{"id":301,"date":"2009-12-30T12:03:54","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T17:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/?p=301"},"modified":"2009-12-30T12:03:54","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T17:03:54","slug":"a-woman-who-fears-the-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/2009\/12\/30\/a-woman-who-fears-the-lord\/","title":{"rendered":"A Woman Who Fears the Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>December 29 is our thirtieth wedding anniversary. God has blessed me beyond measure through Beth &#8211; and more and more with each succeeding year. In honor of this event, consider these excerpts from Proverbs 31.\u00a0 I preached on this passage three years ago under the title &#8220;The Valiant Wife&#8221; (audio is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.expository.org\/prov31a.mp3\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>); an edited version of the conclusion to that sermon follows .<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Proverbs 31:10-12, 25-31\u00a0 10 An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.\u00a0 11 The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.\u00a0 12 She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. . . .\u00a0 25 Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.\u00a0 26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.\u00a0 27 She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.\u00a0 28 Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:\u00a0 29 &#8220;Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.&#8221;\u00a0 30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.\u00a0 31 Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.<\/p>\n<p>God has granted me a valiant, excellent wife who displays strength and wisdom daily. She fears the Lord; she loves His Word; she is generous with her time and energy. Self-indulgence is far from her. She provides for her household with material goods, with fragrant smells, with wise teaching, with thoughtful kindness. I trust her implicitly to such an extent I can\u2019t even imagine not trusting her. Whatever honor and respect I have, to whatever degree I fear the Lord and glorify Him, results in large measure from God\u2019s work in my life through Beth.<\/p>\n<p>So I have no hesitation in saying to my sons: Marry a woman like your mother.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Not      necessarily in personality;<\/li>\n<li>Not      necessarily in looks;<\/li>\n<li>Not      even necessarily in the way she cooks (though there are side benefits to that!).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But marry a woman who desires to become wise. Marry a woman who wants to learn from wise women how to be wise. Marry a woman who fears the Lord, and will be worthy of your trust.<\/p>\n<p>Also, remember: The lessons from Proverbs 31 are not just for marriage. This passage calls to all of us: Be like this wise, strong woman. Notice the women around you who live out this picture. Praise your mothers and grandmothers, praise the other women in your lives, to the extent they exemplify such wisdom.<\/p>\n<p>Praise such women \u2013 yet remember the focus. This chapter does not tell us, \u201cA diligent, strong woman is to be praised.\u201d Rather, it says, \u201cA woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.\u201d For all \u2013 even the strongest and wisest of us \u2013 have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us \u2013 even the most morally upright of us \u2013 deserve God\u2019s wrath and judgment. The only hope for any of us \u2013 virtuous by man\u2019s standards or corrupt by man\u2019s standards \u2013 is being united with Christ in His death and resurrection, through faith in Him.<\/p>\n<p>So I praise God for His work in Beth, for her fear of Him. Indeed, I see her sinfulness, and she sees mine \u2013 better than anyone else. And I have seen Him mold and change her more and more into His likeness. So all glory to God who takes an object of His wrath and so sanctifies and purifies her so that she becomes like Christ \u2013 wise, strong, and valiant.<\/p>\n<p>This is what I have seen in Beth \u2013 and what I hope you see in your wives and mothers. May such women through their wise examples show us all the way to the fountain of life and wisdom: Jesus Himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 29 is our thirtieth wedding anniversary. God has blessed me beyond measure through Beth &#8211; and more and more with each succeeding year. In honor of this event, consider&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,11,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-recommendations","category-blog","category-devotions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}