What God Says Regarding Women & Their Realm

Transcript

GRM 1158
05/08/2016
What God Says Regarding Women and Their Realm
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

I'd like to direct our attention to talk about what is on our minds today and that is the issue of mothers, motherhood, wives and what God has intended particularly for women, but then our families. We are all blessed with our mothers and they have impacted our lives in a variety of ways. In our home it was my mother who was first saved, and then through her influence the rest of our family was saved over time, leading my father and us kids as well. So you look back not only to the benefits of the home but the spiritual benefits. She was the one who introduced me to Charles Spurgeon, she was reading the sermons of Spurgeon when I was still at home and relatively young and talked about them. So her love of reading was somewhat instilled in me through her influence.

Something sad is going on in the world today and that is the devaluing of the woman and motherhood. Radical changes are going on. Some of you are familiar with William Manchester, the biographer and historian. He is dead now but he has written a number of historical biographies you may be familiar with. He did three volumes on Winston Churchill: The Last Lion; Douglas MacArthur: The American Caesar. A book on John F. Kennedy and so on. But almost 25 years ago he was quoted in U.S. News & World Report as saying, “The erasure of distinctions between the sexes is not only the most striking issue of our time, it may be the most profound the race has ever confronted.” Interesting from a historian not writing from a biblical perspective but just his observation as a historian. The erasure of the distinctions between the sexes may be the most profound the race has ever confronted.

Now that was said almost 25 years ago, think of what has happened in those 25 years. We are working so hard to erase any distinctions, we are trying now to do the last boundary that physical distinctions don't even exist. You are what you think you are in your mind. So we can erase distinctions completely. So now we are down to using dressing rooms and bathrooms and everything else. What is behind this? What is it? Is this progress or is this deterioration? From the biblical perspective it is deterioration. It is part of man's rebellion against God and His truth.

I wrote a number of years ago in my Bible, the history of mankind—relentless rebellion against revelation. That persistent, consistent rebellion against God and what He has said. And that presses in on us even as believers. People who claim to believe the Bible, believe the authority of the Bible, but we begin to reinterpret it in ways that fit more comfortably with the thinking of the world. We start by just opening the door a crack—there ought to be equality. When the world talks about equality, they are talking about sameness. So then we go, shouldn't they be treated equally, meaning the same? And one thing leads to another and that pushes the door more and more open. So it is hard to tell. A person can claim to believe the Bible is the Word of God, yet be promoting and holding to positions that are contrary to what God says. I'm not talking about trying to change the world and stop the tide of the world. The world is going to persist and continue in its rebellion against God but for those who have come to recognize that God is not only the Creator, as we are going to note, but the Redeemer who provided salvation, freedom from sin. A cleansing makes us new, what brings an end to our persistent rebellion against Him and His will. And now we gladly submit to Him, we delight to obey Him. Yet there is the pressure of the world to conform us. We think we'll make adjustments and so we'll have a gender neutral Bible so that women don't feel offended if they come to our services, that's just a minor point. It's the beginning of a major issue.

There was a time when we could talk about man and people understood in certain contexts that means men as well as women. But today it is offensive if you use that. We don't talk about mankind, we talk about humankind; we don't talk about a chairman, we talk about a chairperson. And on we go. And Christians become acclimated and comfortable and pretty soon the door is pressed to where we are today. Oh, a newborn baby. Is it a boy or a girl? We don't know. What do you mean you don't know? Look. Well, we won't know until they tell us.

I was reading an article relating to a situation overseas where they sent a paper home to parents that they were not to be instructing four-year-olds about being male and female. But they were to have a choice. It's like grown adults playing house and you can be what you want to be. Well, we come to the Word of God and that's our authority.

I want to just direct a couple of introductory Scriptures to your attention. Start in Proverbs 1. I not only believe that the Bible is the Word of God, we believe it must be interpreted as God gave it, which we sometimes call literal, normal interpretation, historically, grammatically. It's not so complicated. It means what is says and says what it means. Proverbs 1, and these are given as instructions from a son and sometimes parents to a son. From fathers to their sons, from parents to their sons. And that permeates the book of Proverbs, instructing a son on how he is to live. Many of the truths apply to women, obviously, but this is given as instruction to a son. But you'll note verse 7, foundational to everything. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” The beginning of knowledge is the reverence, the fear, the submission of yourself to God and what He says. And when you don't, you are simply a fool who despises wisdom and instruction.

So we are running on two different tracks, going two different directions—those who believe the Word of God and submit themselves to it and those who do not. And those who do not, God says they are fools. They despise wisdom and instruction but they pride themselves in being so knowledgeable. And the world by its wisdom did not come to know God, therefore God by the foolishness of having the truth that He has revealed concerning His Son preached, is pleased to save those who believe, as Paul started his first letter to the Corinthians.

Look over in Proverbs 2:6, “For the Lord gives wisdom, from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.” That's the beginning of understanding wisdom. That doesn't mean unbelievers, those who reject what God has said in the Word, can't be good in mathematics. We have many unbelievers who have demonstrated brilliance in their intellect and develop many things. We have the computers and everything else that are not connected to necessarily knowing God. God's common grace has provided men with minds to search things out and to learn and to know. But to understand reality, the basic issues—where we came from, why we are here, where we are going, the purpose of life, how we are to live a life consistent with the purpose of the One who created us—you must come to God's revelation for that. And when you reject that, you reject true knowledge, true wisdom, true understanding. And God says you are a fool. Muddle around, but you are in darkness.

Come over to Jeremiah, we're going to come back to Proverbs, we're going to Jeremiah 8. And you note the context here, look at verse 8. “How can you say we are wise and the Law of the Lord is with us?” These people claim to be wise, they even claim to have the Word of God, His Law given to Israel. “Behold they lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.” We need to be careful, many people who claim to believe the Bible have so twisted it that they have turned it into a lie. And this is true in the area of gender. Some of the professors in leading “evangelical” schools, colleges, universities are men who deny the truth of God in these basic, key areas, while at the same time they are claiming to be Bible believers. But their lying pen has turned the Scripture into a lie, they are making it say something it does not say. “The wise men are put to shame, they are dismayed and caught. Behold, they have rejected the Word of the Lord and what kind of wisdom do they have?” When you have rejected the Word of the Lord, what kind of wisdom are you left with? Man thinks he is wiser than God. How foolish, how sad.

How sad when that thinking infiltrates among the church and believers in the church. And we become confused. We think well, it's just a different way of looking at things. It's not a different way of looking at things, it's a matter of accepting the truth of God or rejecting it.

So I want to look at some of the passages of Scripture and particularly as these relate to the issue of gender and the issue of the role of women because what has happened as we have tried to obliterate any distinction between men and women. We have Mother's Day but turn on the news, how many programs do they talk about the value and worth of mothers and women in the home? I listened to what would be called a conservative station on the radio while I was driving this past week. They were interviewing a woman who had written a book for women to realize their potential. And women have to get over this idea of feeling they have done something wrong because they turned their kids over to someone to watch and raise while they get out into the world and accomplish something. And the interviewer just thought that is wonderful, it has been so helpful, I hope our listeners will get your book. And that's just the way it is treated. A woman's value is measured by what she accomplishes in the world of men. Time to liberate women, we need women in these positions. We're constantly getting statistics of how many women are running this company and how many women are . . . And we need to push . . . What does God have to say about it? What does He have to do with this? We don't bring religion into this. But we as believers, we are very concerned what God says about it and we want our thinking to be brought into conformity with His Word.

We start in Genesis 1, and I know this is review for most of you, but I'm going to stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, then I'm going to be rebuking you for forgetting it. No. All right, Genesis 1, and this is the battleground. Many who claim to be evangelical Christians deny interpreting Genesis 1-3 literally. They are not evangelical in my understanding. It's not good enough to be like we read in Jeremiah, the scribes claim to have and believe the Word of God, but they turn it into a lie by twisting it. That's what it says, but that really is not what it means. These are poetic chapters. I talked to one man about this, he said just getting the basic idea, God started it all. But that's all, that's the point, God started it all. And now over the billions of years it has evolved to where we are. That's not believing the Word of God.

Genesis 1, we're just going to pick up in the creation with the climax of God's creation—man, mankind. So we read verse 26, “Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the rest of creation.” Verse 27, “And God created man in His image, in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.” Now this whole issue of talking about man in a generic sense and sometimes referring to how you might say, all men are sinners. That doesn't mean women aren't. Just using man or men to encompass the race. Well, that's not acceptable, it's not politically correct today. But do you know who started that? God did. Read Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness and let them rule.” Verse 27 talks about the “them,” “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.” Then it says we are going to create man, male and female. So where do we get the idea that you call the race man? We got it from the Creator. He said He is going to create man in His image. So He created man in His image, male and female. We think it is not a minor point. You open the door a crack and it keeps getting pushed open you know where we have ended up. You don't even know which bathroom to go to, which dressing room to use. Pretty soon you won't need to wear clothes because we're all the same. That will be ugly.

God created man in His own image, male and female He created them. “God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it.” Man as male and female is to rule over all the rest of creation. We are not part of the animal creation, evolution is a denial of the work of God as the Creator. He directly created man in His own image, He did not create any of the animals, the fish, the birds, any of that realm in His own image. There is an unbreachable chasm. It's a denial. Theistic evolution is a denial of the clear teaching of the Word of God. I can't accept this I am an evangelical but I believe in theistic evolution. That's an oxymoron. You are taking the lying pen of a scribe and a teacher and making the Word of God a lie. I believe what God said He did.

So He made them as male and female. In verse 31 He saw everything was good and man as male and female are to rule over the rest of creation. You come to Genesis 2 he is going to explain the details of what was involved in creating man first as male, then as female. It's not a different story of creation as some try to claim, it is simply explaining the detail, which becomes very, very important. So you read in Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed men of dust,” now it is man as male, “man of dust from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.” That's the creating of the man as male. And He places him in the Garden, He gives him responsibility. He cultivates the Garden in verse 15, he's going to name the animals, the different categories of animals. He is an extremely intelligent being. There has been no deterioration brought into this perfect man with a perfect mind at this point. We haven't evolved, we have devolved. Evolution is an attack on what God said. This man is intelligent enough, God could bring the animals and he could recognize the categories of the kinds and give the names. He can cultivate the Garden but it is not labor, it is not toil. It is pleasant, it is enjoyable. Man was created to be active. Sin brings the toil and the wearisomeness to the activity. We'll see it restored when ultimately we get into the kingdom and the eternal phase of the kingdom in the closing chapters of the book of Revelation.

“Then God said,” verse 18, “it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” We're just going to talk about the overall plan of God. There are special cases where in the plan of God it is good for certain individuals to be single, that's His plan. As believers we understand and accept that and realize that for some, as Paul will talk about in his letters in the New Testament, the single life is what God has prepared and planned for that person. There will be some who get married but in God's plan they don't have children. Those are exceptions to normal plan, they are not less than perfect for those people but the general plan is what is unfolded here.

So he says in verse 18, “Then the Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable,” or fitted, corresponding, “to him.” The man names the animals but there is nothing there that fits. I don't care how much you love your dog and treat him as a member of the family. He's a dog. I'm not saying he is not cute, I'm not saying he is not a companion. But he is not a wife, not a husband. The world will move to the point, I guess, that dogs have human rights. I'll make a helper suitable for him. So there is no helper in the animal world. Verse 21, “Then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. He took one of the side parts, one of the ribs, closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. The man said this is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.” The foundation for marriage.

Now you note the name Adam is just another name for man. There is another word here, ish you have in the margin and isha which is the woman coming out of the ish, the man. The order here is important. You can't alter it, you can't change it. This is God's intention from the beginning, this is a creation ordinance. It has to do with the relation of a man to a woman and then will be the foundation for the marriage relationship. From the beginning they are created differently. Only the man as male is directly created by God in His image; the woman is created by God in His image indirectly, through the man. She gets her image of God through the man. This is unique. The only time that we'll see this order—the woman coming from the man. Following this every man has had his existence from the woman.

Come back to the New Testament, come to 1 Corinthians 11. I want you to see this is just not a story, this is foundational for the New Testament. We could have stopped in Matthew 19, when there are questions about marriage and divorce addressed to Jesus in Matthew 19 by religious leaders in Israel, He says, haven't you ever read the Scriptures? The One who created them in the beginning created them as male and female. Now what don't you understand about that? Accepted as it is stated, He takes it literally. Now do you think Christ was mistaken there? He pulled the wool over these religious leaders' eyes because that really wasn't a literal account. That was just a poetic narrative? Jesus took it at face value. He said the answer to your question is in the beginning God created them male and female. You've read that, you're knowledgeable in the Old Testament.

So here we come to 1 Corinthians11, Paul is giving instructions and we are not going into all the details. But I want you to see how he uses the Old Testament. Verse 3, “I want you to understand Christ is the head of every man, the man is the head of a woman, God is the head of Christ.” There is order, there is order in the Godhead, there is order in God's creation. What is the foundation for it? Verse 7, “The man ought not to have his head covered since he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man.” Sounds like a putdown, where do you get that? “For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man. For indeed man was not created for the woman's sake but woman for the man's sake.” The order of creation as set forth clearly in Genesis 2 establishes an order to be followed. And here he takes it even broader than the marriage relationship and in the functioning of the church it is recognized that God's order of creation is God's order for His creation. Now the whole creation is in rebellion against God, the whole race of mankind is in rebellion against God, but that doesn't change the fact that this is God's intention in the creation. The man doesn't originate from the woman, the woman from the man. The only time that happened was back in Genesis at the original creation. Every other man has originated from the woman. And what does it say in Genesis 2? “It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper fitted for him. The man was not created for the woman's sake, the woman for the man's sake.” You say this is a putdown for the woman. No, we're missing what is beautiful. The world thinks if we can make the woman to be the same as the man, that's something successful. You can't overcome the Creator. That is always destructive, always harmful.

It's like you take something valuable and you give it to your young child and he starts to misuse it and you say, don't do that, don't use it that way. You'll break it, you'll ruin it. The creator tells us what he created the man as male to be, what the female is to be. We say no, the woman will be like the man, she has to be like the man, she has to be able to do everything the man does, she has to be viewed just like the man and put in positions and treated like the man can be treated. There is no difference. It is ruinous to the woman. That's not the success of the woman, that's the destruction of the woman. The Creator tells us what He created her to be.

I can take this Bible as a book and say, I'm going to use it like a baseball. But I won't throw it at a bat and have it get hit many times until I will have destroyed the book because that is not what it was made for. A book is great to read, but you can't treat it like a baseball. In 1 Peter 3 God said the woman is a weaker vessel. He never created her to be the man, but He created her for importance. She is his spiritual equal but they are not the same.

Come back to Genesis, just to pick up the balance of this, and the opening chapters there. What some try to do, and you know it's like the scribes, they turn the teaching of Scripture into a lie. They go to Galatians 3:28, “In Christ there is neither male nor female,” slave or master and so on. They say these differences in relationship were a result of sin and the fall. But in Christ now they have all been done away with. That is a lie, turning the Scripture into a lie. That is not what Galatians 3:28 is saying. The woman was always, she was created in the image of God, she is the man's spiritual equal and when salvation was provided as a result of the fall, the woman is saved in the same way the man is. And the slave is saved the same way as the master is, for there is only one way of salvation for all. That's not saying now a woman is not a woman and a man is not a man, we've washed that away, because God's plan in the creation was set down in Genesis 1-2. The fall doesn't occur until Genesis 3 and you'll see in Genesis 3 after the fall occurs the punishment on the woman has to do with the realm that God has created her for, which will be the home and the family—Genesis 3:16, “pain in childbirth, your desire will be for your husband, he will rule over you.” You have the negative side of that which we see perpetuated in the world—men mistreating women. The goal is not to make women like men, men are acting as sinful beings, women are acting as sinful beings. And the only hope for this is the redemption that is in Christ and He makes both new in heart.

And then the man's realm of curse and toil and pain and suffering will be in the toil of providing for his family. The fall doesn't change their realms, it brings difficulty and suffering and pain and death into their realms. How many women have died in childbirth over the years, and the pain that goes with it? And men get weary in their jobs and working to provide. There has been pain and suffering, but it didn't change their realm. That doesn't say now the woman and the man will be the same. Sin brought suffering and pain and unpleasantness and conflict. Now the man doesn't function as God created him to function, the woman doesn't function as God created her to function and now the man and woman are in competition with one another instead of complementing one another. We have to come back to Scripture and say, we have to put this all together again.

You have to come back to a New Testament reference and then we're going to come back to the book of Proverbs. Come to 1 Timothy 2, you have the order of women here, I want to just remind you again of how this is tied back to the opening chapters of Genesis. That's why the opening chapters of Genesis are relentlessly under attack. Paul said in verse 11, “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man but to remain quiet.” He's not talking about specifically the marriage relationship here, here he is talking about the church. And this doesn't mean this is not applicable outside the church, this is God's plan from creation. But the fallen creation is in rebellion against God. But when you are redeemed, you are expected you will bring your life into line with God's instruction.

So in the church the men teach and the men lead. Why? Verse 13, “It was Adam who was first created, then Eve.” That tells you by the order of creation who is to lead. We need a woman President. Isn't it time we had a woman President? When is the time for that? Women should be in leadership like men. Well, what do you get out of verse, tying it back to Genesis 2? It was Adam who was first created, then Eve. That's God the Creator's plan for male and female. It is manifest in marriage, it is manifest in the church. Of course it is not manifested in the world because it is in rebellion against God in every way. Amazing. “And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into the transgression.” That comes from Genesis 3 and what happened in the fall. Eve was deceived by the serpent and then Adam wasn't deceived by the serpent, his wife just offered him the fruit that he knew God said he shouldn't eat but he ate it anyway. Just reinforces God's plan. Nothing has changed, the plan is the same.

But woman's preservation, her realm is not leading and teaching in that area in the church, for example, she is taking care of the home and things consistent with it. I take it, that's it. That doesn't mean a woman can't do other things but a woman should function consistent with being a woman, and a man should function consistent with being a man. The idea we just throw this out when we get into a different realm, now, so none of what God said as far as what He intended in His creation applies here. I understand this is how God's creation works. That's why a man not claiming to be a believer can write the erasure of the distinction between the sexes as perhaps the most profound issue the race has ever faced. He sees it as cataclysmic, and some Christians are walking around like they have their eyes closed. Well, I don't that it's that big a thing and maybe it doesn't apply here, doesn't apply there. This is a creation ordinance, it's the work of the Creator.

Come back to Isaiah, then we close with Proverbs. We just go to one chapter in Isaiah, Isaiah 45 and we'll peek into another chapter that is right there. What is emphasized in Isaiah 40-48 in a special way is God is the Creator and connected with His being the Creator He is the Redeemer. And they go together. I don't know how some who claim to be Christians and recognize the redemption God has provided in Christ but reject the biblical account of God as the Creator, put that together. I'm not saying there can't be inconsistencies in believers but that's a major one.

Look at Isaiah 44:24, “Thus says the Lord the Redeemer, the One who formed you from the womb, I the Lord am the maker of all things.” You see the connection, He is the Redeemer, He is the Creator. “Stretching out the heavens by Myself, spreading out the earth all alone.” And He brings the wisdom of the world's wise men, the “omens of boasters, fools out of diviners, causing wise men to draw back, turning their knowledge into foolishness, confirming the word of His servant.” You see “heaven and earth will pass away, My word will not pass away.” It is fixed, it is sure.

Come down into Isaiah 45:9, “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker, an earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth. Will the clay say to the potter, what are you doing?” Verse 12, “It is I who made the earth, created man upon it.” I mean this is not a game, this is not well, this is not one of the major issues, as I read one man say. This is not like the deity of Christ. It is. You reject God as Creator you are at one of the basics and you can't massage that and twist that and say, He got it all started but then it evolved. In other words I throw out the opening chapters of Genesis because they are poetic, the only thing you get out of that is God started it all and somewhere along the line something went wrong. That's not submitting to Scripture.

Come back to Proverbs 31. Proverbs 31 basically giving instruction to a son for wisdom, how to live life. I hope you read Proverbs regularly, maybe a proverb a day. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs, some of you read a proverb a day. I've shared with you one of the professors who has now one of the perhaps the finest commentary on Proverbs. I remember hearing him lecturing in the 1970s. He said he was teaching his children to memorize the book of Proverbs because those are principles from God to guide them in living their lives. They ought to take hold of them. You find yourself in trouble, go back to the book of Proverbs, you'll find you are off trace someplace.

We come to Proverbs 31 and the chapter concluding, and here you have a mother giving instruction to her son. It's instruction to a king that he learned from his mother. And what it is going to be is about what is a wife and how important she is. We devalue a wife when we try to make her what a man is, we value her when we realize her preciousness for what she is. We come down to verse 10, for time we are just going to highlight a few things. “An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.” And how precious is a wife, a godly wife, an excellent wife. One translation says a valiant wife. He is going to, in verses 11ff, tell what is involved. And this is what we call an acrostic. We start with verse 11 down through the rest of the chapter, every one of these verses begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So we would have A, B, C, D in English and verse 11 begins with A, verse 12 begins with B—in Hebrew alaph, beth, and he moves through the Hebrew alphabet in a way that would fix it in their mind. Like we use acrostics, we have a word and each letter means something. This would fix it in their minds, memorize it. This is so important you ought to have it understood. It is written to a son to know what to look for in a wife and it is really saying what an excellent wife is. And her value, you can't put a monetary value.

That's what the world has done. It tries to value a woman and a wife on how much she makes, what her position is, what she is accomplishing in the working world, how successful she is there. Nobody is in the news interviewing housewives, they do have a program on housewives and it is a parody, it is foolishness. We devalue what God says is an excellent wife.

So if we start out remember each of these verses would be something they could commit to memory, remember by that first letter of the alphabet. “The heart of her husband trusts in her, he will have no lack of gain.” Remember she was created for him, he was not complete without her. We must mention there is the provision of God for a single life. That's what a wife is, she completes the husband. How important is that? When the Creator says it is not good for man to be alone and now this woman is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and she is the key to what he can accomplish.

“You will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.” This is drawn out, all the days of her life, this is the relentless pursuit and characteristic. She always does him good, every day throughout the day does him good and not evil. I hear some husbands say, my wife is my best critic. Oh, I can't think of anything worse than being married to one of my critics. I have a lot of those. My wife is my best encourager. She does him good, she is not always complaining about him, she doesn't run him down; she isn't a critic. Some husbands and wives specialize in bickering and they can pick each other apart. That is not this wife. She “does him good and not evil every day and all the days of her life.” I mean, in an evil world, in a difficult world here is the one he can depend upon, rely upon. You see the role she plays.

And then she does these things and she takes care of the home and the need there. “She looks for wool, flax, works with her hands in delight,” willingly. In other words she is a diligent woman. That doesn't mean you have to look for wool and flax and make your own material so you can make clothes. Again, nothing wrong with it but that's not what is required. That's what they did in those days. What she is doing is she is a diligent woman, seeing that she does what she should do to provide for her family. She is “like merchant ships, she brings her food from afar,” she goes to HyVee or Russ' or wherever. The point is she is overseeing the house and making sure that it is taken care of. This is her realm. We want to absolve that realm—doesn't matter who takes care of the house, who takes care of the kids, you can hire that all. Then a woman can come out and compete with a man to do what a man does. That's not God's plan. I realize it is totally out of step with the world. Imagine if I go down and give this lecture on the University campus? Everybody standing there clapping for me? Doubtful, but it still is what God says.

“She rises while it is night, she gives to her household and portions to her maidens.” Note this, she has maidens. Just because she has enough income to have some servant girls doesn't mean she lies in bed and snaps her finger, rings the bell so they can bring her whatever she needs and take care of her and she can lounge around all day. She still takes responsibility to see that the house is functioning as it should. So doesn't mean she has to do everything, but she is responsible to see that it is all taken care of in the home.

“She considers a field and buys it, from her earnings she plants a vineyard.” Some say she should be out in the working world. It's the point, this was part of the home. I was watching one of these silly programs, I don't know the title, it was like living off the grid so the joy of your life is to go live like you were living in 1794 and you don't have electricity and you don't have running water and you don't have any grocery stores for 200 miles. This is really living. So this lady planted a garden, and I'm not offending any of you, I hope, but she planted a garden and she got the extra vegetables and all out of her garden. Then she traipsed to the neighbors and she is saying while she is going there, out where we are you don't go to a grocery store. You barter. She goes and knocks on the neighbor's door, the neighbor comes and she says, I have these vegetables and so on that I've grown in my garden, I'd like to trade you for one of your chickens because we really need some chicken. That's great, let's go out and get you a chicken because I can really use these vegetables. Well, that's what the Bible times were like. You didn't go to a grocery store and buy. You made your clothes, you planted your food, you raised your animals and you traded with neighbors. One neighbor specialized in one thing, you specialized in another, then you trade. I remember one of them saying you can't live out here unless you can be dependent on one another. That's what we are talking about here. “She considers a field and buys it,” this is part of taking care of the home. It's like a wife going to the grocery store, how are you going to prepare food if you don't have food kind of thing.

“She girds herself with strength, makes her arms strong, senses that her gain is good. Her lamp does not go out at night.” And that goes with she senses her gain is good. This doesn't mean she works all night and here she is up in the morning. This woman is a dynamo. The point is her lamp doesn't go out at night. She is so prepared that when they had the oil lamp she has that so they can keep a lamp burning all night. So there is not just pitch darkness. She has made provision for everything.

“She stretches out her hands to the distaff, grasps the spindle, she extends her hands to the poor,” stretches out her hand to the needy. It is not I have enough, we are well taken care of, I can watch a soap opera. No, there are people in need. That does happen. Sometimes people's physical condition is such that they can't do all the things they like. So she can go help that woman. We have women doing that, going and helping take care in another situation—do shopping for food or clean house or do things. She is looking for how she can be, she is not lazy.

This is not a high maintenance woman, hoping her husband is going to come and take care of things, hoping he is not going to spend time at work. She needs him. She is just not high maintenance. Every husband has to adjust to his wife, she adjusts her husband, but the model of the wife here is she has things under control. She takes care of it. I love it. I'll offer to help Marilyn at home and she knows that just makes more work. She'll usually say “go read a book, I'll take care of it, I have it covered.” I know what she tells me, successful marriage.

“She is not afraid of snow,” verse 21. Why? She has made provision, she plans, she knows the changes in the weather. She just plans ahead and sees they are dressed well. Doesn't mean you have to be wealthy but she is taking care of her family the best she can, so they are dressed well. “She trades things,” verse 24, “strength and dignity are her clothing. She smiles at her future, she opens her mouth in wisdom, the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” Reminds you of the instructions in the pastoral epistles—the older women are to teach the younger women how to love their husbands, love their children, be keepers of the home. She is knowledgeable in this. She can pass it on. Where are younger women going to learn to be godly women? Not from the model of the world.

“And her children and her husband praise her.” You'll note in verse 23, “her husband is known in the gates, he sits among the elders.” His success and ability to lead and be part of the leadership is because he has a wife that has the house taken care of. That enables a man to function. Nobody knows that most of my ministry is dependent on having a wife that has everything under control at home, taking care of everything, she has it well managed. I don't have to think about that. Doesn't mean a man can't help at home, a man might like to cook but we adjust to each other. But there are different realms and we appreciate that and we respect that.

All right, we are done with one more verse, come to the New Testament to 1 Timothy 5. And we're just going to take a warning here that on younger widows and if they have too much time for themselves they might be idle and become gossips and busybodies. I had an elderly woman, an older woman tell me in one of our conflicts a number of years ago, you know, Gil, if you could have the women stop talking to each other the conflict would die out quickly. Just thought I would mention that. But don't want to be gossips and busybodies. “I want the younger widows,” verse 14, “to get married, bear children, keep house.” I just want to note that “keep house,” in the Greek it's a compound word and the word for house, oikos, and the word, here it is a verb, despotase. And you just drop the end—despot, we just carry it over into English. She is the despot of the house. You know where we get that word despot, the negative flavor, a despot is someone who is ruling and controlling. But it is a ruler, a master, one who has the authority. And we men need to recognize this is her realm.

I've shared, my dad retired from U.S. Steel as a supervisor for many years. My mother's observation was, your dad retired from the steel mill, he thinks my kitchen is the slab yard. I just want him to stay our of there. The husband ought to respect and support his wife in her role in the home and appreciate it for her and be honored. This is her realm. So that has not changed. A thousand years earlier with the book of Proverbs and its instruction, Paul is saying the same thing. So we want to appreciate. This is not a putdown of women, this is to elevate women, to appreciate the position God has given to the man and the position God has given to the woman. He created them for that and the man can't replace the woman and the woman can't replace the man. That doesn't mean there aren't situations where they cover for each other, but we recognize the differences there and we desire to function that way even though the world doesn't respect it and honor it. They don't respect and honor the message of salvation by faith in Christ alone either because they have rejected not only the Creator, but the Redeemer who is also the Creator. And we want the beauty of His work of creation and our obedience to Him to shine through.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the clarity of Your Word. Lord, that You have opened our blinded eyes to see and believe in the salvation that You, the Redeemer, have provided in Your Son, our Savior. As our eyes were opened we saw in the Word the beauty of Your plan in creation in creating man as male and female, not to compete with one another, not to fight against one another, but Lord to complement one another. And Lord we desire in the midst of a world out of control but in control in consistent rebellion against You and Your truth that we would live lives obedient to the truth, manifesting the beauty of Your truth in the perfectness of Your plan. We give you praise in Christ's name, amen.