Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #12 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are going to read Genesis 3:10-13:

And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And JEHOVAH God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

Here, the Lord is causing the Apostle Paul to make the comparison between Satan coming as the serpent in the Garden of Eden and his beguiling of Eve to Satan coming against the corporate church, the professed bride of Christ. There is the true bride that is made up only of the elect, but all those that say they are Christians are claiming to be the bride or the “woman” or the wife of Christ. Remember, Adam was the figure of Him that was to come and his wife Eve would be the wife of the one to come. So Satan was following the same tactic he developed in the Garden of Eden when he later came against the churches. He comes in the same manner by beguiling the woman through his emissaries preaching “another Jesus” or “another gospel.” He is not coming directly against Christ, even though Christ is his target, but He comes against the bride of Christ. That really sums up the entire church age, which has been Satan coming against the professed bride of Christ, hoping to somehow prevent the elect from hearing the truth and becoming saved.

There is also another passage in the New Testament that acts as a commentary on what we reading about in the Book of Genesis, chapter 3. It is in 1Timothy, chapter 2 and God is laying down a Law for women that they are not to teach or usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence in the churches. God is going to give the reason why the woman is not to teach men, as He refers back to Eve in the Garden of Eden. It says in 1Timothy 2:9-15:

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

God is laying down a Law for women to follow. We want to make that clear. We are going to look at spiritual meanings here as we look deeper into the Law that God has given, but we have to understand that when God gives a Law like this He demands obedience to that Law. Women are to be silent insofar as teaching men. They are not to teach men and they are not to have authority over men when it comes to the Word of God, the Bible.

In our modern day this would be a joke. The whole idea is an offense to the modern woman when there is something she is not to do and, yet, men are allowed to do. That is very offensive in our modern day. The people of the world think this is archaic and it is something that is not for us today. That is our modern culture, but it is not the teaching of the Bible and the problem is that in the corporate Christian has been looking lustfully at the things of the world for some time, just as Judah of old looked to the Babylonians and Israel of old looked to the Assyrians. The apostate church at the time of the end has been looking over the fence at the world and longing to be like the world. This shows itself in many different ways, like the music of the churches. The world has developed exciting music and the churches have paid attention and over the last few decades their music has gone the way of the world. You cannot distinguish between the two unless you lower the “noise” and you may hear a lyric that mentions Christ, but it is not the music of the kingdom of God. It is the music of the world and it gives no glory to God in any way. The churches are pleased, however, because it thinks it can have both the world and Christ and they can merge the music it lusts after with some words that they think praises God. They are trying to please God while pleasing their flesh and sensual desires and, yet, God is not pleased with this. In many different ways, the corporate church has its eyes on the world and whatever the world does the churches soon follow.

The world’s scientists have developed the idea of evolution and they mock the idea of creation and the teaching of the Bible regarding how the world actually came into being. It is amazing that they mock the Bible in this regard because their theory of evolution is absolutely ridiculous, but the corporate churches pay attention to the world’s judgment of them. They do not like being thought of as “fools” and they do not like the idea that they are “unlearned” and “unscientific” by denying evolution. So they adopt the teachings of the worldly scientists by speaking of “theistic evolution” where the days of creation were actually long periods of time. It does not matter that they do damage to the Word of God because the Bible will not permit that idea, but the important thing for them is to adopt a doctrine that is acceptable to the world: “You have evolution. We have theistic evolution. We have our God, but we also have your teaching of evolution. We can fit right in with you.” This is how the churches accelerated their destruction, as their apostasy is more and more what the world seeks after and the direction the world is going.

Starting in the twentieth century the world has sought after Women’s Liberation. The women entered into the work force and began having careers. We all know the story. At the same time, the corporate church began to have women deacons and elders and women pastors and bishops. They began to have women teaching their Sunday schools and women giving the sermons. You wonder about this when you see Scriptures like the one I read earlier: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”

It also says in 1Corinthians 14:34-35:

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

It is astounding to think that you can have pastors and elders and deacons (church authorities)…you know, this began in the seminaries with the theologians and commentaries and professors that have their eye on the world and they began to assault the Word of God and attempt to find a loophole or some way they could make these things say what they desperately want them to say – they wanted allowance for women to teach in the churches. That is the deep down desire of the corporate church so that they can be in step with the rest of the world. Since they have their eye on the world, the last thing they want the world to think is that they are not “with it” and they are not up to date and they are in the background somewhere because they will not accept these things, so they want to be right there with the world.

If you approach the Bible with a desire to get the Bible to say something you want it to say and you do enough twisting and turning, then you can write your book and your studies and sermons and present that particular slanted view. That is what they do. They have even put down the Apostle Paul as a “chauvinist” and they speak of the 1st century AD and how we have to understand the history and the common role of history at that time, as if it only applied to them but not to us today. It is just a flat-out perversion of the Word of God for these churches to attempt to get the Bible to say what they want it to say in order to find acceptance with the world that they lust after.

Just a comment on that. What a sad thing it is for the churches to lust after the world and to want to be like the world and gain the world’s acceptance because it will never get it. The world does not care. They have no respect and they mock the churches that are so desirous of them. An apostate church going after the things of the world is the last thing on the collective mind of the world. It is not something the world concerns itself with and it is only the true people of God that teach the true Word of God that Satan and his kingdom are concerned with and anyone that capitulates and bows to the image of the beast is of no concern because Satan already has them in his control and he does not have to worry about them anymore.

This has been the pattern that has developed over the last few decades with doctrine after doctrine. Today it is the issue of gay marriage. We have a few churches that were more liberal and they have long been accepting of gay bishops and pastors and they were eager and ready to start marrying men to men and women to women, but it will spread because this is the way of the world. The churches have their eye on the world and deep down they want to be like the world, so it will spread and more denominations and congregations will be accepting of homosexual marriage and they will say, “Jesus would not want two people that love each other not to be able to come together in marriage. After all, marriage is really about love.” They will completely disregard what the Bible says when it says that marriage is to be between a man and a woman. They will disregard what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. It is a sin, just like adultery is a sin and fornication is a sin. Homosexuality is a sin and the Bible says it is an abomination to God.

We just have to shake our heads when we see this. It is an indicator and a sign post of the blindness of the corporate church and the spiritual darkness that envelopes them. They have sought after these worldly things and this issue of women in authority in the churches is not even a big deal – it is not even an issue in a large number of churches. People go to churches and they sit in the pews and the woman pastor rises and goes to the pulpit and begins to preach her homily. She teaches her congregation and in doing so, she has broken the silence and she has usurped authority over men because there are men in the congregation. Those men may not have any problem with it. They personally do not care, but that is not the point. It is the Law of God and God’s Law is not subject to circumstances.

In order to justify women teaching, it used to be said, “Well, there is a woman missionary and she knows the Gospel and all kinds of men are asking her about the Gospel, so what is she to do?” She is to be silent. That is what God would have her to do. Perhaps God arranged for that kind of a testing ground for that woman where there was a strong temptation to teach because there were no other men around, but it would be in violation of the Law God has established that the woman is not to teach or usurp authority over the man. Therefore, the woman should pray, “O, Lord, look at this wonderful opportunity. All these men want to know more about the Bible. What can I do? Maybe I can share some Bibles with them or some written information with them, but we need someone to teach them. Please send a man that is qualified to teach.” That would be the obedient reaction of a child of God, but not to say, “Well, there are no qualified men here, so let us build a church and I will do the teaching until a man is available.” That is not the way of the Lord and that is not the way of the Bible. God will often test in areas like this and He will even allow the circumstances that, seemingly, cry out for a woman to teach, but the test is whether you will obey the Word of God or whether you will give in to the circumstances and start to teach.

This is the first thing we want to look at and, Lord willing, we are going to look more closely at this passage in 1Timothy, chapter 2 because God ties it in with the woman being deceived in Genesis, chapter 3 when Eve said the serpent beguiled her. God says the reason that the woman is to be in silence is due to Eve being deceived and being in the transgression, so we are going to look at this again in our next study in order to get a better understanding of this connection between “silence” for the woman and the sin in the Garden of Eden. This is a good thing for us to do, as we first lay out the Law of God concerning a woman’s role – she is not to teach or usurp authority.

Once we have that clear, we can proceed to look at the deeper spiritual meaning. Just because there is a deeper spiritual meaning does not do away with the outward or literal observance of the Law, just as in marriage a woman is to submit to the husband as the head of the marriage and, yet, there is a spiritual meaning to that because the woman represents the bride of Christ and the man represents Christ as the head of His church. However, there is a literal working out of that Law for the woman. She is literally to submit to her husband and give him the last word; he is in charge of the household. That is how God’s Laws work. He commanded sacrifices to be performed. They spiritually pointed to Christ, but just because that was the deeper spiritual meaning a Jew could not respond by saying, “Well, I understand God wants us to kill the Passover lamb because it points to the Messiah, but we will just forego the actual killing of the lamb and just understand it spiritually.” That would have been horrible. They had to kill the lamb according to the Law of God.