Clough Manhood Series Lesson 4

Man’s Mission and the Curse – Genesis 3

The doctrine of Christian manhood, the first lesson dealt with man made in God’s image. We showed from the Scripture that it was always considered to be, until we arrived in the 20^th century that had the various anemic versions of the Christian faith present, it used to be always held that man’s mission was dominion, to rule over God’s creation under God’s law. That was man’s role and it was that faith that built the magnificent civilization that was until recent years present in the West. No other faith, no other philosophy, has ever put man in this position. Man was always seen in Christian faith to be in his self-image a direct result of whether he was ruling under God’s law or not, and thus man and his self-image depends upon his ability to carry out the dominion mandate. That ability, in turn, depends on whether he has been saved in the person of Christ, for Christ is the head or the second Adam, the head of the new human race, and apart from His grace, fallen depraved man can never exercise properly his dominion. That was the substance of our first approach.

Then in the second lesson dealing with Genesis 2 we introduced the sexual differentiation; male and female, and we showed that a sexual differentiation is less than the imagehood of God, so that male and female both have God’s image and both are involved in the mandate to have dominion; not just the man of the family, but both the man and his wife are to have dominion and they are to have dominion as a team. In fact, God made man and wife in order that they might have dominion. Lone male, Adam by himself, could never have the dominion that God mandated. And so sexual differentiation was introduced into the human race to aid in dominion. Women are not a sub species, somehow less than the male in value before God.

Then last week, in the third section, we showed that the male and the female together exercise dominion through family production, and that instead of the atomism that is the common assumption of both liberal and conservative in political circles, that society is made of a group of individuals; here is a male over here, female here, female, male, and they are somehow floating in a sea, all by themselves, unconnected by any coherent unit; no divine institution such as family or marriage there, just lone individuals, solitary entities floating on a sea of chance. And therefore, welfare programs are always designed to aid and give money to individuals rather than family units. And therefore we have family taxes, we have inheritance taxes which are designed to destroy the family for humanist socialist purposes. And we have a whole vast array of forces in our society deliberately intending to destroy the family unit. But this renders any civilization impotent; weak families make weak civilizations. And therefore we concluded last time by saying that the job and the wife are not inherently in competition. Under God’s law they are part and parcel of the same thing—dominion.

The job is necessary to generate wealth for the family unit, wealth that has to be used not only to sustain the present generation but to build an inheritance for the future generation, the future godly seed that will be the produce of that family unit. And thus the job is not just a present job but it’s a job into the future. And so the job becomes necessary as part of generation of wealth and as Christians we ought not to be so afraid of material wealth. It’s how you use material wealth, not material wealth itself that’s the problem. I have heard Christians say and come out for graduated income tax; I have heard Christians they are for inheritance taxes; I have heard Christians say it is right to take away the money from the wealthy by coercion to use the sheriff as a modern Robin Hood; that is what they say, because after all they say wealth is sinful. Negative! The misuse of wealth is sinful, not wealth itself. And this is a strong point that we have to make; the Bible mandates accumulation of wealth. It says it is a good thing that the godly do prosper.

Then the wife, her role; her role is the bearer and trainer of the family. It is her that brings into existence the family unit. Without her, no family can exist; without her loving care of the children those children will never turn into a godly seed. She is training her sons and her daughters so that they can grow up in the future in a godly generation to use the wealth that is being accumulated on the job. So the job provides the wealth for the family and the woman helps provide the family for the wealth and the two are hand in glove; they are not inherently in competition. Then we said that therefore, in the situation, the Christian man has a problem of getting his wife and his job together underneath the overall umbrella of the dominion mandate of Scripture.

Now there are certain warning signs; we’ve already mentioned one, the problem of atomism. Turn to Daniel 2:40, [“And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, forasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things; and, as iron that breaks all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise”]. Something we didn’t tack on the end of last week’s message but in Dan 2:40 it describes that fourth kingdom, a kingdom which we still live in; a kingdom that has not at all passed away. It’s maintained itself in some degree of subordination because in our day the church exists. But we know from prophecy that when the church is raptured this fourth kingdom will spring alive with all of its discipline. That fourth kingdom is Rome and Rome has maintained her continuity. Those of you who have purchased Dr. Schaeffer’s book and are studying it, I hope, will notice how the Renaissance carries on from Italy. And we have mentioned Italy and we have mentioned before the author of world government is none other than Dante, Italian. But to the diplomacy of the modern world come the Machiavelli and the Italian thinkers, and so it is that Rome persists in her influence in the West.

And one of the features of this fourth kingdom that Daniel warned us about was in verse 41 when he described the nature of the fourth kingdom. He said, “And whereas you saw feet and toes, part of potters’ clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it the strength of the iron, forasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with pottery [miry clay]. [42] And the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. [43] And whereas thou saw iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cling [adhere] to one another, even as iron is not mixed with pottery [clay].” And the point remains that socially that fourth kingdom of Daniel is to be different from the previous kingdom. The previous kingdom’s were based on one culture, one tribe, one race, but the fourth kingdom is going to be made up of many different people and the emphasis is going to be on divergent families, this group, this group, this group, all pulling together under the fourth kingdom.

We’ve mentioned before the story of how Rome itself was founded; that story itself tells us how this mingling of the iron and the clay came about, with Romulus and Remus, and how Romulus took the plow and he plowed the circle around what he said was going to be the city of Rome, and his brother Remus jumped over the furrow that he had plowed and said this is what people will do to your wall. And Romulus pulled a sword and killed his brother and said and that’s what I do to people that jump my wall. And so that little myth, whether it’s true or not, shows something; it shows that the base of Rome is not familial, it’s not tribal, it is based on the power of the state; the state has replaced the family and that’s inherent in the Roman system. And this is why we’re up against it; this is why constantly when Christians let down their guard, when Christians refuse to vote because it isn’t the righteous thing to do, when Christians refuse to get involved politically, immediately what happens when a church retreats? The character of Rome emerges and the state takes over; it always has happened that way and always will happen that way. The only defense the Christians have is to maintain their saltiness, constantly suppressing the rise of Rome until Christ comes back. So this atomism is a threat to man and his dominion through the family.

And then we said last time, using the phrase in the book that I read, the phrase of what the woman is to do and the man’s relationship to the woman. And I think that phrase is so encompassing of biblical principles I’ll repeat it again because it leads to the single guys, this is one of the questions you can ask yourself about perspective females, and the question is, in his terms in the book: Do I wish to define my participation in the future of the race through this woman? It’s a very incisive statement and surely the man is not doing this to teach the principles of Scripture but somehow he’s really nailed right on the head the whole mandate situation and everything else, probably by accident but again: Do I wish to define my participation in the future of the race through this woman? A very serious question and this question is answered not by retreat to some mystical never-never land where some woman’s name is written in neon signs in the ceiling and this becomes the right woman. Rather it’s the wisdom principles, using your head, using your common sense, using what God has given you in the Scriptures and putting it together and coming up with your decisions. There’s nothing magic about it, it’s not mystical.

That’s why I personally shy away increasingly from even using the words right woman/right man, because it’s liable to this mystical interpretation that somehow I click off my common sense, I click off the wisdom principles of Scripture, I click off all these things and I rely upon this vague leading of the Spirit. Now that’s ridiculous; the Spirit has gone through centuries long effort to give us a completed Canon of Scripture, so how is that we say we’re being led by the Spirit when we don’t allow ourselves to read what the Spirit Himself has told us.

Well, this is what we dealt with last week. Today we come to the fall, Genesis 3. And so in the fourth lesson of the series we see what adverse effects the fall introduces, particularly to the man and the male role. In Genesis 3:1-6, the famous scene of the temptation, “The serpent was more subtle,” or more wise, “than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, has God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? [2] And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; [3] But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. [4] And the serpents aid unto the woman, You shall not surely die. [5] For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing both good and evil. [6] And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”

As we have warned you in the earlier part of this series we take Genesis literally because Jesus takes Genesis literally. Jesus has put His stamp of authentication upon this book and that goes for regardless of what the atmosphere is in our day to give up, to weaken, to cave in and compromise on Genesis, Christ has said is authentic and I’d rather say that Christ knows more about what He’s talking about than a few of the professors that counsel us to give up Genesis. The theme is basically one that we’ve been familiar with from time and time again, but again the key is verse 1, the first question Satan asks of the woman? “Has God said,” has He really spoken, has He really, therefore, put forth an absolute. And then of course, he finally in verse 4 challenges the absolute.

Now there’s a subtlety here and here’s where we can get kind of faked out if we don’t take things slowly so we understand what’s happening. Sometimes you’ll see this: Is the Word of God true? That sounds like a very innocuous statement. It sounds legitimate. I propose that that question is out of order. But that question implies something. If you look at the language in that question, which is precisely the question that Satan asked Eve, if you look at the language of that question it presupposes that the highest standard is truth and that even God is underneath that standard, and the question is that now that we have the highest thing, not God, but truth, the highest thing is truth and we’ll see whether God or Satan fits that higher standard. Truth then becomes autonomous; it’s the Greek idea and the very question is wrong. God is truth, said Jesus, and He therefore doesn’t have a standard higher than Himself.

When God speaks what He speaks is by definition truth, so the question cannot be asked. A Christian can’t ask this question in it’s pure form. Now for debate purposes we can work with empirical evidence and practically we may ask the question but really in serious, serious, serious, serious thought we can’t ask the question; it’s an unaskable question because God, by definition speaks truth. Can God ever speak unauthoritatively? If God spoke, can we really believe that that which He speaks isn’t true, for to presuppose that is already to deny the Christian position.

Take an interesting conversation that one might have between Eve and Satan, enlarging a little bit on the text. Satan comes to Eve and he says to Eve, hopefully Eve should have responded in a more vigorous way; and Satan asks her, is God’s word really truth? What she should have said at that point is that I see, Satan, that you have rejected the Word of God. That should have been it because in the raising the question, the question already says I say that the Word of God is not truth because look again at the statement: Is the Word of God truth? The Word of God, by definition, is truth and therefore the question is a denial. To raise the question is to say the Word of God is not truth, automatically, the Word of God is not what it says and if it’s not what it says obviously it can’t be truth. So the statement itself is wrong; Eve didn’t challenge it and when she didn’t challenge it she got in trouble. She didn’t radically attack unbelief; she let too much of the language of unbelief come into her soul and she was trapped, and finally she yielded when she saw the temptation.

And now the last verse, Genesis 3:6, she hands it to her husband, and he takes and he eats it. It’s interesting that six and a half verses are devoted to what Eve does and only one little tiny clause is devoted to what Adam did. How come? How come almost six times the emphasis in the Holy Spirit’s working here, six times He says what Eve was doing that was wrong was to what Adam did? This is going to be amplified in the New Testament pages, the significance of this, but at least one thing we can say is to let no woman ever think that she has no power over her man. It goes back to the fall of man himself; women have phenomenal power over men, the problem with it is that most women are unskillful in how they deploy their power. But the fall of man is living proof of the power every woman has over her man and it’s a warning to every man.

I read two times ago from Milton’s Paradise Lost. Tonight we’re going to read from selections as Milton seeks to dramatize the great moment when Eve fell, and I think he does it very well, so listen, just enjoy it, just relax and listen to a great Christian of the past who believed that Christians ought to be intelligent. In book 8 of Paradise Lost Milton has concluded the discussion which we read last time where Raphael says to Adam, after Adam has praised Eve on her beauty and what a great woman she is, Raphael says this to Adam. “Be strong, live happy and love but first of all love Him whom to love is to obey, and keep
His great command; take heed lest Passion sway Thy Judgment to do aught, which else free will would not admit; thine and of all thy sons the weal or woe in thee is placed; beware. I in thy persevering shall rejoice, and all the blessed stand fast; to stand or fall free in thine own arbitrement it lies. Perfect within, no outward aid require; and all temptation to transgress repel.” It’s his warning, yes Adam, Eve is very beautiful, but Adam, you are responsible, and you can fall through her.

Now the scene as it unfolds. Eve drifts away in the garden from Adam and Adam is pictured now waiting for Eve to come back. “Adam the while, waiting desirous her return, had wove of choicest flowers a garland to adorn her tresses, and her rural labors crown, as Reapers oft are wont their harvest Queen. Great joy he promised to his thoughts, and new solace in her return, so long delayed; yet oft his heart, divine of something ill, misgave him; he the faultring measure felt; and forth to meet her he went, the way she took that morn when first they parted; by the Tree Of Knowledge he must pass, there he met her,” and now Eve comes back, she’s fallen, she’s taken of the fruit and she explains to Adam, “Hast thou not wondered, Adam, at my stay? Thee I have missed, and thought it long, deprived thy presence, agony of love till now, not felt, nor shall be twice, for never more. Mean I to try, what rash untried I sought, the pain of absence from thy sight. But strange has been the cause, and wonderful to hear: This Tree is not as we are told, a tree of danger tasted, nor to evil unknown opening the way, but of Divine effect to open eyes, and make them gods who taste; and hath been tasted such: the Serpent wise, or not restrained as we, or not obeying, hath eaten of the fruit, and is become, not dead, as we are threatened, but henceforth endued with human voice and human sense,” Milton had the serpent acquiring the power of speech because the serpent first ate of the fruit.

“Reasoning to admiration, and with me persuasively hath so prevailed, that I have also tasted, and I have also found the effects to correspond, opener mine eyes.” … Thus Eve with countenance blithe, her story told, but in her cheek distemper flushing glowed. On the other side, Adam, soon as he heard the fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed, astonished, stood and blank, while horror chill ran through his veins, and all his joints relaxed; and from his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve dropped to the ground, and all the faded roses shed. Speechless he stood and pale, still thus at length, first to himself he inward silence broke.” And this is what he’s thinking to himself as he’s faced with a fallen woman in front of him. And now he makes this decision that’s just recorded in one sentence in our Bibles in Genesis 3:6. He says this to himself: O fairest of creation, last and best, of all God’s works, creature in whom excelled, whatever can to sight or thought be formed, Holy, divine good, amiable, or sweet! How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost, defaced, deflowered, and to death devote? Rather how has thou yielded to transgress the strict forbiddance, how to violate the sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursed fraud of enemy has beguiled thee, yet unknown, and me with thee hath ruined, for with thee,” now here he makes his decision, “For with thee, certain my resolution is to die; how can I live without thee, how forgone thy sweet converse and love so dearly joined, to live again in these wild woods forlorn? Should God create another Eve, and I another rib afford, yet loss of thee would never from my heart; no, no I feel the link of nature draw Jesus Christ. Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state mine shall never be parted, bliss or woe. Thus in calm mood his words to Eve he turned, bold indeed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve, and peril great provoked….”

And he goes on and talks to Eve, and lets her know that he is going to sin and fall with here, and after he does so and he eats the fruit Milton has Eve responding: “So saying she embraced him, and for joy tenderly wept, much won that he in his love had so enabled as of choice to in incur divine displeasure for her sake.” “… divine displeasure for her sake,” the power of the woman over the men

And at the end, as he concludes Book 9 of Paradise Lost, Milton draws out the conversation, for it’s not all embracing and lovey-dovey now; now begins the thrashing back and forth, and Book 9 of Paradise Lost ends with this conversation. “Would thou have hearkened to my words and stayed with me, as I besought thee,” this is Adam to Eve, “when that strange desire of wandering this unhappy morn. I know not whence possessed thee; we had then remained still happy, and not as now, despoiled of all our good, shamed, naked, miserable. Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve the faith they owe; when earnestly they seek such proof, conclude that they begin to fail. To whom soon moved with touch of blame thus Eve.”

Now Eve responds to Adam, “What words have past thy Lips, Adam severe, imputest thou that to my default, of my will of wandering, as thou callest it, which who knows, but might as ill have happened thou being by. Or to thyself perhaps: had thou been there, or here the attempt, thou couldst not have discerned fraud in the serpent, speaking as he spoke. No ground of enmity between us known, why he should mean me ill, or seek to harm. Was I to have never parted from thy side? As good have grown there still a lifeless rib. Being as I am, why didst not thou, the head, command me absolutely not to go, going into such danger as thou hast said? Too facil then thou didst not much gainsay. Nay, didst permit, approve, and fair dismiss. Hadst thou been firm and fixed in thy dissent, neither had I transgressed, nor thou with me.

”To whom then first incensed Adam replied,” he argued back, “Is this the love, is this the recompense of mine to thee, ungrateful Eve, expressed immutable when thou was lost, not I, who might have lived and joyed immortal bliss, yet I willingly chose rather death with you, and am I now upbraided, as the cause of thy transgressing? Not enough severe, it seems, in thy restraint: what could I more do? I warned thee, I admonished thee, foretold the danger, and the lurking enemy that lay in wait, beyond this had been force, and force upon free will hath here no place. But confidence then bore thee on, secure either to meet no danger, or to find matter of glorious trial; and perhaps I also erred in overmuch admiring what seemed in thee so perfect, that I thought no evil durst attempt thee, but I rue that error now, which is become my crime, and thou the accuser. Thus it shall befall him who to worth in women over trusting lets her will rule, restraint she will not brook, and left to her self, if evil thence ensure, she shall first his weak indulgence will accuse.”

“Thus,” and this is his last line in this section, Thus they in mutual accusation spent the fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning, and of their vain contest appeared no end.” And so Milton pictures very graphically these first six verses of the destruction of the family unit, the destruction if the family unit.

The destruction of this family unit becomes the basis for very serious commands in the New Testament. The apostles took it literally. Turn to 1 Timothy 2; much to the chagrin of our neo-evangelical women’s libbers, 1 Timothy 2 is very, very clear that Genesis 3 is normative for the church; it is not a cultural accommodation to the first century viewpoint. There are certain things that must happen in Christian society in regard to men and women that are built upon what was revealed about the woman’s character under the pressure of temptation; that her nature is weaker than the male in this area. This is not to say the woman is a greater sinner; be careful. Paul, Peter, none of the New Testament writers are ever saying that the woman’s sin is greater than the man. Never! All they’re saying is that the woman’s sin is of a particular kind, and therefore you have to understand it’s of a particular nature and take steps to guard against it happening again and again and again and again.

1 Timothy 2:12, “But I do not allow a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” Notice the word “usurp authority,” do you know what that means? It means to steal, to take over that which is illegitimate. What do you suppose he’s thinking of? The fall in the garden; when Eve acted for Adam and in Adam’s place she usurped and she began to teach the man. Now lest women, when they read verse 12 get very paranoid about this, take it with a little humor ladies, because one way of taking verse 12 is because the men are so vulnerable to you it has to be this way. So therefore Paul, recognizing the woman’s influence over the man, as Eve’s influence over Adam, therefore he ordained this particular mode of church operation.

Then verse 13, he bases it, “Because Adam was first formed, then Eve,” that’s the basis, it’s not on cultural accommodation to the areas of the Mediterranean in the first century; that is based on creation, an absolute, not a relative. And verse 14, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived,” therefore, Paul says, I do not permit the woman….

So at least this testifies to two things, two principles that control the relationships between men and women, particularly in the spiritual realm, and that is that women are more liable to deception than men. You study the history of the cults; look at the number of women that have been involved in the cults. I’m not sure that that statistic is an absolute evidence of this principle but it’s an interesting observation. The second thing that is taught is the tremendous power of the woman over the man. Don’t think this is demeaning of the woman; it’s precisely because of the woman’s influence, her tremendous influence over the man that the Holy Spirit has taken precautions as to how He structures the Church. By the way, verse 12 is the text, in case you read in the newspapers about denomination X, Y, Z now ordaining women; verse 12 is the text that prohibits that ordination. Any ordination of women to a teaching position in the Church over men, not necessarily over children, but any ordination of women to a teaching position over men is anti-biblical; it flies in the face of very serious Scriptural warnings, based upon woman’s nature. The ordination of women is the work of fools, fools that are deliberately devoid of the Scriptural truths.

Now let’s see how this warning about women and their influence on men carries through in Scripture. Let’s turn to that great episode in 1 Samuel 25, the scene of Abigail and David. One of the classic scenes of the woman’s influence over the man, this time for good. What we’re looking at, again is the chain of command, the Word of God, the man and the woman, and why there’s reason that society is ordained this way. And I hope to balance this so nobody can walk out of here and say that the woman, therefore, is rendered as some sort of sub human mongoloid who just washes the dishes and changes the diapers. A woman has a lot more to do than that, and these verses are going to show you men the power for good or evil. The power is there and you can’t deny it; the question is how the power is deployed. Abigail gives us a godly illustration of the influence a woman can have on her man; an influence for tremendous good.

1 Samuel 25:24, David is one his way to kill Nabal; the word “Nabal” in Hebrew is the word for idiot, that was the name of her husband, he was an idiot. He was an idiot because he refused to recognize that David and his guerilla force was Yahweh’s chosen, and therefore he despised David and his men and he let David and his men know this, and so David is going to seek vengeance and so David comes up to their ranch or their home and he’s going to kill Nabal and all the hands on the family property. Abigail sees what an idiot her husband is, and she comes out and she begins to deal with David. This is one of the great scenes, one of the model scenes of a godly woman influencing a man for good.

And so verse 24, she “fell at his feet, and said, Upon my, my lord,” now men, you don’t get your wife on her knees in front of you, this is a case where David was the king, so there’s something else here besides this man, she “fell at his feed, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be; and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thy audience [hearing], and hear the words of thine handmaid.” “… hear the words of thy handmaid,” just as Eve must have spoken into the ear of Adam, hear my words Adam, the man is open to the words of the woman. Now some men see this and because they’re not confident of themselves in the Scriptures they tune women out and they think it’s a great sign of godliness, just to ram them down into the floor; that’s showing my male leadership. It’s not showing your male leadership, that’s just showing how threatened you are, that you’re afraid to listen to the words of the woman because you don’t have enough spiritual moxy between your ears to evaluate what she says. So don’t take that as a sign of manhood, that’s just stupidity.

David listened; he doesn’t have to listen to Abigail, he could just drive his horse right over her. He didn’t have to wait for her, David wasn’t hard up for beautiful women, he was a king. So he didn’t have to stop for a beauty contest either, even thought this woman was extremely beautiful outwardly as well as inwardly. But David listened… David listened to the woman functioning as counselor. Verse 25, “Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial [worthless fellow],” not this is not demeaning her husband because he was an idiot, “for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and foolishness [folly] is with him; but I, thine handmaid, saw not the young men of my lord, whom you did send. [26] Now, therefore, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as they soul lives, seeing the LORD has withheld thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil against my lord, be as Nabal. [27] And now this blessing which thine handmaid has brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord.” And she goes on and distributes what she has for them and so on.

What is the point of this story; it goes on and describes, verse 30, “And it shall come to pass, when the LORD shall have done for my lord,” notice the two words “lord,” the first one is God’s name, “And it shall come to pass when Jehovah has done to my Adonai,” that is “my lord, according to all the good that He has spoken concerning thee, and has appointed thee ruler over Israel, [31] that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offense of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood without cause, or that my lord has avenged himself; but when the LORD shall have dealt with my lord, then remember thine handmaid.” Now this woman is advising David with godly counsel. She’s saying don’t blot your record David; my husband is an idiot, but don’t let his idiocy raise you up to wrath so you blot your record and come to the throne polluted. She gives godly advice to David, and David listens.

Watch what David does; verse 32, “David said to Abigail, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who has sent thee this day to meet me.” One woman and David was surrounded by men, men who were incapable because of their mental attitude of vengeance, at this point, to give David straight advice. One woman changed the course of history and David recognizes it. He listens to the words of the woman; he accepts them. [33] “Blessed be thy discretion” or “advice, and blessed be thou, who hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand. [34] For in very deed, as the LORD God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from hurting you, except you had hastened to come to meet me, surely there had been not left of Nabal by the morning light any that pisses against the wall,” good idiom for the male. So David, that’s to shock some of you who think this language is not used in Scripture. The reason being that males are the only ones who can piss against the wall.

“So David received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said to her, Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person.” David is a model of a man who recognizes the woman, who is open to the woman; Abigail gives him advice. Now David is not like Adam, where he just picks up anything that she says, because if you’ll notice, verse 34, he goes back to the covenant God, he uses God’s covenant name, Yahweh, and it means that he has God’s covenant on his mind. He is open to the woman because he compares what she says with the Scripture. Some men get off on this point. Advice from women is not wrong; advice from women is necessary because that’s how God designed them, to be a helper and part of their help is to provide advice. Now what is wrong is when the advice is not then later checked with the standards of the Word of God. That’s where the male falls; he doesn’t and ought not to fall at the point of not letting a woman give him advice; women can give it, but then that advice ought to be checked. That’s the point the Word of God is making.

Turn to Proverbs 8, another example of the role of the female toward the male. By the way, you’ll notice, I hope this dawns on you as you think through this, particularly some men who have a very demeaning view of women, I hope you see from these passages of Scripture the tremendous role that the woman has here. She is indispensable, she has a very high and lofty role, and it’s precisely the passages that talk about her limitations that, in fact, are elevating her. The woman is hedged in by 1 Timothy 2 and these other places, to help the male; that’s the point. Proverbs 8, now there’s a passage here that describes wisdom. Wisdom is visualized in the book of Proverbs as a woman. Now that’s interesting because in all other places the believer is pictured as the woman, the female, and Jesus Christ or God as pictured the male. Now isn’t it strange that this analogy is consistent from one cover of your Bible to the other, except in one place. When wisdom is dealt with the role is reversed; now the believer is considered to be the male and wisdom is considered to be the female.

Now let’s think a minute what we just learned from that. What is wisdom? Wisdom scripturally is skill, skill in living. In other words, it’s one of the necessities for subduing the earth. The woman is a picture of wisdom because wisdom is the tools the man has to subdue the earth, and so therefore the Holy Spirit, when He wrote the Scriptures, labels wisdom as the female and He’s showing us something; that the woman is indispensable in the man’s task; he’s at her side. Now one of the interesting things, in Proverbs 8:30, this is a difficult passage which tends to what is called the hypostasis of wisdom, that is where wisdom becomes so strongly divine in this sense it’s almost a fore view of the son of God. But let’s just stay with the normal Proverbs way of looking at chokmah here, in verse 30 it’s speaking of God making the world, and wisdom is by His side. Now this is pictured in the terms of a man and his wife, and it’s the closest you’ll ever find in Scripture, by the way, of God having a female god with Him. Critics have taken this to mean that but it isn’t, it’s just metaphor here.

But what we’re looking at in verses 30-31 is just the general image, we’re not worried about the theological interpretation. God is the craftsman creating the universe. And wisdom says, “Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delighting, rejoicing always before Him, [31] Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and my delight was with the sons of men.” She rejoices in her husbands craftsmanship. [tape turns] The ‘ezer is a counselor, and she rejoices, she’s the encouragement, that the works of his hands please her, and she lends her powerful encouragement to her husband. This is a tip-off as to one of the ways in which a woman can be positive and one of the ways a woman can drag down and destroy her man, by demeaning his job; by always ridiculing the works of his hands. This is one of the vast locations of a feminine influence.

Let’s look, since we’ve mentioned the ungodly side, let’s look at some specific examples of where ungodly influences were exerted. There are numerous examples, we’ll only show just a few. Turn to Job 2:9; in Job 2:9 Job is under pressure, vast spiritual pressure. So far Job has maintained his solidarity in the Word of God, against all the problems the man has had he has remained faithful. And now he’s almost overwhelmed by pressure and what helpful remark does his wife come up with, “Curse God, and die.” And then he answers, “You speak as one of the foolish women. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? And even in this Job did not sin with his lips.” In other words, that was real pressure. His wife gave up on him, and she began to act the role of Satan toward him; she began to encourage him to defect from the Word of God, and that vital influence that we saw in Abigail, that we saw in wisdom, now becomes the ungodly direction; it’s still her influence, her mighty influence over her man but now she wields it in a satanic direction and she begins to tear down Job, to discourage him, to get him to rebel against trusting the Word of God under pressure. No more encouragement, now Job has to literally fight for his spiritual life over against his wife.

Let’s look at other passages in Scripture; turn to Matthew 12 and watch how the Lord Jesus Christ Himself faced this problem of ungodly influences from women. Matthew 12:46, several times in the Gospels Christ faced the problem of women giving Him bad advice and exerting bad influences upon Him and upon His mission. There were other women, as you know, Mary, Martha and others, who exercised a very godly influence and aided Christ. But then notice the function, the women either tear down or they build up and Christ knew which was which. “While he talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood outside,” Mary is put down more times in the Gospels, I think, than any woman alive; any woman of the Bible, it’s amazing, it’s almost as though the Holy Spirit anticipated what would happen in church history if somebody would trot out Mariolatry, and we’d all be praying to Mary and bless Mary and hail Mary and all the rest of it, and so to cut this thing off at the pass the Holy Spirit deliberately puts her down.

Now I don’t know what kind of woman she was but we gather from the Magnificat that Mary was a pretty strong willed Jewish woman. She was taking her stand on the Word of God, of course she had to be pretty strong, a young Jewish virgin girl and she has to walk around pregnant, that was deliberately so by her own choice, and in that society that was asking a lot. And so she, apparently as a young girl, was pretty strong willed and she showed this as the mother; maybe Joseph died and she had to run the home, we don’t know, but she was a pretty strong willed woman and so she showed up one day outside and apparently wanted to speak with the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Lord Jesus at this point was involved in some very crucial teaching. It didn’t matter to Mary, she had the family outside and she wanted to talk to her son; it didn’t matter what her son was doing. Well, Jesus proceeds to draw the line. One of them said, “Behold, your mother and your brethren are standing outside [desiring to speak with thee,],” and [48] “He said, “Who is my mother? And who are my brethren? [49] And He stretched forth His hand,” my mother and my brethren are those who believe the Word of God, those are my mother. Now Jesus used the occasion to teach a spiritual principle but apart from that application just look at the incident itself. Jesus rejected the influence; He was not obsequious to every woman that would come up to him and offering Him a little tidbit advice, including His mother. Jesus Christ had dignity and He knew when he was operating on the Word of God and her advice was going to violate the Word of God, He just tuned her out.

Let’s look at another incident, John 2:3-4, the wedding feast; we see Mary getting kind of bossy there too, so in case your wife seems to be a little bossy, she fits with the general picture of what you ought to expect. “And they lacked wine,” and Mary, of course, concerned for all the social niceties, and she runs up to Jesus and says, “They have no wine,” with the obvious indirect approach; the implied but unstated request is do something about it, would you please, a favorite device of women. And [4] “Jesus said unto her,” because He spots the unstated implied request, “Woman, what have I to do with you? Mine hour is not yet come.” Now what is He doing here? Again, because he’s very sensitive to what is going to happen here, because of the spiritual reasons, He completely rebuffs her; he does it gently. It’s not rude, verse 4, the way it comes across in the King James sounds very rude, but that is not, it’s not rudeness in the original text, it’s just saying women, Mary, what have we got in common over this item, that’s what He’s asking her. It’s really quite a gentle rebuff but it is a rebuff. So again we find the Lord not permitting women to deflect him from His spiritual purpose.

Turn to one more situation in Luke 11:27, this is a picture of an emotional woman who falls all over herself when she admires Christ and then she lets her emotions carry on. So in Luke 11:27, “And it came to pass, as He spoke these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice,” and she comes out with this juicy statement, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the paps which thou hast sucked,” in other words, her device is on the family, oh what a great mother you must have had, she’s saying. Now he’s talking about things involving salvation, the God-man nature and all these spiritual truths, and what does this woman come up with? Oh, what a nice mother you must have had. Genius of a statement at this time. And so what does Jesus say? [28] :Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.” So again, polite, courteous but a firm rebuff. He does not accept that kind of non-scriptural advice.

So let’s summarize so far what we’ve said. In the matter of the temptation of Genesis 3, the temptation, yes, does show the woman fell first; yes the temptation shows she’s liable to spiritual deception, but what is important from the man’s side of the fence is that it also reveals her tremendous influence over him. Now this may shatter a few male egos but that’s just the way it is. Males have very delicate egos, I think we are… the women are the weaker sex physically but I think our egos are far more fragile than theirs, and so we have to protect it by all sorts of moot little ways that we develop over the years, and the women have to be admitted. Now usually what happens is that if a man’s been short-circuited by a Mrs. Job once in a while, what he begins to develop is this little shell around him. Well, he just tunes out, that’s a woman, don’t listen to here, some stupid thing with long hair, and that’s it. Well, this becomes an unspiritual defense mechanism. Just because some of them are idiots doesn’t mean they are all idiots, nor does it mean that a woman who can come out with some idiot piece of advice on one moment can’t come up with a good on one the next moment. So the proper procedure is listen to what they say but funnel it back to the Word and evaluate it; think of yourself again in Adam’s position. You’re responsible, you’re responsible to listen but you’re responsible also to evaluate. You can’t throw both out but keep one, they’ve got to both be there. That’s Genesis 3:1-6.

Now let’s go back to Genesis and pick up another theme. So far we’ve seen the temptation and woman’s influence over the man. By the way, before we get back there, one point, let’s turn to Ephesians 5:25 to see something, a little Scriptural advice there, and maybe this will help amplify it. Ephesians 5:25 is instructions to men concerning their wives. And in all the books I’ve read, most of it garbage, about the role of the woman and this and that and so on, written by some mousy men or something, I don’t know what’s the deal, but they never fully interpret this verse. They always have the man becomes kind of a servant to his wife. Now this is true, men go the opposite way, but a lot of this trashy Christian stuff the pendulum has swung all the way over. What it says here in verse 25 is, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church.” Now we’ve just seen example after example of how Christ did show His love toward people and women in particular. He loved them but He loved them directively; it was always with respect to the standards of the Word. And He never permitted them to make Him veer away from the principles of the Word. Yes, He did care for them, He was able to care for them but He would not allow them, like Adam did, to deflect Him.

Now there’s some little practical application to this. Let’s think of ways in which Ephesians 5:25, in the way of a man, can actually come out in practice. One thing, the husband ought to be the one in the home that knows the advanced doctrine. You can’t love directively and evaluate the advice that you’re permitting to come out of the mouth of your wife if you don’t have any framework to handle the advice that’s coming out of her mouth. And you don’t have any framework to handle it if you don’t have Bible doctrine. So therefore doctrine is a necessity, an absolute necessity, particularly on the part of the man. If there’s one person going to fall down doctrinally, let the woman fall down, but let not the man fall. That’s important. Even if the man has a hard time trying to learn doctrine, all right; at least read the Scriptures; there are lots of good modern translations that you can read the Scriptures. Maybe the problem bugs you, maybe you don’t have an academic background; that’s all right, the Holy Spirit can teach you directly from the text. Read the Scriptures.

Another thing, another area where this would happen about directively. The woman, because she can deflect herself and you from the path of Scripture, can often present you with a stacked deck with regard to some problem in the home. And she may have some problem, child-rearing problem or something else, and oftentimes she’ll come to you but she’ll load the question, like we often said in apologetics, how many times did you beat your wife last week? Well, no matter how you answer the question you kind of condemn yourself. Well so it is that a woman, when she sees a problem in the home, the little brat’s been breaking or something around the house, and she comes and she proposes to you a solution, you ought to think, wait a minute, is her analysis of the problem right, before you start deciding whether her option A or her option B is a right solution, just run back through the analysis a moment and just check her out. Does she have the Scriptural viewpoint on child rearing at this point; is there some principle being violated. Don’t be too hasty, give her a hearing, yes, but then evaluate it.

All right, now let’s come back to Genesis 3:14 and look at the other thing. In Genesis 3:14 we have the curse; we have the price that we pay because we’re fallen. And this curse is neatly divided into the two roles of the man and the woman. If there’s one passage of Scripture that ought to speak directly to your heart, it ought to be the curse. I don’t think there could be one person sitting here tonight who can’t say I honestly know exactly what this text is talking about. Let’s read it. God curses the serpent, in verse 15 He says, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. [16] Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children,” and the word there means begat but it also means raise them, “and thy desire shall be to thy husband, but he shall rule over thee.” It’s a “but” there in the sense that the woman wants the husband and yet she doesn’t want to accept his rule, so there’s always that ambiguity problem. [17] And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, … Thou shalt not eat of the ground; cursed is the ground [for thy sake]; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; [18] Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; [19] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.”

Now do you notice something very interesting about the way the curse is applied to the woman and the man? Totally different areas; that tells you something about the design of the family. Notice the curse is directed to the woman in verse 16, particularly in her child rearing activity. But to the man, in verse 17-18 what is it directed to but his job? Now it’s very interesting how this works out. This means that a woman in the situation will have her major vexation in life with her role as a child-rearer in the home. That will cause her more problems, it begins with pregnancy, the first three or four weeks, on through to the delivery, on through to the raising of them, listening to their sweet charming voices for 24 hours every day, getting up with them at 2:00 a.m. in the morning to clean their dirty fannies. There is the vexation of the woman.

Now there’s something else here because in verse 15 a note of warning is sounded; true, it’s addressed to Satan but it’s also a warning to the woman; to the man also for that matter but particularly to the woman. We often read verse 15 as though it only refers to Christ. Not so! In general, Satan hates any home that is a threat to him and in particular he hates the possibility of a godly seed being raised. And so one of the warnings to the woman as well as to the man is that Satan will hate your children, and the more you pose a potential threat to Satan’s kingdom of darkness, by teaching your children the Word of God, by leading them to Christ, by being godly parents to them, the more Satan will hate your children and the more, therefore, as Christian parents you must prayerfully protect your children. Pray for protection upon them, physically, spiritually, in all areas, because Satan wants to destroy them. Any time the human race is promulgating a godly seed that area is an area of satanic defeat and he hates it.

Now there’s a blessing in this. You say how can a curse be a blessing? Well it is, God’s gracious. The woman, if she did not have the job of child rearing would get into trouble. That is mentioned in several of the epistles of the New Testament. That’s why Paul says to the women who are widows, I counsel you to get married and raise a family, stay out of trouble. The sin nature on the female side can become very cruel and can become very deceptive, and therefore the very curse of verse 16 of the women, now this doesn’t mean keep them bare feet and pregnant, this is talking about the fact that the woman, while she is struggling with the results of the fall in the home, is staying out of trouble. The same applies to the man in his area.

Now let’s drop down and look at the man’s cursing. The cursing is not upon his work, but upon the results of his work; that is, the dominion isn’t stopped, the dominion is simply resisted, so the man finds that in order to exercise dominion he has to put out X amount of energy, much more energy than he did before the fall to produce Y amount of work. This is why, gentlemen, everything works out the way it does (or doesn’t), and if some people have humorously put it into several laws, which for our own sense I’m sure that every person can identify with, this will be one of our Air Force types gave me this; this is Murphy’s Law, it’s stated in four parts: Nothing is as easy as it looks; everything takes longer than you expect. If anything can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible moment. That is the result of the fall. There are some added illustrious laws that men have made contemplating the result of the fall. For example, here’s one that someone came up with. “Flagel’s law of the perversity of inanimate objects: any inanimate object, regardless of its composition or configuration, may be expected to perform at any time in a totally unexpected manner for reasons that are entirely obscure or else completely mysterious.

Here’s one I’m sure every craftsman must have encountered: The spare parts principle: the accessibility during recovery of small parts which fall from the work bench varies directly with the size of the part and inversely with the importance of the completion of the work. And then for you men who work in an office: The ordering principles: Those supplies necessary for yesterday’s job shall be ordered no later than tomorrow noon. Some of these are good and then some are just…. A dropped tool will land where it can always do the most damage, this is also known as the law of selective gravitation. And then the Harvard law of behavior: Under carefully controlled conditions, organisms behave as they darned well please. Humorous though they are, they manifest the results of the fall, the frustration expressed in Genesis 3:17, 18 and 19 agriculturally but, of course, expressed here in a more modern context.

Now let’s see how this works out; Job 1:10, the principle here is to note that Satan hates a productive male and there’s a reason. By the way, that curse upon the male of the vexation in his work is also a blessing. Gary North has expressed it in a statement: Man was made to sweat so he would not bleed, his point being that men with leisure time can rape, pillage and murder in their spare time, so it’s good that it takes the man that long to work and to produce.

Job 1:10, “Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house,” Satan asks God, because he notices that Job is a productive man, and you’ll notice Satan’s animosity, his vindictiveness to a godly man who is producing. “Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he has on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. [11] But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse thee to Thy face.” Now there’s a lot of other things involved but at least one thing is involved in verse 10, Satan hates the production of Job’s hands.

And then we have Ephesians 5:25 so let’s turn back to that principle and then we’ll be ready to conclude. In Ephesians 5:25 it says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church,” we’ve already seen one principle in that reference and that’s the principle of directive love; Christ never allowed Himself to be dissuaded from the Scriptural norms and standards. But now we can supplement that principle with another one, and that principle is that Jesus Christ supports the Church. The man, basically, is to be the barrier between his family and the outside world. That means when bill collectors come they don’t have to call your wife and annoy her if you’re the one that’s to pay the bills. You can inform them, politely or impolitely inform somebody that if he has any business to do with his family it will be with you and not with your wife; you have not authorized your wife as your private business agent, and so if someone wants to get in touch with you for business reasons, they will get in touch with you, not your wife.

Now every once in a while pastors have to do that because sometimes people can’t get me on the phone and they wander around after the wife. But that’s neither here nor here, that does happen sometimes in churches. I know some men that I graduated with, they came to some interviews and they were asked, now does your wife play the piano, and does your wife do secretarial work, and one of my friends said well, whether she does or not is none of your business because you’re hiring me as pastor of this church, not my wife, she’s not the assistant pastor, she’s my wife first and she’s going to remain my wife. Now if that holds true in Christian work it holds true in secular work; same principle. The man has to be the barrier; if there’s neighborhood people complaining about the way you keep your house for the Lord or what the little kid did down the street, you get out there and you act as a barrier. It’s not her job to go be the neighborhood policeman. You are the one that is suited to that duty.

So a second principle in Ephesians 5:25 is that Christ loved the Church supportively, He supports and protects the Church, and so the man is to support and protect. Now usually exhortations in these Christian books I’m talking about stop right here. They don’t’ go any further. They leave the poor guy hanging there, well that’s great, that sounds very nice and pious, now would you please tell me how I, as a fallen depraved male am supposed to do all this stuff. It’s great, you spell out all this stuff, but now what about it, where are the tools. All right men, here are some passages of Scripture that show you that you are not in adverse company when those thoughts enter your mind. Let’s look at some great men of Scripture and let’s see how they handled the problem, and let’s see, by the way, that they didn’t just float on through with their male obligations without problems. The role of the man, and we have to be honest with the Scriptures; the role of the man is one of constant tiring leadership. If you want it in totally unromantic terms that’s exactly what it is, constant tiring leadership. It involves anxiety at times, it involves guilt at times, it involves discouragement at times, and if you have to share that, join the club.

Numbers 11:10, Moses has had it; he’s been assigned leadership position and all he gets is static, static, static, Murphy’s law and the selective gravitation and everything else has been happening to Moses out in the wilderness wandering. And so “Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent,” now isn’t that a great thing, real morale in the group, all behind the leader, “and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly. Moses also was displeased.” Well, what does Moses do in this situation? Swing a monkey wrench at the whole thing and say I quit? No, he talks to the Lord about it. Men, we’ve just got to do that; you’ve got to develop a habit because nobody else… you can’t cry on your wife’s shoulder when it reaches this proportion; you’ve got to go to the Lord, He’s the only one you can go to. [11] “And Moses said unto the LORD, Wherefore hast Thou afflicted thy servant?” Look at the language he says to God, now what’s the matter with You God, what are You trying to do, bust my back? “Wherefore have I not found favor in Thy sight, that You lay the burden of all this people upon me?” Now that’s a good candid response on the part of a frustrated male in charge of leading a group of idiots. [12] “Have I conceived all this people?” I haven’t begotten all these people, what are You laying them on me for? “Have I begotten them, that You should say unto me, Come, carry them in your bosom, as a nursing father bears the nursing child, unto the land which You did swear to give unto their fathers?” In other words, am I supposed to take them on a thousand mile trek across here and hold the bottles for them and change their diapers for them and the whole bit.

[13] “From where should I have flesh to give unto all this people? For they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat. [14] I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me. [15] And if You deal thus with me, then kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, for if I have found favor in Thy sight, let me not see my wretchedness.” Now that is the cry of a man in a leadership position, an excellent verse because it’s real. And I don’t know of one man who hasn’t gone through the same thing and that’s what’s never brought out in these sweet little Christian devotionals, that have all these inspiring thoughts for the Christian man. This is the real thing, right here. And Moses sets it before the Lord and he has to battle it out with Lord.

And you notice how in verse 16 God answers him, it’s very interesting how He answers him. In verse 16 God gives Moses greater wisdom. One of the things that was getting to Moses was the fact that he had failed to exercise wisdom in how he structure his chain of command. So in verse 16 and following, which we won’t go into but just to mention it; in verses 16-17 God is simply saying Moses, here’s the solution, there’s a wisdom principle here that will allow you to subdue this thing and take the weight off your shoulders.

All right, not only Moses had problems; let’s turn to Psalm 142, David. These are the verses that somehow never get quoted in the sweet little Christian books. Psalm 142, David had the same problem. Notice the heading in the Psalm, “A Maschil of David; A prayer, when he was in the cave.” This is when he was trying to pull his forces together, organize a gorilla band that one day later would become his office corps for one of the greatest armies that Israel ever had. And he had a group of the most unpromising cadets to work with, people who couldn’t pay their bills, people who were out of a job, people who had bumped somebody off and the police were after them, just a fine group of promising guys to build an army out of, that’s what he had in the cave and he was trapped in the cave and had to listen to them all the time. So you can wonder why in Psalm 142 he does what he does here. “I cried unto the LORD,” who else, he’s not going to talk to the cave, he can’t talk to these idiots because they don’t know anything. There’s no Abigail around, so “I cried unto the LORD; with my voice unto the LORD did Make my supplication. [2] I poured out my complaint before Him;” there’s the man again, he’s complaining because his role is hard and he has a legitimate complaint, “and I showed before Him my trouble,” I spilled out in my prayers, I said Lord this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, the wrench dropped on my foot, it didn’t drop on the cement, this is wrong, and so on, so on, so on, he listed it, that’s what the word “show” means.

[3] “When my spirit was overwhelmed,” the [can’t understand word] again, “When my spirit was overwhelmed [within me], then You knew my path. In the way wherein I walked they have secretly laid a snare for me. [4] I looked on my right hand,” there’s no body there “that would know me. Refuge failed me; [no man cared for my soul.]” [5] “I cry unto Thee, O Lord, I say You are my refuge and my portion, the land of the living.” So in verse 5 you see how David handled the problem; he’s got nothing else to do but he’s frustrated, totally, completely, with the whole mess. And at that point he has nobody to go to except the Lord. He’s just got to strip everything away and get back to basics again, start all over again, spiritually, so to speak, with the Lord and work out from there.

That’s the way Moses did it, that’s the way David did it, and now one further illustration. Solomon, 1 Kings 3:6-9. Solomon ascends to the position of king, and his calling now is to rule the country and that’s a job. I’ll never forget the words that Barry Goldwater said after the election, I think it was before the election of 64, in 63 before Kennedy was shot Goldwater was speaking somewhere and he said you know, he walked into the oval room after Kennedy had been in office about thirty days and he was just talking to him as a Senator to the President, and Kennedy was feeling very depressed that day and he said boy, what a hell of a job this turned into. Now there’s a real candid man, because that’s what it is, it’s a hell of a job being the President of the United States. Look at some of the men who were President; look at their photographs before they were President and look four years later at the lines in their faces, from the decisions. It ages them.

All right, Solomon is in that situation. 1 Kings 3:6. “And Solomon said, You have showed unto thy servant David, my father, great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou has given him a sons to sit on his throne, as it is this day. [7] And now, O LORD my God, Thou hast made thy servant king instead of David, my father; but I am a child, I don’t know how to come in or go out. [8] Thy servant is in the midst of Thy people, which Thou hast chosen, a great people, who cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. [9] Give, therefore, Thy servant an understanding heart….” Same principle as Moses, Lord, I’m unable to the task; I can’t do it. This job is going to bust me unless you do something about it.

So gentlemen, when you feel the pressure that is a confirmation of the fall on your life. Now these men were able to handle it; 1 Corinthians 10:13 applies, “There has no testing taken you but such as is common to man…” common to man, common to David, to Solomon, to Moses, to everyone else, “and I will make,” says God, “a way that you may be able to bear it,” and it doesn’t involve chickening out and running. It involves solving some of the problems one by one and working on it this way. Some added practical aid: you can’t use the techniques of Moses, David and Solomon unless you know some doctrine. I mentioned that several times before, but you have got to study the Scriptures.

I look out, as a pastor, so often, particularly in the 11:00 o’clock service, and I see this happen week after week, month after month, year after year, where couples walk in there and who’s reading the Bible but the woman, and who’s zonked out but the man. We’re going to have an insomnia corner in the new building, and everybody that has to sleep can go back there and then their snoring won’t bother everyone else in the pew. Someone also suggested I ought to have some buttons that I could press and shock them. But the point remains that time and time again you’ll see this. And I look out and I wonder, well, I just don’t have to wonder, I know who’s running that family spiritually. I know what would happen if that woman got off track spiritually and she came to advise her husband on something, that man, because he doesn’t know anything spiritually has only got two options; either he just tunes her out all the time and thereby breaks the communication with his wife, or he gets dissuaded, like Adam did, by his wife, and in either case you’ve got trouble because he doesn’t know how to handle the situation, he couldn’t’, he hasn’t spent enough time in the Word to come in out of the rain, leave alone run a family.

So that’s one thing that every man has got to do. I don’t care if you’ve got a job that’s twelve hours on and twelve hours off, take a tape recorder and when you stop at a stop light that takes two minutes to change you can listen to a good healthy portion of tape, or if you’re driving you can get tapes, or read some place along the line, but if you don’t make room you’re never going to make it. And then there are other things that you can do, if you have some needs, we have an economic tactical prayer group that has been going on for months and months in this place; that group was founded by men who are involved in business who wanted to pray about their business; there’s nothing wrong with it. And so there are areas of tactical prayer groups in the church. There’s the prayer notebook that some of you ordered that you can use. These are ways of getting started. So there are numerous tools available but the basic one is going back and getting this vision of the fall and the complications that have come about by it.

Shall we bow for prayer….