[0:00] Now when we looked two three weeks ago At the first part of this chapter 2 Just to recap Paul is encouraging Timothy To ensure that prayer is made For all people For those in authority And those that rule over them So that they can get on with their ordinary Christian lives If those who are ruling them Are able to do so with the help and guidance And wisdom of the Lord Bearing in mind that in those days And in that time Those who rule over them will be pagans Not Christians Not covenanted kings of a Christian commonwealth But pagans Who frequently Frequently would persecute Christians And yet they are encouraged To pray for them All that are in authority That we may need a quiet and peace of the light In all godliness and honesty For this is good and acceptable In the sight of God our Saviour Giving of thanks Prayer be made for everyone That includes enemies Include those who are against us There is one God
[1:00] And one mediator between God and men The man Christ Jesus Who gave himself a ransom for all To be testified in due time God would have all men to be saved And not that's mean every single person Is going to be redeemed It doesn't mean that there's universalism That everybody's going to be in heaven And all meet there afterwards And he has to be able to But that is not the teaching of scripture The teaching of scripture is clear That there are those who are saved And redeemed by Christ And there are many who are not But God's desire is to make freely available The free offer of salvation to all To freely invite all To call all to this salvation And he's not cheating anyone He's not lying to anyone If they will turn and repent They will be saved There is one God There is one saviour One mediator Between God and man Who gave himself a ransom for all There's none For whom Christ is not the ransom If they will come and believe And trust in him There's none
[2:01] For whom Christ will not avail If they will come to him It doesn't matter what religion Or ideology they may follow just now If they will turn to Christ He will avail for them He will be the saviour for them He will be the ransom for them There is no other Where unto Says I am ordained a preacher An apostle Speak the truth in Christ And lie not a teacher Of the Gentiles In faith and verity Faith and truth I will therefore That men pray everywhere Lifting up holy hands Without wrath and doubting Now it doesn't mean That their hands necessarily Are holy in and of themselves Oh look this one's very holy That one's very holy It means that their actions Their deeds Their lives Are to be pure And we said this Without wrath and doubting Means without disputation Without holding Sort of grudges Against others Which will interfere With their prayers In Philippians 2 Verse 14 For example Who do all things Without murmurings And disputings They shouldn't be at odds With each other Otherwise their prayers
[3:02] Will be hindered Jesus himself taught In the Sermon on the Mount In Matthew 5 Verses 23 and 24 If thou bring thy gift To the altar And there rememberest Thy brother Hath ought against thee Leave there thy gift Before the altar And go thy way First be reconciled To thy brother And then come And offer thy gift And likewise again In chapter 6 Of the same Sermon on the Mount Verse 15 If ye forgive not men Their trespasses Neither will your father Forgive your trespasses So there has to be This forgiveness There has to be This grace And this desire Not to have disputing Or arguing amongst each other Without wrath And doubting or disputing In like manner also That women adorn themselves In modest apparel With shamefacedness And sobriety Not with bright hair Or gold or pearls Or costly array But which become Of women professing godliness With good works Now as we began to say And when we first looked at this Two, three weeks ago The first thing that strikes us
[4:03] Is that there is this suggestion Or requirement That women adorn themselves In modest apparel Why doesn't it say that For men? Why does it say Well make sure that men Are modestly dressed as well And I would suggest to you That it is because Quite simply Women fascinate In a way that men do not And that's not just Oh you're saying that Because you're a man No Women fascinate each other as well But they also fascinate men Naturally I mean if If for example You think of any magazine That you like Which is read mostly by women Then Who is more likely To be on the front Is it Prince William Or is it Kate Middleton?
[4:38] You know Who is likely to be on the front Of a women's magazine? It's definitely women If somebody comes in Wonderfully dressed Into a gathering Whether it's a church Or anything else And they really look stunning Then women Are going to say Oh wow Doesn't she look great?
[4:53] What outfit? She can really wear that Doesn't she? The men are probably Thinking Wow look at her As opposed to What she's wearing The focus will be different But the factism Of the matter is The focus will be upon her Because women fascinate That's the way That God has designed And given In creation In a way that men do not If you're looking at Say for example Breakfast TV Or any kind of Programme News programme And there they are On the couch If Hugh Edwards On the one side And maybe a female Co-presenter Whoever she happens to be Even women will probably Look and think Oh that's a nice outfit She's got a light Boy her hair's down there That's nice And men might just think Oh she looks really Attracted to her Nobody is going to be Thinking Oh Hugh Edwards Doesn't he look nice In that grey suit I like the way His hair's down What a lovely tie Is going on And nobody cares Because nobody Is bothered About what men Are really looking like Or what they're Especially wearing If you're going To a wedding And somebody says Oh what were the
[5:53] Outfits like at the wedding And if you start saying Oh they are The dressers were on These lovely kilts With their darts And their priest Stood ahead and so on The bridegroom He was dressed up The same They'd all never mind that They want to know About the dressing They want to know About the bridal outfits They want to know About what the bridegroom They want to know What the women Are wearing Women fascinate In a way that men do not And if that is the case Then obviously If a woman is to come Into a church Or any other gathering Dressed in a way That is not modest Stapadel It doesn't have to be Inappropriate in the sense Of lasciviousness It might just be Attractive But drawing attention To the self Then that is what Is going to happen Attention will be focused Or drawn Either by the women Or perhaps particularly By the men Towards that individual The focus will be On an individual Rather than on the Lord And his worship And it's not that Oh women are really guilty And disregarding men It's just that This is the way
[6:54] Women are designed They fascinate In a way that men do not And this is one reason Why Paul is inspired Remember this is the word of God To say that This is what should happen It's not to be Oh bright gold And pearls And cross the array So that attention Is drawn to themselves But rather Which become with women Professing godliness With good works If there's something That's going to be Attractive about a person Let it be how they live What they do But I suffer Not a woman to teach Nor to usurp authority Or where I will come to that In just a moment If we're going to look for An instance of Why this should be the case About why women Fascinate in a way That men do not Perhaps we can find it In creation itself Where if you remember That Adam is first formed As it says Adam is first formed In the name There is this stage In creation When Adam is He's naming the animals The beasts and so on But for a man A suitable companion Was not found In other words There is a stage In creation
[7:54] Still in sinless When man is conscious Of his incompleteness Without the woman Once the woman Has been made And has brought to man And so on There's not really Any sense Where she's conscious Of incompleteness Without the man In other words There is inherent Weakness in men For women And this is just Partly the way That men will decide There is a weakness In men For women Let me give you An example From history Obviously you'll be Aware of you know John Knox And the Reformation And so on And all the progress That was made With the Scottish Parliament 1560 All the good Laws that were passed In favour of the Word of God And then the following Year Something happened The main Queen Of Scots Who'd been in France Was widowed No longer had any Reason to stay in France The new regime Did not want her Hanging about She was sent off home She comes home To Scotland She comes home To Scotland As a
[8:55] Nineteen year old Widow Who is by all The contemporary Accounts Beautiful And all the Parliaments And all the Church organisation Everybody who Had been absolutely Rock solid Behind the Reformation No problem And that's fine And along comes This beautiful Teenage Queen With her French accent And her desire For dancing And all the Music And all the Flames of course Brightens it up And of course She's a Roman Catholic And her request Is not oh Let's turn the country Back to Roman Catholicism But rather Oh that's fine You do You know All I want Is my own Private Mass In my own Wild chapel With my own Priest That's all I want Please And of course They all fall Over themselves And that's No bother Yes of course You can have The Act of Your Majesty Very few People Only knocks Amongst them Recognise If that Happens Then wherever The Queen Goes Touring around The country
[9:55] These Romish Priests Will become Women They'll be Setting up Their ornately Beautiful Chapels And the Mass And some People will See They'll be Fascinated They'll be Drawn into it Some people Will want to Be like the Queen And so on How does she Get away with it If a fat Middle aged King had Come back To Scotland And said I want the Mass Do you think Would have Had any Impact at all But no Men have This Weakness Where women Are concerned Now this Is what it Says Adam was First Formed And he Adam was Not deceived But the Woman being Deceived Was in The Transgression That's a bit Rough isn't It Come on Surely Adam was Deceived Let's go Back again To what it Actually says In Genesis 3 Where Eve Says The serpent Beguiled Me And I Did eat Come on Adam Surely Beguiled As well He's Deceived Adam is Not deceived What is Adam's Crime here Adam's Crime is Not that He's Under any Illusion That somehow This is
[10:56] Okay It's alright Because you know The serpent Does say It's all No What is Adam doing Here Adam is Seeking To please His wife Man is Seeking To please Woman That is Man's Inherent Weakness There He is Giving way To his Wife Despite What God Has said He Knows What God Has commanded And yet His desire Is to be Pleasing To her He's not Deceived He's not Under any Illusion He is Just Getting in He is Capitulating And he Desires to Do so Because men Desire To please Women Even if it's Not any Sort of Sensual Or inappropriate Sense The desire Is to be Liked And to Please Women In that way And this is One reason Why when we Come to passages Like this You will find People say Oh yes Of course We don't Agree With any Of that Nowadays And Adam Was first Formed And not
[11:56] Even And I Suffer Not a Woman Feature Oh nonsense We can't go With that Nowadays Why can we Not go With it Nowadays Has God's Word Changed Or has Society Changed Oh society Has Changed Has Society Changed For a Better Yes it's Changed For a Better Maybe That is The case But the Fact is That this Is what God's Word Says Has God Changed Well no God Hasn't Changed Has God's Word Changed No God's Word Hasn't Changed But the Society Which is By and Large An Unbelieving Society Has Changed And society When it Changes From an Unbelieving Perspective And if you Think about It is Almost Always From an Unbelieving Perspective Remember Now Is of The View And the Church Many Parts Of the Church Are now Of the View That if Something If we Take The things That are Being Celebrated In Inverness And This Coming Saturday There Would
[12:56] Be A Time When That Be Regarded With Abhorrence By All Sections Of Society But Now Because Society Has Changed Although God Has Not Changed If Something If a Particular Sin Is Regarded As Sufficiently Acceptable Or In In Unbelieving World Then Somehow It Should No Longer Be Regarded As A Sin By The Church Because The Unbelieving World Now Calls The Shots And That Is What Has Happened Here This Is Only Controversial As A Passage Because So Many People Now No Longer Choose To Believe It But If They Are No Longer Choosing To Believe It What Are They Choosing To Believe Instead They Are Choosing To Believe The Unbelieving World They Are Choosing To Believe The Secular Society This Is Still The Word Of God And It Always Was The Word Of God And When God Gives This Requirement He Knows Exactly What He Is Doing He Is
[13:56] Seeing That Man's Original Requirement Was To Be The Head Of The Human Race And Given A Choice Between Serving And Pleasing God In A Responsible Manner Or Trying To What's The Word Ingratiate Himself With His Wife He Chose The Matter And That Was In His Sinless Condition Remember That Man Desire Above All Else To Please His Wife She Didn't So He Wanted To Be Like Her He Just Took It And Ate It He Didn't Even Say But Wait A Minute God Said We Should Do This Now Just Supposing For The Sake Of Argument That Adam Had Been Strong Just Say For The Sake Of Argument That He Had Said Well Actually Eve We Shouldn't Do This I Know You've Taken Some But I Can't Have Any Of That Because God Is Forbidden That Would There Still Be Fearful Punishment On Woman As Well As Man And So On Because Man As The Head Of The Human Race Has Not Yet Fallen Not Yet Sin So Humanity
[14:56] Is Not Yet In A State Of Separation From God Whenever The New Testament Talks About Man's Fallenness And Say It Is The Sin Of Adam Nobody Says I Like The Sin Of Eve He Is The One Who's Really Responsible What We Have Here When We're Talking About The Relations Between Men And Women Is Yes Eve Went First With It But Adam Says Not That He Was Deceived Or Beguiled He Knew Exactly What He Was Doing And He Chose To Love And His Wife First Over God Now This Is One Reason Why Jesus Says You Look At This In The Lord Stated That Jesus If Anybody Loves Anyone More Than They Love Me They Are Not Worthy Of Me And Right At The Beginning Man Fails In This Test Because He Puts A Human Love Ahead Of God And So He Has Sinned And Failed In That Sense Of Responsibility
[15:58] Which He Is To Take And As A Result What We Find Is That Both Callings Become Blighted By Sorrow And Suffering We Go Back To Genesis 3 Where The Lord Said To The Woman And He Said I Will Greatly Multiply Thy Sorrow And My Conception In Sorrow Shalt Thou Bring Forth Children Thy Desire Shalt Be To Thy Husband And He Shall Rule Over The And To Adam He Said Because Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou Thou words, both callings, both for the woman and for the man, are now blighted and under a curse because of sin entering into the world.
[17:03] Childbirth becoming not only exceptionally painful, but positively life-threatening in many situations. This is one reason I'd suggest to you why verse 15 says, she shall be saved in childbirth. It's not the sense of, oh, you're only going to get to heaven if you have children, or, you know, if you manage to have enough kids, well, you'll be higher up the scale of God's ladder of salvation. No.
[17:25] What does it mean to her? She shall be saved in childbirth, that childbirth was a literally life-threatening condition. Lots of people died in olden days. In childbirth, it happens less often nowadays because we have better medical care and facilities. But to be saved in childbirth means literally to be spared, to be kept and alive if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
[17:53] Obviously, we can't be saved without faith in Christ, without following that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. And we are, men and women, allowed to be focused with sobriety upon the Lord.
[18:05] There is also, however, the recognition that this saved in childbirth is also a reference to the fact that just as looking back to creation and God, before he spoke to Eve and said about the difficulties that she would have with childbearing and pain and so on, he spoke to the serpent saying that because he had tempted them towards this, that he would put enmity between the serpent's seed and the seed of the woman.
[18:32] It is the seed of the woman which would bruise the serpent's head and it would bruise his heel. It is through childbirth, then, that the Messiah is brought.
[18:43] And there is, upon a later representative of womanhood, of course, of Mary, there is that ultimate honour of bringing forth in the flesh God in the flesh, which no man can ever claim to.
[18:57] And there is this sense in which humanity is redeemed through that which Mary in the fullness of time brings forth. There is this sense of humanity is redeemed by one who is brought forth in childbearing, but there is also the very practical application shall be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith and charity with holiness and so on.
[19:19] Back to verse 12, I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man. This is unpalatable to modern ears because we reckon we've moved on. And the reason we think we've moved on is because we now think we don't need to obey this anymore.
[19:35] We don't need to obey this anymore because society isn't like that anymore. Society has changed and this idea of patriarchal headshelves and so on, that's so archaic. We don't go with that anymore.
[19:45] We believe in equality. When was God ever against equality? God is not against equality. When God makes mankind, he makes them male and female in his own image.
[19:57] I've already made reference to how man is self-consciously incomplete until he has woman brought to him. The image of the Godhead, if you like, is in a sense incomplete because when God made man, he made them in his own image, male and female.
[20:15] When the two are brought together, there is that completeness which man is conscious of being incomplete until the right companion is created and brought to them.
[20:28] Now, of course, one reason why people will say, don't go with that anymore is because the idea, the foundation of Adam and Eve is ridiculous to some and offensive to others.
[20:40] I can well remember hearing of one of my colleagues when I was at university who I wasn't there at the time but he said that one of the professors and he had mentioned something about the creation and I said, oh, come on.
[20:53] You don't seriously still believe in Adam and Eve and all that. Now, this was a professor who had a distinguished ecclesiastical career, subsequently moderated in the General Assembly and so on, a number of honours heaped to them and this was him pouring scorn on the creation of that.
[21:11] Now, what we have to say then is, if this is not true and remember that Jesus bases his teaching on marriage, not on it's a good thing and it's not, it's sort of socially acceptable but he bases it on Adam and Eve and the relationship that God institutes at the outset, if this is no longer authority to do, if there is not that which we are to believe, what is it that we believe?
[21:37] Are we actually then to say, well, actually, we all descended from apes. Are we all just sort of emerged from the amoeba little by little from the primordial sludge? Is that what we are saying?
[21:48] And if that is what we are saying, then we say, well, God didn't actually create the world at all. And if God didn't create the world at all, well, where did God come from? You know, the whole thing, you pull out this brick from the bottom of the edifice and the whole thing will come crashing down and Christianity and the Bible simply becomes, oh, this is a helpful sort of social construct that helps to keep law and order and keeps things socially running in the right tram lines but you don't actually have to believe it.
[22:17] If you don't believe Adam, leave. then you're going against what Jesus himself taught on the basis of it. You're saying God is a liar or it's just made up.
[22:28] It's not inspired. People just thought of this story in order to illustrate a point of where humanity came from which they didn't really know. And so the whole concept of God's inspired and infallible world simply comes shredded into pieces because there are one or two elements which nowadays we find perhaps socially more difficult to put in place.
[22:55] And this idea that I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man but to be in silence for Adam's first form and then Eve. And this, of course, is improved by many people.
[23:06] Some people find it offensive. Some, many branches of the church disregard it. And what happens when they do? Well, as you all know, the church has got them background so we've seen something of what happens there.
[23:20] In the first instance, when the first women elders and ministers are made, then everybody celebrates, isn't this great, isn't this wonderful and so on. But voila, the focus then is upon them.
[23:32] And when the women ministers are called to particular congregations or women elders are installed and so on, then the focus is now, isn't it great we've got these three elders? Because it's, look, we've got you women elders and look, we've got a woman minister and now you've got a woman moderator and so on.
[23:48] And the focus is no longer upon this particular church servant and what they can or cannot do. The focus becomes upon the gender. The focus becomes upon the individual. And as these cases multiply and it becomes accepted and standardized that, you know, obviously God's word, you can't do on everything that it says because if we did that, we wouldn't be able to have the women elders and ministers and teachers and so on.
[24:14] And if that is the case for me, we have to recognize that now we know better than the word of God. And this has been cited literally and repeatedly as the major reason why the Church of Scotland, for example, could not oppose the latest development with regard to sin-sex relationships.
[24:35] because they had already painted themselves into a corner. There was too much politically invested in the denial of the authority of God's word.
[24:47] So they had no choice. They had to go with this and they had to say, that's okay, we have to say this is all right. Because in one small case, and what seems like just being nice, and this is what male ministers want it, they want to be nice, they want to please women.
[25:08] Men want to please women. And they want to say, of course, yes we must, of course, we don't need to go by this anymore. And they want to seem nice, and they want to seem like they are pleasing their sisters in Christ.
[25:21] And so, like Adam were old, God has said one thing, but we don't have to go that way, we want to do what you want to do. And the result, well you see the result, you see what happens as God's word then has to be denied again, and again, and again.
[25:41] I suffer not a woman to teach, nor do you serve authority of a man, but to be in silence. What does that mean? It means that the man is required to step up to the plate, to step up and take responsibility, which he is otherwise disinclined to do.
[25:59] What is the effect once to take the eldership issue, for example, once you can have women elders, and they don't have many churches do, what you find is not all the men say, oh, well I'm really offended, I'm not going to do this anymore, but rather you will find just a gradual withdrawal.
[26:16] And they'll say, well that's okay, we don't need to do this anymore, we don't have to be elders, they can do it, it's okay, they can take that and say, yeah, they're willing to do this committee and that committee, that's fine, we can take a back seat, man's natural inclination is to be irresponsible, his natural inclination is simply to give up and withdraw, have you ever wondered why so many male adults of the current and immediately previous generation are just effectively big kids, with a baseball cap and a beer cap and a computer games on the TV, and they are not men taking responsibility, not heading up their families, not taking leadership role, because we don't have to, we don't want to be sexist, a woman wants to go out, my wife wants to go out, she's the bigger and that's why I'll stay home here, I'll play my computer games, I'll go and meet my pals, I'll be maddish and so on, and that's not in every case, but it's increasingly the case that men will no longer be men, because the temptation to be irresponsible, just let somebody else do it, is just irresistible, and they can congratulate themselves, oh look, we're not being sexist, we're letting women take all the leadership roles, we're letting them take all the responsibility, that's fine, that's okay,
[27:37] I'm just opting out, and that is what they do, it's not that they say, oh we'll take a subordinate role, it's not going to take any role at all, we're just going to opt out, you see, when we go into chapter three, what is one of the requirements of one who will lead in the church, whether it's elder, bishop, or minister, it says, moreover he must have a good reputation of them which are without, and likewise he must rule well, verse four, his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity, for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God, he has to take responsibility, a man's natural inclination is to be irresponsible, it is to opt out, of stepping up to the role, to the leadership, to the responsibility which the Lord has made upon him as a man, now this is what Adam is doing at creation, in his sinless condition, the temptation to just please woman is just too great, and the directive from God is less attractive, now there's no doubt whatsoever, that there is absolutely no reason socially, plenty of women can do a far better job than plenty of men, when it comes to speaking in public, perhaps when it comes to being spiritually capable, and could just as easily take a service, or read a prayer, or whatever it might be, they could, of course they could, but if you have, say, a ten year old who because of his aptitude can perfectly capably drive a car and sort the engine and so on, do you then let him out on the roads, perfectly safe, driving, because he's so capable and good at it, is that a good reason to do it?
[29:25] If you've got somebody who is exceptionally able to do all these things, is that a reason to do it? If you're in the army, for example, and there's a lieutenant and a captain there, but the sergeant, he knows far better what to do, so he can just ignore the officers, he can lead the man much better, he probably would do a much better job, but is that a reason to do it?
[29:46] Wherever you lay down these requirements or these suggestions, they will in the first instance be going in a sense against the grain of our human nature, and there will always be exceptions.
[30:00] For example, if somebody is, let's take a current example in the wider church, if somebody were in a same sex relationship, for example, and that person was capable of delivering a far better sermon than an ordinary married man, and he was far more diligent in his pastoral visitation, and he was a far more capable administrator.
[30:24] In other words, he was an all-round, much better minister than his married colleague. Is that a reason to put him in place? God's word says no.
[30:37] Man's inclination says, well, you know, why not? Because what God's word says is one thing, and if it goes against the grain of what we feel sure should be the case, then we tend to go with what man desires, rather what God commands.
[30:56] Now, when it says, the woman learned in silence will all subject her suffer not a woman to teach, this is clearly intended to be in a public context, rather than a private situation. We know this because we have the instance in Acts 18 of Apollos, who at the end of Acts chapter 18 we read, he was instructed in the way of the Lord, being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.
[31:21] And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expanded unto him the way of God more perfectly.
[31:33] In other words, they privately instructed him and taught him the things of Jesus Christ, but in a private context. They didn't stand up in church and say, actually, that's great as far as it goes, but you're wrong on this, because it's this, this, and this that is actually the case.
[31:48] In some of the ancient Greek texts, the ones which are sometimes used by the more modern translations, Priscilla is actually named first, which might suggest that she was the one more knowledgeable, perhaps, but it doesn't alter the fact that this is regarded as perfectly acceptable to the Lord, because it's done in a private context.
[32:10] Likewise, if we turn a page, a couple of pages, chapter 21, verse 9, we read of Philip the evangelist, who the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy.
[32:22] Female prophets. Is that okay? Is that acceptable? Well, Paul himself, remember, in Corinth, when he talks to the Corinthians, he talks about a woman praying or prophesying in public, and this is where the issue of head covering comes in.
[32:37] So, should it be okay for women to pray out loud in public? We have to say, yes, it should be. Should their heads be covered when they do it? Yes, it should be. Why? Because that's what the Bible says.
[32:48] We say, yes, yes, but nobody does it that way anymore, you know. But what are we going by? By what society does, or by what the Bible teaches, what God's Word teaches.
[33:00] You go against the Word of God or beyond the Word of God, and perhaps in our tradition we probably have exceeded the Word of God in restraining the public prayers of our sisters in Christ, if they're called on, and if their heads are covered, according to 1 Corinthians 11, that's what the Bible says.
[33:18] There clearly is allowance for prophesying, praying in public under certain conditions. So, the Bible says it, that's what we should be going by.
[33:28] We don't always do that. But here we have the same contrast between what society or man wants to do, and what God's Word teaches.
[33:39] It's been pointed out in the Catechism, that when it comes to, for example, the commandments of God, the Lord's Day is one which is often one of the first ones to go. And the reason for that is suggested is because when asked other commandments, there's a natural, if you like, reason why man can see why he should keep it.
[34:00] No, you can see why it's not a good thing to kill each other. It's probably, if you're committing adultery, it's probably going to come back and bite you and redound on you. If you don't encourage kids to honour their father and mother, then eventually, you know, when you're a father or a mother, that's going to come back and bite you from behind again.
[34:17] So, most of the commandments, you can see that there's maybe, to put it bluntly, a self-serving reason why you might want to teach them. But, when it comes to the Lord's Day, and when it comes to perhaps the other first three commandments, you know, that kind of goes more against our natural good.
[34:36] I want to do what I want to do. I want to do things all days, seven days, and we don't want to, but this restraint that God puts on us, this we either obey out of reverence and love for the Lord and what he teaches, or we disregard out of a desire to go our own way.
[34:54] Now, as far as the relationship between men and women is concerned, the Lord has clearly put headship as a male responsibility in the church and in the family.
[35:06] It doesn't necessarily have to extend the secular business and politics and so on, but he has clearly defined it in the church and in the family. Where that is regarded and where the responsibility is taken by Christian men, then we will find that the rest of the church and domestic family will be strengthened.
[35:30] And where it is disregarded by the church or in the family, that church and domestic family will likewise be weakened.
[35:41] You can't say, oh, God's completely against us. It will always be elements that will honour the Lord, even in a wayward church, even in a wayward domestic situation. But God has put this responsibility on men and likewise on women because, you know, in many cases, somebody who may not be all the man that he could be, once he, if he is married, then he may draw strength from his wife and she may encourage and enable him to be the head and the man that he ought to be.
[36:10] So just like Adam being incomplete without his wife, that may well be the case. Sometimes the Lord calls some men to singleness of life, just as he calls some women to singleness of life.
[36:21] But the responsibility the Lord has laid, the headship the Lord has laid, is not intended to downgrade or humiliate any.
[36:32] It is rather that each take up the place the Lord has given them, that men who are so reluctant to exercise responsibility for fear of seeming to abuse power are more likely simply to renege on it.
[36:50] And this is something which Paul was teaching to me, don't let this happen. He's writing to Timothy and encouraging him to make sure that the church operates as it ought to.
[37:01] And likewise where sisters in Christ are concerned, and Timothy is told elsewhere to treat his sisters in Christ with all purity and all faithfulness, there is a power which women have with regard to each other, but particularly in regard to men, which will all too readily cause them to become weak or distracted in the things of the Lord.
[37:27] That I would suggest to you is the reason for verse 9 there. It is not singling out in a sexist manner, it is rather recognizing the weakness in men and the distraction in federal women potentially, and that this should be avoided because the focus should never be on an individual when the focus is meant to be on the Lord.
[37:52] This is one reason why, for example, I mean, here I stand in my clerical dress and so on, which is no longer fashionable in the church, the origin behind why ministers originally would wear black gowns or clerical garb or whatever, was originally to disguise the personality.
[38:12] It is so that when a man stood in the pulpit and declared God's word, nobody was saying, oh, different color ties, you've got a different suit on today than that. There wasn't to be different kind of focus on his outfit or his attire, his personality or whatever, it was meant to be clouded under that which would disguise the personality so that all that appeared, all that spoke was the servant of the Lord.
[38:38] All that spoke was, as it were, the mouth of God's word because the servant was to be subservient under the identity of whom he served.
[38:49] And this is, it's the same for brothers in Christ and sisters in Christ. The focus should not be on the individual we should not be distracted by the individual we should be focused upon the Lord.
[39:02] And whatever our gender may be, that is what Paul wants Timothy to recognize. And that is what the church in this age and every age needs to get back to.
[39:15] Obedience to God's word which will never put us wrong because God is the one who has designed us and God is the one who directs to God to Wooa.
[39:37] Let us pray. Amen. Thank you. Lord, no God you Christ humble loving love and as gönd