Equipping Eve Episode 3: Woe is me

Is the Church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus? Well, it's true, there's no shortage of candy-coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies, but beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed Eve in the Garden?

In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women, No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies-only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Gabendroth, and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

The Call for Biblical Resources for Women

Hello ladies, welcome to Equipping Eve, the show that seeks to equip us women with fruits of truth from God's Word so that we can stand strong and firm upon that Word in an age of deception and be able to answer that question that permeates the world today, did God really say?

I'm your host, Erin Benzinger, and welcome and thank you for listening to this still very new show, a new endeavor that we're really excited about. So what can we talk about today? Ladies, let's just jump right into it.

We love to open God's Word here at Equipping Eve. That's what we're about. We can't be equipped unless we know the truth. We say we want to answer, did God really say, be able to answer that confidently?

We know what God said. It's in His Word. It's in the 66 books of the Bible, recorded by men, but inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is a divine book that we hold in our hands or that we scroll through on our iPhones or iPads.

This is the Word of God. This is how He reveals Himself to us. This is how we can know our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're so blessed that it is so readily available to us here, especially in Western society.

And so let us not take that for granted. So we're going to open our Bibles today to Psalm 13. And I'm here. I've got my Bible open. I've got my computer on. I've got my iPad and I've got my cup of tea.

So we're very girly here today with the tea and the Bible going and it's snowing outside. It's the first real snow of the season here where I am and it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. And so if we need a reason to praise God, if I need a reason to praise God right now, I can just look outside and it is just absolutely gorgeous out there.

Of course, I still have to go shovel the driveway, so I might be grumbling shortly when I'm out in the cold doing that. But for now, it looks great from the window. So Psalm 13, it's a short psalm. It's six verses.

So let's just go ahead and read it. And just so you know, ladies, I read from the New American Standard, the NASB. That's my Bible, my go-to translation of choice. I also like the ESV, but I prefer the NASB and that is what my church uses.

And so it's just easier for me to just kind of stay in that for all of my studies. So if you have a different translation, different version, and you're reading along and it doesn't quite match, that's why.

So now you know for future reference. So Psalm 13, it's the Psalm of David, it says for the choir director, Psalm of David, How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God, and lighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death.

And my enemy will say I have overcome him, and my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted in your lovingkindness. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Now as I said, it's clearly a short psalm, but what a range of, not necessarily emotion, but just a range of response that we see coming from David in these short verses. He opens this psalm in despair, really, and yet just six verses later we see him praising God.

So I just thought that was really an amazing response and just a great thing to see coming from David, this great man of God, from days of old. And so I thought we'd just kind of reflect on that today.

I mean, very few of us, if any of us, have gone through all of the things that David went through, but we face discouragement. Ladies, it's not unique to us as women, that's for sure, but we are more emotional usually than our male counterparts.

And so we take things to heart. We become discouraged a little more easily. And usually when one thing starts going wrong, it seems anyway that other things start going wrong. And it's very easy, I don't think I'm speaking only for myself, maybe I am.

If I am, then it's a moment of confession. It's very easy to kind of spiral down and dwell on your discouragement. And you end up looking at yourself and you just end up being very selfish and narcissistic.

And it's certainly not a godly response to trials and temptations. We face trials every day. We are busy. And so it's inevitable that one area of our life is probably being tested at some point, even if everything else is going smoothly in the other areas.

You know, we're women, we, you might have a family, a job, you have your service, your ministry at your church, whatever that is, maybe helping in the nursery or whatever it is you do there. So you're serving there.

You're very busy. Children, family, friends, there's just always something going on. And so this, of course, it's inevitable that we will be facing times of trial. So what do we do in a time of trial, in a time of testing, the time that we may be discouraged or despairing?

You know, first of all, James addresses the topic of trials quite extensively. And something that he tells us is he reminds us or commands us, actually, if anybody of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But he must ask in faith without any doubting. And so that's really what we see David doing here. He goes to God and he is despairing, but he goes to God and asks in a way for wisdom. We don't see those words here, but ultimately God grants David wisdom.

By the end of the Psalm, I think we will see that very shortly. So in these first couple of verses, we see David's despair. He is almost seeming to feel as though God is silent. You know, maybe not that God is absent, but that God is silent.

And we've all felt that way, haven't we, ladies? I mean, sometimes it just seems like God is not giving you an answer, or maybe he's giving you an answer that you don't like to your prayer. But we've all kind of faced those times where it feels like, okay, I need to make a decision, or, you know, this is happening.

And I'm just, it seems like God is being silent on the issue. Not that we expect an audible voice from God. We certainly don't expect that, and we ought not be expecting that. We turn to him in his word and we turn to him in prayer.

And sometimes if God is not giving us a bold, blatant, obvious answer, then we just need to wait until we see what he has planned, because his plans are perfect. And they have been laid out and ordained from before the beginning of time.

Before you were even born, he had your trial all worked out. So take comfort in that, ladies. But David, he's despairing here in these first two verses. How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? Oh, but God never forgets his children, does he, ladies?

No, he does not. And that's why we serve such a good and gracious God. David says, how long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? But then in verse three, we see an interesting petition that David offers to the Lord.

He says, consider and answer me, O Lord, my God. Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death. And we see David starting to climb out of his despair. And really, what he's saying in verse three, he's just not focused on whatever the situation is that's making him despair.

Whatever his enemies are bringing against him, it's a matter of, God, I need you to not be silent. More than anything else, you don't need to change my situation. You don't need to take away my enemies.

You don't need to make the situation perfect and wonderful so that I'm jumping for joy about it. I need you, God, to not be silent. More than anything, that is what I need. And the wonderful thing is that for those who are sons and daughters of the living God, he listens to his children.

And so when we pray, ladies, you've been saved by God. You can know that your father is listening and that he hears you and that he knows the cries of your heart. He knows what you are going to ask before you ask it.

But that doesn't mean we don't ask. That doesn't mean we don't go to him for comfort, for petition, for praise, more than anything. And when we start out by praising our God, which I'm going to take a little tangent here, when we start out by praising our God in prayer, our minds and our hearts will be set aright and we will be fixed upon God, fixed upon Jesus Christ and who he is, the sovereign creator of the universe, the King, the Lord, the Savior, Messiah.

Perfectly just, perfectly holy, perfectly righteous, perfectly good, perfectly merciful, perfectly gracious. And when we praise him in that way, in our prayer, our priorities change. And our prayer will better glorify God and it will prove to be more effective because we have set our eyes on what they need to be set on.

And that is the Lord Jesus Christ and our God whom we serve. So that's a little tangent that's still kind of related. But when we turn to God in prayer and begin by praising him, everything else kind of falls away, doesn't it?

And what it comes down to is, God, you are my God. Don't be silent. And that's what we see David doing here. He wants God to stop being silent more than anything. So then we see this wonderful turn in verses five and six.

We see David writes, but I have trusted in your loving kindness. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. And so his despair is turned to trust.

He fixed his eyes on the Lord and his despair is turned to trust. And he focuses, what I found really interesting was his mention and reflection on trusting in God's loving kindness. And that's a word that we see.

We don't use it in everyday conversation. I'm not sure that many things or people could really be described by the word loving kindness besides our God. But I wanted to look at this word a little bit more because it is such a great description of the God that we serve.

And so actually, let's turn very quickly to one of the first instances of this word in scripture. It might even be the first occurrence. It's in Exodus 34. We have Moses and the Lord is talking to Moses.

And he is going to pass by Moses. And so in verse six, we see the Lord passed by in front of him, in front of Moses and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.

Yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. Moses made haste, it says in verse eight, Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.

So here we see the loving kindness of God described in part as how God forgives iniquity, transgression and sin. The guilty don't remain unpunished without the shedding of blood. There can be no forgiveness of sins.

But that is a demonstration then of God's loving kindness, because what greater manifestation of that loving kindness can there be than the fact that God sent his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save sinners and all those who have been brought to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved, will receive eternal life.

And if you turn to 1 John 4, 9, you see this, by this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him. So it's one manifestation that we see of the loving kindness of God is through his sending of his son.

And God is glorified each time a sinner is saved. God is glorified when his justice is perfectly executed. And so as I was thinking about this word, loving kindness, back to Psalm 13, verse five, but I've trusted in your loving kindness, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I thought, well, loving kindness, it's just such an amazing attribute of God, you know, and what are the attributes of God? They're more than just characteristics of God. They are who God is. And if you ever want to do a wonderful theological study, I would suggest studying the attributes of God, and it will no doubt increase your worship and your awe of the God that you serve.

And so what better resource than if I wanted to dig into an attribute of God, I couldn't think of a better resource than the book entitled The Attributes of God, written by A .W. Pink. So that's a book that I highly recommend to you, ladies, if you haven't read it already.

It's a favorite of mine. And so I think this is a wonderful resource for you to have on hand, either on your shelf or on your virtual shelf. If you are one of those who has made the complete switch to Kindle, then I definitely would suggest picking up a copy.

In Pink's book, in his chapter on loving kindness, he kind of helps us reflect on some of those expressions of the loving kindness of God. And one of them that we talked about already was just the most magnificent, and that was the sending of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so let's look at a little bit else, a few other things here that A .W. Pink says. You're listening to Equipping Eve, if you're just joining us. My name is Erin Benziger, and we're talking right now, anyway.

We've been looking at Psalm 13, and we're in verse 5, and we're just looking a little bit more deeply at the loving kindness of our God. So we're going to see what A .W. Pink has to say about this in his book, The Attributes of God.

And he also points out just the predestination of God's chosen elect. What an amazing displays of his loving kindness. God chose us. If we have been saved by God, he chose us before the foundation of the world.

He chose us long before we were born, by no merit of our own. We were appointed unto eternal life. And that is mind-blowing, because we don't owe God anything. We have done nothing but sin against him.

He is a holy and perfect and pure and just God. And we are sinners, and yet he has chosen to save us, if indeed we have been saved by God. And Pink points out Ephesians 1, 4, and 5 here, and he says, In love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.

And that whole concept of adoption into the family of God is so beautiful. And again, just brings you to your knees in thankfulness that God would do such a thing to such an undeserving, wretched sinner.

I'm speaking for myself, but in reality, I'm speaking for all of us, because that is the state of all of us before we were saved by God. Wretched, wicked sinners, and we are only saved by his grace. And he deserves nothing but our thanks and our praise for that.

And Pink goes on to say, This loving kindness of the Lord is never removed from his children. To our reason, it may appear to be so, yet it never is. Since the believer be in Christ, nothing can separate him from the love of God.

He references Romans 8, 39 there. Continuing the quote, God has solemnly engaged himself by covenant, and our sins cannot make it void. He has sworn, God has sworn that if his children keep not his commandments, he will visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.

Yet he adds, Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break. The loving kindness of God, says Pink, toward his people is centered in Christ.

And he does not remove that loving kindness from his children. And don't we see that there in David's psalm? You know, he's in despair, but he knows that he is a child of God. And so he ends up fixing his eyes upon that God, and then rejoicing and saying, I have trusted in your loving kindness.

My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. So we see it appeared at the beginning of the psalm that maybe God's loving kindness isn't there. God seemed silent to David. But when he arighted his mind and focused on God and cried out, and just wanted the silence to go away, we see him praising God for his loving kindness.

So then in this chapter on loving kindness, A .W. Pink goes on and shares some thoughts on what the response of the saint should be. What should be the response of those sinners who have been saved by God?

What do we do in response to this amazing loving kindness of our God? And I really loved the list of things that he gave here. So I thought I would share them with you, because A .W. Pink is a far greater mind than I will ever be.

And this is what I want to be able to do for you, ladies, is to point you to resources like Pink's book, so that you can learn from these men that have gone before us and have been such a gift to the church.

So what should our response be? Pink says, first, be therefore followers or imitators of God as dear children and walk in love. And he's quoting Ephesians 5, 1, and 2 there. And Pink was not using the NASB translation, but I'm reading from his book here.

So we are to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel that we're called. We can only walk that way by the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, God is growing us and sanctifying us, and we aren't passive in that sanctification by any means.

But without the power of the Spirit, we are incapable of walking in a holy manner at all. Otherwise, we wouldn't need to be saved and have been given the Spirit of God. So we are to walk, referencing Colossians 3, 12, as the elect of God, holy and beloved.

And that is one response that we can give in thankfulness to God's loving kindness. Second, says Pink, a sense of this divine perfection strengthens our faith and promotes confidence in God. And don't we see that just completely illustrated in David's psalm?

In verse 6, he says that God has dealt bountifully with me. His confidence, his faith is bolstered by reflecting on the loving kindness of God among all of God's other attributes, of course. But the third thing that Pink says is that our response should be a spirit of worship, and that reflecting on this loving kindness should stimulate that spirit of worship.

And again, we see that there in David's psalm. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. You know, when you reflect on God, it has to stimulate worship of him. We just talked about that.

When we start our prayers with praise and we are focused on who God is, we, our worship is deepened. It has to be because we are focusing on who God is and all of the other questions and despairs and worries fade away.

Fourth, says Pink, it should be our cordial when depressed. In other words, when we are low, when we are discouraged, let such realities as the loving kindness of God soothe us, soothe our souls and bring us comfort because our God will never leave us nor forsake us.

Even when we sin, we have been forgiven. It doesn't mean we go out and deliberately sin. It means that we thank God for his goodness and we thank him for being a forgiving, loving God. And we continue to serve him with a desire to look more and more like him each and every day.

Fifth, it should be our plea in prayer. And Pink quotes Psalm 119, 159 here. Quicken me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness. And we should pray that God would quicken us, if you will, according to his loving kindness.

Sixth, says A .W. Pink in his book, The Attributes of God. Sixth, this loving kindness, we should appeal to it when we have fallen by the wayside. And seventh, he says it should be a petition in our evening devotions.

And he quotes Psalm 143, 8 that says, Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning. Let it be one of the first things that we think of when we wake each morning and before we close our eyes at night, this loving kindness of God.

Now you say, oh, but we can't just always talk about how God is so loving because then, you know, people just say, oh, God loves everybody. And, you know, it doesn't matter what you do. God's just a loving God.

This is true. It can be a danger to just focus on one attribute of God. We never imbalance our study of God and his attributes by looking at just the ones that we like. We remember that he is a God of wrath, that he is a God of justice, perfect justice, perfect righteousness, perfect holiness, that he does not tolerate sin.

But because he is a God of loving kindness and a God of mercy and a God of grace, he provided a way for that sin to be forgiven. And that was through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who repent of their sin and recognize that they can do nothing to save themselves and instead trust in Christ who lived the perfect life that we never will, never could, who died the death that we deserve as an atoning sacrifice, who rose again demonstrating that God had accepted that sacrifice.

When we place our faith in that Jesus Christ, then we will be saved. We will be forgiven of our sin because we sin every day and we deserve to be condemned for that sin, for every single sin. But we do serve a God of loving kindness who has offered a way of forgiveness and a way of salvation.

And when we understand who God is, we can serve him better. We will know him more. We will love him more. We'll praise him better. And we can proclaim that gospel of salvation with more joy, if it's possible, with more joy and more zeal and more fervency and urgency.

As the days draw to a close, because someday there will no longer be a chance for sinners to repent. So we have to proclaim Christ now while we have breath. And we serve a God of loving kindness, and we need not despair, no matter what the situation.

We fix our eyes upon Christ and we let God turn our despair into praise toward him. David's situation did not change in this psalm. God did not say, okay, enemies are gone. No worries. You're good now.

That's not what changed. What changed was that David was looking upon his God, reflecting upon his God, focusing on who God is, and then he could praise God in spite of his circumstances, in the midst of his circumstances.

So let's pray for that, for each other, for ourselves, ladies, that we would focus on Christ, regardless of the circumstances, so that we can praise him in the midst of them. Well, that's our little teaching time for the day.

The Loving Kindness of God in Psalm 13

And we're going to do teachings like that. You know, we're still really new in the life of the show, still kind of figuring out what kind of format I want to do. But it's really important to me that we get into the Word in every show, whether we're looking at something that's happening in, you know, the visible church, broader evangelicalism, we're still going to take it back to the Word, or whether we're doing something like we did today and just digging into that Word and seeing what God has to say and what God reveals about himself there.

So hopefully you'll continue to join us as we continue to equip ourselves with that Word. So before I close here, I thought we'd do something just a little fun. I thought we'd go shopping. You know, we're ladies, right?

The stereotype is that we love to shop, right? Actually, I don't enjoy shopping, really, at all. But nevertheless, we'll go with the stereotype for the sake of the show. So it's kind of the Christmas season as I record this and as you listen to it.

So we're starting to see the decorations in the stores. We're getting all of the catalogs in the mail. I mean, am I the only one who's pulling out, like, multiple catalogs out of the mailbox every day?

What is that? It's just crazy to me. All these people want us to save the trees, but yet I get all this junk mail daily in the mail. It's bizarre to me. So one of the catalogs that I received recently was the Lifeway catalog.

Lifeway Publishing, anyway, is the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. And we could go on about that, but we won't today. So this catalog, which I guess reflects what's available in the Lifeway stores.

I don't know. It's interesting. It's a lot of Christmassy stuff. Some yard decorations. Lots of nativity scenes, in case you don't already have one. I like nativity scenes. I don't have anything overly critical to say about them, even though they may not be wholly accurate.

The VeggieTales nativity kind of gives me the creeps, but, you know, whatever. You know, there's some gifts you can buy for people here. I don't know that I'd recommend most of them, but I haven't examined all of them.

So there you go. But at the beginning of this catalog, it's actually like a little hostess-y type section with pie plates and chocolates and stuff like that. So I was flipping through this, and one of the first things I see is a pie plate.

It's very festive. It's red, green, white. And it says, Blessings from the Lord, Matthew 5, 5 -9. And I saw that, and I just stopped. I thought, well, that's weird. Because Matthew 5, 5 -9 is the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, which is the greatest sermon ever preached.

And it's just, you know, it's prefaced by this, Blessings from the Lord! Exclamation point. As if I finished this pie, and then, like, the pie was a blessing from the Lord? I don't know. I don't really understand the message.

It's trying to convey, but I thought it was amusing because I don't think the message it's attempting to convey is actually what Matthew 5, 5 -9 is trying to convey. And so that's really the danger with these little tchotchkes that you get in the Christian store, is that they tend to take just one or two verses out of context, and then they misapply it.

Now, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, chapters 5, 6, and 7, really what Jesus is doing in that sermon is describing the life of a saved person, the life that flows out of a repentant heart, the marks of a true Christian, if you will.

It's a tough, tough passage to read through. It is incredibly convicting, those three chapters. And the Beatitudes that open that sermon, when understood properly, they actually kind of rebuke us. You know, we often hear them given in kind of like this happy-peppy manner.

They're kind of a rebuke because they describe what we strive to be, what we hope we are, but what we never perfectly will be, this side of heaven. But they're describing what submission to the Lord Jesus Christ looks like, and that's a wonderful thing.

I think it's amazing. I've been studying the Sermon on the Mount for a while now, and it's just a passage that's blessed me immensely and challenged me. It's not something I equate with pumpkin pie that, you know, it's sugary, sweet, and that's my blessing from the Lord.

So I'm not sure that Lifeway's use of Matthew 5, 5 -9 here for this pie plate is an adequate representation of what is being taught in those verses. But, you know, let's just use this as a lesson to be cautious of how we spend our money.

And before you buy something with a Bible verse on it, you know, we all have a copy of the Bible on our phone, don't we? So, you know, even, well, of course, if you're in a Lifeway store, in theory, there should be plenty of Bibles there that you could look up the verse.

You know, check out the context before you spend your money on the pie plate. And just as a quick tangent, you know, let's always be careful to do that when we're referencing Bible verses. Let's make sure that we are adequately representing the Word of God and using them in their appropriate context.

Even if you're teaching your children scripture to memorize, which is a wonderful thing to do. I wish I had learned scripture as a child. Instead, I have 80s songs stuck in my head. And it's harder to memorize the Bible verses as you get older.

But don't just teach your child the verse. Any kid can rattle something off that they've memorized. And that's the beauty of being a child. You can memorize stuff pretty quickly, pretty easily. Teach them what that verse means, what God meant by that verse.

Teach them the broader context of that verse. And that is how you will be equipping your child as God has equipped you through His Word. That is how you will be equipping your child with the whole counsel of God and with what God is really saying in His Word.

So your child won't be inclined to just pull a verse out of his head that he remembers. He's going to know what that verse means. And be able to rightly apply it. And that will be a blessing to your child and a blessing to you for years and years to come.

I know. All right, ladies, I am well out of time. So thank you so much for listening. I love, love, love digging into the Word with you. And I hope you'll come back for our next show. And until that time, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped.

Thanks for listening, ladies.

You've been listening to Equipping Eve, a No Compromise radio production. If you'd like to get a hold of Erin, you can reach her at equippingeve at gmail .com. Or you can check out one of our two websites, do notbesurprised .com or equippingeve .org.

Thanks for listening.