In the sermon titled 'Older Women in the Church' by Scott Brown, the focus is on Titus 2, where the Apostle Paul outlines the roles and characteristics of older women in the church. The sermon emphasizes the significance of sound doctrine and the need for older women to be reverent, not slanderers, not given to excessive wine, and teachers of good things. Brown underscores the importance of generational unity, where older women guide and teach younger women, creating a cohesive church community that contrasts sharply with the fragmented and peer-driven culture outside. The sermon addresses the negative impact of feminism on traditional biblical roles for women, highlighting the need to return to a biblical vision of womanhood. Additionally, Brown discusses the sins associated with the misuse of the tongue, particularly slander, and encourages women to use their conversational gifts for edification rather than division. The sermon also reflects on the transformative power of the resurrection, suggesting that every Sunday is a celebration of this event, which empowers believers to live out their faith authentically.

Please open your Bibles to Titus chapter 2 and find verse 1. Titus 2 verse 1. Titus 2 verse 1, this is the inerrant, all-sufficient, and sweeter than honey word of God. But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. That the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience.

The older women likewise, That they may be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things. That they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands that the word of God may not be blasphemed. The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we're so thankful for your substitutionary atonement, that you rose from the grave so that we might have new life.

We thank you for the power over death and the conquering of all of our fears. Thank you for canceling all of our long-term liabilities in this world and the next. Lord we thank you that we're in a day where we can celebrate with all of our hearts this great resurrection amen please be seated it really is a blessing to have this this Easter Sunday It's a time of remembering the greatest event that ever happened in the history of the world and One of the one of the most wonderful things about the way that God created the world is that every day There's a reminder of the resurrection the Sun comes up again just like it did on Resurrection Day and here we are that just rejoicing in that. Now we're continuing our series here in Paul's letter to Titus. We've come to the section where the Apostle is addressing older women and younger women and of course as you know as you've been following this Titus is charged to establish biblical church and family life on the island of Crete, an island that was out of control, where as it was said, and it is true, all Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy glutton.

It was a very messed up culture. But here we encounter the attention on women in the church and particularly the character of women and also what women's ministry looks like in the church of Jesus Christ. Now as we go through this I hope you see something that I've been thinking about you know all week long. I hope you see the treasure of the godly older women in this church. They really are a treasure and I praise God for that and this really is a result of God's work in their lives.

So verse 2 focuses on older women. We already focused on older men last time. Now we turn our guns on the older women. But at the same time we're talking to older women. You younger women look at me right now.

You younger women, this is also for you. Don't turn off. This is the place that you ought to be headed as a younger woman and there are godly older women in this church that can help you get there and talk you off the ledge from time to time. But I hope that this serves as a help to treasure the the older godly women in this church. And of course the whole context here is the the faith of God's elect.

This is verse one in chapter one. The truth which accords to godliness and this is the person who has turned to the Lord they've been converted they're empowered by the Holy Spirit and you have in this church both men and women old and young they're reflecting the glory of their creator. And they're actually establishing a new community. It's a very different kind of community than the surrounding community. And they have different priorities, they have different objectives, they have different goals, they have different old men, they have different old women, they have different young women, they have different young men, They have a different culture that's being created.

And this is all under the banner of what the apostle Paul tells Titus to do to set in order the things that are lacking. There are always things that are lacking in all of our lives. So all of this should sort of work as a recalibration for all of us, you know, in the church. But it's a daunting task, but it's not an impossible one and it's not impossible because of the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ Romans 10 9 says if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead You shall be saved for with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth Confession is made to salvation. So that's who this is addressed to.

Now here it really is a joy to celebrate Easter here, but if you've been at Hope Baptist for very long you know that we don't hold particular special Easter services, but rather the resurrection is implied in every page of scripture. And so in this sense, every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection. We meet, that's why we meet on the first day of the week is to celebrate the the power of the resurrection. That's what the early church did, that's what that's what we do. So every time we meet is a celebration of the power of God for his people.

We preach the power of the resurrection every Sunday. We sing songs that proclaim the power of the resurrection every Sunday. And today as we're in Paul's letter to Titus, we find yet another graphic illustration of the power of the resurrection in who? In an old woman. Yes, even an old woman.

Like you never, you never outgrow. We learned last time and with the older older men yeah you can teach an old dog new tricks and you can teach an old woman new tricks as well and that's what we find here And this is really the whole point of Titus's agenda on the island of Crete. And so here we are, you know, remembering just the power of God to transform his people and to create a new community, a new kind of culture that exists in the midst of the surrounding evil culture. And we see what a gift godly women are to the church and I want us to see the blessing that it is. You've got a picture of women who are wise, they're not wasting their lives, they're focused on the things that really matter, the things closest to them, and when you get to the instruction that they're supposed to give to younger women, you basically hear them saying, pay attention to things that are close by in your life.

And so that's what the focus is here and you see the tremendous influence that can be had by older women. Now here's another thing. This is another picture of how God has designed the church to be a generational community, not not a fragmented community, but it's a community where the generations are knit together and actually the older generation, and don't miss this, The older generation is designed by God to modify and moderate and mature the younger generation. We live in a world that really despises anybody over 40. The Bible doesn't do that at all.

I remember Bob Dylan many years ago, you know, 55 years ago, saying never trust anybody over 40. Well, that's not the biblical picture that we have here. And frankly, we live in the midst of a generationally broken culture and this really began in the 1950s where you just found a rising age segmentation of the church and it it was manifested in the rise of modern youth ministries church children's ministries senior adult ministries and what you had if you're going to be effective you had to get everybody in their own little age category But that's not what you find in the Bible. And that's not what you find here in Titus because you have a generationally knit community. You don't have generations going off in their own direction.

The rising generations always want to go off in a wrong direction. And that was true of my generation, it's true of your generation, if you're 10, 11, 12, 15, 20, or 25 years old. But here, you find this generational unity where the older women are teaching the younger women. The younger women are not teaching the younger women. The older women are teaching the younger women.

And this is in sharp contrast to our peer-driven culture. We encountered this in the last sermon about older men. You have younger men who don't listen to older men. And it's not helpful to them. They need to open up their ears.

That's what the Bible says. And I am an older man. I might be the oldest man in this room. And I'm not saying this self-servingly. I'm saying it because the Bible tells you so in the book of Titus.

So you know yeah all of us are like this you can live in an echo chamber and the echo chambers have really multiplied you know the algorithms are causing you to live in an echo chamber. The people you listen to cause you to listen to more people like them, more people like them, more like them, and you just continually get radicalized in your echo chamber. It's very stupid for young people to exist in their echo chamber of young people. And it's true for old people as well. You can have old fools as well.

You know, age doesn't necessarily make you wise. And you can find older men who are just crotchety old men who are unwise and they're wasting their lives you know in retirement acting like you know they're the center of the world so you know these these problems are everywhere but But Titus is charged to bring this culture back in conformity to the truth which accords to godliness. This is the recalibration of the church to the truth and he's setting in order the things that are lacking there in that culture. Now what you find here though it's it's a very simple life that he's calling the people in Crete too and the it's the small things that are the most powerful. It's the simple rhythmic things that really declare the glory of God, the things that you might not think.

Everybody wants to be such a big shot, but you know the little shots here in this text here, they are the most effective. And what are they doing? Well we'll look at them one by one. So here he addresses older women and then younger women. We're going to talk about older women today, and then next Sunday we're going to deal with younger women, the things that, sort of the curriculum of the older women to the younger women, that curriculum is there.

Now I want to acknowledge something as well here and this is this is really very important There is there is a dearth of Older women like this in the church in the church. I don't I don't see a dearth of experience here as much as everywhere I travel, you know, women come and say, where are the tightest two women in our church? They don't exist. And the reason that they don't exist, the reason that we don't have as many tight as two women as would be helpful is that feminism, the whole doctrine of feminism, infiltrated the church and women actually were deceived and distracted and they'd left their homes and they went into the workforce and they didn't they didn't they didn't raise their children in the way that's prescribed here And one reason you don't have many Titus II women is because the previous generation were not Titus II women. They got distracted from the biblical vision and they did not cultivate a culture of womanhood in their homes, day by day, hour by hour, and as a result, you know, this has nearly disappeared in the culture.

But what God has done is he sets a culture alive in a church where one generation improves the younger generation. And the older generation is a maturing influence. One of the real encouragements to me in this particular local church is that we do have women that did go home, they are keepers at home, they are raising their children, they're focusing on their homes, that's the focus of their lives, and they're not building some other man's kingdom, they're building the kingdom that God gave them to have dominion in and but what's happening here in our churches there really is a new generation of Titus two women and they are 10 12 15 and 20 and 30 years old they're in this church because they've actually grown up with with women who aspired with all of their hearts to restore biblical family life And I couldn't be more encouraged than that. Now here's the problem when you're talking about Titus II women. You don't snap your fingers and fix it.

It takes a generation. And that's why I would just urge you older women to stay the course and you younger women to understand what that course looks like because it really brings refreshment and blessing as you've seen and manifested even here in our church but it but it does take a generation and the older women need to you know you know press on the gas and keep it going and the younger women need to follow and a truly generationally mature culture should be being transformed here. Now so he's speaking to older women now in verse one of chapter one here in this chapter he says but as for you and this this is really a heading and it marks the distinction from the prevailing culture but as for you you can see how the Cretans are doing it no but as for you you who are in the church of Jesus Christ and these words occur you know several times in the pastoral epistles which we will be going through we're going to go from Titus to first and second Timothy and this word but as for you appears five times in Paul's letter to to Timothy and Titus and the problem is is there all these false doctrines that have infiltrated the culture and And Titus was told in this letter already in chapter one, verse 16, they profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds.

That's the danger in a church. They make professions, they say, yes, I love Jesus, I was saved when I was six years old but but by their deeds they deny him and what kind of deeds are they talking about well here he's talking about the deeds of family life he's talking about the deeds of older women older men older women younger women and and then and then younger men and then workers, you know, bond servants. So he's working through all these various categories and he's saying, you know, there are people that they claim the name of Christ, but they deny him by their deeds in all these various categories of family life and work life. And we've already seen what the responsibility of pastors is to do. Do you remember that?

Rebuke them sharply. That's the task of church elders is to rebuke lifestyles that are contrary to sound doctrine. That word sound doctrine which is repeated many times is really the Greek word for healthy. The things that make you healthy. So but they make you healthy you know in in real in real life.

So here we are We're in a local church and we're playing the long game and we want the older women to teach the younger women and we want the younger women to get it and to grow up and we'll talk about that particularly next Sunday. Now there are four characteristics you have on your outline there of these older women. And then after that, there are seven things that they are charged to teach the younger women. Got that? The character of the older women, which should be replicated, and then the curriculum, the particular things they are charged to teach the younger women.

It's a particular curriculum for women that's declared here next Sunday. We'll go through it. So, first of all, they are reverent women. They are reverent women. It's as it is in the text that they be reverent in behavior and this is a term that really reflects a focus on holiness and in the Old Testament the word is used here for priests and it's really pointing to things that are sacred.

This older woman is focused on sacred things, holy things, things that are pure And not silly women, not women distracted by things that are irrelevant, but reverent. This is probably related to the gentle and quiet spirit that Peter talks about. And Remember, this is for you younger girls. You got that, younger girls? Are you listening to me?

You too are to be reverent in your behavior. One of the most discouraging things is to see a silly 13-year-old girl. They don't have to be, by the way. Your girls don't have to be silly at age 13. You need to rebuke their silliness, okay, because that's not what God's called them to.

What God has called them to is what you need to call them out of. And parents have a distinctive role to not raise silly girls. So where do you learn reverence? Well primarily you learn it at home. A young girl will learn reverence from her mother, her older mother who's much older than she is.

She learns that reverence as she watches her mother reverence in a biblical way her husband and her children and all those who are around her. There's a spirit of reverence that the older older woman must have and it's for every woman being raised up. The second is that they are not slanderers. Do you see that there in the text? Not slanderers.

Now in these verses, There are two reflections of how they use their tongue. This is the first use. They are not slanders. Later on, we'll get to that in a minute, they are teachers. They're using their tongue to teach good things.

So you have this contrast that is laid next to each other. The focus is what comes out of her mouth. Very interesting Greek word for slanderer. It's the word diabolos. It's where we get our word devil It's also translated malicious gossips and it's translated slander first Timothy 311 and and in second Timothy 3 3 and right here in Titus chapter 2.

But the Diabolos, you know, did you ever wonder how Spanish got into the Bible? You know, there it is right in front of your face. That's where we get our word and I guess the Spanish got their word from this word as well. The concern is the use of a woman's tongue. And Women seem to be somewhat more prone to this than men.

Maybe there's a greater susceptibility. Of course men slander. But when you think of slander, it typically isn't a man. It's typically a woman. John Calvin said, talkativeness is a disease of women and it is increased by old age.

To this, he, this is in his commentary of Titus too, To this is added that women never think that they are eloquent enough if they are not given to prattling and to slander. If they do not attack the characters of all, prattling rapidly and incessantly, chattering, the consequence is that old women, by their slanderous talkativeness, as by a lighted torch frequently set on fire many houses. It's a very interesting thing that he says. The cause of many church divisions actually often go back to a woman who's lighting up her husband. I've seen it a few times in my life over the last 50 years of being in a church.

But he's talking, he's talking I think about this category of the sins of women. People are always afraid to talk about the sins of women. Don't you dare talk about the sins of women. You cannot ever contradict a woman. Well the Bible doesn't do that okay the Bible actually does contradict women.

In fact there are there are actually several very particularly stated sins of women in the Bible. I'll just run through some of them with you. You've got the vainglorious woman who's concerned it is only for her outer appearance and and and and a less lesser concern for the inward person of The heart they stand in front of the mirror and they really only think about glorifying themselves. 1 Timothy 2, 9 speaks of this. You have the covetous woman, this is Potiphar's wife, the woman who wants another man.

They see another husband and they wish their husbands were like that and they're not content. You have the domineering, unsubmissive woman. She's not content with her husband's headship that's clearly stated in Ephesians chapter 5, 22 to 33. And they're constraining their husband's direction. They don't appreciate the role of head that God has given her.

And you find this in different manifestations. You know, I tire regularly of the domineering, mega-feminist women who are on the internet telling every man what to do. You know, these talk show hosts and podcasters. And they begin to sound like men and they become attackers, not nurturers. They were made to be nurturers.

They become assassins. I don't think that's good. That doesn't fit the scheme that we find here. Then you find the pleasure-seeking woman in 1st Timothy 5-6. We'll get to that when we get to 1st Timothy.

She who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives. You have the sexually manipulative woman in 1st Corinthians 7 withholding affection and is very self-obsessed. You have the divisive women in the church, Iote and Syntiki and Philippians 4, 2, and 3, they threaten the unity of that church. These divisive women did such a thing and these kind of women they move conversations to cause division in a church they maybe maybe they're just talking about questionable things or debatable things and they say that this is this is the only way this is the only way to deal with your food, to deal with your medicine, you know, and you know standing really hard on things that are debatable, right? Does it really matter?

Do you have to force your opinion on everybody? And these causing schisms over things that don't matter that much they matter to them you have you have the woman who never changes in second Timothy 3 6 always learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth in st. Timothy 3 6 you have gullible silly women in Proverbs 27 15 and 16 you have the contentious woman. She's like a continuous dripping on a rainy day. In Proverbs 2, verses 1 through 22 you've got the seductive woman and Isaiah 32 you've got the complacent woman and Isaiah 3 you've got vain women in in 1st Timothy 5 13 you have idol women so The Bible is not afraid to talk about the sins of women.

Now, we're going to loop back again to the sins of men when we get to young men. So don't worry. Just hold your place now, men, because it's coming at you. But men have particular sins. Men have particular vulnerabilities.

Anger, wrath, lust, envy. These are the kinds of things that men are way, way more susceptible to. And we'll talk about that. But the Bible is very clear to point out the sins of men and women. But here with this slanderous woman in Titus, here's what you've got.

You've got a woman who is bent on diminishing other women. On the other hand, God also seems to have given women a beautiful gift, conversational gifts that he hasn't necessarily given to men. Some men, some men are very talkative, they're a little bit rarer than women, talkative women, but her talkativeness though, it's a relational strength. It's part of her creation and it's actually a blessing. It should not be despised at all But what you have here is is is this particular focus not on slander, but on blessing.

And James says it like this, "'For we all stumble in many ways. "'If anyone does not stumble in word, he's a perfect man, "'able also to bridle the whole body indeed we put horses we put bits in horses mouths that they may obey us and and we turn the whole body look also at ships although they are so large and driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so, the tongue is a little member, and it boasts of great things. And here, what James is saying is that your tongue is a little member, but it actually charts the direction of your life. It actually charts the direction of other people's lives as well, who hear you.

So it's a very, very critical thing. Now, just a note for you older women with children. Be very careful with this in your home. When your daughters hear you slandering other people, You're setting a course for their life and they should not hear that. You should be very careful.

Often even parents of little children, they're very insensitive to what their children understand And if you're going to say things in the presence of your little children, don't underestimate their understanding level. Here's the reality. Children understand more than they can say. You've got the two-year-old who can't say much, but they understand a lot more. It's just like learning a foreign language.

You understand more than you can say because you know some of those words. So be very careful. Don't raise up slanderous daughters that are nitpicking against every other woman in the church or wherever and they have the and they just create a hard heart toward people and they think they're sort of the judges of the world. The Proverbs 31 woman, it says here, 31-26, she opens her mouth with wisdom and on her tongue is the law of kindness. That's what comes out of her mouth.

And women need to guard their hearts. Men do too, but they definitely, women are the focus here. And it's really important, particularly for women, When they see someone else's flaws, that they make allowances for them. I think it was over 30 years ago, before we started this church, a woman came to Deborah, and she was whispering in Deborah's ear and she said, Deborah do you know what so-and-so said about you? And here's what Deborah said.

She said, you know, I don't know the context of that, but I know she loves me. And that was it. She wasn't gonna fan the flame of somebody's divisive heart who was a sister in Christ at that time. She was an unwise sister in Christ and Deborah saw it coming. So not slanderers, so much for the sins of women.

Now, also they are not owned by substances. They are not owned by substances. This is the third character quality not given too much wine And I think the exhortation here is don't let your attitude and your disposition and your feelings be governed by anything else but the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5 18 says be not drunk with wine but be filled with the Holy Spirit speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. In other words, your spirit, your disposition, the way that you are thinking and feeling is guided by the Holy Spirit.

And how does that happen? Well, the Word of God is the Word of the Spirit. Jesus said my words are spirit and they are life. In other words how does a woman find herself filled with the Spirit? She must first fill her mind with the Word of God.

That's how her spirit is modified and and cared for by God. And this is an exhortation against a woman who is owned by wine or drugs and her appetites are being controlled by outside influences. And was this correction necessary? Why is he targeting women? Well, obviously it was necessary because both men and women at least in the Corinthian Church were using alcohol in a damaging way.

In 1st Corinthians 1121 you know people were coming to the Lord's table drunk in the Corinthian Church. This culture had to be modified by the Word of God and the Apostle Paul was there to modify it and he's doing it right here as well in in this passage and then fourth The fourth quality of these women is that they are teachers. They are teachers of good things. There's this interesting teachers of good things is one Greek word in that sentence. And he's he's not referring to an official teaching position in the church.

He's talking about an informal one-on-one face-to-face relationship of encouragement. I Howard Marshall said, Marshall says it like this, women are to teach the younger women concerning their duties at home, their personal piety, and their sphere of activity in the home, followed by a characteristic submission to their husbands. Andreas Kostenberger in his book says, such training involving private rather than public instruction, is to focus squarely on the domestic sphere. These are not public speaking teachers. These are not platform people.

Another commentator says, Paul not only gave the mature women the responsibility to teach, he also assigned a specific curriculum. Now there is only one formal teaching position in the Church of Jesus Christ and and that is the office of elder or pastor or bishop as is the term in the New Testament. In 1st Timothy 2 11 we hear this, Let a woman learn in silence with all submission and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man but to be in silence for Adam was formed first and then Eve. He ties this to the creation order, that women are not to be teaching or exercising authority in the church of Jesus Christ. That's the way that God has designed it.

I realize we live in a world that's very different from that where women do have authority and they do teach and it's it's It's a rejection of the Word of God to the Corinthian Church in First Corinthians 1434 Paul said let let the women 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 and get this for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church so you've got you've got some pretty heavy-duty language here now in first Corinthians 1434 it's very interesting because the Apostle is really driving husbands and wives together. If they have a question, they should be talking about it when they go home. And a wife will have questions and it's good when she has questions, and it's often very intimidating to a man to have his wife question him about a question that he doesn't know the answer to. I don't know how many questions I've not been able to answer to my wife yet, I still have some outstanding questions.

I don't know what they are. I intentionally forget about them. But what it does is it drives a husband and wife together so that they're talking. And they're talking about things that they might disagree about, but that's part of the sanctification process. It's a good thing.

And it teaches husbands and wives to learn how to talk to each other. And to be governed by God in their conversations. A lot to say about that, but it's so critical. One of the commentators that I really appreciate, Mounts, he says, this picture is the older women, those who were experienced in life, marriage and child rearing, taking the younger women in the congregation under their care and helping them to adjust to their responsibilities. So the aged women, the older women are there as mature, more experienced believers who have been, who they've seen, they've seen problems in their own life.

They've had to overcome, they've had to overcome sins. They've had to deal with difficult things. There's not an older woman around that hasn't existed in the midst of a lot of trials and difficulties. And it's those women who are designed to be teaching the younger women and to cast a vision for what it means to be a godly woman. You know that they are teachers, that these older women are teachers.

I'll say it this way. The older women are designed to be change agents in the lives of younger women. They're here for that. And that's why, and this is the purpose clause in this verse, that they may teach the younger women. That's why this maturity is required.

If they're not mature, if they're really not mature woman, you shouldn't listen to them. There are actually immature older women, but you have to discern who are the mature women in the church. You know, every local church is an expression of God's household and this woman is like a spiritual mother to the younger women in the church. Paul said that the Corinthian Church lacked spiritual fathers. And I think that what Titus is charged to make sure is that there are spiritual mothers in the church.

Now when we when we get to the next section here on what they are to teach the younger women. They're charged to teach the younger women the things that are the most important things in their life. The most important things in their life. And it's not systematic theology. It's something far more practical and it's and street level in their life and he's defining what the good things are.

He says they are teachers of good things and then flows out of that a list of what those good things are. And so again I hope you younger girls haven't turned me off. I hope you've listened because this is where you should be headed and and and the older women in the church are here to help you. Charles Spurgeon he said this, how beautifully can the aged woman by her kindly example be a teacher of good things. There is no more charming sight under heaven I think than that of an elderly Christian lady whose words and whose whole life are such as becomeeth the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So next week we'll turn to what the curriculum is and first they are here to steady women to actually to admonish. That means to steady them, to calm them down and just to continue this adorning of the doctrine, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet and chaste and homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. You know, the Bible is full of women who are wonderful examples for all. Elizabeth Elliot said the theme of her teaching was surrender to God. I am the Lord's servant.

May it be to me as you have said. And she goes on to say that the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds those very limitations, her gifts, her special calling, her wings, in fact that carry her to perfect freedom in God's will. If you're that kind of woman, you're a very different kind of woman than those who exist in the world who are focused on other things. The believer accepts what God has designed for them. You know the Bible is filled with godly women.

You've got Hannah, her fame for her prayer, Ruth's loyalty and her humility, Esther's courage in the face of danger you've got Rahab and her testimony of faith in God you have Sarah who is fearless and she even called her husband Lord And in these women you see courage, you see faith, you see obedience, you have the Proverbs 31 woman who is focusing all of her industry on her household. You have Mary the mother of Jesus. You have so many women in the Bible. Even here as we celebrate the resurrection day, who was at the tomb? Mary Magdalene and the other Mary appeared at the crucifixion and also at the tomb.

The Bible is full of godly women. May all of you be such women. They are reverent. They are not slanderers. They are not owned by substances.

They are teachers of good things. I'm going to close with this from John Angel James. Woman was the finishing grace of the creation. Woman was the completeness of man's bliss in paradise. Woman was the cause of sin and death to our world.

The world was redeemed by the seed of the woman. The woman is the mother of the human race. She is either our companion, counselor, and comforter in the pilgrimage of life, or she is our tempter, scourge, and destroyer. Our sweetest cup of earthly happiness or our bitterest draft of sorrow is mixed and administered by her hand. She not only renders smooth or rough to our path to the grave, but helps or hinders our progress to immortality.

In heaven we shall bless God for her aid in assisting us to reach that blissful state or amidst the torments of an honorable woe and another region we shall deplore the fatality of her influence. All this to say, women be careful, be holy. Would you pray with me? Thank you.