I would invite you to take your Bible and turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2. And today we continue our series that we're involved in, In Defense of God's Order and the Gospel. And I spoke last week, and I will again this week, on Beth Moore and company in light of the Scripture. Remember the word the two words, and company. In other words, what we're talking about with Beth Moore is true of many others. But if I mentioned one of the lesser known, you'd still be wondering about the more known. So I'm mentioning the most known, but you can understand there are many who are in agreement with her on the things that she's promoting that are not biblical, so it is in company, and this is just a part of fitting in to why we now have the Conservative Baptist Network and why we're in this series. So the first thing we saw is God speaks to her, her message. So rather than getting it through what we call the historical grammatical method of studying and drawing it out of the text, God speaks to her, and then she goes to the text and brings what He has given her in her notes. Today we're going to look at that she claims to teach and preach in the local church over men. So we began with this passage in Timothy. And I just… so we have it in our first message, but I just want to read it again, what it says, and that is in verse 11 through verse 14. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet." He's speaking about in the church here. Verse 13 is the why. For it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. So that's the order. God's saying, because that's my order. And it was not – this is the consequence of not following the order – and it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. So this isn't a cultural thing that was going on and passes away. This is referring back to the divine order of God. So she claims to preach, not teach, in the local congregation, and she does this over men. You can read these quotes with me. So when she speaks of her beginning ministry as a Bible teacher, she says, I had no personal aspirations to preach, nor was it my aim to teach men. If men showed up in my class, I did not throw them out. I taught. But my unwavering passion was to teach and to serve women." So she didn't begin this way. I would say in the local church, if a woman is teaching and under the authority of Scripture, and if men come in, you tell the men to go to a men's class. But nevertheless, where she says this, that day has passed. On Twitter, Vicki Courtney tweeted, and I have the picture of these tweets. I just don't know how to do it with technological savvy, which may surprise you, that I can't get it where it's so clear and all that, but I have them. So I have to describe, quote them and describe things. So Vic Courtney writing to Beth Moore, yours truly is preaching, notice all capitals, three services at an SBC church on Mother's Day. And then there's a picture of hands clapping, and then she says, but shh. And then there's two emojis, so really pushing it home. Beth's response I'm doing Mother's Day, too! Vicki, let's please don't tell anyone this." I hope you notice how she's shamelessly flaunting it because she just put it on public media and saying, don't tell anybody, meaning we really do want them to know not only that, but we want them to see this flaunting. Beth claims to have preached multiple Southern Baptist worship services over her 40-year career, and non-Southern Baptist churches as well. God has clearly set an order where men and women in the home and in the church have distinct roles. And we honor God and please God and reach what God desires us to be by gladly and joyously submitting to that divine order. But to confuse the divine order, to trivialize submitting to it, or to abandon it altogether is to commit the sin of Adam and Eve again and again. Owen Strachan said, referring to Christopher Hitchens, and Christopher Hitchens died a while back, but he was a foremost atheist. He's quoting Hitchens as an atheist. We atheists do not require any priest or any hierarchy above them to police our doctrine. And then Owen says, in Hitchin's mind, the greatest evil is not the priest, but hierarchy, another word for the divine order, end quote. In other words, atheists love not having any authority over them. Well, when in the church we violate God's divine order as outlaid in the Scripture, we are living as practical atheists, no matter how pious we are intending to seem. God does not tell us to pick leaders based upon their qualifications, their ability to speak, their charisma, even their knowledge of the Word of God, but He says pick men to teach and exercise authority over men. Women were the first to go to the tomb and witness the resurrection. They were the first to take the gospel to others. They have ministered and did in Christ. If you just look at the gospels, they ministered in a myriad of ways, and they continue doing that today. And they disciple younger women and children. That is specifically laid out in the Scripture. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, be subject to their own husbands, So that, this is the purpose clause of what he said, so that the Word of God will not be dishonored. To not do those things, no matter how pious a person wants to be seen, they are dishonoring the Word of God because they are turning the order of God upside down. Women who desire to be in the role that is assigned to men to have their significance, they diminish God's role, the need of young women to be trained, the need of children to be trained. When they say, I have to be here to be something, they're saying what God designed me to do and what He said for me to do means I'm nothing. In other words, God, you're all wrong. Beth Moore in a tweet on November the 14th, she said this, reflecting on the women at the well this a.m. and having reviewed Romans 16 yesterday, I am thinking what insanity it is that anyone could sell the idea that Jesus no longer uses women in spreading the gospel. Challenge. So to her listeners, read the New Testament from beginning to end, circle every woman's name, end quote. With all due respect, what's insanity is for her to make that argument because no one is arguing that. In logic, we call it a straw man, meaning you set up something that others are saying, you shoot it down, you look like you won the argument. The point is, nobody's saying that. I'm a conservative pastor, been one for 40 years. I know a lot of conservative pastors. I have never, ever heard one say that. Nobody's saying that. As a matter of fact, every pastor that I know, including this one, would tell you without even blinking. We wouldn't have to hesitate and think about it. If women were not involved in the local church and through the local church, the kingdom of God would suffer, and the local church would be dysfunctional if not totally shut down. I just want you to think for just a moment. And we as pastors, we live with this. We are so keenly aware of this. Nobody has to tell us or remind us. Just think for a moment. What if tonight every woman in Trinity Baptist Church said, I'm not going to serve in the church or through the church? Yeah, don't think too long because it's a horrifying thought. We know what would happen, and I think that is by God's design. See, I don't think women, nor any conservative that I know of that believes the Bible and the order of God, I don't know of any of them that think, well, if all the women quit, we'll still do okay. No. No, we don't think that at all. Because like women and like men, God has a place for all of us, and that's how the kingdom prospers. So that evokes the question, why do we allow society to mold us into holding motherhood, femininity, domesticity, and rearing children in such low esteem that a woman thinks to have significance, she has to do what the man is doing? You understand we're devaluing all of that. I know the world is. I'm just trying to ask why is the church allowing that to have any air time? To devalue the need of women ministering to other women, and the older women ministering to the younger women, and women ministering to children. to help develop them, to launch them out to be conquerors for Christ wherever He sends them in the world, and to rear their children, we are somehow thinking we're not dishonoring God, but we really are. In other words, if they're not doing what men are doing, women are somehow repressed and being discriminated against. That is about as worldly. as you can get. You can't get any more worldly than that. Because you're saying if women do what God designed them to do, then they're discriminated against, they're repressed, and they can't be everything God wanted them to be. No, if you don't do what God says, like a man, you will not do what God wants you to do. I want to tell you something. I've been involved in a lot of things. Gina and I have served together in a lot of ways throughout these years. And she's done things and I've done things. But there are things I've done that she's been by my side that a man has to do. And I've given myself to that and she has supported it. But here we are at this stage in life. And let me tell you something, a lot of things God had me involved in that I did pour myself into because He wanted me to, and they're a part of advancing the kingdom, most people don't know what they are, many don't remember what they are, and many of them have fallen apart. But I'll tell you what we do have. We have two children that she poured her life into who love God, love their husbands, and love their parents. And we have seven grandchildren that they're pouring that love that she gave them, and I helped some. But don't ever try to replace the woman. Don't ever think you can do that. And now they're pouring it into their grandchildren, and then Gina is now involved in pouring what she has and we have into our grandchildren. That remains. that remains. I'm thanking God she didn't try to become what a man's supposed to be, or we'd probably not be enjoying the fruit of our marriage like we are today. It's not about really submission and fellowship. I know we talk about that, who's leading, you know, the man leading, well, doesn't that, and the woman's leading. It's not really about that. It's about God's divine order. Because I've mentioned before Every person, so we're just going to talk about Christians, but every person who's a Christian wants to follow God. We are in the course of every day in a maze of submission, authority, submission, authority. One moment we're submitting to authority, and the next moment we're in authority. So when you come here, You're under the leadership of the elders. We're all under the leadership of God, but you're under the leadership of the elders. But when you go out there and you get in your car and you decide where you want to go, you're under your authority. And then there's the husband and wife. And then what about when the children come along and the wife was submitting to the husband, now the children are submitting to her. And then the policeman says, stop, and all of you are submitting to the policeman. And if you go to work, one moment you may be in charge of something, and the next moment your boss is over here. Do you understand? It's not about submission and leadership. It is about being in God's divine order and recognizing where it honors God to submit and where it honors God to exercise authority. We're all doing that if we're trying to follow God. And I want to reiterate that a man being passive about leading his home spiritually, or stepping up in the church, or the advancement of the kingdom of God, He is as guilty, if not more so, of sin and violating God's creative order. It's not just the woman by trying to take the man's role. We have men trying to take the women's role. It doesn't honor God, Mr. Mom, the stay-at-home dad. I'm not saying there aren't extenuating circumstances, some rare thing, but you don't take a rare thing and normalize it. The man is supposed to do what God wants him to do, and the woman's supposed to do what God wants her to do. The reason that it's bad for a man to be doing what the woman's supposed to do, and the woman doing what the man's supposed to do, because both of them equally turn God's order upside down, just like Adam and Eve. Well, we know what you said, but we think it's better, and you know the time in which we live. There are a million things that a woman as a wife or in the church can do. A million things in serving and advancing the kingdom and all kinds of things that have eternal, lasting significance and value. But God says, you can do all of that, but you can't do this. And you tell me where Satan gets your attention focused. Same thing for a man. Man has to be the husband of one wife. It doesn't mean just not divorce, but that does preclude it. But it's more than that. You've got to be a man that's devoted to one woman, a one-woman man, that people know you have eyes for one woman, love for one woman, dedication to one woman. That's the qualification. So God says, you can do anything in the world, but as a man, if you've done this, you can't do that. And you know what we try to do? You know what that is? The sin of Adam and Eve. Satan says, now what? You're saying God gave you every tree? That's right. He created everything here for us, just for us to enjoy and honor him with. It's all ours. It's the paradise of paradises. And Satan says, but he wouldn't let you eat of that tree. Yeah. He held that one. what happens. That's where we live. That's called man wanting to be his own God, set up his own order, repudiate gods. It's French egalitarianism subjugating the Word of God to the French understanding of equality. You see, in many ways in America we have substituted the English word for equal, meaning commensurate for the effort put in, to the French equal, meaning equal outcomes. Everything has to be the same, Adam and Eve, this is all for you. I created all this. And remember, it wasn't just functional. It didn't just work. And it was beautiful. Beauty like none of us have ever imagined. Because God didn't want it just working. He wanted you to enjoy it. God said, I gave you all of this, everything. And Satan says, yeah, but he didn't let you eat of that tree. What was their sin? It was to violate God's divine order. We'll set up a new order, and Eve will lead, and the man will go passive. You see, the argument would have been this way, to yourself, well, I mean, I have the ability. I have the dexterity. Why would God create me able to reach that tree, take the fruit, if He didn't want me to do it. But you see how that went against the clear declaration of the Word of God? You shall not eat, see? So we began to rationalize. Well, you know, I mean, we don't have any men to teach like that. Or, well, you know, she's the best speaker. And look, I've preached to a lot of women that are a lot smarter than me. But that's really not a concern in God's order. not the issue. The issue is not whether you can reach the fruit. The issue is whether God said, Thou shalt not or Thou shalt. And again, Adam taking Eve's role was equally sinful, if not more so. So women preaching is one of the emphases of liberals – just look at any liberal denomination – or neo-orthodoxy that led to needing the conservative resurgence. Here's what one woman said the church needed to overcome, quote – and she's talking about being able to preach – the sin of hiding and learn to reclaim or claim their calling. We must reclaim our calling and giftedness lest Let's sell ourselves short and refuse to become what God calls us to be." That's from Molly Marshall Green, who was a rank liberal teaching at Southern Seminary and one that had to be removed in 1991 or 93. Again, Molly Marshall Green says, we live in a patriarchal society. Some don't want to acknowledge that. If we deny the systematic oppression – that means you can't preach and you can't be in leadership over men – in which we live, we women cannot possibly gain peace." Again, Molly Marshall Green, 1993. That statement fairly well summarizes the view of some liberals, neo-orthodox, egalitarians, and some who claim to believe in the inerrancy of the Word of God in our day. That, what she said, was where all the liberals were, and they still are today. Even though these people are claiming to believe the Bible, you have to understand the liberals are shouting hallelujah that it's happening. This year, the Southern Baptist Pastors' Conference, it's the biggest pastors' conference held, sponsored by Southern Baptist every year. It's held at the convention. It will be in Orlando. David Youth is the president. The Baptist Press, he put out this about who would be speaking and so forth, and the Baptist Press carried it. And of one of the speakers, it said, and I quote, Spoken word artist Hosanna Wong will perform," end quote. That's the way you read it. Took a little research, but when you go to her own bio, her own bio, quote, Hosanna is the teaching pastor at East Lake Church in the San Diego area, end quote. So they say, well, she's not going to really be preaching, she's going to do some kind of theatrical presentation. That's not the issue. That is not the issue. At a pastor's conference, they have a female pastor, so they're recognizing that position when the Baptist faith and message says, and I quote, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture, end quote. You see, though, if you can bring in a woman pastor, it doesn't matter if she throws banana peels. If you can get her recognized at the largest Southern Baptist conference of pastors, by pastors, you understand how that gets you going into the churches. Well, the pastors weren't bothered by it. Oh, but they are bothered greatly. Not only that. But it is interesting to me, you can decide for yourself. In the BP article, when you read about each speaker, and they were pastors, it said, so-and-so, pastor of so-and-so church, so-and-so, pastor of so-and-so church. But when you came to her, and she is a pastor by her own words, it said, spoken word artist. Why change? Why did you tell everybody that was a pastor of a church it was a man, and when you got to her you didn't? You can decide why. Not only that, but we have discovered there are two men on the platform who have female pastors in their church. One of them, it's the wife of the pastor. They're both pastors, which is a very charismatic thing, not to mention we have charismaticism coming to our pastors' conference. Let me just tell you, ten years ago, but particularly thirty, but ten years ago, no one would have dared dream that such a program would be put together for the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference. You see, that's the encroachment of the Beth Moore and Company. Historian Peter Lumpkin said, discussions in SBC leading up to and passing the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 were not concerning women as pastors per se. While they included women as pastors, discussions were much broader, including women preaching, functioning as a pastor, and especially women's ordination. So the discussions when we put that in there were very broad. Al Mohler, president of Southern Seminary says, if you look at the denomination where women do the preaching, they are also the denominations where the people do the leaving. I think there's just something about the order of creation that means that God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice." Dr. Patterson, Mrs. Patterson, who holds three theological degrees, two of them are doctorates, She says, in November of 2019, I affirm Beth Moore's right to formulate personal theology and goals, but godly male leaders must perform God-assigned role to protect women in their churches by being certain they know that Beth's teaching is not according to their natural reading of inerrant Scripture." When I became a trustee at Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City in 1991 in the midst of the conservative resurgence, when I went there, there was not one professor that believed in the inerrancy of God. What we found was a pushing of feminism. And as I recall from memory, I have notes. I haven't gone back and looked, but I believe my memory doesn't fail me here. The three years prior when they chose a preacher of the year, it went to a woman. We did get videos where they were showing in classes, and men were having to watch this, men preachers, and it ended up showing God as a woman, and I might say very seductive. That's where this stuff heads. Don't ever think they're just satisfied to start down the road. Women preachers feminizing God, reversing the divine order. In September 2015, Dr. Paige Patterson was president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he inaugurated the first ever chair of Women's Studies and the Department of Theology, and Candy Finch became the chairwoman. Any of you in academia know how significant it is to even establish a chair. But this was the first time this had been done. On September 17th, the same year, in preaching his message about it, he said, and I quote, we establish a chair that is unheard of. a chair in the School of Theology devoted to women's studies, teaching women so that we meet one of the greatest needs in the church today, which is to stop the fluff being taught out there with virtually no Scriptural content. And that's exactly what we're doing. we're rearing up a generation of women here who can handle the Word of God and become teachers of women. Does that sound anti-women? To do what nobody else has done? And by the way, he was one of the two primary leaders of the resurgence. When I was at Criswell, we had a number, and he was the president, but I mean, Criswell was about as conservative as you could get. We had a number of women that were in Criswell training to go into ministry, loved and supported by the professors, by the president. And when I met with Dr. Patterson and Mrs. Patterson about us going to school there, and one of the first things he said to me, he said, is your wife Gina going to go to school? And I said, no, we have two small children. She can't. He said, she needs to be in school. You need to get her in school. Does that sound like somebody telling women they don't have a place? And then she gets in there, and these women are taking systematic theology, Greek, Hermannus, everything you can imagine. And then Gina gets in the Greek class, and so you think the professors are shy of recognizing women? So Dr. Dockery, who was her professor in Greek, at the end he said, well, Gina Rogers has set the curve in Greek. So you got a room full of pastors and preachers having to hear that a woman set the curve. A footnote, I wasn't in the class. We have these things back in our past that when we tell the stories we disagree how they went down. I'm just telling you I wasn't in the class. Does that sound anti-women ministry? Men who hold to the historical critical method of interpreting the Word of God, saying, your wife needs to be in there, establishing chairs for that. Those are all canards, meaning they distract you from what these people really believe and do. With the Conservative Baptist Network being born on Valentine's Day, and Beth Moore responding to one of her friends who made a positive statement about the Conservative Baptist Network, may not be join it, but made a positive statement about it. She responded this way, and listen to this. Remember, it's the Conservative Baptist Network, Inerrantist Sufficiency of Scripture. Quote, I hear and understand what you're saying, but none of us obeys all that is said in our inerrant scriptures. Many of us don't discipline our children with rods, for instance. Most Baptist women I know don't wear head coverings, nor do their men raise holy hands." You understand what she's doing? She's attacking the inerrancy of Scripture by what we call caricatures. I have long God is my witness. Grieved, desired, and begged for women in the local church. This one and my previous one. You can do this. Step up. I remember with the roundtable, and we had some women that wanted to do it, and for various reasons, I can't do it with women in there. I just… I can't. And so I'd say, but you can do that. And we actually had a woman who started that, and then they've moved, but I've encouraged others to do it. A hundred percent supportive. I've always said we need more women in the church who devote themselves to teaching the Word of God. We don't need videos and curriculum from other people. I'm not saying that's evil, so don't misunderstand me. My question is, why do we not have more women in the church where pastors are pleading for them? It's my prayer, my desire, quite frankly, that God would raise up in this church countless female Rick Harveys. Now don't take that too far, or you won't be able to sleep. But we have a layman who for decades has studied the Word of God, devoted to the Word of God, teaches the Word of God, week in, week out. I'm just asking, why aren't there women? I do believe God does call. I do believe God does equip. I believe we have women capable, but you've got to be devoted to doing the study and the homework. So it's okay to use outside, but I'm just asking, why? What's going on? If women are not helpmates, according to Scripture, which again is a Hebrew word that refers to the Holy Spirit, with the servant leadership and the husbands and the leadership in the church, and providing consistently what the church needs to help other women and children to grow to be what Christ wants, and they're not seeing God's fulfillment in that, then what is wrong? It's because we have accepted a worldly understanding of that. We have rejected God's divine order. I am thankful for women who seek to fulfill God's design, and to be what He wants them to be, and to see all the ways that He can use them. Some of them are unique. Some of them, it is better suited for a woman. For example, in the pro-life movement, we need men, but every man who's in it says, you've got to have women. You've got to have a woman standing there saying, it's a life and you don't need to take it. Because sometimes when you're a man, they say, well, you're a man. Women who are contemplating it, they need a woman to talk to them. So there are some places it just seems obvious that on the whole it is better suited for a woman. Now we could go on and multiply that a million times. Others are better suited to a man. And what, pray tell, is wrong with that? There are a galaxy of ways according to the design of God, but none more important that extolling what God extols, and that is her femininity, her womanhood, her motherhood, with a clear depiction of the nurture that God has instilled in her heart and life to be passed on in love to her children, and to be distinct and obviously distinct and content in that which is God's order. respecting the order that men are to follow in, as they are respecting that that God has put a woman in. For either one to disrespect the other order, or to think they need to be doing what the other one is doing, is not an attack on one another. It is an attack on God. Make no mistake about it. Let's pray. Lord, we bow before you, and as we just think about becoming more keenly aware of how you have so wisely, and as the sovereign, said things are to be this way. You are to do this, not do this. And that doesn't just befall a male or a female, or a young or an old, but it befalls all of And then I'm just reminded, Lord, when we mentioned the first week that our Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the triune God, comes to earth, God in human form, and yet, born in the nation of Israel, could not serve as a priest in the tribe of Levi. He could not serve as a high priest because he wasn't of the lineage of Aaron. But we never find him complaining. We never find anything except doing your will. May we accept those places you've limited us to be the greatest places we can pedestal our humble submission to you for honor and glory. We ask it in Christ's worthy name.