Ecclesiastes 7. Verse 1. A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one's birth. Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men, and the living will take it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity. Surely oppression destroys a wise man's reason, and a bribe debases the heart. The end of a thing is better than its beginning. The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Do not hasten in your heart to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Do not say, why were the former days better than these? For you do not inquire wisely concerning this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance and profitable to those who see the sun. For wisdom is a defense, as money is a defense. But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it. Consider the work of God, for who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider. Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him. I have seen everything in my days of vanity. There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness. Do not be overly righteous nor be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Do not be overly wicked nor be foolish. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp this. And also, not remove your hand from the other. For he who fears God will escape them all. Wisdom strengthens the wise more than 10 rulers of the city. For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin. Also, do not take to heart everything people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. For many times also, your own heart has known that even you have cursed others. All this I have proved by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. For that which is far off and exceedingly deep, who can find it out? I applied my heart to know, to search, and seek out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness. And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her. Here is what I have found, says the preacher, adding one thing to the other, to find out the reason which my soul still seeks, but I cannot find. One man among a thousand I have found, But a woman among all these I have not found. Truly, this only I have found, that God made man upright. But they have sought out many schemes. Who is like a wise man, and who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the sternness of his face is changed. You may be seated. Please raise your hand if you still need the handout. Okay. This section continues to deal with this issue of reputation how other people think about you. And what we find is there's this turning of interacting with men in general to this issue of interacting with women as a man. And so this interaction with women as a man, there is an issue that arises in terms of a general sin problem with women and this idea of the woman whose heart is a snare. We'll get to what that means, we'll get to working through that, but I want you to see that this continues to be a working through the issue of reputation as a false thing to make into an idol, false good, a false god. So we looked at verses 23 and 24 this morning. All this I approved by wisdom. I said I will be wise, but it is far from me. As for that which is far off and exceedingly deep, who can find it out? We remember we can't make ourselves wise at will. We need the word of God and we need his spirit to work in us. And so we must come to God promptly and we must seek him out. We must pray that he would bless us, knowing that he is the one who sovereignly gives us wisdom and upholds us. Twenty five, I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom and the reason of things, to know the wickedness of falling. even of foolishness and madness. Remember, the human heart is the mind. It's the spirit, the soul, the inward man. It thinks, reasons, considers, ponders, understands, knows, desires, plans, intends, chooses, has loyalties, has loves, sends out the issues of life, has motives for the external actions of the body, and causes external actions of the body. So the mind, the heart is. So he applied his heart to know, search, and seek wisdom and the reason of things. Now, remember that wisdom is a type of knowledge. It's knowledge of God and of his law. The reason of things, we talked about the types of causes, the types of reasons why something happens. There's a goal, the ultimate goal. There's the idea of what's the just basis for a punishment or reward type of thing. There's this issue of the instrumental cause, the things that are the second causes and the legal causes, in terms of a legal instrument, like a contract. There's the effectual cause, the power, the strict cause in terms of cause and effect, that which, when it occurs, the effect necessarily follows. And we talked about the formal cause, the idea of a blueprint or plan. So the reason of things, you might go, well, what's the plan? How do I know? Or what's the goal? Or what did I do to deserve this? Or what's the thing that makes this so that I'm getting this benefit I don't deserve? Or what power is bringing this about? These might be ways of asking the reason of things. And so when you go into considering wickedness, in terms of the folly, foolishness and madness, what's the wickedness of folly, the wickedness of foolishness, the wickedness of madness, those were the things that were being mulled over. So you need to understand goodness more deeply to understand the evil of evil. And so what happens is Solomon And if you know the story of his life at all, this makes total sense. In trying to consider the extent of evil, he goes to thinking about, I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her. but the sinner shall be trapped by her. Solomon had 700 royal wives and 300 concubines. I'm just saying his sampling of women was probably suboptimal. And in addition to that, the type of politicking, the type of politicking with 700 royal wives and 300 concubines would be unfathomable by just the level of palace intrigue here with a bunch of pagan women. Horrible. Also, the kind of woman who lives her life being willing to enter in his wife 326 and all the ones subsequent. What kind of life are they living? They are living a life where prior to coming in to the harem, they were living for the approval of the patriarch that they previously lived with. And now, coming in, they are living for the approval of Solomon and his granting of favors. This is the life that they're living. I find more bitter than death a woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her. Now, when we think about women in snaring, we tend to think about sexual sin. We need to also remember that there are other kinds of manipulation. There are other kinds of attempting to control or get favors or that sort of thing. It is the tendency of men in history, not so much in America now. We have a very effeminate generation and breed of man in America. But in history, generally, men's type of sins were overt and gross. In other words, what I mean by gross is not like icky. I mean gross as in like overt and obvious, overt and like over the top. So you have men committing violence. Overwhelmingly violent crimes are committed by men. That's true now. It's true historically. Then you think about this idea of at the same time, the overt types of conflict and competition So you have domineering behavior, you have violence, you have competitiveness, you have this sinful sort of fighting, a selfish ambition, the climbing of the pyramid for power, these types of things. Theft, murder. So when you think about those types of grand sins, you think about the domineering behavior, the demanding of compliance in ways that are overt and sinful. On the other side of that, women being less physically strong have typically been associated with more covert types of sins. Manipulating, controlling, trying to domineer not directly because domineering doesn't work typically for women in most societies, there is a physical disadvantage and you don't have systems of protection for women, so the attempts to physically domineer men are totally ineffectual in most of history and in most societies. So what you have is the covert efforts to control. Now, once a man becomes aware of that, the tendency if he feels as though he's been manipulated, is to backlash with domineering strength. The backlash of domineering strength. And this is exactly what we're told in Genesis after the fall. Look at Genesis 3 with the curse that is placed upon the woman. With the fall, women are designed to focus upon the closest relationships, and part of the curse that comes with the fall is a curse in the loci of work, the locus of work for the woman. Genesis three, verse 16. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain, you shall bring forth children. So having and rearing children becomes painful. Your desire shall be for your husband. And the Hebrew there is more against. The desire is to rule over the husband. And he shall rule over you. There'll be this desire. The husband was always put in a position of leadership. But the desire will now be for usurpation. But it will be ineffectual. There will not be a permanent domination that's able to exist. And the backlash that typically occurs for an effort to manipulate and to control and to ensnare a man is something that often results in things being worse, the domineering subjection of the woman. That can occur on societal levels. That can occur on individual household levels. And so this occurs generally. This is the curse structure. So one of my fears of the usurping feminist movement is that on a societal level, there'll be a grand backlash that is very harmful to women. Feminism itself is harmful to women, but also the backlash. Now, page two of the handout. And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters." The snares and nets, God makes it so that those who set up traps often fall in their own trap. Snares, nets, and fetters. Snares are meant to ensnare others, to trap them. Nets are meant to capture them and catch them. And fetters are meant to hold them in subjection. And if the woman tries to catch, trap, and keep, and then control a man, there is a danger. Some men, when you love being able to control the perceptions of other people, when you love being able to control the attentions, and good graces, and gifts, and powers that other people give, when you think you can manipulate people, this idea that, yes, man's the head, but the woman is the neck, and it turns the head. Right? That idea. This effort to say there's an ability to control. This thing. It is built upon the idea that ultimately, in order to achieve the good for women, she needs to be able to control a man. That's the lie from Genesis 3.16. That's the lie from Genesis 3.16. Her desire will be against her husband. Her desire will be to control her husband. Now, there are harlots. There are domineering women. There are nagging women. There are women who believe a heresy and get deceived by false messengers and bring it into their home and become this source of constantly bringing error into the home. There are all types of these problematic women. These types of problematic women, what they have in common is a desire to control the husband, a desire to control a man, and to use the benefits of a man under her own direction as opposed to under the leadership of the man. The woman whose heart is snares in that. So she is snaring herself, trapping herself in believing that she needs a man as opposed to God. and also in believing that she needs to control the man as opposed to fulfilling her role as a helper to the man. And she tries to catch, collect, and control the man. The seductress is a woman who uses sex to try to control the man. The manipulator seeks to use verbal cleverness, speed, the information to control the man. The contentious woman tries to use provocations to control the man. And the nag is the contentious woman that's learned to not set off the anger of the man. The nag brings the things up to control, to destroy the enjoyments of pleasures, but to avoid creating an immediate knee-jerk reaction, stringing up the passions of the man to, in response, domineer and control her. There is the seductress, the manipulator, the contentious woman. And there's the woman who's deceived by heresy. who tries to influence and gradually bring in these doctrines into the household or into the church. There's the ungrateful woman who is never thinking that there's enough that's done and never content or happy or grateful with the work of the husband. There's the woman who throws off protection. There's a typo there. It says of, but it should be off. And puts herself into danger. does what she will, will not take the direction of a husband or father for her own protection and instead puts herself into danger and thereby creates potential for causes of provocation, causes for fights. There is the story, for example, of the city of Shechem and Dinah. There's a question of whether Dinah was raped or whether Dinah was seduced. In whatever case, she's with a young man in a place where she's unprotected, in Shechem, and it results in this incident where Jacob's house, Israel's house, is put into a position of having to go into negotiations with the king of Shechem about what to do about the fact that one of his sons has had an immoral sexual relation with one of Jacob's daughters. It creates this position where there's a possibility for violence or for some sort of blow-up to occur. Jacob seems to be able to negotiate it through. There's a negotiated treaty, a covenant, between Shechem and Jacob. And the covenant is this. Shechem will take for its god Yahweh. All of its men will be circumcised. There will be peace. And Dinah will marry one of the sons of the king of Shechem. Narrowly avoided horrific disaster there. That could have been a war or something. All the men of Shechem are circumcised. And then all the men of Shechem, when they're healing from that circumcision, having covenanted with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, two of the sons of Jacob, Levi and Simeon, Go into the city and kill every man in Shechem. You will not treat our daughter like that, our sister like that. This provocation, because she was in a position where she shouldn't have been, was unprotected, and then, whether it's seduction or rape, these brothers, even after a covenanting, They break covenant and kill these men. If you've been around me long, you've probably heard me say, killing these men after they're healing from circumcision would be like drowning a person while you're baptizing them. The horrific, the horrific sacrilege of that. The hypocrisy, the taking of God's name in vain, acknowledging them as brothers, having them take this sacrament and killing them. If you put yourself in a position where harm can easily come to you women, you create a situation where men either must do nothing and care nothing for your protection, or they are likely, if they are protective, to go off in passion and commit wicked crimes. These are the types of things. And so when we look at the history of the church, The three main things that Satan uses to destroy the church are heresy, persecution, and seduction. Heresy, persecution, and seduction. In Genesis chapter 3, verse 1, we have Satan, and he approaches Eve to bring in heresy. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? He asks Eve a theological question about the law of God. What has God commanded? What has he told you? And he begins to test her in order to find a point to question God's word. There's heresy that's brought in. The false doctrine is this, God lied to you. When you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the day you eat thereof, surely you will not die. But rather God's keeping from you some great blessing. He's tricking you. God doesn't want you to have the best things. God wants to keep from you the best things. God and His commandments are oppressive. God is telling you not to eat of this tree because He doesn't want you to be like Him. He's keeping back something out of His selfish desire for you to think of Him as more glorious than you. appealing with this heresy to Eve. Satan uses heresy to destroy the church, so it was the first great assault, and he did that by attacking the woman. And Eve then ensnared Adam and brought him in by handing him the forbidden fruit after she ate from it. And he followed her into it out of a desire for his reputation with his wife to be good. He wanted his wife to still love him. He wanted his wife to still give him sexual benefit. He wanted his wife to still admire him and respect him and look at him as her hero. This desire for the wife to give the approval is a powerful thing for men. Men will do many things, crazy things, stupid things to please women. Many stories are told about the stupid things that men do for women. The whole story of the Iliad is supposed to be about trying to get back a woman who ran away, supposedly not by her own choice, with a Prince of Troy. The face that launched a thousand ships in a war that lasted 10 years. That's the story. There's a heresy coming in through the woman. There's a grave danger and a line of assault. And a woman coming with heresy can powerfully harm the soul of those in the household, and can use the man of the house as a shield while she spreads heresy, and reverting back under his protection, diving out outside of his protection to go and spread vile poison, and then running back under the umbrella of his care to get the protection of his wing. Women can use a household as a launching point to carry heresy into the church. And they tend to have easy access to women and children. And so they can spread heresy easily amongst those who are again unprotected. Persecution is a second major tool of Satan to destroy the church. Immediately after being cast out of the garden in Genesis 3, We find that God places an angel with a sword of fire to guard a self-righteous offering without any sin offering, a grain offering as one who needs no mediator. And God accepted the sacrifice of Abel given by faith and rejected the sacrifice of Cain given in unbelief. And Cain was furious. He was downcast. And he had a conversation with Abel, and he slew him. He killed him. Having killed him, his blood cried out, and there was no magistrate to punish. And he was excommunicated. He was cast out, and the city of man began to flourish. Now go to chapter 6 of Genesis, verses 4 through 12. And you see persecution as a theme continuing to rise. Now we'll read that in just a moment, but I want to talk to you about seduction as a problem. There's the seductive power of the woman to draw the husband in. The woman desires to seduce because she craves to be noticed and admired. She wants the attention in favor of men. The man is a weakness to temptation, a stronger lust in general, a tendency to want to be praised and therefore to be subject to flattery, a desire for respect, a desire for relational intimacy and not just sex. There is this desire because the man feels as though he has to put on a brave front oftentimes and the wife can be this place where he can go back and he can engage in a safer place. Genesis chapter three, verse six. This is again, we have the story, we have Satan came, deceived Eve. Verse six, chapter three, verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She believed this heresy through another source of doctrine as opposed to God's word. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate." She's pulling him along. So now, go back to Genesis chapter 6. Chapter 6, verse 2. Let's actually look at verse 1. How it came to pass, now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God, that'd be the believing men, saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful. And they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. They did not discriminate between believing and unbelieving. They married any of them they chose based upon the lust for sexual beauty. Now, the result of that, verse three, and when the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. This is setting a time for when the flood would come to destroy man. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were mighty men, who were of old, men of renown." People want to say that these giants and sons, they want to say the sons of God are demons, and they want to say the giants are demon-human spawn. They're not. These children, these giants, are giants in potentially two senses, giants in strength in terms of their power in the earth, and giants in terms of physical size. We know from elsewhere in the Bible that there are giants of physical size, and it's possible there's demonic power involved in that. I mean, these people are worshipping demons. These pagan women that are married to these believing men are worshipping demons. Can demons not empower people? Can they be involved in the perversion of man to make him a giant physically, literally? Yes. But the idea that they're man-demon hybrids we find no basis for. For example, look what the text says. It says, Verse four, there were giants on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old. They're not mighty demons and they're not mighty man-demon mixtures. They're mighty men. They're the race of man. Men of renown, not demons of renown, Not demon-man hybrid of renowned men. They're men of renown. These are men. Perhaps there's some physical grotesqueness brought about by demonic activity. Or perhaps the strength in these particular cases is talking about political power and wealth. It's possible for both to be true. Wealthy, powerful, and physically gigantic. I believe that last one. What happens is the seduction creates a situation where men give their strength to women. And when men give their strength to women as opposed to God, the result is monstrosity. When men give their strength to women, they either waste their lives, or they give all the strength of their lives to wicked children. If you give your strength to God, you might marry a godly woman, have godly children, raise them up, give them wealth, give them wisdom, send them on their way, make them powerful, there'll be mighty men in the earth, there'll be arrows that you shoot out, and they will be the beginning of your strength. But if you give your strength to women, You chase women because of the pleasures of women. And what you do is you end up making that woman into a false god, you make her approval into an idol, and you make wicked children and give all of your strength for monstrosity. That's what happens here. Now, as this continues, Through verse 12, then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. Notice he's talking about the evil of men, the evil of man, not a demon hybrid mix, man. And the Lord was sorry that he made man on the earth. Some people want to say, oh, the flood came to kill off the giants, the Nephilim, the demon hybrid mix. This is fanciful medieval garbage that makes you ignore the problem of seduction. The problem is not that women need to be careful about what demons you hang out with. The problem is men and women need to be careful about which men and women they marry. That's the point of the text. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Now, there's a listing out of A genealogy, and it goes to verse 11, the earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. Remember earlier on, there's this idea of Cain kills Abel and his blood cries out to God for vengeance. The whole earth is becoming corrupt because blood of the innocent is being spilled. Men are being murdered. There are tyrants who are ruling and there is no lawful civil power to restrain the wickedness of tyrants. So this is persecution. Heresy results in seductresses, results in the strength of men being given to women, results in raising wicked seed who receive all the benefits of godly fathers, and they persecute the church. Look at the handout. I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her. You might say, how are my romantic decisions going to impact whether the church is dramatically harassed by heresy, whether the church is seduced by the world, and whether the church is persecuted. We do not think across generations enough. Who you marry, how you raise children, what you do in your house has a huge impact across one, two, three, four generations, five generations, 100 generations. The kinds of things you do today impact the nations that will be born in 20 generations. A few men in Britain, writing by hand copies of the Bible called the Lollards, going around laid the seedbed for the British and Scottish Reformation. that made it so that Protestantism could flourish there and America could come into existence as a Protestant nation. The heritage that you enjoy is because a few men around John Wycliffe brought back that work. A few men leading into many, many men. What you do in terms of guarding your relationships and whether or not you're going to allow yourself to be ensnared by a wicked woman, or whether, women, you're going to choose to be a snare, to try to control men and use men as that by which you can get happiness, can have impact across generations. It's enormous. The one who pleases God shall escape her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her. Here's the thing, here's the story from Solomon's life. Look at the bottom of page two. First Kings 11, one to eight. But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh. Remember, he married the Shulamite. That's what Song of Solomon's about. She appears to have died. He then seems to have entered into a monogamous marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh. At some point, he seems to start to wickedly enter into polygamy. He marries women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidionites, and Hittites, from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, you shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods. Hittites were horrifically wicked people. Solomon clung to these in love. This isn't real love. Love here doesn't mean like, You know, he knew what was good for them and sought it out. This means, like, he thought that they were going to make him happy, and so he clung to them. And he had 700 wives, they were princesses, they're royal, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. For Solomon went after Asherah, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. Then Solomon built a high place, For Chumash, the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem. And for Molech, the abomination of the people of Eman. And he did likewise for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. In one generation, he took this nation that was devoted to God and filled it with horrific idolatry. Remember, Molech is that one that's famously known as the place where you sacrifice children. The hands of Molech, you place the child into sacrifice. This is the kind of disgusting filth that Solomon, to please women, brought in to Israel. Page three. And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be trapped by her. Harlotry or seduction is taking the gifts of a priestess, relationship and goal, and misaligning that to give your loyalties to something you ought not to give it. And to use the pleasantness of appearance and the pleasantness of the senses to seek to control a man. There is the queenly type of usurpation, which involves manipulation, going into business that's not your own, usurping authority. There is the prophetess type of deception, with heresy, false doctrine being brought in, and the intimate relation being used as a place to spread that false doctrine. This danger is enormous, and we must remember Samson, the strongest man in the Bible, David, a man after God's own heart, and Solomon, the wisest man of the Old Testament, all fell victim to women whose hearts were snares. This is a serious thing. And yet God saves us from all of our enemies and all of his. He saves women from being this by forgiving their sins, justifying them in Christ and renewing them in the inward man so that they, rather than a snare, become a help. He takes men who would be led around by the nose and turns them into godly leaders. The justified one, the one with faith, the one who has wisdom, the one who pleases God, the one who is good before God. He will escape her. She's a type of oppression. She's a prison. She's a trap. She's fetters. Avoidance has failed. Breaking off did not occur when it could. If a man is married to a woman who is manipulative, bringing heresy, doing things to harm and undermine the house and the church. His duty is to wash her with the word and thereby to escape her evil influence by seeing her converted and sanctified. The teaching of the word, the rebuke of God's law, correction to put on righteousness, and the use of authority to demand performance and train and inculturate in righteousness. That is a way of escape too. Now, these are extreme versions, the idea of the harlot, the manipulator, the heresy arc. These are extreme versions. But we all have tendencies to try to manipulate people. And wives, women, tend towards manipulation, and men tend towards overt risk-taking type of sin. These are built in to the nature. And so to the extent that there is some manipulativeness or controlling tendency or the danger of heresy coming into the house through a woman who is under your authority, men, Your duty is to wash her with the word. Anybody who is in a position of authority, excuse me. Anybody who's in a position of authority has a duty to rebuke and correct a person under their authority. I provided for you a template here on page three. And because my voice is giving way, I'm not going to read through in full. But you can read it. It lays out who to rebuke and correct, why to rebuke and correct, when to rebuke and correct, where to do it, what things to go after, and how to carry it out. In terms of whom, know this. The higher you are in authority, the more responsibility you have to rebuke more frequently. The closer the person is to you, the more you need to deal with rebuke. Next, the why to rebuke is for her good and for the glory of God. The when, it should generally be when you are not controlled by passion and she is not controlled by passion. and you're able to deal with it in private. But there are emergencies that must be stopped, and there are substantial offenses that might occur in front of other people that must be dealt with sometimes on the spot. The where to rebuke. That connects to the when, forgive me, I kind of just summarized both of those. The what to rebuke, the most important and urgent thing, camels before gnats. and how to rebuke gently. What's the sin? What's the evidence for it? Work through that. Do you agree that there's a sin that needs to be repented of? What needs to be done for proper repentance? That's the sentencing. Now, the he who's without faith, without wisdom, will not escape her. Instead, you'll be in this repetitive cycle of mutual destruction. Wisdom the instrument that connects us to the righteousness of Christ. We're told that he who is good in the sight of God will escape her. You will not be, if you have wisdom, you will not look upon reputation, even of those that you're closest with, the approval of others in such a way that it controls you. It's funny, you think about reputation and the tendency is to always think about the cheering crowds. or the booing crowds, depending on that season that you happen to be in. But then also, people forget that most people never live their lives in front of large crowds. Most people care about the reputations that a small number of people have in their mind for them. Most of us live for small audiences. And if that's the case, The concern for reputation, the concern for perception, the concern for what people say about you is typically a concern for a relatively small number of people. And you can be dominated by the opinions of a few people. There's a book that was recommended to me by both my daughter and by the Schaffers that is when people are big and God is small. And it talks about this idea of the times where people, the impressions of people are so big to you, their attitudes are so big to you, as opposed to thinking about God as the audience that matters. Now, if we live for the opinions of others, we can be dominated by that opinion as opposed to by our duty before God. And that makes people, even an audience of one or two or three people, into a sort of prison where we live for their expectations. And the story that you see in movies is, don't care about other people's expectations, just do whatever you want. And everything's great. That is not the lesson here. The lesson is, care more about what God thinks than about what people think. That is how you escape that prison. Otherwise, if you just do what you want, you're going back into enslavement to pleasure, enslavement to money, enslavement to power. Whatever the thing is, it's already been deconstructed. Now, I have a list for you on page four of things that help in a culture to avoid having men being snared by women. A culture that is focused upon men interacting with men in the public sphere helps men to, in part, rather than focusing just on chasing the approval of women, they begin to be concerned about honor with men, which is better for men than for them to chase around the approval of women. Lots of churches turn into dens of feminism where men try to please women to get good reputation with the women, And this makes men effeminate. So many churches become dens of feminism in this way. There are many horror stories that I know of where what really happens is The wives talking is what controls the church. And this is a common complaint about churches, that the men don't really work through this stuff. What happens is the wives control, they tell their husbands what they want to have happen, and the husbands even holding the office do what the wives want. That must be avoided. And the things to do to avoid that, to avoid having the women controlling the men, them being the ones who are snares and nets and fetters, There needs to be a culture that recognizes rank and honor that are owed based upon certain objective standards. The rank and honor needs to be based upon age and gifting and stations inside of the covenant institutions. So rank is in the household, rank is in the church, rank is in the state. Honor is based upon age and gifting and office. The other thing that's necessary to avoid falling into that is patriarchy in the household explicitly taught and applied. With women submitting to their heads of house, being reverent in heart, word, and behavior toward the patriarch. Reverence means affection, respect, and fear combined. Affection, respect, and fear. The next thing is head covering helps to create a culture where there's a symbolic reminder And if you have head coverings on and there's still sort of feminism and overthrowing, that's just taking the Lord's name in vain. It's a symbol that's given by God to recognize authority. Head covering in called church meetings for government or worship as an external form and reminder of the authority structure. The next thing is head of house voting in the church and in the state. The next thing is men asking questions and speaking in the public assembly. The next thing is men as officers in public institutions. If reputation is the main thing, then often women become very important to appease because women are generally better at controlling social networks, are more effective at gossip, and at backbiting. Is that always the case? Some men are better gossips and better backbiters. See what I'm doing here? Whenever you say any generalization, you're not allowed to do it. So I wanted to make sure that we didn't overgeneralize. For you men who are good gossips and backbiters, I want to make sure that I can commend you, that some of you might be able to beat the women. Now, generally speaking, that is a skill set that is more developed amongst women than men. And there's this backroom ability to do that. And so this covert type of attacking, as opposed to the overt arguing, wrestling through stuff, that kind of stuff. Again, we live in an effeminate culture, so men don't deal with conflict in as masculine a way as we ought. What we tend to do, men, is we advocate, which tempts the women to solve the problem. It tempts the women to solve the problem. And if they go at it in a covert way, we go, there's women doing the gossiping. And if they do it in an overt way, we say they're usurping. And we say there's a domineering behavior. We need to not be traps for women. The way we avoid being a trap for women is by doing our jobs. and dealing with the overt conflict that needs to happen, having the discussion, arguing through the things, doing it in the public meetings, being willing to address hard issues, not running away, not abdicating, not failing to do our duty. Being quick rather than slow to do the duty. I am not a person who enjoys conflict. That is hard for me to do. And yet I know that that is something that I am called to do. Men, if you have a more intelligent wife, you are probably in a situation where there's a temptation for that wife to take the reins because she sees all sorts of ways that there's problems. And so if you have an intelligent wife, you've been given a great gift, and it's your duty to govern well and to make sure that she is not put to waste. Having a high power wife and not being willing to get stuff done and to lead her well is the type of thing that is putting to waste a great gift. You want to seek to advance things, lead things well, and give her ability to use her giftings under your authority. If reputation is the main thing, then one of the things that often happens is men start to look for the approval of women. If instead men are willing to advance things for the glory of God and take risks and let people think poorly of them and not make reputation the main thing, that breeds a masculine culture that lasts. Being obsessed with reputation and people liking you tends to make men foppish. And just in case you don't know what foppish means, it basically means fake and gay. I've got a longer definition for you at the bottom. Page five. What leads out of this is this issue of thinking about men and women as people who you should care about in terms of reputation. Here's what Solomon says. Here's how many people that you should care about your reputation with that Solomon's found. Here's what I found. Tell us, Solomon, what have you found? Here's what I found, says the preacher. adding one thing to the other to find out the reason, which my soul still seeks but I cannot find. One man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found. Truly, this only I have found, that God made man upright. But they have sought out many schemes." So adding one thing to the other. This means reasoning through things from the more basic premises to the less basic. Putting the pieces together, he's come to a conclusion. Here's what his soul was seeking, but he could not find. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. And you go, what is he talking about? Some people will read this as, well, he's talking about wise people, and so he's saying one man of a thousand is wise, but zero women out of a thousand women are wise. And high fives all around for the chauvinists. That's not the point. The point is actually talking about righteousness. Look at the verse that follows. Truly this only I have found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. In other words, one man in a thousand is righteous, and zero women out of a thousand are righteous. And so you go, okay, all right, back at it. High fives all around back in the chauvinist camp again. We've got one out of a thousand. Women have zero out of a thousand. Here we go. Good to be a man. The point is not that one out of a thousand men are going to obtain righteousness in the sight of God by being good enough. And the point is not that women get below the rounding error, and so less than 0.5 out of 1,000 women are going to get righteous in the sight of God on the basis of their own righteousness. That's not the point. What's the point? The point is there are zero women who are sinlessly perfect. Not Mary, nobody. There's one man out of the great mass. out of the great multitude. That's the promised seed of the woman. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. He can't find any men who are worthy of caring about his reputation before them on its own. He can't find any women who are worthy of caring. There's one exception, the one man, the one in a thousand, the Lord Jesus Christ. What the Lord Jesus Christ thinks about you has eternal consequence. Does he see you as covered in his righteousness? Or does he see you as covered in your righteousness? Because your righteousness is polluted, filthy, disgusting rags. If he sees you in his righteousness, then His thoughts about you are all that matter for you. Because He will reward you with life everlasting, with blessing. So that's what's being talked about here. Talking about wisdom, one man in a thousand having wisdom? Okay. Zero out of 1,000 for women, that doesn't make any sense. Proverbs 31 talks about the wise wife. Song of Solomon talks about the wise wife. Bathsheba is referenced in the book of Proverbs as having given wisdom to Solomon, that she taught to Solomon. It's not saying that there's no women who are wise. The righteousness point is obvious in the context. And the point is that there is only one righteous man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Reputation is not the good, the glory of God is the good. Being found righteous in God occurs through obtaining the knowledge of God. So page six. Man was created good and he's invented evil goals and evil means. He's thought out many schemes. We talked this morning about sin being ultimately for the glory of God, meritoriously our own fault, instrumentally through Adam and through our unbelief, the law being written on our hearts, the law preached to us. Effectually, sin enters the world by God's decree. He planned it. He predestined it. Formally, we know about how all this works in the scriptures. Man was made good. Everything God made was good. The man was not perfect. He wasn't complete in his goodness. He was changeable. And God planned for him to fall to show his justice and to show his mercy. Page seven. So who is like a wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? You can translate that as the interpretation of a word. A man's wisdom makes his face shine and the sternness of his face has changed. The wise man knows how to interpret words out of the Bible, and the wise man interprets events properly. He goes through life, and he says, that woman's no good. That man is not worthy of being my friend. Bad company corrupts good morals. A man interprets events well, he interprets people well, he interprets the word of God well. Wisdom makes it so that you deal with all of it well and wisely. And here's the deal. Life is full of suffering and betrayal and misery and lying. There are heresies. There are seductresses. There are persecutors. And the wise man knows all of that. And wisdom makes his face to shine. Wisdom takes the hardness of his face and causes him to bear forth joy. He knows all about low women and all about low men, and he knows all about the problems of the enemies of the church. And he knows that the church isn't perfect. And his face shines. The glory of God causes the face of men to shine. Moses, when he saw the backside of God, shined so much that he had to wear a veil over his face so that people wouldn't get freaked out by his face shining as afterglow of looking at the backside of God's glory. Stephen shined looking upon the glory of God. The righteous man, the wise man, carries himself differently. He is radiant, joyful, and powerful. He bears the fruits of the Spirit, which I've laid out for you on this paper. Page eight. Wisdom makes the strength of a man's face to change, the sternness of his face. God gives gifts to this man who is wise so that he can carry himself in a way that yields fruit, and it brings back affection and respect and fear. Man, you want your wives to follow you, you get wisdom. You want reputation, even amongst those who are close to you, you get wisdom. You either lose these people or you gain their affection and respect and fear. Wisdom gives fortitude to carry through all these things. When you have a wise ruler, by the way, go to page nine, give them reverence in heart, word, and behavior. Pray for them. Obey them willingly and cheerfully. Defend them. None of them are going to be perfect unless they're the Lord Jesus Christ, and so you have to bear with their infirmities and cover them in love. And at the same time, there is a great danger of dishonoring those gifts. So men, if you're in authority, if your wives or daughters or sons Do not behave in a manner that you wish they would. You feel like you can't please them. Ask yourself, are you living to please them? Don't be ensnared by that. Seek to honor the Lord and seek to bless them and wash them in the word. For those of you who are under authority, if you're living to please the person in authority, you're going to find that your father or mother make a bad God and you cannot get happiness out of pleasing them. You should honor them, but you should seek to honor the Lord more. If you do not care about authority structures and you say, I'm not a slave to people. Okay. And the danger is, do you not care about God's law order? These are the things to examine yourself and to not be a snare and to not be ensnared by the hearts of others. And instead. Freedom comes from knowing that the only opinion that really matters is what God thinks. And if you're being judged on your own merits, He thinks very bad things about you. But if you're being judged on the merits of Christ, He thinks all righteousness of you. And there is reward forevermore. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would bless us with wisdom and knowledge and that you would help us to avoid the snare of reputation and the worship of others and the desire for the opinions of others as that which will make us happy. Rather, Father, we ask that you would help us to resist all persecution and seduction and heresy and to be manful and to have a masculine social order here to see women be feminine and men masculine and to see interactions be overt and direct and clear and to see men not abdicating, not failing, but being assertive and direct and taking action with initiative. We ask that you would cause women to be able to rejoice in the leadership of their men and that you would cause these women to seek to encourage and help the men in their lives and to not be a snare. We pray all this in Christ's name, amen. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members and those with speaking rights. Okay, I think because of time, let's skip over the last psalm and we'll jump into the Lord's table. Please stand for the word of institution. For those of you who will not be participating in the Lord's Supper,