Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of
Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.
I hope the following message challenges, encourages, and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
In light of Mother's Day, I was, I was well, this, I wasn't
listening to it because of Mother's Day, but I stumbled
across a podcast with some conservative scholars discussing
some passages in scripture that really intrigued me.
They were talking about Exodus one through 4 and they were
talking about women that in that passage and it just really
intrigued me. I thought, I'm going to take an
opportunity to meditate on that. And they preach on that on
Mother's Day. And then I've also been doing
some more, more pre marriage counseling than normal.
I just did a wedding yesterday out in the open air.
It was a beautiful wedding. And so in marriage counselling,
I'm always, I'm always pulled into talking about how God made
men and women differently. You know, the shocking thing is
that is shocking to some people that that is, that is news to
some people. I remember years ago, I matter
of fact, I kept it. I have a Time magazine that said
the cover story was men and women are different.
And I'm thinking, I'm trusting you for the news.
You know, this, this, these people, that was a big deal to
them. But they were talking about, you
know, studies that have have borne that out.
And of course, we know that. But here, here's the thing.
So yesterday, during the I was marrying this couple and we were
talking about how in creation God created man and woman.
It says God says let us create man in our own image, in the
image of God. He created him, male and female.
He created them. So God created this being in his
image and then took something out of him and presented it back
to him to for him to become one with this being that he created.
And so both male and female are created in God's image.
God took the female out of man and presented it back to him.
Which is it? It's a that's a fascinating
study in and of itself. So what I'm saying is this God
wanted a representative on earth and so he created this being in
his image. Then he took the feminine
portion out of man and presented it back to him and said become
one with it. But together they are the image
of God. It's very important we
understand that because we can tend to think, Oh yeah, men are
made in God's image, in women. You know, God's a man.
And God is neither male nor female.
Now he is masculine in his, his, his function, his initiation.
CS Lewis, I love CS Lewis. He had this statement in one of
his books. He said God is so masculine that
all of creation is feminine in response to him.
What he was talking about is that he, he was trying to get to
the essence of masculinity. Masculinity is initiation,
Femininity is response. And all we can do is respond to
his initiation. But male and female are both
expressions of his nature. And so we need to understand
this because this, this is a very important thing.
So what we're going to do is we're going to look at, we're
going to, we're going to get into some stuff this morning.
Let's pray, Father, Father, we ask that you would grace us,
Lord, to learn this morning. Father, help me to articulate
what you've placed upon my heart.
And Lord, I ask that you would speak to us and that you would
stir our hearts, Lord, that we would fully embrace what you
made us to be in Jesus name. Amen.
All right, I've got a little bit of something going on with my
mic guys. OK, let's go to go to, let's go
to Exodus chapter one through 4. Exodus chapter one through 4.
It's, it's fascinating. So I want to kind of use this as
a springboard. Like I said, I, I, I came across
this podcast, There were three conservative biblical scholars
discussing this passage and they began to talk about the
prominent role that women play in this passage, which was
fascinating to me. I never saw it.
There were three Hebrew scholars and they were, they were even
saying the words correctly. I know they're pronouncing the
Hebrew words and, and now they were talking about this, but
they were talking about how in the Hebrew text, it's very clear
the role that women played in this scenario.
And so if you you know anything about Exodus, Exodus is the
story of the children of Israel exiting slavery out of Egypt.
And so the beginning of the book kind of sets up what happened,
how they ended up in slavery. And then God raises up a
deliverer in the form of Moses and how all that plays out, the
miraculous, you know, circumstances and so forth.
But what we often overlook is the key role that women played
early on in this scenario. And they pointed out that there
were seven key women in this passage, which is very
interesting to me. So let's look at verse 8.
And there arose a new king in Egypt.
So where we're left off in the book of Genesis is that Joseph,
he is sold into slavery, goes from the prison to the palace,
rises in prominence. God's hand is upon him.
He's a prophetic voice to the most powerful man in the world
at that time, the Pharaoh of Egypt.
And he finds great favor. And So what happens is his
entire family is saved and they come and they settle into this,
this fertile ground of Egypt. And they and that's where it
ends up. It's a beautiful story.
Now we enter into Exodus and it's not so beautiful anymore
because it says now there are. There was a new king over Egypt
who did not know Joseph, and he said to his people, behold, the
people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
Now that alone in and of itself is very interesting because the
children of Israel already did not view himself that themselves
that way, or they would have never tolerated what's coming
next. The enemy knew something about
them they didn't know about themselves, and that's not an
isolated situation. That is often the case in
believers lives that the enemy knows your identity better than
you do. And if that's the case, if you
allow that to continue, he can enslave you and and keep you
down and keep you from what God has for you.
And so he says, come, let us deal shrewdly with them.
So what the enemy always does is he will he, he understands who
you are often more than you do in the beginning, and he'll deal
shrewdly with you to keep you under his thumb.
And so he says, lest, and this is what he's trying to keep from
happening, lest they multiply. And if war breaks out, they join
our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.
And so he is afraid of war on the horizon against the
Israelites, that the Israelites will turn on him.
And so he says, let us deal shrewdly.
And how does that play out? Verse 11.
Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with
heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store
cities, Pitham and Ramses. But the more they were
oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they
spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread
of the people of Israel. It's fascinating.
So as they the more they were oppressed, the more they grew.
And there was this dread in the hearts of the Egyptians towards
the Israelites, but the Israelites did not perceive it.
And so they put up with this bondage.
And even although they were more, and they were more mighty,
they put up with this slavery. And again, all you know, all
down through history the Church has used this, and rightly so,
as a foreshadowing or as a symbolic picture and
illustration of Rams or a Pharaoh being Satan, a picture
of Satan or a symbol of Satan. Israel being a symbol of the
church, Moses as the deliverer. All this symbolic imagery in the
Old Testament that gives us a picture of what we go through as
believers. So much so that Paul picks up on
this and it is book to the Corinthians, his first book.
He says all these things happen to them as an example for us so
that we can learn from it. And the first take away is that
in general that the Jewish people did not realize who they
really were, and Pharaoh the enemy did.
But here's the catch there was he, he, he understood the danger
of the people of God, but he really only attributed that to 1
group of the children of God. And we're going to see that
here. So let's read on.
He says verse 12. But the more they were
oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they
spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread
of the people. So they ruthlessly made the
people of Israel work as slaves and made them their lives bitter
with hard service in mortar and brick and all kinds of work in
the field and all their work. They ruthlessly made them work
as slaves. Then the king of Egypt said the
Hebrew, the Hebrew midwives. So here we have introduced these
two first ladies that were part of God's great plan, his
deliverance. These two Hebrew midwives, one
of them was named Cifra and the other was Puah.
And when they served as a midwife to the Hebrew women and
see them give, this is what Pharaoh says to them.
When you serve as a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on
the birth stool, if it is a son, you shall kill him.
But if it is a daughter, she shall live.
And so even though we know that the Egyptian people and Pharaoh
himself feared the the Jews, really their fear was only of
the men. And So what Pharaoh did is
Pharaoh said, if it's going to be a boy, you're going to take
them out. If it's a girl, you shall let
her live. So what we understand is that
the enemy himself underestimated the potential of these ladies.
He thought, if I just kill the boys, we're going to we're going
to solve this thing. And here's the irony of this
whole thing is that it was the women who set up the deliverer,
these two gals, these two midwives, they refuse to do it
because it says the very next verse, they feared the Lord more
than they feared Pharaoh. So here we have some heroic
women behind the scenes. And they would not kill these
male children. And so Pharaoh calls them back
in and said, hey, what's the deal?
I told you what you're supposed to do.
And they said, well, these these Hebrew women, they're very
vigorous. They just, they give birth
before we can even get there. And Pharaoh's kind of puzzled.
And he said, OK, then what we're going to do after they're born,
you're to throw them in the river and the river Nile.
You're supposed to kill the male children.
And again, we have a couple of women show up.
First of all, we have Moses's mother who fears the Lord, and
she sees the destiny in her child.
It says that she saw he was a beautiful child.
The Hebrew really means it was a child of great destiny, of great
value. She recognized that.
So she threw them in the river after three months, but she did
it in an ark a little, a little really.
It's it's the word is an arc, but it's a little bassinet kind
of covered thing, you know. So he's floating and his sister
follows. And here's the really amazing
thing is that Pharaoh's own daughter sees him along with her
servants and, and spots it opens up the lid of this thing and
there's a baby crying and her heart is stirred.
So here's the catch. And, and according to these
Hebrew scholars, I don't, I'm not a Hebrew scholar.
I don't, I don't speak Hebrew. I know a little Hebrew.
He runs a sandwich shop. No, I'm just kidding.
So this, you know, this, these Hebrews I know that was bad in
the Hebrew. It's very prominent, the way
this is thrust to the forefront, this repetition of these ladies.
And Pharaoh underestimated the potential, the power and the
danger of these Hebrew women and even underestimated the women in
his own family. And so when he said, we're going
to kill the sons, it was a woman within his own family that
preserved the one son that would matter most.
Isn't that amazing? It's a great story.
And so within his own household, this woman arises and and puts
her covering over him and says, we're going to preserve, we're
going to preserve this life. And he ends.
She ends up paying the mother to nurse her own son.
It's an amazing story. And then Moses is raised in the
House of Pharaoh, becomes the deliverer.
And there's these these women that are very significant in the
life of Moses. Another one was his sister.
And she inserts herself. And some scholars believe that
Miriam, his sister, was as young as 6-7 years old.
So for her to kind of insert herself in this conversation,
we're not sure how old she was, but she wasn't that much older
than Moses. And she walks up and says, hey,
I know a woman who will nurse it.
Of course, it's her mother, and that's her brother.
And Farrell's wife said that's a great idea.
And in fact, though we are exacting servitude out of the
rest of the Israelites and refusing to pay them, I'm going
to now use some of Egypt's money to pay this woman to nurse her
own son and to preserve this life.
It's amazing story. And so his life is preserved and
that's the way of God. But here's the thing we need to
catch this morning is the key role that women played in this
story. And that is not an insignificant
thing because all down through history, women's role has been
diminished. And contrary to what you'll be
told from some sectors of society, that Christianity is
the oppressor of women. In fact, Christianity is the
Liberator of women. And everywhere that Christianity
is gone, women have taken an elevated role in their culture
because Christianity is the true Liberator of women.
And so when Paul writes things about women and submission to
husbands and all of that, you've got to understand that there is
a divine order. But there's also a cultural
perspective that Paul is living within.
Same as you know, there's criticism of there.
Some people will say, well, the Bible endorses slavery.
No, it does not. What Paul did, when Paul, Paul
didn't try to overthrow the system within Rome, what he did
is he made it irrelevant. And the way he did that is when
he'd speak to slaves, he'd say, make sure that you serve your
master well. And then he said to the masters,
he's talking to the believers within the church.
He said masters and remember, you both serve the same master.
So you're going to give an answer to both of your master on
how you treated your fellow man. And so literally what Paul did
is Paul reduced or, or shifted slavery into employment and he
began to liberate people by forcing this Christian ethic on
the Christians. And he did the same with
marriage. Because in that culture and some
of the cultures that Paul was moving through, some women had
more respect and honor than others.
But Paul was elevating women and men back to equality.
So here's here's the big question.
I had someone come and see me the other day.
They're they're fairly new in the church.
And they were saying, Pastor, I have a question for you.
Are you egalitarian or complimentarian?
Anybody know what we're talking about?
Anybody ever heard that, that debate?
Raise your hand if you know that debate.
OK, I, I want to take a poll of those who are listening.
You know, which one are you? So here, here's the here's the
big debate. There's egalitarianism says that
men and women are equal. There is there is neither male
nor female in Christ. That's Scripture.
And so there is no distinction between the gender roles that we
are equal and leadership and all of that is open to both.
And we need to, you know, and all this, all the other
trappings of trying to assign roles is cultural constructs and
it's even even within the church.
The other view, complementarianism says that men
and women are different but complementary and that there are
distinct roles. And when you get into, because
there's extremes of both of these, this you get over to the
far side and this becomes Christian feminism.
And even that you got to define your terms because in one sense,
I'm a feminist. I believe that women need to be
brought to a place of honor and in the role that God gave to
them. OK, but then there's some
trappings of feminism. Some of you are looking at me
like, Pastor, you really going to go there?
Yes, I am the the there. There's a form of feminism that
actually agrees with the accuser, the serpent, with
Pharaoh himself that actually says the male child shall die.
And the, and this, this radical feminism, this that goes way
over to the side. And it's, there's a reason I'm
on the left side right now of the platform, my left the so
there is an expression of this that literally there's, it's
there's a hatred towards masculinity.
And so we have as the people of God, we can't be those who
oppress women nor agree with the hatred of man.
And so we need to guard the, the value of both and the liberty of
both and in the encouragement of both to become all that God
created you to be. We need women to be all that God
has called them to be and men to be called or to be all that God
has called them to be. And so I'm going to just clarify
my position this morning because someone, someone asked me and I
just like, hey, this it's Mother's Day.
I'll just clarify my position. Here's the deal.
I am, I, I, of course, I think I'm in the middle.
I'm, I'm balanced and everyone else is extreme.
No, I believe that there is, there is truth to both of these
perspectives, but I think largely it's, it's arguing
apples and oranges because you're dealing with different
arenas and different contexts. So in order to kind of go back
and look at it from a biblical perspective, some of you have
heard me talk about this before, but it's it's a helpful lens
through which we study any subject and that is the three
lenses of redemptive history. Now, the reason I call them
lenses is because lenses are something you look through.
Lenses are meant to grant clarity, give you greater
clarity as opposed to blurring lines.
OK. And so, but you've got there are
three lenses which through which we have to study any subject and
if you. Pick up the wrong lens and look
through that, that the wrong lens.
You will end up blurring the subject rather than gaining
clarity. What am I talking about?
So let me give you the three lenses real quick.
Number one, what was God's original intention?
We just talked about it when God made men and women.
We're going to we're going to dig down a little deeper there.
So God had original intention in creation.
God created man and woman, male and female.
That was not the result of the fall, that was before the fall.
This was part of God's divine intention, His great idea.
It's beautiful, it's good. Matter of fact, the first time
you hear God say something was not good when he looked at man
after he created a dude, he looked and he said, that ain't
good, he said. And then he defined why?
Because it ain't good for man to be alone.
And So what did he do? He took something out of man,
formed it into something he'd be attracted to and presented it
back to man. And then he said, become one
with this thing. And Adam, that dude was all
excited. This is awesome until he had his
first argument. And then he's thinking, whoa,
wait a minute. God, I, I, I, I have to think
that Adam was wondering, Lord, what were you thinking?
I was already one with my rib. You took it out of me.
You, you made it beautiful. You, you, you kind of cornered
me into being attracted to this creation.
But you gave her her own will, her own desires, her own dreams,
her own aspirations, her own argument, mentiveness.
You know, Adam got along with his rib until she became a
separate entity and all of a sudden God's saying become one
with this. And Adam's got to be thinking,
Lord, I already was. Now you gave me a problem.
And the only conclusion I can come to in looking at that
scenario is that God was after something deeper than mere
oneness because Adam was already one with it.
God said, I want oneness through mutual sacrifice now in order to
be 1. Now, you know, you ever heard
someone say every man's looking for his rib and every woman's
looking for a rib cage? Not, not, not every man and
woman. Because there is the gift of
celibacy. There's a, there is a gift of
grace to live the single life. It's one of those not a lot of
people pray for. You know, it's like the gift of
martyrdom. People aren't praying.
God give me the gift of martyrdom.
But there is a grace. But most people were made for
human relationship in that way. And so God is saying, I want you
to become one and it's going to take mutual sacrifice.
You're going to have to deny yourself to find what you need
in a relationship. God took something out of Adam
that made that was part of him and then made it into a separate
entity and said, now if you're going to find what you need
because it's not good what you got going here, buddy, it's not
good. So if you want something good,
then you've got to find those relationship.
And this is true of all relationships, but it's
especially true of marriage, male and female relationship.
And then, you know, we're on Mother's Day, so let's go there.
That oneness will literally produce another oneness.
And I still, I freak out when I look at my kids and they'll do
things. I'll think, oh man, that's my
wife. That is so much their mother.
And then they'll do things that oh, oh, that's me.
And it's just so crazy that there's this humanoid walking
around that's the product of both of us.
We literally became one. And they're a separate entity
doing life. It's amazing, but it's because
we became one. We learned to make that thing
work. And so that was God's original
intention. This was before the fall.
This is the system God set up. So we need to understand that
God, God created something good. He had this intention, He
designed it. And so that's the first lens,
and we'll come back to that, the second lenses.
How did the fall affect this thing?
And this male and female relationship really was affected
by the fall. It made it really, really
complicated. God made man and woman they were
it says I will I will make a I will find a helper suitable for
him. And just just as a side note, if
you ever read that in that context, it says God says it's
not good that man be alone the very next thing.
So God had all the animal Kingdom walk before him and see
so Adam could name it. You think like, what is this
squirrel? You know, where, where, where
did that come from? What does this have to do?
It has everything to do because what was happening is God was
awakening within Adam and awareness said, hey, I'm alone.
Everybody else has a spouse. Everybody else is a counterpart.
Everybody else has someone to hang out with and do life with
and I'm alone. And so this is a, it's really a
picture right at the beginning of creation on how God works.
You have a need you're not even aware of.
So God will work circumstances to make you aware of that need.
And then you'll look and you'll look and it says no helper
suitable for him was found. It's like Adam's looking and
he's realizing, well, there's Mr. and Missus Gorilla, Mr. and
Missus Zebra, There's Mr. and Missus and there's no one for
me. And so then it says, and he was,
he went into a deep sleep. The Hebrew is a languid
passivity. It's almost the idea that there
was this need awakened to its enemy, looked and looked and
looked, couldn't find his own need.
And out of his rest God brought the need forth.
And it's a picture of salvation, that God's going to bring that
thing that we need out of our rest.
And so he presents the woman to him.
So that's creation. It is good.
And he made man and woman to fit together perfectly, body, soul
and spirit. It's a beautiful, beautiful
thing. Because women have things that
men don't and vice versa. And that is not merely physical.
There is, I'm telling you it is psychological and I'm telling
you it is spiritual. There are, there is a
perspective that both bring to the table that we do not have
the fullness of God without both showing up.
We really don't. And we're at, we're at great
disadvantage if we believe we are.
And the, the, the, the movements within the streams of
Christianity that have a tendency to minimize the
feminine, it is not a coincidence that they are also
the ones that divorce themselves from spiritual gifts.
There is a intellectual or a logical consistency to those two
things because there's there's this intuitive thing about women
and spiritual gifts are largely intuitive and men tend to be
more cerebral. And I know I'm painting with a
wide brush and you know, there's there are we as men, we need to
learn to be intuitive and women need.
Well, I'm not going there. This is Mother's Day.
We'll leave that for another day.
Whoo man, how about stepped in that OK, so you know what you
know what I'm saying OK. And so the movements that I was
talking to a gal one time and I made an observation that this
particular movement, I had been around quite, quite a lot.
I said it was we got in this conversation.
I don't even know how we got there.
I can't believe I said this to her, but I did.
And now I'm going to say it publicly.
I was talking about how I noticed that the women within
that denomination aren't very feminine.
They just don't they don't dress real feminine.
They, they don't carry themselves.
They were very sweet ladies, godly women.
I, I really enjoyed being around them.
But it was just an observation. And her jaw dropped.
And what I didn't know is that as a little girl, her father was
a elder in that particular denomination.
And the reason she was so surprised is because she said,
when I was a young teenage girl, I went off to camp for the whole
summer. And I came home and the elders
pulled my dad aside and said, yours, your daughter needs to
cut her hair. It's getting too long.
And it's like, how do you justify that biblically?
But there was something within their theology that was
uncomfortable with a feminine perspective.
They did not believe in the gifts of the Spirit.
It was a very, very intellectual branch of Christianity that was
cerebral and not a movement of the heart.
And I would, I would argue we need both.
We need the male and the female. We need both perspectives.
So anyway, I hope I'm making sense.
So we have this creation that was God's great idea.
But then the fall really did create a mix up in man's makeup
and in the relationship. And in a very real sense, there
has been a swapping of the gender roles that sin manifests
itself different within the masculine soul than it does in
the feminine soul and it sabotages us at the root.
And I would propose to you that the reason that God gives
different marching orders to the men, married men in the New
Testament, he, he says things to husbands, he doesn't say to
wives and he says things to wives that he doesn't say to the
husband. And I would propose the reason
for that is that each of these, what the marching orders to a
man are striking at the root of the fall within the masculine
soul. And that is, husbands, love your
wives and lay your life down for her.
The New Testament never tells a wife to love her husband.
I know bums you out, doesn't it guys?
Never tells your wife to love you.
What it does is it tells her to honor you and to submit to your
leadership. But to the man it says to lay
your life down for her, love her as Christ loved the church.
And remember he went to the cross.
And you have no right to tell your wife to pick up her cross
until you first gone there. So we're to lay our life down
for our wives and I, I would propose to you the reason is
because there is an innate selfishness in the the male soul
when we get into sin that it becomes all about us.
And the what God is doing is he's using this beautiful
relationship of marriage to disciple us and call us out of
ourselves. He's calling us out of orbit
around our own desires and calling us to begin to invest
ourself and other people. And that's why as I, I remember
my my little brother Christopher, my bald headed
brother, He, he wasn't bald headed at the time, but he was
working for me at Teen Challenge.
And I said, listen, you need to resign and you need to go get
married because you are as far in life as you're going to go
without a wife. So we did and he found Beth and
she is perfect for him. She is custom made for my
brother. I mean it, it's amazing.
And my brother began to grow in ways he would have never grown
without his wife. Because men need the imposition
of a wife and children upon them to harness their potential.
I need to be needed. Not in this Oh, I need me.
I'm not talking. I mean, I need, I need someone
to be counting on me to get me up and keep me going.
I need that. That disciplines me and causes
me to be a better man than I would have been before.
It's a very rare man that can become all that he's called to
be without a wife and children, without somebody counting on
him. And This is why married men tend
to make more money, tend to be promoted with it vocationally
and so forth. It's not some conspiracy, you
know, out there. It's the fact that men that have
a wife and children counting on them tend to become more mature
and more dependable. So men are called you lay your
life down what women are. It says honor your husband and
submit to his leadership. And I would propose to you
ladies, the reason that the New Testament says that to women
'cause it's striking at the root of that feminine fear that Pop
Peter's talking about when he says of that Sarah called
Abraham her Master. Try that one gentleman anyway,
but that's another day. Don't try it on Mother's Day, he
says Abraham call Sarah called her Master, and he says you are
her daughters if you do what is right and you do not give way to
fear. I used to wonder what in the
world is that about? But it's that feminine fear
that's rooted in the fall that is afraid to trust a fallen man
to lead the home. And So what a lot of ladies do
is they pick up the slack and they move into the role that God
called the man to occupy and it rescues him from becoming what
he was called to be. And let me just meddle a little
bit more here. What happens is, is that that
the patterns for that is is established in the pre marriage
relationship. And so there is this leadership
thing that God has called men to not because man is better, but
because man needs that and God is growing up and for a lady, if
you will respect. Here's the beautiful thing.
Let's put it this way. You as a husbands and wives can
be the greatest blessing and be a catalyst to push one another
into all gods called you to be or you can be the greatest
tenders. You can be the the bungee cord
on each other's belt loop. You try to become all that and
we get pulled back. Because if I love my wife, it
makes it easy for her to follow. It makes it easy for her to
honor me. And if my wife honors me, I want
it. I'll walk through walls for that
woman because the one who knows me best, if she's going to honor
me, then man, I'll do anything I can.
Now I need to do that anyway. It just makes it easier.
And wives need to do that. And here's the thing, there's
there's, we don't have time to get into it this morning, but
there are tracks in the New Testament that show that if the
man will do that, it will make it will.
It'll pave the way for the woman to become all that she used to
be in marriage and vice versa. It says of women that you will
convert him without words. It's an amazing thing.
And so we can, as we become all that we're called to be, we pave
the way. And so we have this original
intention. God created man and woman.
He pulled something out of Adam that Adam no longer had outside
of a relationship with her. He pulled the feminine out.
It was already in there. It was the masculine, the
feminine. He pulled it out.
He made him in his image. He created him male and female
created them. So he divided it and he took the
her out of the hymn and then he put them together and then they
are expression of God's character.
But sin frustrated that so much so that the curse of the fall
says to the woman your your desire will be for him, but he
shall rule over you. So all of a sudden this mandate
that was given in the garden to the man and the woman be
fruitful, multiply and exercise dominion over the earth
governing the earth. It was given to them as a
couple. Now in the fall, the husband
rules over the woman and her desire is for him.
And there's reason to believe that that word desire for him
means that desire for that position.
There's this struggle within. It's not, oh, I really desire
you because all of us got to be. Oh, yeah.
No, it's, it's there's a struggle with it, that
leadership in the home. And a lot of it is rooted in the
fear of Adam. This the echoes of Eden within
the female psyche that Adam didn't cover her way back at the
garden. He was there because she turned
to him and said, hey, you want some?
And he should have inserted himself and said, no, we ain't
doing this, baby. God already told us.
But she she decided and Adam remained silent.
And the New Testament is clear that although Eve was deceived,
Adam, there's reason to believe he knew exactly what he was
doing, but his desire for his wife took precedence over his
desire for the Lord. And that's why through the sin
of one man or the disobedience of one man, sin came into the
world. What should have happened is
Adam should have went and said, Lord, I got to take, you know,
when he heard God coming through.
Remember, it says they heard the Lord coming at the cool of the
day and they used to walk with the Lord.
I don't know what that looked like, but is that amazing or
what can you? Oh, the Lord's coming and every
day that the creator's coming. Let's go, Lord, you wouldn't
believe what we oh, I guess you would believe.
But wow, we discovered today it was amazing, Lord.
And now they would, they would hang out.
But this day they hear I'm coming and they hide and they're
ashamed and they've, they've covered themselves with fig
leaves and the Lord says, where are you?
Where are you? And they come out and they said
we were hiding because we were naked.
Which is weird because they weren't, because they'd already
covered themselves. So what's going on?
There was something laid bare in the human psyche that couldn't
be remedied by mere leaves and clothing.
There was something that happened within them.
They were ashamed of who they were.
Wasn't just guilt. Guilt is feeling bad about what
you've done. They felt bad about who they
were. There was this shame.
And so they said, God, we, we, we did it.
We ate of the fruit. And they started the blame game.
Remember years ago hearing Jack Hayford speak on this and, and
he said, oh, that Adam would have said, Lord, God, I've been
waiting for you, my bride. Eve ate the fruit.
Lord, is there anything we could do?
And the Lord would say, Adam, you know, the day that you eat
of it, you shall surely die. But Lord, she's my bride.
And the Lord would have said, but there's another way, a life
for a life. And Adam offered his life on
behalf of his bride. And Jack Hayford said, of
course, that's not what happened.
And then he said, or is it? Because that is exactly what
happened. Jesus as the bridegroom, the
second or the last, Adam stepped forward and he said, Father, my
bride, she ate of the fruit. Lord, is there anything else we
can do? And he gave his life for.
And that was the remedy to all of sin.
And it continues to be the remedy in marriage, where we
take responsibility for the failures of each other and lift
and serve. And it's this beautiful picture
of redemption. And so now in the cross, the
curse has been lifted. And so here's the question.
Do we view women through the 3rd lens of redemption?
Do we view women through the 1st lens of original intention or do
we simply view women through the 2nd lens of sin?
And I would propose to you that there are a lot of people, their
view of women biblically is solely through the lens of the
fall. And that is the reason that
there's a whole lot of just pushing women down in the body
of Christ and that you sit and listen and you just, you're,
you're a recipient and you just, you know it.
This thing of male leadership and female submission.
The fact is, a woman is to submit to her husband, yes, but
not to every man in the room. Where, where do we get that?
And so this thing of the woman is redeemed.
And So what do we really believe happened at the cross?
Did the cross solve the problem, lift the curse to get us back to
and even beyond original intention?
And I would propose that is the case.
That's why even in the Old Testament, Joel said upon my
servants and my handmaidens, I will pour out of my spirit your
sons and your daughters shall prophecy.
And in the New Testament we see women, we see female apostles.
Junior was a female apostle. It's very clear in the Greek let
you know some translation. Try to say, well, it could you
know, maybe there's a misspelling or there was, you
know, this it was a guy that had a girl's name and no, it was a
woman. Priscilla and Aquila the Greek.
It's it's very specific that she's mentioned first.
There were an Apostolic teaching team and there are some problem
passages where you know what about the woman being silent in
the church and we don't have time to get into it.
But I would say that there are there are contextual that that's
a contextually specific situation and Paul was all for
women being used of God in any way.
And so the cross remedies this thing and the Pentecostal
charismatic and holiness movements have always been
champions of women in ministry. Why is it because they don't
value the word? They're just all about feelings.
Like some would say no speak precisely because they do value
the word, but they don't use this lens of the fall.
They don't say I'm going to view everything through the fall.
And if your, your perspective on anything, and especially your
wife, your mother, the sisters in the room is and even you
ladies, if you view yourself through the lens of the fall,
you are forfeiting all that God has for you.
And men, we can't afford to do that because there is a
perspective and a facet of the nature of God that resides
within them when they speak and when they minister that we we
need. It's vital for the the church.
Amen. So let's stand.
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
If you'd like to help more people hear this message, you
can get the word out by subscribing and sharing it on
social media. If you'd like to support the
ministries of Heartland Church, you can do so at Heartland
Church online.com/give.