In areas that we know we are weak because of our gender, because of our maleness or femaleness, we should be more aware and more sensitive to those issues and be patient and minister to one another knowing that’s their blind spot so what can I do to help them see in this particular issue.  And don’t make it about the issue, make it about our roles that we’re under, now, through the judgement of God.  Man, it’s not about the fact that you have to go out there and have a long day’s work keeping the farm, or shoveling, or whatever it is.  This “man living by the sweat of his brow” goes beyond that physical aspect.  God has put him under the very thing that he abdicated from and made him head, and said, “You have to make some decisions, you have to rule, you will be the head.”  That’s the curse:  having to be in that role without his purity and perfection that he had in Creation.  Can you imagine failing in innocence, the fear of now having to rule in weakness?  And that’s why a lot of men don’t want to make decisions.  They don’t want to be wrong.  I don’t want to pay the consequences of being wrong, it being said, “See, I told you.  I knew you’d never amount to anything.”

I think it’s interesting in watching society today change.  Have you noticed, in the secular realm, how aggressive women are getting?  Men are afraid of women in today’s society.  Now, some might think that it’s because of all of the new rules that if you raise your voice to a woman then this is abusing, intimidating, these things.  So, all of these rules have been set up so that all women in society today have to do is make one accusation and all of the laws of “innocent until proven guilty” are thrown out.  But I think it’s way beyond that, it’s a spiritual thing, and that’s why in the church today with men understanding what their roles are and standing up for what God’s Word has revealed to us, godly men in this generation are going to begin to experience opposition and persecution at a new level.  We told you recently about that one person who was driving by and called the police based upon the fact that there were a couple of unattended children out in their front yard doing some yard work; that’s where the mindset is today.  We are under the influence of this, so I want to encourage you, ladies, and I know most of you are doing a really good job at this but don’t allow the secular mindset to enter in on how children are disciplined and instructed in a godly home; amen?

Now, some of you still have the bubble wrap mentality.  There was something that happened just the other day and we were standing there and somebody said, “How can this be?”  I said, “Fear.  Our whole society lives constantly in fear, afraid of everything.”  Fear is a very powerful force, and it can come against the Word of God and it can cause us in our minds, sometimes, to make decisions that we wouldn’t make in our prayer closets, that we wouldn’t make during church, but we make decisions based on circumstances.  That’s why, men, we assume our role of God’s representatives:  the head of man is Christ and we’re representing Him.  “I’m not making this decision because that’s my opinion.  I am an under-shepherd of the Lord Jesus Christ and these are His orders, and as for me and my house, we’re going to fulfill them, praise God!”  Ladies, are you thankful for husbands like that?  So, in this society it’s going to be a very important thing, ladies, that you seek your husband’s perspective, his insight, his masculine perception of what the Word of God is saying.  And when you can add the feminine to it, then we’re going to come up with a good solution, it’s going to be biblical, praise God!

Father, we ask that You would strengthen us, that You would give us grace and faith to fulfill the calling on our lives.  We thank You, Father, that these roles that You’ve placed upon us, that some see just as judgements.  They are not exclusively punitive, they’re to give us instruction, and experience, and obedience, and choosing against the natural and carnal mind, a delighting in Your ultimate eternal purpose for us.  The law that points us to Christ and ordinances that set us above the rest of the nations that they would hear and fear for we truly have a great God in our midst.  We declare it by our words and we declare it by our fruit, that we would be looked upon by the world and they’d declare, “Behold, how they love one another.”  Make that a reality, Father, we ask in Jesus’ name; amen.