision of headship.
The Lord delights in loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness. That's the kind of headship that is of the Kingdom of Heaven. It's not patriarchal abuse by any stretch of the imagination. In Psalm 103 verses 2 through 5, David expresses something of the loving nature and character of God with these words. Listen to this.
This is your head. This is the kind of headship that God is speaking about. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquities. Who heals all your diseases.
Who redeems your life from destruction. Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. Who satisfies your mouth with good things." That's a kind of headship that is godly headship. In Malachi 3, verse 17, Malachi reveals that God speaks with amazing affection toward his people, whom he rules. They shall be mine, says the Lord.
On that day, I make them my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." Here's a protective father who says, they're mine, don't you touch them. He says, they're my jewels. I'm protecting them. They're my wealth. They're my treasure.
The Bible says that God's people are his treasure. Jesus communicated the intentions of His headship in these words in Matthew 11, 28-30. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon me, and learn from me, For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." That's the kind of headship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the headship in the church and in the home. Peter makes it very clear in 1 Peter 3.7 that headship includes understanding and honor and unity. He says, husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife as a weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life. Is there any domination in that? Is there any abuse in this headship?
No. Not one particle. So headship begins with God, and we must have him define it, not our own hearts giving content to headship. Or the feminists, if they define it, we know what we get. We've seen it.
We've seen the fruit of it. We'll be quickly lost in an unworkable and truly abusive headship, Just like the model we see ruling in this day now, where damage is everywhere as a result of it. God is determined to work through these representative heads who mediate his loving kindness through their position of authority in the home and in the church and in the government. So, numbers 30. Did you ever think we were going to get there?
But numbers 30 just simply outlines one aspect of headship and how to handle the tensions between fathers and daughters and husbands and wives when there's a disagreement. And in doing so, we're going to bring up to the surface principles of biblical patriarchy, this headship that Almighty God desires. The fact that there are immature and sinful men and unsanctified men operating by their own set of rules, or even the fact that there are just simple idiots who abuse the biblical principles of loving headship, it doesn't mean that we should discard the principle. Just because there is some patriarchal, abusive, domineering nutcase out there who is a believer in your church doesn't mean that we throw out the biblical doctrine of headship. And that's what people want to do.
The text, Numbers 30. Would you please stand as we read Holy Scripture? Numbers 30 verse 1. Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word.
He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. Or if a woman makes a vow to the Lord and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house in her youth and her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she has bound herself, and her father holds his peace. Then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreement by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the Lord will release her because her father overruled her.
If indeed she takes a husband while bound by her vows, or by a rash utterance of her lips by which she bound herself, and her husband hears it, and makes no response to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand. But if her husband overrules her on the day that she hears it, then he shall make void her vow which he took and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the Lord will release her. Also any vow of a widow or a divorced woman by which she has bound herself shall stand against her. If she vowed in her husband's house, or bound herself by an agreement with an oath, and her husband heard it, and made no response to her, and did not overrule her, then all her vows shall stand. And every agreement by which she bound herself shall stand.
But if her husband truly made them void on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded from her lips concerning her vows or concerning the agreement binding her, it shall not stand. Her husband has made them void, and the Lord will release her." Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it or her husband may make it void. Now, if her husband makes no response whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all the agreements that bind her. He confirms them because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them. But if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt.
These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses between a man and his wife and between a father and his daughter in her youth in her Father's house. Let's ask for God's help to deal with this text. Oh Lord, that your great and mighty heart of headship would come to us that we would not misunderstand it, but that we would take it deeply within our hearts, not lightly, but heavily and rightly. In Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.
The first thing I want you to notice about this text is its context. The Book of Numbers explains various laws that God communicated to Moses regarding the governing of his people. This is about governing a people. There are hundreds of issues of government that need to be paid attention to. Numbers 30 presents the mind of God on the subject that is commonly called patriarchy, and it outlines the responsibilities of fathers to their wives and their daughters in situations where there is a disagreement.
In so doing, he presents the principles of headship that should be seen in light of everything else we know about headship in the Bible. We don't take this in isolation. We have to see it in its context. When you read this text on headship, You should be thinking of everywhere else that you see headship appearing in Scripture and what impinges upon it. Secondly, we need to understand who the audience is.
Verse 1 reveals who the audience is. It's very important that we see this. Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel. So picture this. Moses isn't bringing every father together here.
He's bringing the heads of households. He's bringing the heads who have many heads behind them. And he's saying, brethren, make this the law in your households. And then those heads of Israel would go out in turn and they would meet with the other fathers, the other heads of households in Israel. So here we have this delegative responsibility.
And Moses is saying, here is the normative rule of government in your households. Moses knows that he'll never be able to disciple all these families of Israel personally. So he brings the tribal leaders, the heads, he calls them, to himself to give them a directive that will ensure the working out of the will of God in their households. And this directive is not his own invention, it is from the Lord Himself, so he says. Notice the scene.
You've got the audience, now the scene. The scene is a scene from home life. The scene depicts a very common situation where a daughter makes a vow in her youth. She makes a decision and makes a promise, perhaps to one of her friends and perhaps even to a husband. And even though she has given her word on the matter, Her father is given authority first to evaluate the decision, and then the assumption is there may be some decisions made from the heart of a daughter that are wrong, and they're not good for the family, they're not good for the daughter, they're not good for the church, and they're not good for the community, and there's a man there, Joe Dad, who has to help out the situation when things aren't going in the right direction.
Now let's move into the exposition. First of all, the nature of the instruction. We must see the nature of this instruction. This is a command of the Lord, verse 1. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded.
The seriousness of The issue of authority and submission in the home is revealed in this very introductory statement. And what we have here is a command from the Lord regarding how people ought to conduct themselves in their households. There is a way to conduct yourself in the household of your flesh, under your own roof. And this is a, the nature of the instruction is that it is a command. Secondly, it's a general rule regarding oaths.
You see this in verse 2. He's casting principles for how you evaluate oaths, commitments, desires, and things like that in home life. Verse 2, if a man makes a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement. He shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds of his mouth." So Moses is establishing the importance of oaths.
This text is establishing the enormous importance of an oath and a decision and a direction in life. He's not taking it lightly at all. When we make a promise, we bind ourselves to perform it by an oath. It's a very serious matter. And an oath is to the Lord, not just to these human beings that we made it to.
So when we make vows, we're not dealing with man only, we're dealing with God himself. And when we make a solemn promise, we have an obligation before the Lord to fulfill it. Ecclesiastes 5, 4-6 explains how serious a vow is. He says, when you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it. For he has no pleasure in fools.
Pay what you have vowed. Better not to vow than to vow and not pay. And do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin. Wow, what a statement. Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin.
How common is that in us? Nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. So here's the logic of the text in this general rule regarding oaths. One, oaths are very serious in the sight of God and they are not to be taken lightly by men. Secondly, a father's authority authorizes him even to reverse a vow, something as serious as a vow to God.
This is really fascinating. A vow is to God and a father can come alongside and reverse the vow made to God. This is stunning. That God would give men, actually, the authority in their households to take something so seriously as a vow that a daughter has given to God and then to reverse it. I mean, the enormity of this is very striking.
And so the proper exercise as of a man's authority in the home is of greater importance than the vow itself. The exercise of a man's authority in his home is actually greater than the vow made to God himself. I don't know about you, that takes my breath away to think about that. You see how serious God is about this idea of headship and representative government in a home? He's very serious about it.
It's amazing to me that God would make me the head of my household, honestly. Or how about you? How about any of us? God makes men heads. It's not something that you and I would have done probably.
But God has done it. And then we see a single woman's vow in verses 3 through 5. Do you see that? Let your eyes fall on the text here. A single woman's vow is put on the table.
If a woman makes a vow to the Lord and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house in her youth. So this is a picture of a young woman in her father's house, I love that phrase, in her youth. And it presupposes here that she's making oaths, She's contracting, she may be doing business, she's making arrangements with people outside the home. This is not a dumb girl sitting around twiddling her thumbs in the household. Absolutely not.
This is a young lady who has, she has work to do. You know what? She's like my daughter Blair here, who organized the registration and administration of this whole conference. You know, these daughters are not around twiddling their thumbs. They are out, they might be like the Proverbs 31 woman, where she's buying or selling a field.
And they're operating freely, yet under the authority of their husbands and their fathers. My wife and my daughters contract for me all the time. They do it with wisdom. If they don't do it with wisdom, then it is for me to take action to deal with the situation. By the way, this isn't saying that a father's actions are always perfect.
This doesn't presuppose that, oh, as long as my father does everything perfectly, then I have to listen to him. Absolutely not. This is not dependent upon the perfections of a father. Where is the perfect father? Where is the perfect father that rules perfectly about everything?
Where is the father who doesn't get angry and make a ruling? Where's the father that doesn't get frustrated? Where's the father that doesn't have a blindness? Where is he? There's not one in this room.
I've ruled wrongly many times in my household. But that doesn't mean that my children before God have the authority to throw off my counsel because I'm an imperfect man. God is preparing children for imperfect people and he gives them imperfect fathers to train them for it. So at the same time here in this text, what we're hearing is that God is recognizing and He's helping the fathers of Iller understand that everything a daughter thinks that she might do might not be as helpful as she thinks it is. And Because of this, she needs her Father's counsel and oversight in these matters that affect her life.
And the oversight is so important to her well-being that Almighty God requires it of fathers. And daughters should acknowledge that this fatherly jurisdiction is not something that is imposed upon them by some twisted, patriarchal vision. This is imposed upon us for the conduit of God's love to be flowing into a family. Because God loves honor and He loves submission and he loves headship. And he loves your headship, Father.
And daughter, he loves your submission. And it will go well with you if you have it. And it will not go well with you if you throw it off. So the text implies a father's oversight and his help in decisions that might be canceled out. It's assumed here that daughters and even wives from time to time will desire things that either A, aren't right, or B, are not helpful to the family.
And, you know, when you think about what's going on here in this text, it just makes you think about the pressures that there are on daughters in modern times. But you know those pressures aren't any different today. The same pressures on these daughters in this era are on daughters today. You know problems with daughters and homes did not start in the 20th century. It started in the garden.
Problems with authority and headship began right at the beginning, and our problems are not new. These problems will continually be with us, and it is for us, we who are shepherds of churches and families, to declare war against the philosophies of the world that contradict this doctrine of headship. But think of how difficult it is. The pressures of daughters in modern times to conform to worldly allurements, they're just no different in our culture today. Those pressures are often more than she can bear and she needs an external voice to help her understand the authority of God and to work it out the right way.
Daughters are under so much pressure today and they need help from their fathers. Hey, Tally up the voices that are getting played into daughters' heads today. They're screaming in their ears. No wonder they can't think straight. Sometimes they won't be able to.
Think of the influences on your daughter. Think of the songs that are out there for your daughter. Think of the lyrics. Think of the sounds that would make her depressed that are out there. Think of the wrong philosophies that she could so easily listen to through these songs.
Hey, in my household we banish songs that will cause any discouragement in my daughters. They're gone. None of these stupid love songs are of people broken, bleeding, horrible hearts. None. Absolutely not.
They're banished. Nothing that would contradict this beautiful ministry that God has given to my daughters will be in my house. Well, these influences make her vulnerable to wrong feelings and wrong thoughts, and they'll pluck her heartstrings and call up things that she shouldn't have to deal with. And so God gives her a father to help her with these vulnerabilities that are there. So here's a picture of a father and a daughter communicating.
That's another thing. I like that about this passage. A father and a daughter happen to be talking about life and what's going on. There's a lot of life going on and there's also the presentation of that life. It's a bad thing for a daughter to have a life all to herself and not communicating it to her father.
This whole culture of independence is a bad culture because it causes daughters to go off in directions they never should go off. If they had told their fathers about it, if they were talking together as father and daughter, then these daughters would have been saved from many sorrows. But because they don't talk, because they are independent, because they are off hundreds of miles away and the councils cannot flow, then destruction happens. But God is appointing fathers to oversee their daughters. They need their father's help to help them sort out the wheat and the chaff, and they need assistance for making these directions.
And then it seems here from the text that a daughter's decision isn't even final until her father rules. And that makes her dependent upon her father for major decisions and activities in her life. If he's too slow in responding, he might exasperate her and frustrate her, and it might cause her to step out of his authority in anger. But what's clear here is that the plans of a daughter are in suspended animation until her father speaks. And he needs to speak.
And if he doesn't, his counsels fall to the ground. That's the rule that's in this passage. Fathers, you're passive. You're a couch potato dad. You have passive male syndrome.
Your counsels will fall to the ground. No, rise up. Deal with it. Talk with your daughter. Find out what's going on.
Help her to figure out what to do next. Help her to submit to your counsels in it. If not, it falls to the ground. Your counsel means nothing. Your headship is gone.
Your home is decapitated. So divine authority is granted to fathers, we see that so clearly here, and he is validating or invalidating these vows. And so here is this great power that God has put in the hands of these fathers. You know, why would a father want to place a restriction on a daughter anyway? Why would he want to mess with her emotions?
Why would he want to mess with her vows and her decisions, the things that she longs for? Why would he want to restrain any of that? Here's what Matthew Henry says. It is possible that such a vow may be prejudicial to family affairs. It might break the father's measures.
It might perplex the provision made for his table if the vow related to food or provision. It might lessen the provision made for his children if the vow would be more expensive than his estate would bear. However, it was certain that it was an infringement of his authority over his child and, therefore, if he disallow it, she is discharged and the Lord shall forgive her. That is, she shall not be charged with the guilt of violating her vow. She showed her good will in making the vow, and if her intentions therein were sincere, she shall be accounted better than sacrifice.
This shows how great a deference children owe to their parents, and how much they ought to honor them and be obedient to them. It is for the interest of the public that paternal authority be supported." Well, in the midst of all this, we know that a father's authority will always be challenged by the feminist vision of life. And that's why quoting scripture on the subject of headship and authority and submission can harm your friendships and it can harm your reputations. And it can split churches, it can do all kinds of things. But we have a responsibility before Almighty God to walk in the King's highway, to carry out His orders, to find His patterns and principles and practices and commands and love them, not taking them lightly, but to take them heavily, as if they really, truly were the Word of God.
The biblical vision of manhood and womanhood is in such stark contrast to the feminist vision. Tensions and strife abound. These principles are played comprehensively in the news outlets, in all entertainment outlets, and fathers are bound to have problems and conflicts in this area. I've never known a father that didn't have a conflict in this area or have to enter some kind of very difficult time. What if my daughter wants to become a corporate executive?
What if she's gifted in learning and wants to be a teacher of men? What if my daughter has all kinds of desires that just don't seem to fit? They just don't seem to fit under the categories of keeper at home and submitting to your own husband. What if her categories that she has in her heart are greater than the categories of the Word of God? Well that's been the problem from the Garden of Eden.
That's Eve's problem and that's the problem of my daughter and my wife and it's my problem as well. It's the responsibility of fathers to act as heaven sent ancients to direct their daughters and wives to fulfill the biblical vision of womanhood. The problem is that most men defy the desires of their daughters and their wives in a wrong way. And they don't express the kind of headship that the Lord Jesus Christ desires. And so their headship, our headship, is often disfigured.
Isn't it? Isn't it so? I marvel at how often my headship is not like the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ. But still the star is there. We can follow that star and keep going toward it.
We shouldn't lose heart because we failed in a day or a week or a month or a year or ten years or two decades. No, the star is still there. The King's Highway is out in front of us. It's still there for us. God is merciful and He calls us to continue to walk in it and move ahead.
Do the desires of a daughter matter? Should the desires of a daughter be fulfilled? Here's the answer. If the desires of a daughter run contrary to the biblical vision of womanhood, then they should be contradicted. And she should be lovingly instructed and brought back onto the King's Highway and getting off this independent feminist highway that the whole world is on, even in the church.
These conflicts between father and daughter often arise around questions of roles. What roles are appropriate for her as a woman? What kind of time allocations, what kind of jobs, what kind of preparation is necessary for women to fulfill their role. The question is, what is the role that God has established? And then how do you prepare your daughter for that role?
How do you fill her whole childhood up with experiences that will take her to that star, to the role that God has established. One of my concerns about men in our culture today is they're preparing their daughters for a role that is not their role. Get a handle on the biblical vision and do everything to prepare for that role. Whether your daughter wants something different or not, your responsibility is to take her to that star and to keep her on the king's highway. The next section of the passage gives instructions regarding a married woman's vows in verses 6-8.
And then widows and then divorcees. The counsel is really the same. There really isn't much different to reveal about here. You have headship, you have vows, and you have responsibility of a head to lead that family in a proper direction relating to the vows. Let's don't forget this next section of this passage that explains the gravity of the instruction.
These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses between a man and his wife and between a father and his daughter in her youth in her father's house." The gravity of the instruction is communicated. The seriousness of the teaching on a father's authority over vows of his wife and his daughters, as underscored by the fact that these words are not suggestions. They are commands of the Lord God. They are nothing less than the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses. We can take these lightly, or we can take them with all of our hearts and say, oh Lord, help me to be a living picture of this.
You're a father, oh Lord, help me to be the kind of head that's pictured here, not exasperating my daughter, listening to her, knowing her, understanding her plans, helping her with them, and actually correcting her if need be. Daughter, oh Lord, help me to be a living picture of the submissive daughter honoring my father and mother that it may go well with me. And if the emotions of my heart are contrary to the sensibilities of my father, I promise Almighty God that I will give my father my heart." Solomon said, my son, give me your heart. A daughter has to do the same thing. She cannot trust in her own heart.
You daughters, you know things rise up in your hearts. You can't trust your heart all the time. I can't trust my heart all the time. A wife who says, oh Lord, Help me. I am the submissive wife of my husband.
He is my head. And it is to me to honor and obey and to be like Sarah and call him Lord. Not in a weird way, okay, but in a godly way. Notice the gravity of this instruction. These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses.
Application. I want to give you several points of application. Numbers 30 establishes a number of very important things in the home. And I'm going to give you four. Number one.
It puts everyone on notice that the buck stops at the head of the household. Not in an angry, harsh way, but in a Jesus way. The head of the church way. Second, it prevents family fragmentation, where everyone is off doing their own thing independently without concern of the leadership of the head of the household. It prevents family fragmentation in this sense that it unifies the family and gets the members going in the same direction.
The modern American family is a madhouse. Everybody's running wildly off in their own direction. Susie has her own interests in a totally separate life. Joey is going in a completely different direction. Mama is off doing something else, completely separate from the spiritual and economic understanding of the family.
It's not a unified family. Everybody's pointed out. The biblical family is not that way at all. This family here is pointed in. Everyone's working together.
They're contracting. They're doing, they're making commitments. They're together, but they're moving together. They're not off independently doing their own thing. It's wrong for families to just be running in separate directions.
God desired for the family to be like the church, a unity. The church should be unified, it should gather together, There should be love and all those things of family life. He puts us in local churches. He doesn't put us in every church in the world. He puts us in one local church.
So we pour our love and energy into that church. In one sense, we're global believers, but not in most of our lives. We are pouring into a local body where shepherds know the sheep and there are brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers spiritually. We take communion together as one body. We fulfill the laws of love in the church by what?
Not by going off in 50 million different directions. We pull together and we look inward. Yeah, that's okay. We can look inward. The same with the family.
This is a picture of family life that is united. And this passage of scripture argues against the fragmentation of family life, where a daughter is running off in her own direction, pell-mell, doing whatever she wants, and a wife doing the same thing. Let's not build families like that. Is it possible some of you need to circle the wagons? That's not really a very popular thing to have people say about you.
Oh, they're circling the wagons. Well, Let me just say, brothers and sisters, sometimes you need to circle the wagons. This passage of Scripture encourages a certain kind of circling the wagons and concentrating energy and love and teaching and discipleship. God established the home for discipleship. We'll get to that later on in this conference about the biblical doctrine of the family.
So second, it prevents family fragmentation, where everyone is off doing their own thing. Third, it stops sin from running in the family and forces the head of the household to take action quickly against anything that might be harmful. There might be a harmful, sinful thought or meditation of the heart and a daughter or a wife and it this this calls fathers to be very attentive to sin in the family is there anything wrong in this family is there any sin running in the hearts of my daughters, he takes action, he rises up, he does business with the devil, and gets the devil out of his house. Number four, it makes fathers and daughters and husbands and wives partners in life. Isn't that beautiful?
God is a God of love. He makes people partners. He makes them brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. He sets us in families for our comfort, for our protection, for our discipleship. And this passage makes fathers and daughters partners in life.
It's a beautiful passage of Scripture, but doesn't it run over so many of our sensibilities? It takes us in a direction we don't normally wanna go. This is the king's highway, it's God's way. It is for us as heads to establish loving, Christ-like, sacrificial, nourishing, and cherishing headship. Headship equals the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's the responsibility of fathers to govern in such a way that they will protect daughters and wives, even from themselves. To be this kind of man, he must be informed regarding these responsibilities of headship so that he will be able to stand firmly and lovingly in difficult situations with his daughter or wife. Unfortunately, many are completely unaware that God has called fathers to create a particular kind of home life that includes authority and submission. This means that a father should uphold Biblical righteousness in his household. He is obligated to listen to his wife and his daughter.
He is obligated to love his wife as Christ loved the church. For this to happen, it is critical that daughters are well established in Christ. The hearts of daughters are revealed in many places in Scripture. We could speak of some of the sad stories of wayward daughters like the daughters of Heth or Lot's daughters, or we could talk about the happy and inspiring stories of Job's or Philip's daughters. Let's make this a time of doing business as heads with the Lord Jesus Christ under His authority.
Not donkey-like heads, but heads like our shepherd and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, make us complete for every good work, working in us what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.