Let's turn now to 1 Corinthians chapter 11 as we look tonight at what the scriptures teach us on head covering. In looking at my sermons over these past years, I do not find a sermon on this topic. When I came, Reverend Greer had already dealt with the topic quite thoroughly. And then my associate also dealt with it in a couple Sunday school classes. So there was not need for me to deal with it. But I'm afraid that by not dealing with it, people might think that I don't believe in what this passage teaches. And I certainly do. 240 messages a year times 14 years, you can see how many times I have preached and never preached on this topic. So no one can accuse me of wearing this particular topic out by all the times I have preached on it, and that has not been the case. But nonetheless, I believe that it is important that we, again, refresh our minds and our hearts as to what it is we believe and why we believe it, so that we have a ready answer to give to those who question us as to why we do certain things in the church. Let's begin reading just for a few verses and then we'll ask the Lord's help in our study. Let's begin reading at verse 4. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head. For that is even as one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. Let's end our reading there at verse 6, and we'll have time to make reference to some of these other verses as we're working through the passage a little bit tonight. Before we do, let's bow our hearts in prayer and again ask for the help of the author of the book, the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit of Christ would come and teach us concerning the things of Christ. Gracious Father, as we come to thee this night, we are thankful that you have brought us into the kingdom of thine own dear Son. We were in the kingdom of darkness. We were living according to the lust of our mind and the lust of our flesh. And Lord, you brought us out and brought us into the church of the living God. We are thankful that Jesus Christ is our head. We are thankful that He is our King, Prophet, and Priest. On this very night, we would wish to honor Him and bring glory and praise to His great name. Help us as we study Thy Word together. Give us the mind of the Spirit tonight. Instruct us in the ways of Christ. Give us grace that we would not only know what we believe and why we believe it, but that we would be enabled to instruct others as to the way that thou hast led us. Help us this night, even as we would seek to glorify thee, for we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Why do we have head coverings for women and no head coverings for men in our worship service? Is it a desire to be different? And the answer to that is a resounding no. We can already find ourselves greatly different from society by our laws of morality and the preaching of the gospel. Well then, is it a tradition placed upon us from Northern Ireland because many of our early ministers were from that country? May I say that we do not have such traditions in North America. Partly and perhaps largely due to the fact that the ministers coming here did not seek to put upon us the traditions that they had in their own homes. Not saying their traditions are wrong. Just saying it was their traditions and they never tried to impose those traditions upon us. In fact, they even bent over backwards to adopt our traditions. It was always good to see them celebrating Fourth of July, the very celebration of when we beat the British and declared our freedom from them. They would celebrate that with us because it was our tradition in this country. It's not a tradition coming to us from Northern Ireland. If that were the case, I would be the first to say, let's stop the tradition. Are we trying to emulate the Amish, trying to copy them? Again, a resounding no. We do not see the scriptures teaching that a woman has to wear a head covering all day long. The passage on head covering here in 1 Corinthians 11 is between two passages on the Lord's Supper. Chapter 10 and chapter 11 deal with the Lord's Supper, and we feel then that the woman is to have a head covering when she is worshiping at a service with men. If we are required to have women wear a head covering all day long, then the opposite is also true. Men must never wear a head covering all day long. You can't have one without the other. What Paul says for the one, goes for the other. So if the woman has to wear a head covering, then the man cannot. And yet you can see that the Amish do not even practice that teaching. You can go and buy Amish hats for men, and you can see Amish men with hats working in the fields, even when they congregate with their women. Given the clear teaching in 1 Corinthians 11, what is done for the woman must be done in reverse for the man. The Amish nullify their own teaching for the women by not making the opposite mandatory for man. Well, we accept the teaching of head covering, not because we got it from another country, not because we have it from the Amish, but because it's in God's word, as we see here in chapter 11. Why have so many accepted the scriptural teaching of no head covering for men as they worship and then turn away from the scriptural teaching on head covering for women? There's no head covering on our men today. And I dare say you go into any church that's a separatist church, a reformed church, you're not going to see head covering on men. And there's a reason for that. It's this passage. And yet, in many of the churches, they are not allowing or even encouraging the women to wear a head covering in the place of worship. Well, if our position is correct, and I believe that it is, then we have to ask ourselves, why do so few practice it? Certainly, we're not the only ones who say they believe the Word of God. So tonight what I want us to do is answer that question. Why? Why are we practicing it and so many are not? And then in the will of the Lord next week, I want us to go through the what of what Paul is saying here in 1 Corinthians 11. And so if we don't touch every verse tonight, relax. We will go through this passage in the will of the Lord next week. Now I've given you a handout tonight to try to help you follow where we're going. Don't be worried by the fact that I have longer sentences than I normally do. This is to ease the study and move more quickly to our study tonight. but we must answer the challenge being given to us by Christendom if we're going to establish the command given to us by the Apostle Paul. And so that is what we're doing tonight, answering the questions raised by Christendom as they would deny head covering and showing that indeed the issues are much greater than just head covering. The reason why many do not accept head covering has nothing to do, really, with head covering. It has to do with bigger issues, and that is where we're going to start tonight. First of all, because of the theory of evolution, some men deny the scriptural creation of man and the doctrine of head covering. You say, what does that have to do with head covering? Well, when you come to chapter 11 and verse 8, what does he say? For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. Now, brethren, let's be honest. You and I did not come into being according to chapter 11 and verses 8 and 9. That's not how the way we came into being. Later on, he talks about us coming out of the woman. But this is something we take by faith because God revealed it to us, and where did he reveal it to us? Back in Genesis chapter two. And so when you have those who deny that God created the world, and they say the world evolved, they then move into the realm of the arrangement God has made in the home and the relationship of man with woman, and they then remove head covering because they don't believe that God created the world. Liberal churches in Protestantism deny that God created the world. What is a liberal church? It is a church that indeed comes along and it says, we want to be liberated from the thinking of the scriptures so that we can come and deny creation. We can come and deny miracles. We can come and deny the very truths of scripture and be liberated from that. Sometimes they go by the name of a modernist. meaning they are trying to bring their thinking in line with modern thinking, which doesn't accept creation, which doesn't accept miracles. And so there are many, many churches today, so-called churches, where in denying the doctrine of creation, they also deny the biblical roles in the family. And that is the reason why, when you go to liberalism, and many of the Presbyterian churches, and many of the Methodists, and many of the Lutheran, and many of the Baptist churches, because they have denied what God has said about the original creation, they in turn deny what God requires out of us as husband and wife, or as worshiping man and woman. Closely connected to that is the fact that there are some evangelical and reformed churches who are also now rejecting creation. They, too, do not believe in Genesis chapters 1, 2, and 3. They say they're reformed. They say they're evangelical. But they are denying it. And I can take you to seminaries tonight. I can take you to denominations which allow their ministers to deny God's creation. We have gone over this in the past. If you deny God as being the Creator, you've got a different God than the God of Scripture. That's very clear. The God who created the world is stated to be the Creator all the way through Scripture, not just in Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Our Lord is said to be the Creator. Is He or is He not? And so when you come to the scriptures, it's clear that the Bible teaches that God created the world, and the roles then that come into the family by that creation are valid roles. But it's not valid for those who deny creation, who say that we evolved. And so we have among liberals and modernists those who deny the creation that God has given to us, the world that He has given, and they deny then the roles of the husband and the wife in marriage itself. Again, related to that point number one is a second point, and that is because of secular humanism, men deny the scriptural roles in the family and on head covering. Now you see in verse three, Paul making this statement, but I would have you to know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. And when you come to verse seven, he says, for a man indeed ought not to cover his head for as much as he's the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man. For man is not of the woman, but the woman is of man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of angels. Here you have a structure in society, and in the home, and in the church, that God has put there, and yet it is being denied by the secular humanists. Now, for a long time, that didn't bother the church much, because the secular humanists, for the most part, were in college campuses and a few political areas. But now secular humanism is overrunning the country, and laws are being governed and written based on secular humanism. You have the secular humanists saying the only authority in society is man's mind and you can change that authority. So woman is equal with man in all things and superior to man. You can have a home with woman and woman as a real family or man and man as a real family. They can adopt children and it's just as much a family as one with a husband and a wife. That's secular humanism. It has so permeated our society that in the State of the Union, the President referred to sodomy as normal and good and right. It's captured the White House. as well as both aisles, sides of the aisle. There are those who, because of secular humanism, they utterly reject the role of a wife and a husband in the family. And so you come to them and say that the husband is indeed the head of the woman. They bristle at that. They fight against that. They war against that. Well, again, Because of that, you have then in society an influence coming on the church, and a multitude of churches have jettisoned the teaching on head covering because they have jettisoned the teaching on creation and God's establishing of the home after the pattern in scripture. They reject that. You have these two great Goliaths standing in the country and like Goliath challenged Israel and mocked Israel and mocked the God of Israel, the evolutionists and the secular humanists are doing the same today and they're not only applying it to how the world began, they're applying their humanism to the family and they're destroying the family completely or trying to anyways. I can understand a pastor. feeling overwhelmed by these two great Goliaths and being so overwhelmed by them to say, look, I don't even want to deal with head covering. We're too busy fighting evolution. We're too busy fighting secular humanism. It's hard for our families to even understand how God made the original family and what he wants out of us as families. Why are you going to overburden me now with head covering? Well, I can understand that. But nonetheless, the Apostle Paul brings it to our attention as something that we must do. Now, this is not a doctrine like the Lord's Table. It's not a sacrament. So we will separate from brethren that disagree with the sun head covering. But nonetheless, it's not up for grabs. What we have here is clearly stated. It is an ordinance, according to the way Paul uses that word here. And it is something that is important because it shows forth the role in the family, and in showing forth that role, it is helping us to understand that God has prepared the man and the woman for different roles in the home. And that is not something to kick against. It's something to delight in. both by the husband and the wife. It is something to delight in, because this is what God wants. This is what the Creator wants. This is what our Savior wants. This is what the Holy Spirit is writing to us under the pen of the Apostle Paul. So if it's something that God wants, then we are blessed when we do what God wants, whether everyone follows us or not, whether other entities see this or not. Next week, we'll be having Marvin Gossman come and speak to us. It just so happens he's coming after I speak on head covering. It has nothing to do with this topic. But it was a number of years ago, he called me on the phone. He was going through 1 Corinthians in the adult Sunday school class. He came to chapter 11 in his study, and he called me on the phone. And he said, Mark, what do you believe about this chapter? Now, the last time we had talked was years before, and we had never really talked much about this. He said to me, he says, I'm going through this, and it's like I'm going through it for the first time. I'm seeing here things I just never saw before. He'd gone to seminary. He'd been raised in the Bible Presbyterian Church. And he says, it seems to be teaching head covering. I said, it's not just seeming to teach it, it is. Well, he was encouraged by that. He went back and studied. He said to his adult Sunday school class, give me another week. I need to study this some more. And he came back and he taught it to the church, church that he had started. His church used to be thrilled when we came in as the youth camp every year because we had all of our ladies with head coverings on and it encouraged the ladies of the church that they weren't fanatical or crazy. Where did he get that from? It wasn't reading some church history book. Where did he get it from? It wasn't reading some commentary. It was reading the Apostle Paul. The question then relates to us. Are we going to let these two Goliaths that are in the land come and bully us and so intimidate us that we're afraid to do what the Holy Spirit asks us to do? We need men and women like the future King David who have the Spirit of the Lord upon them and will challenge the Goliaths of our day. And this is one of the areas we challenge Goliaths. We challenge them in the realm of head covering. Now, having said that, this is easy to preach. against the modernists, and against those who deny creation, and against those who have succumbed to the apostate, secular humanist way of thinking. But in our third point, we're coming now to brethren. Brethren who are going to the same heaven that we are, men who are evangelical, separatist, reformed in theology, and yet they have differing interpretations of 1 Corinthians 11. And it's because of these differing interpretations, some believers deny that the scripture actually teaches a cloth head covering distinct from the hair of the woman. And I want us to address that this very evening as well. In the past, head covering was worn by women in worship, much more so than today. I was looking at a movie years ago. It was gun smoke. I don't think there's anything wrong with gun smoke. But if you don't like gun smoke, that's fine. But it was a church scene setting. And the men and women went to the church. They all had head covers on, the men and the women. But as soon as they went into the church, the men took their head covering off. And then they worshiped. And I thought, where did they get that from? The picture was back in the 1800s. That's what it was trying to depict. And those that were studying went back to the 1800s and said, this is how people worshipped. I'm looking at a series of sermons by Spurgeon coming out of the 1800s. And those that were drawing on the outside of it what Spurgeon looked like and what his church looked like put head coverings on every one of the women in the church and no head coverings on men. The Presbyterian Church of my grandmother believed in head covering. It's an apostate denomination now. But she believed in head covering. You could not get her into church without head covering. Where does she get that from? I don't know if she actually understood where it came from. All she knew was it was right. And you couldn't get her into a church without it. I went to the Presbyterian Church up in Massachusetts, where Whitefield is buried. And out in the front, in the vestibule of the church, they had a glass display case showing some of their history. The church goes back 200 years. And they were showing something that happened in 1950 as they were celebrating their history. And I was looking at the photographs. These aren't sketches. They were photographs. All the women had head coverings on. None of the men had head coverings on. But what I'm saying to you is that this is not something new that the Free Presbyterian Church now has dreamt up. Across Europe, head coverings are now still in worship services. The actual seminary and university I went to required women to wear head coverings. Now they've replaced that, and we'll talk about that in a few minutes. What I'm saying is we are in a downward slide in this country because of evolution, because of secular humanism, because we have so many things we're trying to fight for that we kind of push things aside or we make excuses as to why we do not obey these doctrines such as the head covering here given by the apostle. One of the excuses is if head covering was just a means of dressing up, then it can be changed. If that's all it is, is a means of dressing up. When they removed it from the university where I went, they just said it was teaching people to dress up. Well, I don't think that was the original intent of Dr. Bob Senior when the university was founded, but I don't know for sure. I never talked to him, never met him. But let's say for the moment that it is just a matter of dressing up. If it is a matter of just dressing up, then certainly we can change it. There's nothing binding on us. I dress up today by wearing a shirt and tie. But obviously, 200 years ago, they dressed up a little differently. And perhaps 100 years from now, the shirt and tie will be passe. They won't use that. We'll use another method of men dressing up. And if the women to wear a head covering is just dressing up, then you can get rid of it. But you can't get rid of it based on what we find in 1 Corinthians 11. In 1 Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul said this is flowing from God's creative order. This is not merely dressing up. This is being done because of God's creative order. And again, we read these verses that have to do with the man and the woman, and the head of the man is Christ, and the man is then the head of the woman, and therefore the woman ought to wear a head covering due to the fact that she was made for man. This is God's creative order. And because it's God's creative order, you can't say this is merely just dressing up. Now, indeed, it doesn't tell you here the dimensions of the head covering. And because of that, in our churches, we allow the women to use different means of covering their head. Some would use a scarf. Some would use a hat. Some would use some other type of covering that's going to cover the whole head. All right, well, we allow the women to do that because there's nothing specified here specifically as to what the head covering was. Now there are ideas given to us from the early church, but that is outside of scripture. And so when we come here, we just can't say this is a method of dressing up because that's not what the apostle is saying. You can't find that anywhere in first Corinthians 11. Secondly, there are those who say that the head covering was a mere tradition. And because it's a mere tradition, it can then in this modern world be ignored. But when we look at this passage, it actually calls it an ordinance. Not a tradition. It is binding, according to the Apostle Paul in verse 16, upon all the churches. Now, why do men then call this a tradition? Well, we can't go into everything that everybody says on head covering. I have found in recent days that with 23 pages of note on head covering, there's still more out there that needs to perhaps be digested. Having said that, When it comes to tradition, again, this is not stated from the standpoint of tradition. Look, if you would, for a moment to verse 2. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I deliver them to you. The word deliver literally means to deliver over. It's the word that is used in delivering Christ over to Pontius Pilate. It's also the word to betray, because you had Judas Iscariot delivering over our Lord to the Jews. But it's also used of delivering over the word of God and the doctrines of God to the church. It's a general term, and it's used that way as well. And it is actually used for tradition. When you have traditions that are passed from one generation to another, those traditions are delivered over, and this is the word that's used for that as well. So you have some who come and say, ah, the word deliver over here is used of tradition. Yes, but it's also used of doctrine. When you look at the word ordinances, it also comes from the same root as the word deliver over. And it has the idea of something delivered. And it could be a tradition. Or it could be something authoritative given by the apostles. Let me show you in this very book how this word is used. In chapter 11. If you'll go down to verse 23. Chapter 11, verse 23. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. Now what is being delivered? What is being delivered here? What is being delivered is the Lord's table. Is that a tradition? Or is that something authoritative that must be done in the church? Obviously, it's a truth. It's a doctrine. It's something that is authoritative coming from our Lord and now being delivered by the apostle to the church at Corinth. Turn, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 3. For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures." Here's our word again, deliver over. Same context in that it's given by the Apostle Paul. What is he talking about? A tradition? Absolutely not. Something that may or may not be true? Absolutely not. He is giving a doctrine. It's being delivered over from God to him and then from Paul to those who are believers. This has authority behind it. This is not a tradition as we think of a tradition that has no power or value to it. turn away from Corinthians to 2nd Thessalonians, 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 15. Here you find the noun being used. 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 15. Therefore brethren stand fast and hold the traditions, we could say ordinances, which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle. This again is not a tradition given to the church that has no authority or is not binding. Instead, he says, you have to hold this. You have to receive it and believe it and act upon it. Why? Because it came from the apostles. Now I say to you, when you come then to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, he is not saying this is a tradition that you can get rid of and drop any more than you can drop the Lord's table, or you can drop the gospel, or you can drop the very things that he was teaching in 2 Thessalonians concerning the Antichrist or concerning work. All those things were binding on the church. Why? Because it wasn't a tradition. It was God's ordinance. It was something handed down to the church by spiritual authority. Well, some would go to the end of this passage in verse 16, and they would say, well, here you have the word custom being used, and here Paul says, if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. What they're saying is that the custom that Paul is referring to here is the idea of being contentious. We don't have a custom whereby you have the right to be contentious in the church. Now, that is true. You don't have the right to be contentious in the church. You have that in other places. But then when it comes to the actual statements that are here, they would say that, well, this is Paul saying it doesn't matter. In other words, he spent 15 verses explaining and arguing for head covering on women, no head covering on men. And then in the end, he throws up his hands and says it doesn't matter. Is that what he's saying? He is arguing from creation. He is arguing from man's role with a woman. He is arguing even from nature. He is arguing from logic. We will see that next week. He is using all of these arguments and then he's going to throw up his hands and say it doesn't matter. He calls it an ordinance of God and then he's going to throw up his hands and say it doesn't matter. No, that's not what Paul is saying. What is he saying? Paul is saying we have no other custom than that which we have given to you here in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. No other custom. In other words, there's no contentiousness, there's no debate. This is what as apostles we are giving to you. This is what we have in all the churches. And if you come with another custom, you come with a custom contrary to this, you're wrong. This is indeed what God demands out of his people. He is not talking then about a tradition as such. Some would say, well, it's a tradition like kissing the brethren when you greet them. Well, what is the tradition of kissing the brethren? It was a greeting. Was it not a warm greeting? A greeting saying, you're my brother in Christ. You're my sister in Christ. And in doing so, you were greeting them in a way that indicated that you love the brethren. Now, today, in this Western world, we have replaced that with the shaking of hands. Is there, in the Scripture, the shaking of hands, the giving of the right hand of fellowship? Sure, there is. You see that in the Book of Galatians. And so we've replaced the kissing with the shaking of hands. Now, if you still want a kiss, there's nothing forbidding you. In fact, in some parts of the world, that is still the common greeting. A kiss on the cheek still is how you would greet the men and women in a church. But we've replaced that with the shaking of hands in the Western world. What do you replace head covering with? Nothing. You have nothing to replace it with. You have removed it, but it's not been replaced. So if you want to replace it, tell me, what are you going to replace it with? And perhaps I'll listen, and we'll sit down and think, is that what you're replacing it with in Scripture, like the right hand of fellowship, or is it not? If it is not, then I'm going to stick with what we have here. I'm not just going to overthrow what the Scripture says, because you don't like it. Tradition. Tradition. That's not what Paul is giving us. He is giving us what are the ordinances, what are being handed down to them with scriptural authority. We also have those who say that the covering, the head covering, is only a reference to hair. And if that's the case, then a cloth covering of the head is not necessary. And this is perhaps the most common among Bible believers. They come to the last part of this and see that Paul talks about the hair as a covering. You see that in verse 14 and 15. They said, there you go. The hair is the covering. Well, you're missing the argument of the Apostle Paul. When you come here to verse 14 and 15, you've skipped over what he's already said. I'm not going to walk through the chapter this evening. We will do that, Lord willing, next week. What he has already said is that the woman should have her hair covered, and if she won't have her hair covered, verse 6, then let her be shorn or shaven. Let her hair be cut off. Now if hair is the covering, then what in the world is he saying? If she doesn't have hair, then cut her hair off. That doesn't make any sense. In other words, there are two coverings being mentioned here by the Apostle Paul. There is the head. There is the cloth covering. And if you won't wear that one, he says, then let her hair be shorn like a man's. Let it be shaved like a man's. Now, at this point, some would add that in the society round about Corinth, a woman with a shaven head was a prostitute. Now, that may or may not be the case. I am not adding that to our argument here because I do not believe that the Scriptures need the culture of Corinth to be interpreted. In other words, you have the Word of God complete. You don't have to go to the culture of Corinth and find out that a prostitute had a shaved head to be able to understand what Paul is saying. What is Paul saying if you put it in the context? In the context, he said, if a woman won't put a covering on her head, then she's just like a woman who has had her hair shaven or shorn. And he comes now in verse 14, he says, doesn't nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it's a shame to him. But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her. In other words, in verse 14 and 15, he's adding an argument to his arguments for having a head covering. He's not saying the hair replaces the head covering. He is saying that if a woman won't wear a head covering, you might as well cut off her covering that she has naturally. That is what he is saying. It's the only thing that he can be saying. And so what you see then in verse 5 and 6, it's very clear that there are two coverings that Paul is speaking of. One is the cloth on the head, the other is the hair. And when it comes to man, he is to have hair shorter than his wife, because the wife is to have long hair. Now, the word long hair, in the Greek, has the idea of ornate hair. Ornate hair. Ornate hair, just by definition, must be long. You can't roll hair. I can't put rollers in my hair, all right? I might try sometime, just for the fun of it, but I can't do that. But you ladies can do that, and you have different ways of rolling your hair, different ways of styling your hair. It's all legitimate. It's all legitimate. It is showing that your hair is longer than your husband's. It is your glory. Don't destroy that glory. It's a natural glory that God has given you. having said don't destroy your glory, don't destroy this other glory that you're to have on your head as well. Look at what he says in verse 10, for this cause ought the women to have power on her head because of the angels. The word power there has to do with the symbol being declared to be the power or authority on the head. Now I've given to you a number of men who have written on the head covering, and they all are in agreement. That is, that the head covering is referring to the hair. That there is hair, not hair, excuse me, cloth and hair, both. And so you look at the list here, you have the annotations, Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry, John Gill, Charles Hodge, A.T. Robertson, who was a Greek scholar in the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1800s, and Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown, three scholars who wrote on this very passage. Now, I could have produced more. I have more, and perhaps next week when we come, I'll give you another list of more modern writers. The annotations are the annotations written by the Westminster divines on scripture. They didn't deal with head covering in the Confession, but they did deal with different passages of Scripture. They dealt with this passage of Scripture, and here are the quotes showing they believe that the covering in verse 11, the power on the head in verse 10, meant a veil or a covering in token of her husband's power and authority over her. I'm not suggesting that all of these men agree on everything in this chapter, but I am suggesting they all saw two coverings. And this is essential to the argument. Two coverings. So that if you're not going to wear the one covering, the cloth covering, you might as well have your hair cut off as well. You might as well shave it, because that is your glory as well. Now, tonight I have been spending time trying to basically argue against the arguments. I haven't walked you through the passage. The passage talks about man's relationship with the wife, and therefore there is covering and head covering. The passage talks about the original creation, and that that relationship between husband and wife has been set up, therefore there ought to be covering and uncovering, according to what Paul says. This passage then goes on to say there is even in the natural world, covering and uncovering. Look at our own society. Among those that are not necessarily saved or make any pretense to be saved. Look at the President. Whether you talk about President Obama and the First Lady, or whether you go back to Bush and his First Lady, or you go back to Clinton and his First Lady, or you go back to Bush and his First Lady, or Reagan and his First Lady, in nature, The man has short hair and the woman has longer hair, ornate hair. And if you would, in your mind's eye, try to transfer the first lady's hair to the president and the president's hairstyle to the woman, it'd be greatly offensive to you and to the nation. Does not nature teach you that just in the natural realm, a woman is different than the man and the hair is used in the woman's life as a head covering? Paul says, if that be true in the natural realm, what about in the church realm? There ought to be a symbol of authority, something that is put on the head, something that is different from the hair, so that if the woman does not put it on, she might as well have her hair cut, Paul says. And also the man is not permitted in the place of prayer, in the place of prophesying, he is not permitted to wear a head covering, not permitted. You have, even to this day, men taking their hats off when they pray over a meal. They don't know why they do that. They just do it. You have this reverence being shown to the American flag. When you sing concerning that flag, or when you pledge the allegiance to that flag, and the head covering comes off. It's flowing, as it were, from this passage. It's not picking on women here or picking on men. It's dealing with God's order. And if this is God's order, then this is what ought to happen in the home. Now, I realize that in America today, there are men who would abuse their authority in the home. And you have in verse three, it says the head of every woman is the man. But it also says the head of every man is Christ. And you have men that are tyrants, men that are bullies, men that are cruel to their wives. They don't get that from this passage of Scripture. God doesn't give them that authority. They have a head who is Christ, and they are to treat their spouse, their wife, in the way that Christ treats them. Turn, if you would, to Ephesians chapter 5, where you see this language being used again by the Apostle Paul. Ephesians chapter 5. Verse 23, For the husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. Or here you have it again. The husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is head of the church. And he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word." That's how the husband treats his wife. That's how he treats his wife. He's not a tyrant, he's not a bully, he's not running roughshod over her. He treats his wife this way because that is the way Christ treats him. And you have one who is a bully, you have one who's running roughshod over his rife. He is not following what 1 Corinthians 11 teaches at all. But I can understand a woman who has been bullied, a woman who has been brutally treated by a man saying, I have a hard time with this. I understand that. But you're not so much putting yourself under his authority as you're putting yourself under the authority of Christ. He's the one in control. Would you look as well in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, that not only is the man under Christ, but the woman and the man are vitally in their interdependence, one with the other. Verse 11, nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, literally out of the man, as she was taken out of the man in the garden, even so is the man also by, literally through the woman, but all things of God. My wife didn't come into this world because a rib was taken out of me and then she was formed. She came out of the womb the same way I did. There was an equality there. And Paul is saying here, not only should the man be what he ought to be because Christ is his head, but he also ought to recognize the interdependence that God has made. God didn't make the woman a strange creature out somewhere. He made the woman and the man to work together. She brings to the home things the man does not bring. The man was lacking. And because he was lacking, God created the woman. Now you have a whole. You have one unit, as it were. You have one flesh, as it were. And because of that, there has been set up in the home and in society the way that the man and the woman are to act in their roles. When you look actually at the woman's role, she's saved the same way as the man. That wouldn't be the case if she was less than the man. She's saved the same way as the man. Christ is the head of the church. We just read that. Well, if he's head of the church and the woman is in the church, he is the head of the woman as well. And so there is this in scripture that because the woman is a part of the man, she is also under the headship of Christ as well. And I think you can go to Genesis chapter 1 and see that clearly she's made in the image of God. How can she not be? If the man was made in the image of God and she was made in the image of man, that makes that she is in the image of God as well. So this whole idea of belittling a woman or treating them in degradation and scoffing at the woman is something beneath scripture. It might go for the Muslims and their religion, but it doesn't go for the Christian as to what God orders in his homes. There is an order. I didn't set the order. God did. I'm not looking to the evolutionists. I'm not looking to the secular humanists. I am not even looking to the church to tell me what the order is in the home. I am looking to the scriptures. And most of the time when there are problems in the home, it starts right here in first Corinthians chapter 11 and verse three. That's where it starts. And then it goes on from there. If we would want godly homes, If we would want our children to grow up in homes where there's indeed love and not bickering all the time, if we would want homes whereby there's a unity and we're working together, this one's doing this, this one's doing that, then we're going to have to order the home according to the way that God demands. This is not my demand. This is the demand of the Holy Spirit upon us as God's people. And as we do that, we'll have the best possible home that we can have. If the husband and the wife stand into what God wants them to stand into, you will have the best possible home that you can have here on this earth. There is no paradise on earth. But the closest thing to paradise is a husband and wife loving the Lord, and because they love the Lord, they're standing into the roles that God has given them. And as they do that, there is blessing that comes to them in their union one with another, and there is blessing that flows to their family. Now, do any of us keep this pattern perfectly? Well, is Christ your headman? Can you obey him perfectly? You should, but you don't. And as the husband, the head of the wife, women, do you obey your husband perfectly? Probably not. But that doesn't mean that we don't strive for the ideal, that we don't plead the blood over our failures and get up and try to go on. It is because of this standard that we don't have women elders. This is the standard. This is the standard that Paul says, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Why? Because the man was first created and the man was not deceived. He sinned willfully, knowingly. The woman was deceived. Paul is going all the way back to the garden, all the way back to Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 to establish in the church who the elders ought to be. This is important. not just for the sake of cloth on the head or not cloth on the head for the men. This is important because it's helping us to understand, Lord, you created me, but why? For what? Are you asking me as a woman to be like a man? Are you asking me as a man to be like a woman? These are roles that cannot work. They don't work. Just look at our society. It's busted. It's broken. And it's going to get worse. What we are trying to establish is that which God rules over His people and says, this is what you be like in the home. And because we come to worship and this is what we're like in the home, we ask the ladies to do what? Follow 1 Corinthians 11 and wear a head covering in a worship service. Now, in the free church, we are generous in that we don't try to run roughshod over you, men and women, when it comes to other services that are not normal services. When it's not a normal service in the church, we let you make your own decision. If it's a wedding, for instance, you have head coverings or not. That's your decision. We don't run roughshod over you. That's your decision. The elders have taken the decision that it's your decision. If it's not a regularly scheduled meeting, we don't run roughshod over you, making you wear a head covering at a meeting that's not regularly scheduled. But if you want to wear it, you're certainly not going to be mocked for it. If you want to wear it at a wedding because you feel it is a worship service, you're not going to be mocked for it. You're not going to be attacked for it. Why would we do that? It makes no sense. And even if you wanted to wear the head covering all day long because you believe that the woman ought to pray without ceasing, fine. Just you and the husband agree that the husband cannot wear a head covering because he's to pray without ceasing as well. I don't think we want to go that way. But in the church, We are trying to reestablish God created the world. Secular humanists are wrong. There is in the family an order that God has put there, and we're going to try to obey that order, and we're going to show that order even when we come to worship. We're going to have claws of some type on the woman's head, and we will not have claws of any type upon the man's head. Let's close in prayer. I realize we've been going through a lot of arguments rather than actually walking through the scripture. Scripture is very clear, I believe, as my brother found out when he was studying it on his own. We will walk through that in the will of the Lord next week. But I don't want you to walk away from this thinking, oh, pastor's really contentious about this point. He's really angry. He's going to fight with me if I don't see everything the way he sees it. That's not the case. We love one another in Christ. And what we're trying to do is discern why today so many do not wear head coverings who are women. We know why the men do not. And I think we've answered that question adequately. And I think we will see next week what it is that's incumbent upon us as ladies and men to do in the church as we worship one with another. May the Lord help us to be scriptural in all of our activity, not just in our worship, but in our service. When we're away from the church, may we be scriptural as we serve him, as we love him, as we love his people, as we seek to honor him, May He help us to obey the Scriptures in all things. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we come to Thee this night confessing that we have not gone this way before. That when we were in sin, we were walking mostly according to that which was going on around about us. If the world was ungodly, certainly we were ungodly. If the world was immodest in their dress, certainly we were immodest in our dress. If the world confused even the covering of the head that was given to her in nature, we found that oftentimes we did the same. Lord, we have followed the world and know something of the reaping of the sins that we have committed. And yet, Lord, there is a greater reaping coming in hell for those who rebel against thee. Lord, we are on thy earth still. And Lord, it's our desire in the short time that we have on this earth to obey thee. Whether men like it or not, whether we're mocked by the evolutionists or the secular humanists, or even mocked by other brethren who are not sensitive to the teaching here in God's Word. Lord, give us grace that we be sensitive. Give us grace to love Thee and to love Thy people. Give us grace, Lord, to do what is right, regardless of what this world says or thinks. Lord, You allowed Noah to stand against the whole world with his family. Lord, we certainly are not doing that today. We are thankful for every brother and sister, every church, every denomination where head covering is still practiced, where they are still following this passage of scripture. Lord, we ask that you would help all of our brethren to see what we see, to understand what is taught here, and to indeed do that which is pleasing in thy sight in the home, in the church, away from the church. Lord, that is what we need as the Church of Jesus Christ. Lord, it's easy tonight to throw stones at those who do not agree with us, and yet perhaps in other areas they could throw stones at us because we're not as bold as they are to witness, or we're not as loving as they are in the home. Lord, we would ask. Rather than throw stones, You would give us grace to conform our life to all that You have written in Thy Word, and that You would help us to glorify Thee in all things. Well, we would ask that they would see us, and they would note what is different about the people of God, and that the world would question, well, why are you this way? and that they would get an answer that indeed would fulfill their desires. Lord, we live in a world where men and women have been divorced three, four, five times, where they've thrown up their hands and said, I'm going to live without marriage. Lord, we know that doesn't work. And Lord, when they come to us, we need an answer. Give us grace to know from the scripture what our answer ought to be. Lord, you have made us this way. This is your desire. We're fulfilling your will, both in the home and in the church. And Lord, we would ask that you would give us such grace even this week. Lord, help us as we go to our homes tonight. Give us safety on the roads. Lord, tomorrow, as there's toing and froing in the midst of what should be bad weather, we ask, oh God, that you would protect your church. Protect the men and the women, the boys and the girls of this congregation. Watch over them. Protect them. But Lord, we ask for even greater work than that. We ask that You would fill us with Your Spirit, that we would be a mighty instrument in our day to topple the Goliaths who are mocking us in the field of Bethlehem. Lord, give us grace, each one, to be like David, to have the faith that would go forward and believe what the Word of God says. Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing tonight. for those who are yet outside of Christ, how we desire that they would flee from the wrath to come, and that this night they would come and embrace Christ. Lord, do that gracious work. It is Thy work. And Lord, we would ask that You would do it for the glory of Thy great name. For we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.