Divinely Determined Gender Distinctions

Transcript

GRM 1183
05/13/2018
Divinely Determined Gender Distinctions
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

We talk about Revelation, we see the world moving toward, collapse would not be a good word, but destruction as God pours out His wrath. In that context we find the rebellion of the world against God becoming more open. I thought it would be fitting for us on this Mother's Day to talk about what God says in an area that has to do with His creation plan and the rebellion of the world against Him, and that is the role of men and women. And the appreciation of the uniqueness and special role of the woman and of the mother. It is diminished greatly in the eyes and value of the world.

Without revelation from God, we are in a world of darkness. I often share with you, if there is a God, and we are to know anything about Him, He will have to reveal Himself to us. If there is a God and He has not revealed Himself, we have to go on and live our lives as though He wasn't there because we won't know anything, really, about Him. We just make guesses. But if there is a God and He has revealed Himself, then the most important thing we can do is find out what He has said. And God has revealed Himself; He has revealed Himself clearly and understandably. And if He is God, He is the Creator, and the God who created us can communicate with us. And so that's what we have, what we call our Bibles where we are told “all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable.” God by his Holy Spirit moved and directed men to write down what He wanted communicated and preserved, and we have it preserved down to this very day. So we can open it up and find out what God says.

This will be in constant conflict with the world. There is a pattern in Scripture that I want us to remind ourselves of. Come to Romans 12. There is a pattern that you see in the New Testament, particularly in Paul's letter. For example the book of Romans, the first 11 chapters are serious, detailed teaching on basic matters, on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, on its power in the life, on being made new in Christ, being resurrected with Christ. This foundational doctrinal truth that you must know and understand. Then you will see how Romans 12 begins—Therefore I urge you. “Therefore I urge you,” on the basis of the truth that God has communicated, “I beseech you by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship.” In other words here now is what you are to do, how you are to conduct yourself. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the making new of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

It is so important for us as believers in Jesus Christ to be careful. Many believers want to jump right to Romans 12 and they want to decide on their conduct. But unless you have studied the Word, in the first 11 chapters, for example, of this letter, grasped its truth and now are going to make the decisions regarding your conduct in light of that truth, you may not be in obedience to God. The pressure on the church and the pressure on us as individual believers is to allow ourselves to be conformed to the world. One person put it, pressed into the world's mold.

So sometimes we find ourselves making adjustments in the Scripture so that we can fit more with where the world is and where the world wants us to be. Remember, all that is in the world is “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.” And this is not to characterize us. We are to be “conformed by the Spirit of God to the character of our God.” We want to be sure….it is a relentless assault on the Word of God and on us in our obedience to the Word. And one of these basic areas is the area of what God intended when He created us. Now for the world, they have just removed any concept of a God who has created us. We just evolved and we can disregard the Creator and we can make up our own standards and our own practices.

One historian, not a believer in any sense, but he wrote this: “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.” Amazing! And that was written a number of years ago before we have come to the place that we are today. And I want to deal a little bit with what the Scripture says about man as male and female. The world has pushed and pressed to erase any distinction, and that is primarily involved in depreciating the scriptural view of a woman as a woman and tried to put the emphasis on her value is to be found as she becomes more and more like the man, the male. And that is relentless pressure. And it ends up devaluating a mother. And it is fine to be a mother, but really what do you accomplish? For a woman it is constantly paraded. We see it in the world all around us every day, it's a suffocating atmosphere. The women must be treated like the men and they must do the same things as the men. That becomes their idea of equality. It is not the biblical truth. The sad thing is, the church has begun to make its adjustments under the pressure of the world to be more conformed to the world. And in doing that, they are less conformed to the Word of God.

So we are going to look, beginning in the book of Genesis. This is review but it is truth and the greater the pressure, the greater the opposition to truth, the more clear we as God's people have to be on the truth. We live in a world where feelings govern behavior and it has to do with the issue of the sexes. Now it is talked about, it's not your chromosome pattern that determines male and female, it's not even your physical makeup. It's what you feel you are that can be your gender. We see now in some places where they are saying they are not going to put sex on a birth certificate because that would prejudice people. We have to wait and see what this baby decides they are.

We used to have what they called an insane asylum outside of Philadelphia, so we went by it many times. I still remember the name but I'm not going to say it. But that was where they put people they deemed to be crazy. You know sometimes I look at the news and I think, have we been transferred to Byberry where everybody there lives in a make-believe, unreal world. We have gone beyond.

They used to criticize Christians because they believed the creation account of Genesis and science is opposed to that. But now they have even thrown science out the window because chromosome patterns don't matter and the physical things you can see. I mean, science is supposed to deal with what you can see and observe and so on. That doesn't count, you just think you are seeing a male but he is really a female. Well, I'm sure. No, you are not sure. You have to ask them, what do they feel like they are. Now you have to pretend with them that that is reality. And you can be severely rebuked if you offend them by not entering their pretend world.

I've shared with you on other occasions, but I was watching a program a number of years ago and I'll say it again because some of you told me you saw the same program. The leopard man, was on TV, I don't remember what the program was, I just remember him. He always felt he was more connected to leopards, wild cats, than humans. So he had had surgery and put lumps under his skin to mimic a leopard's head. He had had his skin all tattooed so he had the black spots and everything. He even had holes put around his mouth so when he went outside he could put in artificial whiskers. I just feel more like a leopard than I do a human. I have to say, he looked a little bit like a leopard when he got all done. But that didn't make him a leopard.

How do we know even what we are, let alone what life is about. We come to God's Word, the Creator. So we are in Genesis 1 and we come through the days of creation. We come down to verse Genesis 1:25, we come through what God has done on each day of creation and the end of verse 25 is “God saw that it was good.” but it was not complete. Verse 26, “Then God said,” now note this, “Then God said.” This is the word of God. Write this off, it was written in a culture, at a time, and this is the way they viewed it. No, this is what God said. “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness and let them rule over the rest of creation.” Here you see the plan of God to make man unique and different from all the rest of creation. For all of its variety and all of its uniqueness man stands apart because only man will be made in the image and likeness of God. He will rule over the rest of creation as God's representative, made in God's image.

Verse 27, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him. Male and female He created them.” You see here the beginning and there is a point here to pick up and it will become even more clear as we move along. “God created man in His image, male and female He created them,” verse 27. God created man in His own image. Do you know where the generic use of man for both men and women came from? It came from God's use at the beginning. Now you can't talk about man, you have to talk about people because using man is offensive to women, they feel like they are not included.

We even have Bibles that are called gender neutral translations. I have a serious problem with that. Some have written on this subject, even an author of books on this subject, I said you are changing the Bible. It doesn't say God created people, God created persons, God created human kind. God created man as male and female. Do you know what is going to get emphasized? When we get into Genesis 2 He is going to created the first male. And do you know what He is going to call him? Man. Because do you know what the word for man is? Adam. So we call them Adam and Eve but Adam is just the word for man. So He is really saying, let us make Adam in our image, we'll make them as male and female so we will make him man, male and female, in the image of God. Some have written on this find the structure of the trinity as you will have revealed more fully the Father and the Son. There is the reflection of the different persons and yet the oneness that is there and the order that is there. So male and female find their distinction in the created plan of God. Man created in the image of God is male and female. Now the very name given over all, man, Adam, is indicative there is going to be an order.

When you come to Genesis 2, this is not a different creation account. What he does is, after giving an overview of God's creative work, he comes back now to give details on that part of His creation which is the most important, to that part of creation that is in His image, that is appointed to rule over all the rest of creation as God's representative.

So we pick up in verse 4, this is the account of Genesis 2. “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord made earth and heaven.” It talks about He created the plants and so on. At the end of verse 5, “There was no man to cultivate the ground, and a mist used to rise up from the ground to water the garden.” Verse 7, “Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground.”

There are some who claim to be evangelical, Bible-believing Christians who say they are theistic evolutionists. By that they mean we evolved but God started it all. So it is created by God in the sense He began the process and it evolved down until we end up with us. That's not what the Bible says, it says in verse 7, “The Lord God formed man,” not out of an ape, not out of any of the prior living creatures. He formed man from the dust, from the ground “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being.” But at this point man only exists man, but he is a living being; he has been directly created by God in the image of God.

God plants a garden, puts him in the garden to care for the garden. God intended for man to be active and to fulfill his responsibility. Verse 15, “The Lord God took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it.” And then He gave him some restrictions. You can eat from any of the trees, all the good fruit, but don't eat of this one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When you do you will die. And we are familiar with that. Verse 18, “Then the Lord God said, ‘it is not good for the man to be alone.’”

Now remember when He completed the other parts of creation the summary is that it is good. And that's true when you get to the end of Genesis 1. But now you are getting the detail. He had done other parts of creation and the other aspects—the trees, the animals, the birds, whatever—but now “it is not good for man to be alone.” We get the detail here. God never intended that man as male be it. “I will make a helper suitable for him,” a helper corresponding to him because nothing else in creation is like the man, nothing else in creation is in the image of God. So I will make a helper corresponding to him. Now remember every detail is important. That's why the opening chapters of Genesis are relentlessly attacked by those who want to undermine the authority of the Word of God.

“It's not good for the man to be alone.” Now there is provision for single life, but the overall plan of God… One of the major prophets is told not to take a wife. Fine, that's God's plan. We get some more information on that in the New Testament. There are times in God's plan for singles, but it doesn't change the overall plan. It doesn't change the fact that a woman will still be a woman and a man will be a man; male will be male, female will be female. That's part of the creative plan of God.

It is not suitable for him to be alone, so clear evidence there is no other helper compatible to him, suitable for him in the creation. So Adam, his name shows his authority over the other animals because he names these different animals and so on in God's creation. He has great intellect, he was given to rule and he has been given the wisdom to name them all. But the end of verse 20, “For Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept.” Now note, this is important, important for the rest of Scripture. “Then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned,” built, “into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man and brought her to the man.”

Now you note God created man in His own image, male and female He created them. But He did not create them in the same way. Both the man and the woman, the male and the female, are in the image of God but they are not created the same way. God didn't take another pile of dust and make a woman. Rather He took a part of the man and built that part into a woman.

Then, verse 22, “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.” And in your margin you probably have the Hebrew words, it's a play on the words there like we have here with our man and woman. So it is with the ish and isha. Verse 24, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.” So you see God's intention, marriage is planned and provided here, but the creation of man as male and female takes place. That is part of God's order in the creation, it is not just limited to a husband and wife. Now the oneness that is there is expressed very clearly and most clearly in the husband/wife relationship, and that will be the normal pattern, unless God in His sovereignty as we know from Scripture determines that some men will be single, some women will be single. But that doesn't change the overall pattern nor does it change that a woman is still a woman and a man is still a man, male and female.

So you see the details that are here. Now in Genesis 3, sin will enter the picture. I should just mention here, you'll note the man named the animals, the man named his wife, that authority gives you some idea of the structure that is going to be developed as well. You come into chapter 3 and sin enters the picture. Now the creation has established the relationship, male and female in the image of God; it has also established the order, man is directly created by God from no prior existing life, the woman is created out of the man and made for the man, named by the man, she completes the man. That does not diminish the woman's importance, it elevates it.

What has happened in the world, we have diminished the importance of being a woman, a wife and a mother and anything else that is connected with being a woman and her value is only as she can function and be more like the man and do what the man does. They do it under, it started under the guise of equality, but it was really a push to sameness, to remove any distinction and difference that God had intended.

When they sin the judgment is specific on each. So my leadership for my wife does not mean I control her, in the sense that that is often taken. I can't control anybody but me.

And the woman is responsible to fulfill her role as God created her, but she can't control her husband and make him be the leader he should be, and so on. And each is judged individually. When the judgment for sin comes, verse 16, “to the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, he will rule over you.’”

Same realm the woman was created for but now pain and suffering and conflict come into the picture. And then verse 17, “to Adam He said, ‘because you have listened to the voice of your wife,’” failed in his role, “cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.” It's going to be a life of sorrow, suffering, grind it out. “Thorns and thistles it will grow. By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground because you were taken from it. You are dust and to dust you will return.” And the woman is going to return to dust, too. Do you know why? She was made out of the old dust bag, man. Right? Took part of him.

So in that sense her doom is his doom in the ultimate sense because the man created out of dust is going back to the dust; the woman created out of the man who was created out of the dust is going back to dust. But the judgment is specific, so we want to realize here we have two separate persons, each accountable to God for his conduct. Now there is an order established, but you understand the woman is still responsible for her decisions and her conduct; the man is responsible for his decision, his conduct. And failure on one part does not absolve the responsibility of the other. I say this early because we tend to play these off against one another.

But the order is established. This is why “evangelical feminism” is a contradiction in terms. You are either evangelical or you are a feminist because you cannot dismantle the Scripture and say there is no hierarchy or order established by God. And it is an order that is not just limited to a husband/wife relationship, nor is it an order just limited to the church or to Israel. Now the Scripture is addressed to God's people. Why? Because God's people are to fulfill God's will, God's purposes to honor Him by obedience. So the Scripture is not addressed to the unbeliever, but it makes clear that when the unbeliever lives in conflict with the Word of God, he is in sin. And sin is a disgrace to any nation. But the creative work of God establishes His intention, His will and to the extent it is disobeyed, it is a manifestation of a sinful heart in rebellion against God. Now that's where the world lives, “the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things,” but we as God's people must be very careful that we don't, perhaps subtly, allow ourselves to be gradually conformed in our thinking and thus our actions to the world.

Let's see how this is carried out in subsequent Scripture. Come over to Leviticus 12. Here you are getting the Mosaic Law given, you are getting instructions given for God's people, Israel. The nation Israel, God had marked out for Himself so He was requiring them to function according to His will. So He gave them revelation. In Leviticus 12, here you have instruction for a woman when she gives birth to a child, so when she becomes a mother. What we want to note is the distinction at birth is recognized. Note what he says, Leviticus 12 opens us, “Then the Lord spoke to Moses.” This is not Moses speaking, this is not just the culture of the day, this is the Creator God speaking. “When a woman gives birth and bears a male child,” there, man can be male or female, mankind. “Bears a male child, she shall be unclean for seven days.” Then verse 4, after certain things are done, “she shall remain in the blood of her purification for 33 days. She shall not touch any consecrated thing nor enter the sanctuary” until the end of a total of 40 days. She gives birth to a baby and it is a male, she is unclean, she is excluded from ceremonial, from any of the religious activities in Israel. Considered unclean.

Verse 5, “If she bears a female child she will be unclean for two weeks.” Now remember with a male child it was for one week, seven days. And then “she remains in the blood of her purification,” the end of verse 5, “for 66 days.” The 14 days and 66 days, for 80 days. So she is unclean twice as long when she gives birth to a female as a male. We say, that's sexist for sure, wouldn't go down well today. But that was God revealing He wants, from the beginning of the birth of that baby there be the recognition of the distinction in the sexes. We won't go into any further detail in that for what we are doing.

God makes a distinction from birth between a male and a female. They were created differently, they were to function differently, but both in a relationship with God. So early in Israel's history when a baby is born . . . Now we don't want to write on the certificate, we have to wait to see what they decide to be. God says I decided what they will be, they will have the female chromosome pattern, the male chromosome pattern and you will be able to tell when they are born—male or female.

Come over to Leviticus 27, this is a humbling chapter, especially for us old folks. Our value is going down. You'll note it begins the same way as Leviticus 12 did. “Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying.” All Moses is doing is writing down what the Lord said. So if you have a disagreement with it, your disagreement is not with Moses, it is with God. What does he say? “When a person makes a difficult vow, how shall he be valued according to the value of your persons? If your valuation is of the male from 20 years even to 60 years old, then your valuation will be 50 shekels of silver.”

So what he does, and let me just summarize it here for time so we don't read down this chapter. You can read it. But for any male between the ages of 20 and 60 his value. . . So if he makes a vow and this is what his value is in connection with this vow, is 50 shekels of silver. A female in the same age bracket, from 20 to 60, her value is 30 shekels of silver. So you see it is 20 shekels less than the male.

Second group, between the ages of 5 and 20 a male is valued at 20 shekels of silver, a female at 10 shekels of silver. If you are over 60, as a male you are valued at 15 shekels, female at 10 shekels. And I'm thankful they didn't get to over 70 and find out you are just not worth anything. The one-month to 5 years of age, the male is 5 shekels, the female 3 shekels. We see God intends that the distinctions be maintained between the male and the female. And it is brought up in a variety of ways.

And it doesn't matter whether people liked it or didn't like it, didn't matter whether, well, I feel like I am being put down. The honor is being what God created you to be, not what you decide you want to be. And that's true for male and female. He is the Creator. The greatest benefit and blessing comes when I function like He created me to function. The world has no recognition of that, they say you are devaluing women. We are increasing their value by making them be just a shadow, a mirror image of a male. And it is not so, you are devaluing the woman. That's why the role of motherhood has gotten pushed because it's when you get out into the “working world” and you accomplish things out here that you now can be honored and recognized like the men are. You've had kids, that's fine, and you can maybe really demonstrate I do it all because I even have kids and . . . We just want to be careful we have God's view.

Come over to Numbers 1, one more passage in the Old Testament, then we have to go to the New Testament. You'll note how the census is taken in Israel. Again you start out, “Then the Lord spoke to Moses,” verse 1. And what did He say? “Take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel by their families, by their father's households, according to the number of names every male head by head.” Because the leadership structure planned and ordained by God is male. And so the heads of the households are male and on down it goes. Verse 4, “Moreover there shall be a man of each tribe, each one head of his father's household” and it comes down into this and will also come that they number the men of Israel and they are the ones who can go to war. Part of the role of the man is to be the protector of the woman, created to be under his care, under his protection, under his oversight. This is the order presented. There are other things you could look at. There were no women allowed to be priests in Israel, limited just to the men. Certain tribe but only men in that tribe. Only male kings are set up by God except for Athaliah, the Godless wicked queen. Usurped authority, killing her own family members in the northern ten tribes that were in apostate condition in Israel. And she will be executed.

So God's order is clear. This is why the world is on a relentless push to destroy the distinction between the sexes, failure to give honor to woman as a woman. Not after you have become accomplished at what a man does, then we can say you are worthy of honor. No, she is worthy of honor as a woman.

Come to the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 11. It is important we be clear on the authority of Scripture from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. And you know we live in a world that goes by their feelings. And my concern, young people are under a relentless pressure here in our schools, in our universities, what you feel. I heard on the news this week, one of the major universities, we know of it from football and everything, not our local one, but they want to create a private group at the university and anyone who feels like they have not been given proper respect, they may have been offended, they can appeal and bring their accusation to this university group. And they don't even have to give their name. And then that university group will go and evaluate that person and find out if they are guilty. So much for being able to confront your accuser and all of that. It's enough that person felt like they were offended, felt like you said something they didn't want to hear. Where does this stop? Now my concern is we as believers begin to function on feelings. I'm amazed at the people, I have people who have attended this church for years who won't talk to me. I've given phone calls to people and asked, could we get together and talk? They won't even return my phone call. I don't know what I did to offend them. You sit here, you may not agree with everything I say, evaluate it in light of the Word. But they won't talk to me? That doesn't even go to what may be being said about me out there. That's all right, I have my mother's thick skin. Thank you, Lord.

Where does it come from? I feel like we do this, I feel we should do this, I feel it ought to be. First thing you have to do is come to the Word and see what it says, and then I want to bring my feelings into conformity with the Word. If we don't, we are beginning to think like the world and we are sometimes afraid, we don't want to talk to someone who might show the light of Scripture, that what we are saying or doing is not biblical. So we just don't want to talk to those people. I don't mind reading what people write that disagree with me, I don't like talking to people who disagree with me. So we have to come to the Word of God as our authority. “I just don't like it.” Well, “I just don't like it” is not good enough. What does the Scripture say?

Now the world doesn't care, the world rejects the idea that Scripture is the authority. When we claim to be believers and we reject this, now we are out there in no-man's land. If we become part of the lie, Jesus said to the religious people of His day, “you are of your father the devil.” “How do I know?” “You tell lies and the devil is a liar and the father of lies.” So you are doing what your father does. God is a God of truth, He cannot lie.

So I have to submit my feelings, my interests, my desires to the authority of Scripture. If someone showed me, “Gil, what you are doing, what you are saying is not biblical,” I better humble my proud self and say I need to look at this Scripture more carefully. And you are right, I need to make the change. We used to ask the question around, how long has it been since the Scripture changed your mind on anything? We sort of make up our minds and then we come and find a verse of Scripture and think that validates it. If we can get ten other people to agree with us, then it must be true. Let God be true and every man a liar. We come to the Word of God, that's our authority. And to just close your eyes and not be open to the truth of Scripture.

I asked a person, a contact, “I would appreciate you just sit down, I won't argue, I just would like you to explain what you wrote. I don't see the connection to Scripture.” I am yet waiting months later for a response. I've known the person for 30 years. I don't know. Why can't we talk? If I'm being unbiblical, you have an obligation, come point out my sin. That's what God says, you see your brother in sin, overtaken in a fault, go. We can't talk? I was at a restaurant, you got me on a sidetrack, family came walking in, looked and saw our family sitting there, turned around, walked back out to their car and left. I don't know, I thought we would greet each other and say hi. I want to be careful, I know I can offend people. But if you are offended by the Word, that needs to be dealt with. If it is something stupid I did, then you have to come and say you did something stupid and it's not biblical. I might say I don't see that. Then you have to say it is right here, can't you read? You are supposed to be a preacher.

We are in 1 Corinthians 11, I'm preparing you. What is verse 3? I want you to see how this all connects back to creation. That's why the Bible is always under attack on creation and the book of Revelation, how it begins and how it ends. And then they dismantle the middle. Verse 3, “I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, the man is the head of a woman, God is the head of Christ.” Now what don't we understand about that? Christ is the head of every man. Do you think if I biblically said I don't agree with everything Christ is doing and I will not submit. You'd say that is sin. And the man is the head of the woman. Well, I don't know, I know some men and I don't think that's good. God is the head of Christ. That's the order within the Godhead. That's why I said many commentators tie this back to God created man as male and female to reflect the very order that is there. Both humans in the image of God but distinct persons functioning in a relationship of oneness.

You come down to verse 7, “A 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.” Why would he say that? Verse 8, “For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man.” That's back to creation. How did man get created? Directly by God out of the dust. How did woman get created? As part of the man. So man is directly reflective of the glory of God, the woman is reflective of the glory of man out of which she was taken. And thirdly, “Indeed man was not created for woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.” Now those who claim to be evangelical but don't like just say this is Paul with his rabbinical, Pharisaical background. But we've grown beyond that. We don't outgrow the Word of God, it is still authoritative in the parts we agree with and it's in the parts we don't agree with that we have to adjust to. This is out of step totally with the world.

But even in this there is the balance. Verse 11, “However in the Lord neither is woman independent of man nor is man independent of the woman. For as the woman originates from the man so also man has his birth through the woman. And all things originate from God.” Paul doesn't expect the world is going to buy into this, Paul doesn't expect the world is going to submit to it. But for those of us in the Lord we understand it, and that isn't taken by a godly man to think now he can dominate and control his wife. Man is to provide godly leadership, oversight, protection, but she is an independent person. And the woman can't control her husband. We have broken down on this, even in churches like Indian Hills. And then we justify, as though we could justify our disobedience to God. We don't have time to go to like the book of Romans where Paul says when you disobey the authority God has established, you disobey God. I mean, we end up with all kinds, doesn't excuse a man mistreating his wife, and a godly man won't. So we just find, well we play it off—if my husband were a godly man I'd submit to him, if my wife were a godly woman I would be a better leader. That's true everywhere, and if we lived in a perfect environment never infected by sin, it would be perfect for everyone. But here we are.

So come over to 1 Timothy 2. Paul says, verse 8, “Therefore I want the men in every place to pray.” And he uses two words here, the word for man is man as male, as a man. And then in verse 9 he uses the Greek word for woman in contrast to man. I want the men to pray in every place, and they are to have holy hands, they are to be godly men doing the praying. But I want the men to pray. Likewise I want the women to adorn themselves, and it tells what the women should do. That's why we don't have women lead in prayer in our services. I don't understand what you don't understand. I want the men to pray in every place. That doesn't mean women can't come to the Lord through Christ, of course, but when it comes to leading in prayer, the men do it. Very early in my ministry here in the city I was meeting with a group of ministers, one of them brought his wife. We were at lunch. Do you know what happened at lunch? It was time to pray for the meal, one of the pastors chimes up and says we'll ask Mrs. So-and-so to pray. We were sitting around here with a group of pastors and you are going to ask the woman to do the audible prayer? I didn't say anything. Coward.

“I want women to adorn themselves” and it looks like he picks up and talks about the women in verses 9-15. He does, but he hasn't left the men out because chapter 3, remember there were no chapter divisions, so he says he wants the men to pray in every place, lifting up holy hands, being godly men, holy men. Then he mentions the women and he says what he wants to say to the women, and then you pick up with chapter 3 and here are the qualities of a godly man who has holy hands. They are elders, but it doesn't mean only elders are to have these qualities and qualifications. Every godly man should meet these. Some of those godly men will serve in a position as elder, but these are the marks of a godly man. You want to appoint elders, you appoint godly men. We have many men who are not elders but are godly men and meet the qualifications of elders but for one reason or another they are not on what we call the board of elders.

So the women, He tells them how to dress, how they conduct themselves, verse 11, “a woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.” One of the directors of our ladies ministry many years ago came in a major conflict we were having and I appreciated her honesty. She says, “you know, if we could get the women to stop talking to each other, everything would settle down.” That's a terrible thing. We are supposed to be godly people, obeying the Word, and they are to receive instruction quietly with entire submissiveness. “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” This is true in the church. The creation order is the creation order. I think we have to give careful consideration to this, how God created us to function.

I was in a discussion about this with a group of pastors a number of years ago, over whether you would vote for a woman as President of the United States or a man who was very liberal, like a conservative woman would be more oriented to biblical principles or a man who was totally . . . I was surprised, some of the men said I vote for the woman. I said I wouldn't vote. You don't give me a choice between two wrong things. So the Bible doesn't say Gil, you have to vote, so I just would not vote. You are not going to push me into would you say the woman ought to be President when the Bible says the woman is not to lead the men. Well, if it were a choice between a conservative or liberal, pretty soon our politics determine our theology. “I don't allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.” And the teaching here obviously is biblical things. The book of Proverbs talks about women teaching children and that's not the issue. We model teaching from the young age, and I appreciate that, that came out of our congregation. Men came up and said we want a model for our young children and teach the teachers for our children's church going on now. These men are seriously into the Word and talking about how they are going to communicate this most effectively to your kids.

It was Adam who was created first, then Eve. Well if you don't believe the Bible then of course this makes no difference to you. For those of us who claim to be believers and submit to the authority of God, “It was Adam who was created first, then Eve.” That's why the woman is not the teacher and the woman is not the leader. “And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.” So the facts of the fall as recorded in Genesis. And women are preserved through the bearing of children. Their focus will be the family unless God has provided for them singleness, and that is a special blessing, God says. Or if they are married and God chooses that they don't have children, that is His special plan for them. God is sovereign in our lives, knowing what is best and right and how we can most honor Him. But the clearness of Scripture and the order God has established.

And there are times when countries go through, there used to be more of an order recognized. We make fun of those days, I was raised during that time. My father had certain responsibilities, my mother, their realms were clear, they complement. Did you ever notice that the world is causing more turmoil, there is more trouble, there are more families having trouble. I was watching an ad today about depression and here is something. If your medicine on depression is not working, try this on top . . . I said what is happening to our world. And kids are running riot all over the place. Where is authority? We pat our kids on the back when they boycott school, take a position. The inmates have taken over, so to speak. Aren't we glad our kids are young, learning to rebel against authority they don't like? I hope they are not seeing that in our Christian homes.

And men, we are told, we don't have time to go to 1 Peter 3, men are to treat their wives as co-heirs. She is not my servant, she is not my slave. She is the one who complements me, completes me. Our children ought to see us functioning biblically, we ought to be modeling godly leadership and godly submissiveness. In 1 Peter 3 as well, Sarah is the example, she called Abraham lord. What a dirt bag he could be—twice he put her in a harem to save his own skin. How do you respect a man like that? You respect him because he is your husband, not because of what he did. I call him lord.

We need to be careful that we Bible-believing Christians begin to dismantle the Bible by our own disobedience that we have come up with excuses for. There is no excuse for me not living according to the Word of God. Well you don't know my wife, don't have to know your wife. Marilyn is difficult, you think she is little and easy. She told me early on, I'm little and mighty. And I'm a difficult husband, I'm a sinner redeemed by grace but not yet perfected. Be thankful you don't have to live with my imperfections every day. But none of that is an excuse for any of us not doing what is biblical. I just want to come and tell you what my wife is like and . . . I don't need to know what your wife is like, what are you doing? Wife wants to come, you don't know what my husband . . . I don't want to talk about what your husband is like, I can't change him and you can't change him. What are you doing? We're going to give an account, each one of ourselves to the Lord. So if we concentrate on that, He will be honored.

Let's pray. Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your Word, the beauty of Your plan. Lord, the beauty of the diversity in Your creation, we see that beauty all around. And Lord, a beauty in creating man as male and female, that they would complement, that there would be a fulfillment, that there would be leadership and order and love and submissiveness and understanding. Lord, we want that in our homes as Bible-believing Christians, that You might honored. Thank You for our mothers, thank You for godly women in our congregation that, Lord, contribute so much to our growth and our walk with You. Bless the day. We pray in Christ's name, amen.