FBC Daily Devotional – August 25, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Wednesday to you. Here we are in the middle of the week, and I hope your week is going well.

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Well, this morning we have read in Luke chapters 23 and 24, and one of the things that strikes me in that passage is the the attitude that the

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Bible has toward women. So the attitude that Christianity has,

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Biblical Christianity, has toward women in contrast to some of the other religions in the world.

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And I think, for example, right now of the horrific situation that women and girls find themselves in in Afghanistan.

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I read a heart -wrenching letter from a woman who had been a teacher for a number of years in Kabul.

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She was at the American University. She graduated from there, got a couple of degrees, and she,

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I think, was working on her PhD and was about finished with that degree. When the

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Taliban just basically took over the country upon the departure of the

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United States and their forces, and she writes about having to flee from the university and find her way home, and in fear for her life and her welfare.

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And as she went, men along the way, as she's running home, men along the way are yelling at her, you know, she has to get her burqa back on, she has to get her burqa back on, and other very derogatory remarks toward her.

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And she wrote about the fact that she was now basically going to have to burn 24 years of her life.

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All that she'd done in the last 24 years of life were was all going to be gone. Because from here on out, a woman in Afghanistan would not be allowed to have a job, she would not be allowed to ride in a vehicle in public, she would not be allowed to show her face in public, and on and on and on.

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Because of the because of the dictates of Islamic extremism. And one of the guys, one of the men, as she ran home said something about having her and three other women as wives by morning, you know, that kind of an attitude.

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Horrible, horrible, atrocious attitude toward women. What a marked contrast with what we read in today's passage.

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Women played a central role at the cross. Here is Jesus, the

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Savior, dying on the cross for the sins of mankind, for men and women.

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And we read in chapter 23 verse 49, all of his acquaintances and the women who followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

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Now, in Islam, there wouldn't be a favorable attitude toward the women who were there watching.

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They would have been derided and spoken of in a derogatory manner. But there's more, there's more.

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When you get to the end of the chapter, chapter 23, it's the women who pay very close attention to where Jesus is buried because,

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I mean, this is at the Sabbath is about to begin, so they have to they have to get home, get back to because of the

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Sabbath laws. They have to get home, so they can't do much of anything now, but they observe, the women observe where Jesus is buried so that they might get some spices and come in a couple of days after Sabbath and anoint his body.

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And it's that's exactly what they do. It's the women who come back to the to the burial plot that they might anoint

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Jesus' body for burial. And it is the women, the women who are first blessed with the reality of the resurrection.

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Oh, it's no wonder that Peter tells us in one of his epistles,

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I think it's in 1st Peter, he tells us his husbands to honor our wives as the weaker vessel.

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That word weaker is not talking about physical inability or emotional inability.

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Weaker is is speaking of more delicate, that which is more valuable, and to treat them with honor because of their value.

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This is, this is a wonderful, a wonderful truth of biblical

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Christianity that women are not degraded. Oh, I know there are some who are supposed

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Christians who don't have that attitude, who think of their wives as chattel, as a piece of property.

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I even, I even knew of a guy, heard of, heard this guy who was a teacher,

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Sunday school teacher in a church and he, his wife is sitting right there in the class and he tells the class that he deliberately chose a woman that wasn't pretty.

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Are you serious? This is what he said. I, I said I chose a woman who wasn't pretty so other men wouldn't want her.

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Unbelievable. And, and that's a guy who should have immediately been removed from that position and disciplined by the church for his attitude toward his wife and toward women.

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Why? Because that's not the Bible's attitude. It's not the Bible's attitude. Oh, this is an atrocious situation in Afghanistan and it's a shameful thing that women are going to be subjected to in that horrific, damnable heresy of Islamic treatment of women.

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So, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for the truth of God's Word that helps me and us men have a right attitude toward the the better half of our humanity.

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Father, help us, help us to have your attitude and to appreciate and to honor and to care for the women that you've placed in our sphere of influence and responsibility.

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Help us to be faithful in demonstrating your attitude, we pray in Jesus' name.

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Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your Wednesday and I trust the