Difficult Times Will Come #3

So this morning, we're going to be continuing in our study of 2 Timothy 3, verses 1-9. This will be our third sermon out of this section. And this morning, we're going to be focusing on verses 6 and 7. And in these verses, Paul makes a description that is somewhat offensive. At least in our day and age, I think it's quite offensive. We've been studying these dangerous men that come into churches and seek to lead away the disciples. And this morning, he moves on from describing those men to describing the type of women that they prey on. And those women are described as weak, as not coming to the knowledge of the truth. And I realize that to speak this way, particularly about women, is a deep cut.

across the grain of our cultural sensibilities. It's not the sort of thing that we take in stride and go, yes, yes, I know. As I was preparing this week, I thought, well, this is a week for the women because Sunday school is about women and their love, mothers. And this week in our sermon, we also have a study of a particular type of woman in the church that we ought not to aspire to be. And so my hope is that as we study this, we won't take offense at God's words or the truths that they contain, but rather that we would submit ourselves to them for his glory and for our good. In the church, sadly, there are those that use Christ's name to take advantage of others. There are also those in Christ's church who are taken advantage of by those same men. And this is who Paul warns us against today. The point this morning is that we would be neither the men who take advantage, nor the sort of women that get taken advantage of, but rather that we would mature and grow and be able to handle accurately the word of truth. Now, before I read the passage, I want to say one thing about Bible translations. When we start talking about that type of woman that the hair on the back of your neck probably stands up and you're like, well, that's just not right. And I'll have you know that

those that translate our Bibles know that the hair on the back of our neck stands up at things like this. And so what do they do? They hide it. And if you were to read newer translations, we at our church use the New American Standard 1995 edition, and I say the 95 edition because the NASB, New American Standard, just came out in 2020 with a new version that is more gender neutral and is going to trim the edges off of passages like this. ones that would be offensive or seem to be demeaning to women. I hope that as we study this morning, you realize that that's not the primary goal of the passage or of the apostle or of our Lord, to be demeaning to women, but to warn us against the dangers that attend our various sexes. And so as I said, our text is 2 Timothy 3, verses 1 to 9. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true.

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women, weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Janus and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. But they will not make further progress, for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Janice's and Jambres' folly was also. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So as I said, I want us to spend our time focusing on verses 6 and 7. Next week we'll come to the end of this passage, 8 and 9. I want to start out by pointing out to you that these men,

that have been described in the preceding verses, are the type of men who enter into households. Now, why does Paul say that they enter into households? What does that mean, that they enter into households? Well, it means that they do their work and they're deceiving in private. They're the sort of men that don't want their words or their actions to be seen or vetted publicly. They'd like to maintain culpable deniability. I never said that. I didn't mean that. And so privacy is paramount. Now, is privacy possible today? In the day and age that we live, is privacy possible? And you say sometimes, and it does depend on what we're talking about, right? But it is possible to value privacy and to teach others to value privacy. Many times nowadays online, I think of privacy in terms of paywalls. Paywalls are like, they're a boundary. And they say, you can't come in here unless you join the club.

You can't know what's said, you can't know what's done, you can't know what's taught, you can't know what's believed, unless you join the club. About a year ago, there was a private Facebook group, these wonderful things, where people can go with no accountability to complain and gripe and moan about whatever it is they're upset about, with no consequences. They like to be able to say the things that they want to say with impunity. And there was a big hullabaloo because someone broke the rules of the private group. And what did they do? They took screenshots of things that were said in the private group and posted them publicly. And it just, it was a terrible thing. Now what was terrible was that this group was filled with men, many if not all of whom were ministers, who would not say publicly what they thought to be true. They'd only say it privately.

And when their words were made, their private words were made public, all hell broke loose. Not simply because their words were made public, but because they would ever dare to say such things about a particular woman. In some of their assessment of her and her goings-on, her doings, they were right. And it was a shame to them that they would not say it publicly. They wanted a hearing, an audience, a group of people who would sympathize with them, commiserate with them, but they wanted their words to have no consequence, no cost. They didn't want to have to stand by them publicly. And so this is how, and I'm not saying that all of those men in that group who did that are the type of men that should be avoided, but I am saying that we ought to, as Christians, keep our eye on the ball of privacy.

Not saying that privacy is a bad thing in every instance, but to say if you always want to act in private, if you keep secret counsel and it's very difficult to know what you or someone else thinks, you may be in danger of being the type of man that should be watched out and warned against. Meaning if you've got something to say, whether it's offensive or someone could take umbrage at it or it could have a cost to you saying it, If you believe it to be true, if you believe it's what the Bible teaches or what needs to be said for God's glory, you should be willing to say it publicly. This is not to say that there's no wisdom in not saying everything publicly. This is a difficult thing. But we're not looking for hard and fast rules of they say everything publicly or they say everything privately. We're looking for a principle here. The sort of men who want...

to be able to do their deeds in the darkness without accountability, without anyone seeing or knowing that they don't want to know. If they're controlling and say, only these people can have access to what I say. Many men who write in the manosphere, if you will, do this very thing. They hide what they say. And they do it in part to earn a living, but in part because they don't think they want to be known. They don't want to give everyone a voice. They want to control the situation. And so if you want to know what they really think, you have to invest in the group. You have to pay. And it's a funny thing. You think that they have you pay just so they can make money, but I don't think that's the entire reason why they have you pay. Do you know why else I think that we have to pay for things like that? Because it increases our commitment to it, right? Have you ever talked to a coach and asked them, you know, what can I do better?

Or you go to Luis and he's a realtor and you say, hey Luis, I got all these questions about selling my house and I just want, basically I want you to do your whole job, but I'm not going to sign, you know. Luis would be wise at some point to say, are you really going to sell your house? Because if you're not going to sell your house, I'm happy to talk to you, but not at the same level that I am if you are going to sell your house. And if you are going to sell your house, are you going to have me sell your house? Because if you're just pumping me for all kinds of information, but you're not committed to me working for you, then you should find the person that you are committed to have work for you, and you should ask them those questions. And if Luis does that, you can say, well, he shouldn't be that way, and I'm just using him as an example. Because when I have that kind of questions, I want to call Luis and say, hey, Luis, what do you know? But I'm also mindful that I'm taking Luis's time, and I'm not one of his paying customers. And that is Luis. But you understand, part of...

part of the process is Luis saying, if you want my help, if you care what I think, if you think I know what I'm talking about, you should be willing to pay for it. And what he's asking for is not so much the money as a commitment from me. And that's a lot of what privacy in these paywalls is. It's asking for you to be branded, to be committed to them. There's one political writer that I listen to who's always had a Patreon, and I've never been like, well, I'm not going to pay for the things you write, though I do find them very helpful.

And as of late, his emails have started coming, and they only get about a third of the article. And that says, to continue reading, he's doing the same thing that the New York Times does. To continue reading, subscribe. And you go, I'm already subscribed. And you say, yeah, but you're not one of those paying subscribers. And so we have privacy around us. And one of the things that these men do that Paul warns against is they work in the darkness. They want privacy. They want your commitment to them. And so in our day and age, they use money. We provide some content and say there's more. You just have to pay for it. My point in bringing it all up to you about privacy is to say these men are described as entering into these women's households as opposed to working publicly. Now, is it wrong for people to receive instruction in their household? That would be the wrong lesson to learn here. Paul said in Acts 20, he says, I didn't shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable in teaching you publicly and from house to house.

And so there's a place for private instruction and private discipleship and private privacy. But the thing to note about Paul in contrast to these men is that the things he said in private, he also said in public. Now you might have heard men say at some times, here's what I think, but don't you ever quote me on it or I'll deny it. You've heard men say this kind of thing? You have to wonder, why won't you stand by what you have to say? Or what is it you're saying it to me for? If you won't say it publicly, the questions we ought to have. Paul's instruction was the same publicly as it was privately. The gospel is a public message and it doesn't require secrecy, except probably in cases of extreme persecution, where it may be time then to have instruction only in houses and privately, but we don't live in that time. These men like speaking in private because it's very easy to speak without impunity. If something they say does get out, they're able to say,

well, that's not what I said, or at least that's not what I meant. And who's to know who's telling the truth? You may even be able to convince the person that outed you that they've misunderstood you, that they need you even more than ever so they don't get confused again and misunderstand what you really meant. It's really for their own good. We have a word for that. It's called grooming. That's grooming. When you make someone dependent on you, on your private instructions and secret... conversations. That's grooming, and it's dangerous, and so we ought to have our minds opened to this. Then he says what? They enter into households, and what do they do when they're in there? They captivate. Now, I ask you, is captivate a good word or a bad word? Just generally in our society, if something's captivating, is it a good word or a bad word? I think generally we think of it as being a good word. I'm captivated. I was captivated by the beauty. I was captivated by wonder. We use it sort of

as a synonym for amazed or fascinated. He captivates. They're captivating. He's a captivating speaker. But what does the word literally mean, and in what way is Paul using it here? The word captivate means literally to be made a prisoner. That's what it means to be taken captive, is to be stopped and just frozen and in submission to and following someone or something, to be stopped in your tracks. And so that's what these men do to these women. They enslave them. They make the women dependent on them, and not on the Bible or the church. Some time ago, I remember my wife had some friends that she was talking to, and they were not Christians. They were Messianic something or others. Messianic Jews, perhaps, but it was some weird thing. At any rate, they went to some conference.

and there was this prophet there, this man. And he's never met these women before. And he walks up to these women, perfect strangers to them, and says to them, God told me that you were going to do this and that and the other thing. And these women go, oh, he spoke to me. God talked to him about me. I'm going to do whatever he says. And these women were relating to my wife how amazing this man is, how full of the spirit he is, how God talks to him, and how he's... doing wonderful things for the Lord. And what were my wife and I sitting here thinking the whole time? Yeah, we were thinking what Daniel's face is doing, which is, yeah, ooh, like, this is bad news. And where are you supposed to send the check? That's what I was thinking, was where are you supposed to send the check? That's what it means to captivate. You take these women and you make them dependent on you instead of on the Bible or the church.

You could tell stories and stories about this kind of stuff. When our church first started, there was a group of young people. Luis was one of them. And he was a part of a Bible study. And I would say the man that led that Bible study, this passage is pitch perfect in describing him. He had no place for the church. He had no place for any other opinion, let alone authority, other than his own. And if you didn't agree with him, you were a heretic. And he had managed to get five or six people just college students, that thought he just, he spoke, he's the only one who knew it. And when he changed his opinions, well then, we all had to change our opinions. And it was probably one of the first conflicts that we faced as a church, Joseph and I, the pastor, was helping Luis and one other person come out of that, to be free of it. There were others that...

were in the group that would come to church and visit, but they never did make it out. One of them married him. And so there are men who do this very thing, who see the church or see the Bible as people read it as a threat to their authority. And so they create dependence. And it is particularly women who are susceptible to this. And this is the gnarly part, right? I've been saying women, and I haven't really justified it, but now I want to talk about the fact that he says it's women who are susceptible to this. And that group that Luis was a part of, he was the first person to be like, wait, what? It clicked with Luis before it clicked with any of the women in the group. And of all the women in the group, only one of them figured it out. The rest of them didn't. And as I said, one of them married him. And you think, well, you shouldn't make observations like that about men and women. You can't do that. That's demeaning. And I say, I'm not trying to be demeaning. I don't think that this passage is demeaning to women. I think it warns us and teaches us something about ourselves that we would do well

to realize. Because if something is true and we say, that's not true, it doesn't make it any less true. It just makes us fools for rejecting it. And so these men work in private, go into households. They captivate weak women. Why weak? I bet if you're like me, that when you read the phrase weak women, you immediately feel sorry for the women. And you say, those poor women, they're weak. They must be overwhelmed with the guilt of their sin. That's what weak women, that's what it must mean. Those poor women who are just burdened with the guilt of their sins. I don't think that's what he means by weak. I don't think they're burdened at all by the guilt of their sins. I think they're surrounded by sins. I think these are ungodly women who make a claim to serve Jesus Christ, but who are not grounded in his word.

and in his truth. And I think that when he says they're weak women, what he means is that of them is what he means of us in every other circumstance, which is if you give yourself to sin, what does it do to you? It weakens you. It weakens you. David said in the Psalms, he says, when I kept silent about my sin, my bones wasted away within me. It weakens us. And so these women here are not the sort of women that we go, oh, those poor things, but rather we should say there's women who are given over to their sins in such a way that it makes them susceptible to being taken advantage of. In Ephesians 4, Paul says, Again, he's describing the same type of men.

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. And so the women Paul is describing here are those who have not grown up into Christ, who are immature and as a result are very vulnerable and susceptible to being taken advantage of. If you were to read more modern translations on this, they will remove the woman and they will say people, weak people. And so I ask you, do you want to know what God said? Because he said woman, he didn't say people. There are places he says people, but this is not one of them. Man, I feel like I'm in deep water with some of you. But this is what God says to us, and it's for our good. Why weak? Because they've given themselves to sin. Why women? Why not people? Are there no men who are susceptible to this? Sure there are. Sure there are. There's lots of weak men weighed down by sins. But women are more susceptible in this regard.

In 1 Timothy 2, verse 14, Paul says, it was not Adam who was deceived. The greater context of this passage is why women are not allowed to teach in church or preach or exercise authority. And he's giving a reason. This is one of the reasons why. He says, it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. And so Paul makes a comparison here, and he says, you have both Adam and Eve. They both ate of the fruit, but one of them believed the lie and one of them didn't. When Adam ate the fruit, he knew what he was doing. And in some ways, it makes it worse because he wasn't ignorant of what was, he knew what he was doing. But the woman being deceived fell into transgression. She was more susceptible. And you have to be able to read scripture and see why did Satan go to Eve instead of Adam? His intention was to corrupt the whole race of man. The shortest distance between two points would be go straight to Adam and say, you should do this and you should do that.

But he didn't. He went to Adam through Eve. Is that just random, just, well, who knows why Satan did that? Is there anything for us to learn there? Yes, there is something for us to learn there. And in the millennium that have passed since that happened, up until recently, the church understood why, which is that women are more susceptible to deception than men are. You shouldn't be offended by that. Men have sins as well that are not as common to women. But this is one of the things that the Bible teaches us. Does this make women less valuable? Does it make them stupid? Does it make them second-class citizens? Nope. It doesn't make any of that true. God made women as a help to man because it wasn't good for the man to be alone. And so we ought not to say what the Bible doesn't say. And so this passage does teach us, as others do, that women tend to be more vulnerable to being misled.

And as I said already, before we dismiss this out of hand and say, well, that's just offensive to me, I'd ask you again, just because something's offensive to you, does it make it any less true? Or maybe another way of asking it is, if this is true, will it be better for your wives and your daughters to deny this truth or to accept it? Will they benefit if you reject it? Or will they benefit if you accept what God said? It is true, because the Bible says it. And our job is not to grumble about it, but to thank God for his kindness in telling us how best to serve him. And part of the ways that we learn how to serve God is through knowing what our weaknesses are, knowing where we're most likely to go astray. We could go on and on. I said in Sunday school, we could go on and on and talk about men's weaknesses, and I don't think any of us would flinch at them. But to say that women have any weaknesses is offensive in our day.

I think that it's a kindness that men in our day are told what their sins are. Many men are frustrated about that. You can't tell me that's not fair. My life's terrible because of the result of feminism and women and we want to... There's this whole movement of men who've given up being men. And they whine and complain about it. Life's not fair. And I think they're rejecting one of the greatest kindnesses is that your sins are out there for everybody to see. But I think we do a disservice to women because none of their sins are to be spoken of. We don't afford them the same kindness.

I've told you this before, and I'll remind you again. In the beginning of The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter is writing, and that book is a series of lectures or sermons that he gave to a group of pastors. And so basically his job was to stand up in front of a presbytery or a group of pastors and to preach and teach to them. And the thing he says at the very beginning is, he says, you know, we've all gathered together, brethren, and many of us grumble and complain about the fact that our people, our congregations, are critical of us and are always reminding us and pointing out our failures and our flaws. And pastors get upset about that. There are people who come and say, well, you didn't preach this, you didn't say that the right way, well, you this and that, and all the way on down to whatever their frustrations are. And pastors get irritated about that, as anyone would if their job was always being scrutinized by scores and scores of people. Think for a minute if you had to do your job with 80 people watching you do it.

All you have to do is come stand up here and you can see what it's, you know. And so Richard Baxter is acknowledging that. And he says, I'll have you know, brethren, that it is to your benefit that you have so many people concerned about your godliness so that they come to you all the time pointing out your flaws. You will make further progress in holiness because so many people are pointing out your flaws to you. But it's miserable. Get married. Have kids. Have a husband. There's just mirrors everywhere. It's like going to the... to the carnival, and you go into the mirror room, and it's like, oh, ugly. That's me, ugly. Oh, look, big ugly nose, big fat ears. Like, it shows you all the ugly stuff about you. It's for your good. And we're happy to do that for men in our society, but we are unwilling to do that for women. And I think we do great harm to our wives and to our daughters, to our mothers and to our sisters, to create an environment where their sins can never be spoken of. Their weaknesses are never addressed. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't

give in to these things in us. And Paul says to us that there are men who go into the homes of weak women, captivating them, so that we won't become like them. Instead, we'll know where our weaknesses are. We'll know how to protect. I think so often in our society, we think of strength and weakness, and we say strength is to be desired, no matter who you are, and weakness is to be despised, no matter who you are. And then we're faced with situations where weakness is intrinsic, meaning it's not a choice. It's written into the situation. You think of a child that has some sort of disability. They have a weakness. What do you teach a child with a weakness? That he's supposed to be strong? You're going to teach him all the ways that he's supposed to overcome his weakness? What if the reality is he can't? Then what do you do? Do you say, well, you're useless because of your weakness?

That's exactly what our society says through abortion, isn't it? You have some fetal abnormality? We can't fix that? That would be a life not worth living. If you can't have the freedom and the strength of your fellow man, then we determine that's a life not worth living. That is how our society thinks. But that's not how Christians ought to think about weakness. First, because we realize that we all, not just women, but we all are weak before our God. and that we need his strength, and that weakness is not something to be despised, but rather protected, cared for. What would you do with a child that was in a wheelchair, was not able to provide for themselves? You would give extra care to them. You'd pay extra attention to them. You would be more merciful with them if they had a physical disability or if they had a mental disability. It requires more mercy and more care and more honor.

And this is what our sisters, our mothers, our wives, and our daughters deserve. But we will never do it if we get stuck at the point of despising their weakness and saying, you just need to be strong. And it is possible for a woman to take her weaknesses, natural weaknesses, and to exploit them or exacerbate them. The women Paul describes here, I believe, are those type of women who have taken a natural feminine weakness or vulnerability and have exploited, have exacerbated it through their lives and the way that they've lived. Paul goes on and describes them as women that are led on by various impulses. They're impulsive. They don't know what they want. They want this and they want that. And they're conflicting things. Paul says this is one of the characteristics that attends them. Those who get taken advantage of. They're ruled by their shifting desires.

I'm not saying that women are supposed to become men and to think like men. I think that's often what we want. We just want women to think like men. We don't want them. There is some movability in a woman. And it's a really sweet thing when you see it where it flourishes and where it shines, which is in the home with their children particularly. Their ability to manage and to shift and to accommodate as things move around. It's God's kindness to us that he's given us something other than men. But these women are led on by various impulses, meaning they serve their desires. Whatever it is they want in the moment, they say, I've got to do this. Oh, I've got to do that. And what happens is you end up not making any progress, but just kind of wandering around aimlessly. These are the type of women Paul warns against. There are other places in Scripture we could point to. When he speaks of the widows, the young widows, what does he tell them? He says, well, I want them to get married and have children. Why? So they don't fill their time with idleness.

It's meant to be a protection to them against these sorts of temptations. It's good for both men and women to be busy with the work that God gives them in their homes. Then he goes on and he describes these women as always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. When I think of Christians, men or women, and how their lives should be governed, what I think of is that there should be a stake in the ground and that they're on a leash. attached to that stake. There's only so far they can go. They have boundaries. They have the ability to be restrained. Now, what is the stake and what is the chain? It's the truth. It's what the Bible teaches. Christians should be governed, disciplined by, have boundaries according to what God has said. Both men and women, both adults, and children. We should be governed by, restrained by, what God says. And what Paul describes here is women who are off the chain, who've gotten free of it, and who are always learning. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen, I grew up with dogs, and when you have a male dog, and there's a female dog somewhere in heat, he wants off the chain real, real bad.

He wants out of the yard, and he wants to go learn all kinds of new things in everybody else's yard. He wants to just go and run and chase and satisfy whatever he smells. That's what these women are like. That's what he's describing here. They're always learning, always pursuing, always wondering, always growing, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth. Their learning never ends in the truth. There are many, many things. We could enumerate the things that have attached themselves that women particularly are interested in to the church and say, well, this is what good Christian women do. This is how good Christian women feed their kids. This is how good Christian women keep their house. There's plenty of pyramid schemes that have attached themselves to the Christian faith in such a way that you are not a godly woman if you don't do these things.

And the women that are susceptible to these are always learning about how this is good and that is better and this is the best. And they have incredible amounts of knowledge about this, that, or the other thing, but not the truth. All that knowledge doesn't lead to the truth. They've never heard someone talk about their pet desire and went, I think they're wrong about that. I think they went too far. I think they're lying to me now. They're always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now here we all are and we can chuckle at that and say, oh, stupid women. But if that's your temptation, then I'd say you're as much a part of the problem. If that's what was going on in your heart just now as I was describing it, you're as much of the problem as they are because you despise it. Not everything that we learn is true and we ought to be able or be growing in our ability to discern truth from lies no matter how good the marketing is.

It's possible to know a lot of things, to always be learning. But if we don't know the truth, if we're not restrained by what God said, then all of our knowledge will never bring us to Jesus, will never contribute to the salvation of our souls. And so we have work to do. We have to be mindful, be careful. There are men who would come in and who know this about women and will take advantage of it. There are women who would do the same. And then there are those that would follow them without discernment. without maturity. I've talked to young men a number of times. They want to get married. And I'm always kind of befuddled when I think of young men and their desires to get married and what they think women are like and what their expectations for marriage are. And I just think, well, that's not going to be very attractive to a woman. But what I find is that men have very, very high expectations for what women are supposed to be like. Unreasonably so. Not based in reality.

And what I think the root of it is, is that men don't want wives that need protection. They want wives that come fully assembled. When the truth is, your wife, whoever you marry, will be much more like something from Ikea. So we can all laugh and chuckle. Complex, written instructions in a different language, and a lot of work to put together. And yet, nice furniture. and you'll be glad to have it in your home. Men want wives that are not weak. You look at this passage and we think, oh, stupid women. Those were stupid women. And I think it's possible for a woman, as I said before, to go further into these sins, but what will you do with a woman who's just tempted by them and needs the love and the care and the leadership and protection of a man? Will you despise that? Do you think that work is above you or beneath you? Do you want a woman who doesn't?

isn't tempted like that. Good luck. You find men or women that have the same sort of unrealistic expectations for men. And we could talk about it, but not today. What are our applications? Two. First, keep an eye on men, leaders especially, that don't do their business in public, but who only want to speak their full mind in private. Don't follow them. Don't listen to them. Don't do their bidding for them. And secondly, protect and honor the weakness of women. You remember in Corinthians where Paul talks about, he's talking about gifting in the church, and he says some gifting, some people's gifting is more conducive to honor. They're more inclined to be looked up to and to go say, there, that's something I can admire. While other people's gifts are more humble. They're more hidden.

And what does he say to do with those who have gifts that are more hidden? He says to bestow on them more honor. Because the one whose gifts are prominent, he doesn't have need of honor. I stand up here and you all look at me. Lucas and Levi sit back there and nobody looks at them unless they screw something up. Now who are you more likely to come and thank after the service, if you're just honest? You're more likely to come thank me. Who should you be more likely to go? Who should you go say thank you to? You should go say thank you to them because they're working. They have different work than I do. But if Levi screws up the soundboard, we'll all know he's doing a good job. You should thank him. He should get more honor because the gifting that he's using right now is a humbler gift. And so Paul argues this way with regard to gifting in the church. We should also apply it to the differences of the sexes between men and women. Our society all

who fawns after what we think men are supposed to be. Even the women are supposed to be like men because their gifts are more prominent, they're more strong, and they're more leading, they're more out in front. And they're better as a result. That's the implicit thing that we all think but don't say is, well, that makes men better. And I say, no, it doesn't make men better. It just makes men and women different. But those who have humbler gifts or those who have particular weaknesses, are those that need more honor, those who are worthy of your time and your kindness and your attention. But you won't do it if you despise them. You won't protect it if you don't see it as a weakness that God put in there and that there are some strengths that women have that men don't. For all of men's desires to be efficient and streamlined and the world would be a terrible place if we didn't have women to bring in

the things men lack. Mercy and kindness and patience and beauty and tenderness. And so a woman's weakness ought not to be the sort of thing that's exposed or mocked or despised. It's something that ought to be protected so that they don't become these type of women. Because you know what that man who takes advantage of them does? He doesn't despise their weakness. He exploits it. And if you won't honor your... Your women, whether it's your wife or your daughter or your mother or your sisters, she will be more susceptible to going to finding some man that won't treat her poorly as she sees it. The problem is she won't realize what's really going on, that she's going to be taken advantage of. And so protect your women. Love them and care for them. Teach them the truth. Help them see the goodness of the boundaries that God's given to you and to them. Let's pray.