But let's read in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 3: I would have you to know, that the head of every man is Christ - that produces a challenge straight away for the men, how you're getting on with God. Are you a man of prayer, or is your wife carrying the prayer? If your wife is carrying all the prayer load - you're irresponsible, and you need to actually get back into the place God has called you to be. The head of every man is Christ - now here it is - the head of the woman is the man. If you didn't get it before, the head of Christ is God. Now in Ephesians 5 verse 23, it says: the husband is the head of the wife. Headship in the home, headship is male. If you are male, you are the head of your wife; and we'll talk about what that means. Now as we begin to go through this, of course the difficulty is, most people today do not recognise headship, or God's order and authority, or there's a tremendous attempt to overthrow it.
We live in days, when people are trying to overthrow all truth, all authority, everything that God has set in place; over this last three decades it has been subtly undermined, through the education system. It has been subtly eroded through society, through media; until now people have got no idea, and there's this sort of thing where we're all equal or whatever. Now there are two extremes, that are a problem here; which we want to identify straight away. They are two complete opposites, and the truth lies somewhere between there; and that's what we want to focus on - what God has to say. Here's one extreme. One extreme is when a male is dominant, and abusive, and oppressive over a woman. This is an evil in God's eyes, and He will deal severely with that person who is like that. Many men are abusive, they are self-centred, they have unresolved conflicts from women in their background; and they misrepresent God, and they misuse and abuse what God has entrusted to them, in relationship to their wives and children.
This area we want to deal with, we're going to look at areas like: headship and responsibility; what the responsibility is; and how you go about doing it. So that is one extreme, the other extreme is when men just give up all their responsibility, as a reaction to avoid God's order altogether. So the extreme on one side is male chauvinism, an attitude that comes from fallen, sinful men, of despising, belittling and hating women, and using or misusing their authority over them. This is godless, it's anti-christ, it produces tremendous spiritual problems in the home, and reaction, and hurt, and bitterness right through the family. But the other extreme has a similar result. It's exactly out at the other end. It's called feminism. It's where women who have been hurt, reject God's way, God's standard; and begin to try and rise up and equalise it, or even reverse it. Both extremes unleash spiritual powers into families, that cause immense harm, and immense destruction. Both, equally, are evils.
Now what we want to understand is, we want to see how God put things together, and how I can co-operate with what God has set in place; because every time I agree with what God says, and I understand what He wants me to do, and I do it, I will get results. Not only that, the Bible, as we'll see in a moment, makes it very clear, that God upholds His order. The way He set things in place is actually sustained by His power; so everything that's out of God's order, you're fighting against the power of God - you'll never win. You can't win if you try and fight against God, it's like trying to overcome gravity by leaping up in the air. You'll just go so far, then you'll fall down, gravity will again master you. You can't get out of the hold of that law. Now I want to just talk before I get into headship is male, I want to look first of all at the order that God has set in place. Look in Colossians 1, and then we'll look in Romans 13.
Colossians 1, I want you to see something that the Bible tells us. God is a God of order. He has constructed the universe clearly in an ordered kind of way. Everywhere you go, you meet God's order. You can't get away from it. You can pretend it's not there, you can pretend there's no God. It won't make any difference; He's still there, it's still ordered; and you will experience the result of ignoring His laws. Verse 16: for by Him - Jesus Christ - were all things created, those that are in heaven, and those on the earth. So He's saying now, there's some things in the realm of the spirit that God has created. They're invisible, you can't see, them but they're there. There's some things in the earth that God has created, they're visible, you see them. He's created them both; and it says here, whether they be visible or invisible - now He talks about what He's created. He's created positions of authority, or areas of influence and responsibility - thrones, dominions, principalities and powers. All of the things were created by Him, and for Him.