It was almost twenty-five years ago when I attended the Reformed Ecumenical Synod in southern France as a delegate of the Reformed Churches of New Zealand. It was on that occasion that I heard a statement that shocked me greatly. I had never heard the like of it before. I give it to you word for word. no better than Paul. Now, I considered that a turning point of enormous significance, not only in my own life, but in the lives of several churches. One of them, the great hermetic church in Holland. I wondered then if this might not start a plague that would spread And now, 23 years later, I have found that it is so. I serve on the Committee for Ecumenical Relations and Inter-Church Relations of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And we recently received a communication from one of our missionaries in Japan, urgently asking us to help counter the move going on in the Reformed Church of Japan to open ecclesiastical offices to women. Now, I don't believe that that arose out of the Japanese context. I believe that has been the influence of overseas churches that once upon a time brought the gospel to those churches in Japan. It's very difficult for these churches around the world that have been started by mission work from the Western countries to realize the great and enormous change that has now taken place in them and to be critical of some of those influences. Well, brothers and sisters, this has troubled my heart again and filled it so much that I could not but preach on this subject this evening. And isn't it wonderful that the Bible, the only infallible rule of our faith and practice, speaks so clearly on this matter. What could be clearer than this? Please tell me. As in all the churches of the saints, let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak. Is there any ambiguity in that statement whatsoever? Is there anyone here from eight years old or even six years old and up that cannot understand that statement? Let your women keep silent in the churches. Now, it's possible that someone might object to that statement. and say, yes, that was the rule in Paul's day, but we live in another time. I'm afraid that that is the conclusion of more and more churches today. But, my dear friends, I want to take you back to the words of the great reformer John Calvin. He wrote a letter to the Roman Catholic cardinal whose name was Giacomo Saroletto. And he urged him to return to the standards of the apostolic church. For in it, meaning the apostolic church as it was in the days of Paul, in it, said Calvin, we have the only model of a true church. And whoever deviates from it in the smallest degree is in error. Do you feel that way today? I can tell you there's a lot in Reformed circles that does not feel that way anymore. But I tell you, the apostles did not think up their own ideas about what to do in the church. When Jesus assembled with his disciples again after he rose from the dead, he said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. You go, therefore, and teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Not something else. Teach them what I have told you. And that's what Paul did. He says, For I received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you. It's exactly what the apostles did. So I say to you, the great John Calvin was right. So if it's true that when Paul wrote these words in all the churches, this was the rule, I say to you, we have a clear rule for the church of God right through the ages until Christ returns. And nobody has a right to change the rule. If our thinking is really reformed, we will be of that mentality. How do we want our church in terms of its doctrine and practice? Well, I'm here to tell you, I want it to conform to the apostolic model, because I believe the great Calvin was right. So he not only clearly states the principles, Let your women keep silent in the churches. They're not permitted to speak, but to be in submission. But he then goes on to give us very clear reasons for that rule. And he says it in a very short phrase to start with, but it's very important. He says, I want you to do this as the law also says. What does that mean? Well, you'll find in the language of the apostles, as the law also says, is often shorthand for the Old Testament. That was the Bible that was already there in the apostolic age. That's why they kept quoting it as authoritative. And one of the things you find in the Old Testament from beginning to end is a consistent witness to the principle stated in that rule. None of the kings that were anointed in Israel were ever women. The oil of anointing, meaning that God approved of their being put in office, that was always a man. None of the priests of the tabernacle and later the temple who were anointed with oil in the name of the Lord, meaning that they were put in office with His approval, none of them were ever women. They were only men. And Paul explains this in his letter to Timothy. Let a woman to learn in silence with all submission, he says again in that place. I don't permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, but to be in silence. Why, Paul, he says, because Adam was formed first, then Eve. You see how all doctrine is interrelated? You can't stick with a lot of things, the Bible says, if you don't believe what it says about creation. You get screwed up in your doctrine of creation, everything else tends to drift away with it. But the Bible says Adam was created first and then Eve, and that is significant. It even says God created Eve as a helper for Adam. And that is not all, for he goes on to say, Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. Now you know who had the greatest responsibility, it was Adam. He should have prevented that, he could have prevented that, but he didn't prevent it. Nevertheless, both from the standpoint of creation and the fall, we have the ground reasons for the ordinance and rule of God's house that women are not to be elders or ministers. Now, it's argued today by those who want women in office that the whole thing is a matter of culture. Well, congregation cultures do change. There's no doubt about that. They change a lot. Our culture has changed so much in my lifetime that I can hardly believe it. But human nature doesn't change. Men are still men as God made them, and women are still women as God made them. I'll never forget a hilarious moment when I was living in New Zealand. I was tuned into the Parliament, which was just a few miles away from me. And there was a Labor Party guy that said it's about time the men started to have the babies in this country. How ridiculous. You can't change what God has created and ordained. Now, Paul doesn't say that women are dumber than men, and he doesn't say women must always be silent. Thank God for that. One of the most influential women in my life, was someone who straightened me out theologically in the very early part of my ministerial career. I'll always be thankful for her. And that happened in the Bible too. Priscilla, even more than her husband Aquila, straightened out Apollo. And I always had the feeling in every congregation I've served over more than 50 years that some of the women were the best theologians in the church. There's a lot that any minister can learn from those wise, godly women like Priscilla was in the apostolic church. But that doesn't change the fact that she is to be silent in the assembly of the saints. The argument today is that if God gives you gifts, well, then that proves that you have a right to use them. If God has given you proof that the gifts you have, if they fit you to speak publicly, well, then you should be a preacher, even if you're a woman. That's one of the flimsiest arguments I've ever heard. I've been a pastor to men who had sons a lot smarter than the father. Father's IQ about 80. The son's IQ about 120. Does that mean that the son can take over and be conferred by divine appointment? Is there no one in the USA that has as much, even more brains than President Bush? Of course there are plenty of them. But you don't become president just because you have a lot of gifts. There is a divinely ordained and established process by which you are put in a place of authority, and gifts are not what explains it. It's not good to have someone put in office who doesn't have gifts, but it's not the gifts alone that establishes it. And that was well recognized in the Apostolic Church. We read about Philip the Evangelist, one of the seven ordained by the apostles. He had four daughters. All of those daughters had the gift of prophecy. But that didn't give them the right to get up and speak in the assembly of God's people. They had to be silent because they were under the rule set by Jesus Christ through his apostles. So the first reason there is that We are made by God a certain way and He is the one who has a right to tell us. The second reason given here in our text for this rule is what I would call the historical factor. A question of prestige or position. And I can't help but think here that Paul was a little sarcastic. Did the Word of God Come originally from you, he says. A bit sarcastic, I think. You Corinthians, are you the ones that the word of God originated with, or were you the first ones reached by it? Of course not. The church of Corinth wasn't the mother church, that was in Jerusalem. It wasn't the first church among the Gentiles either. As a matter of fact, it was one of the later products of the mission outreach of the Church of Antioch that sent out Paul and Barnabas. So they couldn't claim to be the Mother Church. They couldn't be original in anything. They couldn't even claim to be original among the Gentiles. Do they have a right then to innovate new things in the Church of God when there's an established rule in all of the churches? I think that's a weighty issue today. In the literature I've read in this whole business, and it's been going on now for years, one of the things that I've encountered again and again is the acknowledgment on all sides that what we are seeing today is a radical departure from the historic church. The historic church, Roman, Greek, and Protestant, through nineteen centuries, never did this. If you wanted to find women in places of teaching authority, you had to go to the cults like Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, or the Seventh-day Adventists, Ellen G. White. The churches abhorred this because they recognized that it was a serious departure from things set down authoritatively in the Word of God and from apostolic tradition. Now, you have to be careful with tradition. We know that tradition can be a great enemy of the gospel. Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees and scribes? You've made the word of God of no effect by your tradition. That's right. But we also find appeals in the Bible itself to tradition. I want to just read one or two of them for you from Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. If I can find it here. God, I had it marked. It's in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians where he calls out upon them to respect the authority of tradition. Brethren, he says in 2 Thessalonians 2.15. Brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught whether by word or our epistle. We command you, brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us." If it's a man-made tradition, get rid of it. That's what Jesus was saying. But if it's an apostolic tradition, it has authority. If it's really handed down by the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, then we'd better stand fast and hold to it with all our might. And the reason is found in the third thing he says in this passage. If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, Let us acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord." Contrast that with that breathtaking statement, we know better than Paul. Does that mean that Paul thinks of himself as a kind of latter-day Moses? Yes, friends, it does. Now, I read to you tonight from the book of Numbers what happened to those people who disdained the authority of Moses. They didn't like what Moses stood for. They didn't like what he said and what he did. And you know what happened. God vindicated his servant Moses by opening up the earth to swallow those people up. And the statement is made there that they really were in rebellion against God. And the same thing happens when people don't listen to the apostles. Jesus Christ said to his disciples, he who hears you hears me. He who rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me rejects him who sent me. And that means that it's just as serious to do what is being done today to the authority of the Apostle Paul as it was to do what they did in the wilderness to the authority of Moses. The same principle holds good. And you can see that in the final statement in verse 38. But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. Now, the Bible doesn't say that the earth is going to split open and swallow people up if they have women in office. But I believe what it says is every bit as serious. What do you want more than anything else in this world. I want the assurance that one day I will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and he will acknowledge me. He's not going to acknowledge everyone who says, Lord, Lord. The Bible says that. No, he says, I will say to some on that day, depart from me. You workers of iniquity, I never knew you. I never knew you. I don't recognize you. I don't acknowledge you. And what this text says is if anyone does not recognize this apostle's authority, he is not recognized. And I think that's as terrible a thing as could possibly happen. I saw an interesting news item the other day from a group of Roman Catholic priests on the East Coast. They banded together and they want to petition the Pope to allow them to be married. I thought, hooray. Peter was married. What's wrong with marriage? Paul says, let every man have his own wife and let every wife have her own husband. One of the fundamental guarantees of the gospel is the freedom to enter into marriage if it is done in a godly way. You don't have to be married, but you certainly must have that option if you're going to be biblical. And look at the consequences. in the Roman Catholic Church. It is shaken from one end of the country to the other with sexual scandal. And is it any wonder? If you deny something that God says, won't there be consequences? I'm not sure I could have predicted it. Would it be all kinds of child abuse? But that's what's happened. Well, if the Bible says, if anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write to you are the commandments of the Lord, and they don't pay any attention to it, and they set it aside, and they contradict it and rebel against it, don't you think there will be serious consequences? I do. You see, it's not up to us to decide what we want in the Church. It's up to God. And you'll notice how Paul brings this to a wonderful conclusion. Therefore, brethren, he says, desire earnestly to prophesy. Don't forbid to speak with tongues. If you have gifts, use them. You women in this congregation, if you have gifts, use them. Absolutely. God never gives a gift that he doesn't want us to use for his glory. Not one gift. But then he says, Let things be done decently and in order. In other words, use those gifts according to God's revealed will. That lady that instructed me, she used her gift in a proper way, and it's made a lifetime difference for me. And that's what God wants you to do. If you're a woman, use your gifts, but use them as God has ordained. Now, finally, one footnote. Is this the unpardonable sin, women in office? Not necessarily. No. You know, you can't identify the unpardonable sin with any specific transgression as such. Murder? Can that be forgiven? Adultery? Homosexual wickedness? All of those things can be forgiven, every last one of them. But there's one thing that can't be forgiven. If we sin willfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. You know what I think about when I read that? My dear Aunt Annabel. She became an elder in the Presbyterian Church in Pawnee City, Nebraska. If you had asked her, why did you become an elder? She would tell you. The men wouldn't do it anymore. Somebody had to. I even asked a lady in Holland some years ago, why are you an elder? And she said the same thing. Now, I believe she acted in ignorance. I don't think she was willfully disobeying something she knew to be wrong. But I'm here to tell you that theologians, pastors, who know what the Bible says and will not submit to it, they are in danger of sinning the unpardonable sin, because the unpardonable sin is to stiff-arm God and to go right ahead willfully to do what you know you shouldn't do. What a blessing to be a member, even associate member, of a congregation where the men take the leadership that God has ordained for them to take. What a wonderful privilege to be a woman protected by that kind of manly leadership. Dear friends, be grateful to God for what He has given you, and stand firmly and testify firmly against this growing wickedness. And one final request. Please pray. for the Reformed Church of Japan soon to have its Synod and pray for the effectiveness of the delegate we're sending to plead with them to abide by the Word of God. Amen. Let us pray. Thank you, O God, for your Word. We thank you it's so clear. We thank you that it is also clearly established in the hearts of your people here, and we thank you for the men who are willing to do their job, and we thank you, O God, for the protection they give all of us from the unwanted consequences of disobedience. We praise you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.