Keeping in mind the differences in roles and responsibilities that God has ordained for men and women, how should unmarried people think about what kinds of things they should be doing in their single years. What can unmarried women do in keeping with their creation order roles as women? What can men do, and what are the differences?
Well, I know you're expecting to see the face of Jeff Pollard because he was the one designed to give this message. So I've collaborated with Jeff about this message for about a year. We've been talking about these issues actually for many, many, many years. But I'm disappointed that Jeff's not here. Jeff just had major surgery and is recovering and he really could not be here based on the surgery that he had and So it grieves me to have to try to give his message and there's just no way that that can happen But I'm at least grateful to be able to handle the subject Here the way that I understand it, so please open your Bibles to the inerrant all sufficient and holy Word of God Open your Bibles to Genesis chapter one and find verse 26, Genesis one verse 26.
Keep your finger there. I wanna make a few comments before I read this marvelous text about Taking dominion. I want to pick up where I left off last night which was a picture of the throne of God and the multitudes who lived and died and they're saying holy holy holy they're saying Lord you were perfect everything you did was perfect and I you know I wanted to leave us with that sense of, a great sense of God's sovereignty in all these things. And to recognize that here in this room now. Where you are at right now is a doing of God.
Everything that you've done, mistakes and all, are ordained by a sovereign God. You're exactly where you need to be. And I hope that is helpful to you. I know we move in and out of understanding how helpful that is. You know, my father passed into eternity last November and my father was such a dear man, he was such an encouraging man, he was such a happy person but in the years before he died probably the last five or six years before he died if anybody asked my dad how he was doing now he died when he was 96 almost 97 when When anybody would ask my dad how he's doing, how you doing Bill?
He'd always say, perfect, perfect. And We always thought that was such a strange response, but the truth is, when you die and you enter eternity, you're going to say, it was perfect, God was perfect. And in the last words that my father said to me. He was on his bed and I was getting ready to go to our prayer meeting on Wednesday night. It was the first time he'd ever missed prayer meeting I believe since he'd been in our church for years and he said he said to me son the Lord knows what he's doing and those are the last words that I heard my father say And you know that was really iconic of the whole disposition he had in his life, the whole message of his life, the way he treated everybody in his life.
It was such a joy and I pray for the same. And by the way, you know, it's always, there's a little bit of a creep value, you know, when you have a singles conference. You know, people think, well, I don't know if I wanna go. You know, people might think I'm desperate if I go to this thing. But I want you to know that my father's widow is here.
My mother, who is 94 years old, turning 95 next month, 93, she's going to turn 94. My wife just corrected me. Thank you, Deborah. Such a good wife. You know, so my mom is single, okay?
She's here at the single, but don't you dare any of you think about that. She will not get approval for any relationships with any men, Okay? There you go. We are Asia integrated here. Okay?
Right? We know that. So, okay. Genesis 1 26 through 29 Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female He created them then God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply fill the Earth and subdue it Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Would you pray with me? Father, you've issued such helpful and wonderful commands to your people. You've shown us how to live. You've given us the way that we ought to go. In your holy word, you've shown us the holy pathway.
You've shown us this highway of holiness to walk in your ways to take dominion. So I pray, Lord, that you would help us to understand your will with these feeble words that I have here. Amen. So picking up where we left off last night, I want to now begin to qualify and even interpret some of the things that I said last night. You know, I did say, stop preparing for marriage.
Well, there's actually more to say than that. Our creation as male and female, of course, tells us something. And that is that marriage is something that almost all of us want. There are very few people who do not want to be married. This is an impulse God has implanted within all people.
We can't get it out of our minds. You know, I was married at age 28. Paul Washer was married when he was 32 and we couldn't get it out of our minds. And I know that we felt that our singleness seemed to be a curse on our lives from time to time, a great frustration. And the reason for that is probably a mixture of holiness and unholiness.
But the truth is, you know, marriage really is a very, very high calling. And, well, you know, my encouragement last night was stop preparing for marriage. But today I want to say don't deny the impulse to be married either. Don't suppress that desire to be married. You know God created most of you to be married.
Most of you are going to be married. You're not right now but most of you will be married in God's Providence. So my encouragement you know this morning is don't be closed to marriage if you are, that would be very odd. Although there are tremendous movements among men and women not to be married today, but that's the work of the devil, by the way. And so my encouragement would be get married, have children, build churches, and teach your children to get married and build churches who will teach their children to get married and to build churches.
You're living in a world that is pushing marriage to the periphery of their interest. And that's not what the church does. The church does the things that God has commanded her to do. So last night I said don't prepare for marriage and I wanted to use an extreme statement to make it clear that a holy life is the thing that prepares you for everything. It's a holy life that prepares you for marriage.
And it really prepares you for absolutely everything. It prepares you for every joy or trial that falleth from above. And living holy in Christ Jesus is critical. Now, when we talk about men and women and their desires to be married, there really are differences. But we should recognize that all all of us are created to be the bride of Christ and so the idea that you know I wanted to communicate last night is don't live in a holding pattern until you get married and today I'd like to speak of this matter of developing your skills for the glory of God that that prepare for everything and they do prepare for the taking of dominion.
The taking of dominion is not just for married people. The taking of dominion is for all people. And, you know, this creation order of husband and wife and children, they are pictures of something. You know, for example, a husband is a picture of Christ a husband is a picture of something greater a wife is a picture of a submissive Church A child is a picture of the power of the gospel, to make a child obedient, to honor his parents. But what is singleness a picture of?
Is singleness a picture of anything, or is that completely left out? Now I believe you can make a very strong case from Matthew chapter 19 and I won't go into an exposition of Matthew chapter 19 in this section where the Lord Jesus Christ is teaching about divorce and the problems in marriage and and the disciples say well why would anybody want to get married and then the Lord Jesus instructs on singleness and and he he brings forth the principle that You know sing singleness is a picture of Heaven in Mary in heaven there you're not given in marriage, and there's no marriage I believe singleness is a picture of single-minded devotion to God and singleness is also a picture. It's a picture of heaven where they are neither given or or being taken in marriage. So the Dominion Mandate that we were just read about though speaks of the fact that the Christian life is the life of taking dominion. The Apostle Paul talked about this in terms of farm animals.
He talked about equal yoking and when you yoke animals together, they work together. That's because marriage is a labor. Marriage is something that you do. Marriage is something that you take dominion and you, in marriage You have two oxen and they're laboring, they're plowing fields and this is figurative of the Dominion Mandate. And all of this, all of this I think speaks to this matter of what is the highest calling.
Is marriage the highest calling? Is a woman's highest calling to be married in this life? The way that Jeff Pollard spoke of this in his description of this message is being a wife and mother the highest calling and what he says, what he said was while these are high and lofty and biblical goals you know they they do not always materialize They don't materialize often for men until later in life, or maybe never. And the same thing with women. They deeply desire them but they don't materialize.
And so you have people who have things that they are longed for, they're called unfulfilled desires. And the question is, are they failed human beings? Are they objects to be pitied? Are they second class Christians? Are they treated that way in the church?
Or do their parents treat them that way? And the message that we want to say here is that singles and fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters have to understand what is the highest calling. And the highest calling is the calling of holiness and the taking of dominion. So I want to address the issue of waiting. My guess is that most of you are in some kind of waiting pattern.
And I want to make some suggestions about waiting to both men and women. And I want to base that on the fact of the differences that there are between men and women. Why this is such a controversy today whether men and women are different is just defies all logic. But the truth is that marriage and pursuing marriage is different for men compared to women. And my understanding of the Word of God is that men pursue marriage.
A woman is pursued by marriage. A husband is a provider in taking dominion and a wife plays the role of a helper in taking dominion. They are both taking dominion. The similarities of their dispositions are very, very clear. Both are dominion takers and yet both position themselves in their single years for the taking of dominion and it will look a little bit different.
It won't look exactly the same for a man and a woman. Now I want to just look eyeball to eyeball to men here in this room. Men particularly have a tremendous responsibility. Women are very vulnerable. When a woman joins you in marriage, they are very vulnerable.
They hook their wagon to you. And That makes them very, very vulnerable. It makes them vulnerable to the ways that you've wasted your time before you got married. It makes them vulnerable to the misuse of the resources that you've been given in your single years. It makes them vulnerable to the lack of desire for the Word of God and the church of God and ministering in His family.
It makes a woman vulnerable to all those things. And I would just say to you men you have tremendous responsibility in preparing yourselves to take dominion in the event that you get married and most of you will get married but I just want to say don't waste your singleness and pursue the taking of dominion. Now, I'm going to toggle back and forth in this message from comments directed to single men and single women while they are waiting and while they are taking dominion. And I'm going to make some statements that I'm expecting might seem strange to some of you, might enrage some of you, but I'm just going to tell you I'm learning okay and I need I may need further instruction and development of these thoughts I've talked to men about this and women for many many years but here's the reality I'm just a dad okay I'm just an ordinary pastor trying to hack it out in this world. I remember many, many years ago when I was encouraging my kids not to kiss the ones that are going to be married until they hit the altar.
You know, the slander and the difficulty I had as a result of encouraging my children to do that was ridiculous. And I thought, look, I'm just a dad. I'm just trying to apply the word of God and the principles of purity there in the word of God. That's all I'm trying to do. Hey, you do what you want.
This is what I'm doing. Here, look at it. Maybe you don't think it's right. But I just want you to understand, don't think that what I'm saying is, you know, these are the Scott Brown approved good housekeeping rules for you as a single I want you to process scripture I'm going to bring a lot of scripture to you about the distinctions between men and women and I hope they're helpful for your lifelong journey in Understanding all these things if in the event you do have children you'll be leading them in this matter of taking Dominion I'm just going to give you simply the thoughts that I have you know at this this point in in my life now and I I After making such an extreme statement don't prepare for marriage You know I'm going to flip here this morning and talk about how one does prepare for marriage. But it's not just the preparing for marriage.
It's really the preparing for faithfulness, preparing to take dominion as a real Christian. And I don't want to minimize the absolute high calling a mother and a wife, a husband and a father, is it's a very high calling, it's a sacred calling and we ought to pray for and move in that direction. It's a very high calling and it's frankly, it's the normative calling. I don't think we should say it's the highest calling. You know, it's a high calling.
Family life is massively influential. Abandoning the biblical order of family life causes such collapse of the gospel, such collapse of morality, such collapse in all of society. You know, I'm just going to suggest that most of the collapse that we see in society today is from rejecting the Word of God on matters of the gospel and of family life. So on the one hand I want to say that the highest calling for a woman or a man is not to be married and that should be obvious to all of us. It's not the highest calling.
It can't be the highest calling. If it is the highest calling, then does that mean you only hit your highest calling when you get married? So if you're 25 and you get married, does that mean you couldn't experience God's highest calling when you were 24? If you're 35, does it mean that you still haven't been able to experience God's highest calling? It's ludicrous.
It's illogical. It's ridiculous to say that marriage is the highest calling. It can't be the highest calling. Well, the Lord Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these. He's talking about children.
So, marriage is not the highest calling, but it's a very, very high calling. And the reason that people, you know, get distorted on this, or multitude, or many, you know, why people would think that marriage is the highest calling and they think that that's the only thing that there is in life For them you know it might be the fault of mothers. Sometimes you have mothers who all they care about is getting their daughters married and getting grandchildren. They idolize. They make idols out of these things.
And it's all they talk about. And girls grow up and that's all they ever hear. You know, you need to be married, you need to be married, you need to be married. And, you know, parents often make false promises to their children. That they will be married.
But there might be many years in God's providence where they won't be married. You know, Isaac was married when he was 40. Is that too late to be married? Is that, did something go wrong? No.
People get married when God in his sovereign hand moves to get them married. That's when you're going to get married. I'm not worried about anybody getting married. I'm not. People come to me and say, oh, I'm so concerned.
I'm not concerned at all. God is going to get these people married. God's big enough. He controls the synapses of every brain of every human being in the world. He moves people around so to us so illogically so ridiculously.
You know there are a couple of married people in this room. If you ask them how they got married, they'll say, wow, they were the strangest things that happened that God has married. None of us could have controlled it. It just happened. God was moving behind the scenes for years and years and years, making connections and having people meet one another and BAM!
Then it happened. So, God is sovereign. But, you know, mothers can be at fault. Fathers as well can be at fault by not focusing their daughters on the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word and the work of taking dominion in their families. The father is the head of a house and he is the head of a wife.
And often men are the root of the problem. They don't fill their families up with the knowledge of God, so they only think of marriage in terms of their calling. And frankly, you know, in God's economy the buck stops with dad. You know, when Sarah lied, when Sarah lied, who did God go to? Not Sarah.
He went to Abraham. Abraham was the head of his wife. Same thing with Adam and Eve. It may be the daughter's fault though. You know the daughter perhaps has exalted, over exalted, getting a husband, getting children to such a degree that she is possessed what I'm just going to call domestic idolatry and she didn't focus on developing her mind before God, her heart before God.
She spent her time tapping her pencil waiting to be married. Longing for it. Sitting around, musing and longing for those days, you know, when for when they might come. Rather than, instead of tapping her pencil, you know, being industrious and taking dominion in every possible way that she could and not really preparing her mind for the will of God. So, It's easy to make idols out of our desires.
You know, we all have inborn desires, but those desires can become idols. And as a result, you actually miss God's design for you. And there are... It's possible to adopt your theology about marriage because you want it. You didn't want to go outside your comfort zone.
You didn't want to serve God in the other areas of taking dominion other than marriage and family. And the works of evangelism, the works of helping your church, the works of being involved in your community fall off. And you never left your house. Maybe that's your dad's fault too, He never let you leave your house. But all I want to say is that families can get very unbalanced in this whole thing.
You know, I was, somebody, a young man said something to me just a couple of days ago. We were talking about how this can get imbalanced and he said, he said, he said, here's here's a possibility. He said you can, you find families, they might go to a conference, even to a conference on family life. And they understand the distinctions of manhood and womanhood. They understand what fathers are supposed to do.
They understand what mothers are supposed to do. They understand the doctrine of the family. And they go home and... But they're not in local churches. They're not in local churches that broaden out the doctrine.
That broaden out the Christian life. And they go home and all they think about is the family. They think the Christian life is the family. And it isn't. It's far far broader than that.
And so you have, you know, one of the, I think one of the great maladies, and of course, as you know, if you've been following us for years, you know, we've been fighting against a familistic way of life that excludes local church life. Local church life balances you out. Fathers who keep their children out of local churches, they are performing one of the most damaging things they'll ever do to their children. Because they won't learn how to live with all kinds of people and they won't be affected by other doctrine. They won't actually have preachers who modify even the teaching of their fathers.
And maybe even contradict it. The family needs local churches And sometimes when you have people that are so obsessed with the family, so obsessed with marriage in their singleness, it's because they didn't have local churches. They didn't have pastors. They didn't have shepherds to help them understand that the Christian life it does include family life, but it's not the only part of the Christian life. So it's a critical matter.
So I think what we've been trying to say the highest calling is to be a follower of Jesus Christ and walk down that highway of holiness I love what the Apostle Paul spoke to single women in 1st Corinthians 7. A woman cares about the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. Now the apostle is addressing single women when he says that. But I don't believe, I don't believe it only applies to women I Think it's a general principle that fits all Both male and female I'll read it again The woman cares about the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and spirit what the Apostle Paul is talking about is This matter of sin of being single and And the Apostle is arguing I wish you were like me Now there's a big debate whether Paul was single all of his life. I don't believe he was, but that's a whole other discussion.
I think Dr. Beeky can probably tell us the answer to that. Okay, so, I want to throw some assumptions at you here. These are sort of qualifications, things that I'm not going to cover, but I want to say that I'm assuming this of you when I speak of the things I'm going to speak about regarding the distinctions between male and female and what that means in the kind of work that they can do because that's really the big subject I want to try to tackle. And remember, hey, I'm just a dad trying to hack it out in an evil world, okay?
Now I'm assuming that you want to be holy and that's the highest calling. I'm assuming that you believe that God is good in all of his sovereignty and I'm assuming that the only life giving factor of your soul is the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ the power of the Holy Spirit, giving thanks in all things, counting it all joy when you encounter various trials. So I'm not going to talk to you about any of those things, but I'm just assuming those things. And I'm assuming that you want to be married, and I'm assuming that you haven't been able to kill that desire. And I'm assuming that you probably shouldn't kill the desire, but you shouldn't let it overtake your soul.
You know, Proverbs tells us all about this. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. You know, that's normal. It's normal. And it's a burden that single people have to bear.
But not just single, it's a general principle. Any kind of hope deferred makes the heart sick. And this is just one of them. And you're going to have lots of hope deferred in your life. So how do you get through those kinds of times?
So don't despise the pain. God uses the trials to build your character. He uses all things. He causes all things to work together for good. You know, Paul, you know, recognized he had a thorn in the flesh that humbled him.
Perhaps God wants to humble you. I'm sure all of our trials are designed to humble us in some way. God wants to make a more humble son or daughter of you. He wants to deal with your pride. And there are many, many things that God brings in our lives that deal with our pride.
And it's a blessing. Okay, so we've already talked about these misconceptions and errors and imbalances and I want to talk about working I want to talk about it in terms of men and their work in taking dominion and women in their work in the taking of dominion. And I bring this up Because I've encountered women who say things like A woman can never do what a man does I want to qualify that in this talk I've encountered women who say a woman can never work outside the home. I want to talk about that and qualify that. I've encountered women and people who think I can never go anywhere unchaperoned.
I want to talk about that. So these are some of the issues that I want to address. And I want to address them in terms of my understanding of what a woman can do in taking dominion and I want to make these distinctions. Now one thing you need to know about me is I believe that women and men are different. I believe the Word of God teaches that they play different roles and that shapes what a woman can do in her single years while taking dominion.
Now before you panic, I do believe that women can do almost everything men can do. But not everything. So, you know, there have been, I think, false distinctions made. You know, a man's work is to build things and use power tools. Well frankly, you know, my wife was most delighted when I gave her power tools.
And my daughters too, they love power tools. You know, I can make them happy by giving them saws and things like that. But I think it's important that we understand role distinctions. You know, it was probably just, I don't know, three years ago. My wife was building some garden boxes with saws and she, I was mowing the lawn.
I was just so happily mowing the lawn on this beautiful day, so peaceful, She comes around she's driving in her car. She rolls down the one she says be please take me to the hospital And she holds up her finger her glove She has a glove in her finger and a nail is stuck through her finger like that. The nail, she shot, she shot her finger with a nail gun. Now was that feminine work? Was it feminine for her?
By the way, I think she was probably wearing Levi's because my girls when they melt cows and they throw bales of hay and when they you know Do nail guns they usually wear tougher clothing, right So I got in the car with her and I pulled out my phone and I called a doctor in our church. Their daughters are here in this room. I love this man. He just lives across the street from me and I called him and said, and I sent him a picture of Deborah's finger with the nail stuck through her glove, through her finger like that. Couldn't get the glove off, right?
So I said, should I take her to the hospital he said no pull it out so there you go I said Deborah hang on baby girl and I yanked that thing out So she went back to the house and she bandaged it up and put some salve on it and she went back to her nail gun. Now was that feminine? I'm just here to say, let's don't make unbiblical distinctions about what men and women can do. Okay? So now I'm going to give you some passages of Scripture.
I'm going to give you more passages of Scripture than we'll be able to understand in detail but I'm going to machine gun them at you and you go think about them and you ask if you think they're right. And these are just the distinctions that exist for married and unmarried men and women. Now I don't have any desire to go back to the Victorian picture of womanhood where women were ornaments and they just sat around and looked beautiful. Well you do want your women to look beautiful. You know I told my daughters, you can be a farmer, but I don't want you to look that much like a farmer, okay?
So, we're not talking about going back to the Victorian area. We're not talking about going back to June Cleaver in the 1950's. We're not going back to that area. We're going back to God. We're going back to what the Bible says.
So, I want to bring these things. Now, in some of these passages you'll say, well that has to do with marriage. That has to do with this or that. And I'm just going to propose that these descriptions of womanhood, these descriptions of married women are analogies. They are exemplars that apply broadly to women.
There are some very specific things that are only marriage oriented, but I believe that when the Bible speaks of womanhood, it is saying a woman is like this. It's saying, here is a principle. Here is an exemplar. Here is, well, those of you who are confessional in your orientation this is the general equity of the law for womanhood and manhood okay there's a principle that here they speak to their nature as women I don't believe that the commands to married women are irrelevant for all women I don't believe that you might want to argue that with me fine We can do that, but I believe they are relevant you know if If a wife is called a home despot as she is in the Bible She's a controller. She's the manager of a house.
I think it tells something about a woman's role that she has these capabilities of managing things. We all know that women are remarkable managers. At least I know that. I've just seen such remarkable and beautiful powers of administration in women and I've seen it in my own daughters. These conferences that we've produced over the years you know have arisen out of the administrative gifts that my my daughters and and my son have but when When the wife is called to take dominion It's a call for all women to take dominion.
I believe that the the womanhood commands even those are marriage are analogies they are exemplars they are principles of womanhood And I think that there are different applications for women compared to men, for unmarried women compared to married women and I'm going to give you seven questions I'm going to give you seven questions from which to evaluate whether you as a woman or a man should do this certain kind of work and and remember you know I'm just a dad trying to hack it out in an evil and adulterous generation trying to apply the word of God. So I'm going to give you these seven questions. And the first question is, does the work fulfill or unravel biblical role distinctions? Does the work that a single woman or a single man is intending to do, does it fulfill biblical roles and distinctions or does it unravel them? And the Bible makes it very clear men and women are different.
And I'm just going to machine gun you now with a number of passages of scripture. Deuteronomy 22 5 makes it very clear that women's clothing must be distinctively feminine and modest and decisively disconnected from the clothing of manhood and the clothing of warfare. Deuteronomy 22 5. These are massive categories. I am not going to unpack them for you.
I'm just going to machine gun you with them. Titus 2, 2 through 7 speaks of specific things older women are to teach the younger women. There are very specific things that a wife and a mother should prioritize as she teaches the younger women. Both married younger women and unmarried younger women. They are to be reverent in their behavior, not slanders, not given to much wine, and they are to admonish them to love, to be discreet, to be chaste, to be homemakers, to be good, and then of course, obedient to their own husbands.
Again, all these things so that the word of God is not blasphemed And I believe that there are particular things about womanhood that are communicated here that communicate to single women as well. 1 Timothy 2 9-12, a woman ought not to teach or have authority over a man. This is tied in 1 Timothy 2 to the creation order. Adam was created first, therefore a woman should not teach a man I don't believe women should be teaching men however I do believe that wives should teach their husbands 1st Corinthians 14 34 and 35 women should not speak in the church let your women keep silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak but they are to be submissive as the law also says and if they want to Learn something let them ask their own husbands at home for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church I think this brings a broad principle for all women that they should be ardent learners, constantly learners, constantly listening and asking those who are in authority in their lives about matters. And going, If they don't have husbands, go to their fathers.
If they don't have husbands or fathers, there are godly men in the church that they can go to as well. And godly women, because the older women are supposed to teach the younger women. 1 Timothy 5, 1-8, we ought to treat women differently compared to men. For example in this passage you treat the younger women as sisters with all purity. There's a particular way that you treat women that's different than you would treat a man.
In Ephesians 5 23 in marriage the husband and the wife have different roles. The husband is the head of the wife. This flows all through creation. And I think that, and we'll get to other passages that demonstrate, this is a creation order principle. That there is a matter of leadership and headship and determinative, proactive leadership that God has specifically given to men in a way that He hasn't given to women.
And this is again, hailing back to what I said at the beginning. Men, you need to be very careful about how you manage your singleness. These women are very vulnerable. How you manage your single years matters because you are designed by God to have a determinative leadership role. You need to become a leader.
A man needs to become a leader and charting ground and taking ground Jeremiah 2 32 A woman has particular affections, and they are different compared to men Isaiah 49 15 A woman has very special attachment to her child. Can a woman forget her nursing child? In the Jeremiah passage, can a virgin forget her ornaments? Men and women are different. There are not that many men that want to put on ornaments.
That's because God created them that way. And when they do, they might be contradicting something of manhood and womanhood. So in Isaiah chapter 3 verse 12, a sign of judgment against a nation is that women rule. Women rule and children are oppressors. This is a sign of judgment.
This is a sign of Departing from the biblical order women are not designed to be in authoritative positions Jeremiah 51 30 womanly dispositions in combat are not appropriate. There's this dramatic scene that Jeremiah speaks of. He's writing, before and during the captivity when Nebuchadnezzar came and took over the city of Jerusalem. The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting. They have remained in their strongholds.
Their might has failed. They became like women. Men are different. Men fight. I think that's one reason why half of a men's brain is dead.
Because they can go into combat in a whole different way they're not triangulating all these things in relationships they're going in to kill men are built that way. They're meant to fight. They're meant to take dominion in a totally different way than women are. In Exodus chapter 21 verses 7 through 11, this is a very complex passage. But this has to do with daughters becoming servants or slaves and I believe this is when a family comes into such extreme hardship that the children are actually either given as slaves according to the Old Testament laws for slavery which have nothing to do with the chattel slavery we had in America.
Big discussion on that. But it's very interesting what God tells his people. He shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. In other words, those daughters, when they become indentured servants, they're treated differently than the men. You treat them according to the custom of daughters.
They're different. Their roles are different. In 1 Corinthians 11 verses 14 and 15, a woman's hair even bears witness to her distinctiveness. In 1 Timothy 5.8, men are actually responsible for the provision of the home. It's a primary responsibility.
You might have a deadbeat husband who's not providing. Maybe a wife should go to work. I don't know what she should do, but you know, if a husband's not providing for his family. He is worse than an unbeliever If a wife doesn't provide for her whole family. She's not worse than an unbeliever.
She's a victim of an unbeliever so It's very interesting you know even in Leviticus You know many of the ceremonial laws are gendered. Study it! Read Leviticus! They are gendered laws for purity. It's really astounding, the wisdom of God and all these things, it runs from the creation order to the sacrificial system to leadership in the church, in war, in everything.
The distinctions for men and women run through the entire creation. And if anybody wants to deny it, they're crazy. Because it's just obvious. Men and women are different. And a woman actually does have a kind of authority in her home.
She is a helpmate. She is under subordination. She is a comparable. She is equal. But she has a different function.
And she can run a plantation. Think of the Proverbs 31 woman. This woman is a home desperate par excellence. I love her. She's awesome.
You know I mean she She's running her authority all over town According to the authority that God has given her for the benefit of her husband She does everything she does for the gain of her husband. That's the language in the text. I wish I could do an exposition of Proverbs 31. I love this passage. You know, by the way, you know, there is something that I don't let Deborah do around our farm.
I do not allow her to drive our tractor. I do not allow her to drive our bobcat. And the reason I don't let her do that is not because I'm trying to protect her pretty little hands. The reason is I'm trying to protect her valuable time and if I let her get on that tractor and she's mad at me about this frankly by the way you know but I'm the head right. If she gets on that tractor and drives that bobcat, it's going to mean hours and she'll love it, she'll love it too much.
And our whole place is going to be totally landscaped and she's going to be pushing hay here and there, it's going to be crazy. So I don't let her do that, but it's not because of any manhood and womanhood thing. It has to do with, you know, somebody's gotta wear the pants, right? And she's overwhelmed with so many other things. I'm trying to protect your time.
So you know husbands and wives have to work these things out. You know Paul had women who helped him. Paul had women who helped him in his ministry. Mary Magdalene and Susanna and Joanna and they helped finance his ministry. They weren't stuck in their houses.
The Proverbs 31 woman is not stuck in her house. Okay, does the work defeat biblical categories of manhood and womanhood? Okay, second, Does the work compromise the character callings? Now this is true of both men and women. And for a woman, will the work allow her to develop the imperishable qualities of a gentle and quiet spirit.
What a beautiful statement the Apostle Peter makes to women. Do not let your adornment be merely outward arranging the hair, wearing gold or putting on fine apparel. Rather, let it be the hidden person of the heart with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner in former times, holy women trusted in God also adorned themselves. So, whatever work a woman wants to do in her single years, she should be very careful that that work does not lead her out of the character callings of women that are specifically for womanhood or manhood.
The character callings, all of them are crossover. But there are particular capability and character qualities that men need. But it's very important that a woman understands that whatever work she does should not defeat the gentle and quiet spirit, you know. This may be a bad example, you could maybe poke holes in it. Should a woman be a prosecuting attorney?
I'm just going to give you an illustration of this. Does being a prosecuting attorney cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit? No. A prosecuting attorney is a killer. She is going to kill her victim.
She's going to have her fingers in the chest of everybody there. She's going to be taking an authority that's, I would just say is not befitting the character qualities of a woman. You know, The highest calling of a woman and a man is one who cares about the things of the Lord That he or she may be holy Both in body and in spirit. Okay third third question Does the work unravel biblical the biblical picture of family life? God has designed families to operate in a certain way.
Does the work take that woman out of the promotion of strong, biblically ordered families? And same thing with the men. Does a man's work in the way that he conducts it abrogate family life? Then if he's single, he should be very careful not to take work like that. Or, hey, Most men's problem is they don't govern their work.
You know, a long time ago a wise man once said to me, if you don't control your work, somebody else will. If you don't control your hours, somebody else will. You've got to control your hours. And in this life you have to practice the discipline of limitation. You can't do everything.
You can't do everything for your boss. You have to practice the discipline of limitation. And if you're going to take some kind of work outside the home, then you need to ask, what's the impact on my family? It's very, very important that we preserve biblical family life. You know, your family, your house is not a flophouse.
It's a house of industry. It's a house of rhythmic family life that includes the worship of God and performing the functions as brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers and your work should not contradict that. Number four, the fourth question. Does the work eclipse the work of God in your local church? And there are many levels to this.
You know the church is one of the best places particularly and for a woman to work out her salvation. You know women are so perfectly suited for so many of the things that local churches need. They, women are nurturers by nature. They can offer counsel, biblical counsel to people. They can support in prayer.
They they work in practicing hospitality by the way That's what my daughters did when they were growing up. They practiced so much hospitality wasn't funny We we fed thousands and thousands of people maybe every year it was my daughters who did that they and they served all these people and they cooked they would cook for weeks and then the people would come it was a labor of love for them but they were serving the Church of Jesus Christ you know in in 1st Timothy 5 verse 3 you have you have these widows that are focused on godliness, and they're washing the feet of the saints. These widows are just marvelous, marvelously useful. You know, I've seen this in my own mother since my father died. My mother is power...
You know what? My mother went out and got one of Paul Washer's books, One True God, and she started a Bible study with some other ladies in our church at 93. She is washing the feet of the Saints and she's she's involved in the hospitality machine You're telling me to stop have I run out of time I've run out of time Are you serious I? Thought I had till 945. To be continued.
Joel, take it over. I'm going to try to get back on this platform if I can, but not to bind you up too much, but I'm going to let you roll, okay? As I was saying, I was on point number four, question number four. Does the work eclipse work in the church? And so I wanna just keep talking about that a little bit.
The church is a wonderful place for the investment of both men and women's energy as the body of Jesus Christ. Now, life in a church can be difficult at times for people who aren't married. They're left out of conversations with other women in the church. They're always talking about pregnancy or children. It's a couple's world.
They're often left out of activities with other families. They don't get invited to other people's houses. Hey, church leaders and other people and families in the church need to be really understanding about this stage of life, and They should not ignore them and just You know push their their season off Sermons often exclude singles by the way Calvin Calvin preached the singles in his church all the time in fact. I have a book Back there called preparing for marriage. I could title it that because Calvin addressed the singles in his church all the time.
He was very well aware of them You have this assumption that singles are undistracted. They're not undistracted. They're distracted by lots of things So you know churches church leaders need to just recognize they have single people in their church. They should minister to them in the stage of life that they are in. You know, the drumbeat they should never hear is being unmarried is being a second-class citizen.
They should never hear that from anyone. So it's vital that churches are places where particularly women can serve in a local church. The fifth question is, does the work facilitate Biblical methods of protection? Does the work facilitate Biblical methods of protection? There's no religion in the world where women are so protected.
In Christianity, The men die for the women. They are treated with such deference, such tenderness. When a woman is single, she is under the protective authority of her parents. When she's married, she is under the protective authority of her husband. When her husband dies, She's under the protective authority of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has a seamless, unbroken pattern of protection for women. That's what He wants. He wants a woman always to be under the protective authority of someone. You have some, you know, very heartbreaking scenes in the Bible in Deuteronomy 22. You have this woman, she's traveling alone in the countryside and she's assaulted And there's no one there to hear her cries and this terrifying phrase is in Deuteronomy 22 7 There was no one to save her Daughters need to be under some form of protection Deuteronomy 22, you have a scene where if a woman is accused of fornication before marriage by her husband, the parents are responsible actually to verify her virginity.
And the parents are punished for not understanding the virginity status of their daughter. They are punished if they were culpable and if the husband was lying, he's also punished. Widows are under the protective authority of churches. Even the Lord Jesus Christ himself, when he's on the cross, He gives the protection and care of his mother to the Apostle John while he is on the cross. He's transferring protective authority to his mother so that his mother would be cared for By a godly man in Numbers 30 you have a Situation where a father is protecting his daughter she makes a vow to someone and he has the authority to reverse the vow He has to be talking to her.
She's got to tell him what's going on It's a picture of a daughter and a father communicating and dealing with things, but everything a daughter wants to do, she shouldn't do. And fathers often know that. And so there's this protective authority. And, you know, if a woman is going out in the workplace, she should be properly protected in that workplace. Fathers have a duty to ensure the protection of their daughters in their single years when they go out to work in the world.
And maybe that means she needs to carry a gun. But there are a lot of different ways that a daughter can be protected. And I don't believe daughters can never leave the home by themselves But I'll tell you one thing fathers are responsible for what happens to their daughters by being negligent So the father's authority is an equipping authority and a protective authority You know many are asked you know can I can I be a missionary? I want to be a missionary. I want to serve the Lord, you know, in a foreign field.
Now, and here's some guidelines. I want to give you five guidelines for whether I believe a woman should, what a woman can do. First of all, she can go and evangelize. Second, she should go to help church planting efforts to exercise her gifts under the authority of elders and she should have an objective to be a member of the church and Thirdly she should not hold a position in the church as a teacher of men She ought not to have authority over men in her missionary efforts fourth. She should not go alone Fifth she should not go without protection and you know the wise men in the room need to understand what that looks like.
Just because a daughter wants to go out in the mission field doesn't mean that she should go. There are protective matters that are very, very important. By the way, my wife, Deborah's aunt, her Aunt Sue, was the first female missionary sent into the jungle in the Amazon by Wycliffe Bible Translators. She went into this, she went into the Yanomamo tribe, very vicious tribe, and she was there as a single woman. And everything turned out okay.
We really praise the Lord for that, but she was in a very, very vulnerable position. Womanhood is a very sacred thing. And God has designed that women are under protection of men. Sixth, is the work approved by her parents. This is an appeal to the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother.
My position is that there's a progression of freedom that's natural. You know, when I was a child, I thought as a child and I spoke as a child, but when I became a man, I became, you know, I understood manly things. So I think there's a progression. You know, you have a, there's a legal age change in the United States. You know, at age 18.
The Bible calls for lifelong honor, but I'm not, my view is that children should receive a lot more freedom as they grow older. And by the time they're adults, your position is one of counselor, not controller. And you might have to give biblical correction to a rebellious son or daughter. Now, there are times when children sometimes have to tear down their father's idols like Gideon did. And that's very complex, no way to unpack all of that here in this talk.
But if you have a father who is overly restrictive, not shepherding, not directing in biblical ways. You have elders in churches, you have godly people. You know in Calvin's Geneva, Calvin would often encourage children to go ahead and get married against the counsel of their parents because the whole doctrine of celibacy from the Roman Catholic Church had so destroyed the doctrine of marriage parents were withholding marriage from their children and parents can unrighteously withhold marriage from their children. The seventh question. Does the work put her under authority, put her in authority of other men?
My understanding of 1 Timothy 2, 9 is the woman is not, ought not to teach or have authority over men it is not something that's just relegated to the church it's a creation order principle that she ought not to be teaching men. I don't believe that a woman's nature by creation changes when she walks out of a church. I don't think her nature changes when she walks over the threshold of her house. She is a woman. She is a woman in the home.
She's a woman wherever she goes. And that matter of taking authority over a woman is I think is very very important you know what what is I absolutely prohibited for a woman to do my understanding of scriptures She cannot be a combat soldier in the army. She should never do that. She cannot be teaching men. She cannot be speaking and leading in worship services.
She cannot be an officer in the church of Jesus Christ. We already read in Isaiah chapter three that women ruling is a sign of judgment against a nation. And when you have women competing with men in authority over men in business, you're talking about a distortion of the creation order. Should a woman be president? Absolutely not.
When a woman is running for president, the church will stand up and say absolutely not. In scripture there are times when something like this may be lawful, but here's the reality. Grab it. Every single time in the Bible when qualifications for civil leaders are given, they are always men. Always men, never women.
Never, never. You can go to Genesis 17, 27, Exodus 18, 20 to 21, Deuteronomy 1, 13 through 15, Deuteronomy 16, 18 through 20, Deuteronomy 17, 14 through 20, Second Samuel 23, three, Nehemiah 7, two, would you like some more? Every single time, every single time there is a civil magistrate to be chosen, it's choose men. We should take that very, very seriously. So many of the problems that we're experiencing in our culture is because we put women in the positions they ought not to be in.
Deborah was a blessed help to Israel but she was also a judgment against the men of Israel. Because when you have women who are in that position it's a judgment. The men wouldn't stand up. It was a shame. By the way, you don't take your patterns from the book of Judges where every man is doing what's right in his own eyes.
Don't take the narratives and make them imperatives for you. So the highest calling, of course, is not marriage, but it is to care about the things of the Lord, but to possess your body in chastity and to do the work of dominion. You know, what can a woman do? I think a woman can do a lot of things. And I've seen so many wonderful examples.
There are a few things that she cannot do. And, you know, I have a very dear family in my life. Their father died, he was one of my best friends. He left four girls. And they all pulled together, and they all created businesses in their community.
And they served their church beautifully all these years it's been over it's been 25 years since he died and one couple of the daughters had a landscaping business in their in their community another daughter was was giving music lessons and another another one of the daughters started a medical practice in the in the community was a beautiful thing they It was a beautiful thing. They were all under the authority of their mother and they were working, but they were out in the community. It was one of the most beautiful things. I know a woman in her 30s now who is working for actually a family business and she does accounting for a construction company, a family that's very, very dear to me. There's another woman I know who is doing interior design for a remodeling company.
You know, is that kind of thing lawful? You just have to ask, is she protected? Is she having authority? Ask the questions. And, But I think it would be very harmful to say a woman can never leave her home.
The Proverbs 31 woman was leaving her home for sure. And she was involved in manufacturing, she was involved in real estate, she was involved in commerce, she was involved in all kinds of things. You know women can do a lot of things but they must do the things that are consistent with the the creation order. My daughters did all kinds of things. I gave them money, I gave them authority to make decisions, and they did all kinds of things.
They edited all my books, they produced all my conferences. They were involved in midwifery. One of my daughters was very interested in natural medicines and she was always healing our diseases in our family. It was great. I was so thankful for that and their hearts delighted in it.
I wanted them to do the things that they wanted to do that fit within the biblical parameters And that's one reason I bought them power tools because they like that. Was it feminine? I thought it was feminine. I didn't think it contradicted femininity at all. And they were using those tools in the service of God.
So there are many things that a woman can do. And I pray that the single men and the single women will take dominion in their single years. They will not waste one minute. They would not waste one drop of energy in the taking of dominion for the Lord Jesus Christ. That they would plunge their lives in the ministry of a local church.
That they would plunge their lives in the ministry of evangelism. That they would be a huge blessing to their families and that they are involved in productivity and commerce and the kind of dominion making that increases the assets of the family, of the church and those whom they might work for. So there are many, many things that men and women can do. Women have, I believe, more restrictions on them in the particular situations they can be in. But whatever it is, take dominion for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Would you pray with me? Father, I pray that all of us here would use every moment for your glory and that we would, Lord, be found faithful in taking dominion according to the callings that you've given to us. In Jesus' name, amen. You Thank you.