Checkmate

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 Abendroth, 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.

Well, hello, ladies, and welcome to Equipping Eve, the show that seeks to equip you ladies with fruits of truth from God's Word so that we can stand strong and firm on that truth that we know we can trust in an age of deception and error.

Satan is always looking for a way to trip us up, to make us doubt God's Word.

He twists Scripture masterfully and uses human tools to do it.

But if we know the truth of God's Word, we will recognize the error when he tries to use it to deceive us.

And in addition, we will recognize when our own deceitful, wicked hearts are trying to deceive us, are trying to perhaps get us to rationalize away our sin.

Oh, it's so easy to have that happen, isn't it, ladies? But when we are in the

Word of God, we will be convicted of that sin. And it may be painful, but we love that pain, don't we?

Because we know that that is the Lord convicting us, bringing us to repentance again, and sanctifying us and growing us and molding us and conforming us to the image of His Son.

What a joy, what a privilege that we are so undeserving to be given.

We serve an amazing, amazing God. I'm your host. My name is Erin Benziger.

I'm really, really glad that you tuned in today. I sincerely am. I know that would be really easy to say, but I sincerely am glad that you tuned in today.

So thank you. Now I have an article here by John MacArthur that I want to talk about briefly in just a moment, because I want to share with you on today's show about a little experience

I had. Oh, don't we just love experiences here? We're just seeking experiences from God all over the place.

Now we know that we cannot trust our experience and our emotions, doesn't mean that they are inherently bad, but we seek truth outside of ourselves, don't we?

That's why we seek truth in God's Word, because the truth is outside of us. If we look inside, well, we've got wicked, deceitful hearts, and, you know, just because something gives us a warm fuzzy doesn't mean it's from God.

Funnily enough, is that a word, funnily enough, funnily? I don't know. Oddly enough, we'll go with that one.

Oddly enough, if you listen to people who claim that you can audibly hear from God, or that God gives liver shivers and heart murmurs, or I don't know,

I don't know, whatever they call it these days. They will say that, you know, if it brings you peace, and it's good, it's something good and happy, then it's from God.

That's how you know, because they always want to ask, you know, how do you know if it's from God? Did you hear that beep?

That was my iPad. Maybe I just got a text message from God. I don't know. I'll check it later. I don't think he,

I don't think he talks to me that way. I'm not anointed. I have to open my

Bible to hear from the Lord. But that is something that, that is something that these, some of these teachers will claim, you know, well, if it brings you peace, and it makes you feel good, and it's, you know, it's something good, then you know, it's from God, but if it's something bad, then it's not from God.

Well, that doesn't make any sense, because you read the Bible, and it convicts you of sin. Well, that doesn't make me feel good.

I mean, it does, because I'm saved, and I know it means that God is working on me, and it's assurance of my salvation, but at the same time,

I mean, no one likes to be convicted of sin, because that means you've been sinning, and you always hope that you were kind of beyond that.

Not that we stop sinning, but you know, oh, I thought I had overcome that sin, and then you, you know, you become complacent, and then there you go, you fall back into it, whatever.

It's ridiculous. It makes no sense. It's nonsensical, which, of course, is a hallmark of false teachers.

They make no sense, and even if in the moment they sound like they're making sense, it all sounds good.

But if you stop, you sit back, and you analyze objectively what they are saying, it is nonsensical, and therefore, it cannot be from God.

Our God is not a God of chaos. He's not a God of nonsense. He's a God of order. He's a God of understanding, and He's a

God of truth, and if you want His truth, open the Bible. If that's not enough for you, you need to repent, because God has given you this word, and He has been so gracious to give it to you.

The fact that you want more, that you want a liver sugar, you want a heart murmur, you want a word from the Lord outside of Scripture, that's a sin, and you need to repent of that sin.

Alright, I have just climbed on top of a soapbox that I did not intend to climb up on, but it kind of goes along with where we're going today.

So, a few weeks ago, I attended on a Saturday morning a simulcast event for a popular women's

Bible teacher, and we will speak about that shortly, and I arrived there, and I settled my seat, and well, we'll forego the particulars, but anyway, not long after I got there, one of the women from the host church stood up and welcomed everybody, and she proceeded to say,

I want to read verse such and such. I don't even remember what verse it was, because she said the words,

I want to share with you my life verse, and I could not believe God's sense of humor in this, because the day that I was sitting there listening to this was actually the very same day that the episode of Equipping Eve aired that was talking about life verses and labyrinths, and so that, my friends, is some divine irony, and I had to smile.

At the same time, she said this, she wanted to share her life verse with us, and she read it, whatever it was,

I think it was from Philippians, but I really don't remember, and then she said, now, what this verse means to me is da -da -da -da -da -da -da.

I almost either screamed or cried, because this is not how we interpret scripture.

It doesn't matter what scripture means to you, ladies, it doesn't.

Nobody cares, because 200 years from now, when you're dead, and nobody remembers your name, no one ever remembers you were alive, that verse will still be around in people's

Bibles, and it will not matter what it meant to you. It doesn't matter. Sorry.

I hope I didn't offend you. Actually, I really don't care if I offended you, because if you think that scripture, if you have that much of a conceited, narcissistic view of God's word, then you deserve to have your sensibilities offended, because scripture is not about you in that sense.

What matters is what does this verse mean? What did the author, God Almighty, the creator of the universe, the

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, mean when he inspired, through the

Holy Spirit, men to write that verse? What did he mean? That's what matters.

And so this article that I have up from John MacArthur is called, What Does This Verse Mean to Me?

And he's talking about this trend, you know, and you hear it in so many Bible studies, you know, well, let's go around the group and see what this verse means to each one of us.

Well, that is the most horrible way to study scripture ever. If you are ever in a

Bible study group that does that, just leave. MacArthur writes that early in his ministry, he made a conscious commitment to biblical preaching, and his first priority has always been to answer the question, what does this passage mean?

Then he says he explains as clearly and accurately as possible the meaning of God's word, and then exhorts people to obey and apply it.

He writes, the Bible speaks for itself to the human heart. It is not my role as a preacher to try to tailor the message.

That's why I preach my way through entire books of the Bible, dealing carefully with each verse and phrase, even though that occasionally means spending time in passages that don't readily lend themselves to anecdotal or motivational messages.

He goes on, he says, practical application is vital. He doesn't want to minimize its importance, but the distinction between doctrinal and practical truth is artificial.

Doctrine is practical. In fact, nothing is more practical than sound doctrine.

Amen to that. Can we all say amen if we are not in a public place? Too many

Christians, writes John MacArthur, view doctrine as heady and theoretical. They have dismissed doctrinal passages as unimportant, divisive, threatening, or simply impractical.

He says that a bestselling Christian book that he recently read warns readers to be on guard against preachers whose emphasis is on interpreting scripture rather than applying it.

How does that work? That doesn't even make sense, because if you can't rightly interpret a passage, you can't rightly apply a passage.

That's why we have all this nonsense of the life verses and what does this verse mean to me? And this is why we have so many false teachers prancing around on stages.

Weird, bizarre applications of historical narrative passages of scripture, all because pastors are not interpreting scripture rightly.

They're just seeking to apply it and they do it wrongly. MacArthur says no discipline is more sorely needed in the contemporary church than expositional biblical teaching.

Amen. Too many have bought the lie that doctrine is something abstract and threatening and unrelated to daily life.

True doctrine transforms behavior as it is woven into the fabric of everyday life, but it must be understood if it is to have its impact.

The real challenge of the ministry is to dispense the truth clearly and accurately. Practical application comes easily by comparison.

No believer can apply truth he does not know. Those who don't understand what the Bible really says about marriage, divorce, family, child rearing, discipline, money, debt, work, service to Christ, eternal rewards, helping the poor, caring for widows, respecting government and other teachings won't be able to apply it.

More importantly, those who don't know what the Bible teaches about salvation cannot be saved.

Those who don't know what the Bible teaches about holiness are incapable of dealing with sin. Thus, they are unable to live fully to their own blessedness and God's glory.

It doesn't matter what the passage, what the verse means to you. What matters is what does the passage mean?

Because if we don't rightly apply it, we could, we could, I am not exaggerating, lead people to hell.

We tickle their ears with what they want to hear. That's why these megachurches, these seeker sensitive megachurches are filled to capacity.

But there's no right doctrine and doctrine, yeah, it divides because it divides truth from error.

And it's so important. And so what, what this said to me, what

I saw when this woman stood up and shared her life first and told us what it meant to her, what

I saw was the fruit of the ministry of the celebrity female teacher that we were all there to watch on simulcast.

I saw some of the fruit of poor Bible teaching. And that fruit is the fruit of Priscilla Shire.

So this was a simulcast event for Priscilla Shire. And it was local here.

It was not a big event. There were not many women there at all. I was actually kind of surprised that it was such a small crowd.

No one seemed to mind getting up and dancing around to the music when it came on, which was a very long part of the morning.

I was only able to stay through the morning sessions because I had to work that afternoon.

And so I wish I could have heard more of the sessions, more of her teaching.

She was kind of going along the path of spiritual warfare.

And part of her teaching really stood out to me.

And so rather than running through everything she said, what struck me was something that she started with.

And I don't have direct quotes here, but she basically began to describe

God and Satan as in this cosmic chess match type of thing. I don't know that she used that word, but I think she used a phrase similar to that.

And I did a little digging after I came home and found that she perhaps has used this illustration before.

And so she runs kind of through the Old Testament and says, you know, God created the world and Adam and Eve and everything was wonderful in the garden.

But then Satan made his move there in the garden. And so then, well,

God had to react. So, you know, eventually Seth was born. And so but then

Satan came along later and eventually

Satan caused Israel to have to go to Egypt and to be in slavery. So God makes another move.

And this is kind of how she was describing the Old Testament all the way through to the end, and then there's 400 years of silence and everyone's waiting for God to make his next move.

And I thought, wait a minute, is our

God a reactionary God? When she said when

Priscilla Shire said something to the effect that Satan caused Israel to go to Egypt and to be in bondage, to be in slavery there, and then

God may had to make another move. He found Moses. I thought, has she never read

Genesis? Has she never read Genesis 15?

Would you turn there with me, ladies? In Genesis 15, God promises a son to Abraham and he makes other promises to Abraham.

Let's start at verse 12. Well, actually, let's back up.

This is where he makes, God makes a covenant with Abraham and tells

Abraham which types of animals to bring to him. And in verse 10, then he, Abraham, brought all these to him and cut them in two and laid each half opposite the other.

But he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses and Abram drove them away. Verse 12.

Now, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram and behold, terror and great darkness fall upon him.

God said to Abram, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years.

But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve and afterward, they will come out with many possessions.

As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age. But we saw there in verse 13,

God very clearly tells Abram, long before Israel ends up in Egypt, that Israel will end up in Egypt, that they will end up in bondage to people in a land that is not their own.

It is very, very clear there in scripture. So how could it be that Satan's move was to take

Israel as a nation to Egypt? And that God had to react? Oh, no. Oh, no.

My people now, they're in Egypt. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Oh, dear.

Oh, I'm going to have to find someone to pull them out of there. What am I going to do? Hmm. Oh, wait.

Is that Moses? Oh, Moses. You know,

I think I'm going to pick him. Really? Is that the picture that you get of God?

Like he's just up there wringing his hands every time something bad happens because Satan caused this to happen.

And oh, what am I going to do now? If that's your picture of God, my friend, you have the wrong

God. God is sovereign over all things. God has ordained all things from before the beginning of time.

From before the beginning of time, God ordained that the nation of Israel would be in bondage in Egypt for 400 years.

That's why he could tell Abram that that would happen. That is why God could write in his word prophecies that have been fulfilled to the letter, to the day.

Prophecies about Jesus Christ. And that is why we know that the prophecies that have not yet come true will come true to the letter, just as God has promised, because our

God has ordained all things. Our God is a sovereign

God. He is not just sovereign over the big stuff.

He is sovereign over the details. He has ordained the details. And if you don't want to serve that God, that's too bad because that is the

God who is the king and creator of the universe. But here

Priscilla Shire made it sound like God is just reacting to Satan. This is blasphemous.

This is a blasphemous picture of our God. Our God was not taken back in the garden when

Satan deceived Eve. Our God, way back in Genesis 3, 15, promises the

Savior, I will put enmity between you and the woman, he's speaking to the serpent, and between your seat and her seat, he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.

Our God is not a reactionary God who is sitting around waiting for Satan to make a move so that he can make his next move.

He already knew that he was going to send Christ. He had already ordained that he was going to send

Christ. He already knew that Israel was going to end up in Egypt because he had ordained that they would end up in Egypt.

What kind of a God does she serve?

For Priscilla Shire to imply that God did not ordain these things, that there is some sort of a cosmic chess match where, you know,

God is just waiting for Satan's next move and Satan is just waiting for God's next move and who, you know, who's going to win?

Who's going to win? It is blasphemous. Our God is not just sitting in heaven waiting to react to Satan's moves.

And what was so fascinating was that Priscilla Shire ended up contradicting herself because not long after she told this little story, gave this little overview of the

Old Testament with this reactionary God, she tries to encourage her audience and says, she said something to the effect of, you are not fighting for victory.

You are fighting from victory, implying then that Christ has won the victory over sin, death, and Satan.

And so we fight the powers of darkness, if you will, from a position of victory that has already been achieved.

This is not a false idea. This is true. However, it completely contradicts what she has just implied.

Whether she meant to imply this bizarre weak God or not, she has completely contradicted herself and everybody cheers and everybody claps and everybody amends and they're all writing their notes.

But if you step back and you analyze what has been said, you see that there is a major contradiction.

Because if she believes that we are fighting from a position of victory and that God has ordained not just the ends, but the means and has ordained all things already, already knows what is going to happen because he has planned it to be so.

If she believes that our God is a sovereign God, as scripture says he is, then she cannot believe this weird, weak reactionary

God that she just described, that she just created. This is why it is so important for us to be in scripture.

This is why we need to be able to recognize the error.

Because it sounds good. It's catchy. It's catchy. This cosmic chess match and you're not fighting for victory.

You're fighting from victory. But this

God that she described is not the

God of scripture. Ladies, turn to me. Turn with me to Psalm 104 and you might be wondering what this has to do with anything but I want us to read this because I read this the other day and I was so struck by this

Psalm and I've read it many times before, I'm sure, and it never really hit me the beauty of this

Psalm. So I want us to read a few verses of this Psalm 104 verse one. Bless the Lord, O my soul,

O Lord, my God, you are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a cloak.

Just listen to the pictures in this Psalm, stretching out heaven like a tent curtain.

He lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters. He makes the clouds his chariot. He walks upon the wings of the wind.

He makes the winds his messengers, flaming fire his ministers. He established the earth upon its foundation so that it will not totter forever and ever.

You covered it with the deep as with a garment. The waters were standing above the mountains. At your rebuke, they fled.

At the sound of your thunder, they hurried away. The mountains rose. The valley sank down to the place which you established for them.

You set a boundary that they may not pass over so that they will not return to cover the earth. He sends forth springs in the valleys.

They flow between the mountains. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst.

Beside them, the birds of the heavens dwell. They lift up their voices among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers.

The earth is satisfied with the fruit of his works. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the labor of man so that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine, which makes man's heart glad so that he may make his face glisten with oil and food, which sustains man's heart.

The trees of the Lord drink their fill. The cedars of Lebanon, which he planted, where the birds build their nests and the stork whose home is the fir trees.

The high mountains are for the wild goats. The cliffs are a refuge for the Shefenim. He made the moon for the seasons.

The sun knows the place of its setting. You appoint darkness and it becomes night in which all the beasts of the forest prowl about.

The young lions roar after their prey and they seek their food from God. When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens.

Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening. Verse 24, Oh, Lord, how many are your works in wisdom?

You have made them all. The earth is full of your possessions. There's the sea, great and broad, in which are swarms without number, animals, both small and great.

There the ships move along and Leviathan, which you have formed to sport in it. They all wait for you to give them their food in due season.

You give to them. They gather it up. You open your hand and they are satisfied with good. You hide your face. They are dismayed.

You take away their spirit. They expire and return to their dust. You send forth your spirit.

They are created and you renew the face of the ground. Let the glory of the Lord endure forever. Let the

Lord be glad in his works. He looks at the earth and it trembles. He touches the mountains and they smoke.

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have my being.

Let my meditation be pleasing to him. As for me, I shall be glad in the Lord. Let sinners be consumed from the earth and let the wicked be no more.

Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord. I didn't mean to read the whole psalm that wasn't in my notes to do, but that has to be one of the most magnificent psalms in all of scripture.

That is the God we serve, ladies. That is the sovereign God, the creator of the universe who stretched out heaven like a tent curtain, who established the boundary of the mountains and the valleys, who waters the mountains and the valleys and feeds the animals that he created, who is sovereign over life and over death.

That is the sovereignty of the great, magnificent, highly exalted king that we serve.

Do you mean to tell me that this God is wringing his hands over Satan's next move?

Not a chance. And if you want to know something, not even

Satan believes that. Revelation 12, 12. For this reason, rejoice,

O heavens, in you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.

Is he making his moves? Yes. Yes, he is. But our

God knows every one of them. Our God has ordained that we may be the target of some of Satan's moves.

Read Job. God is sovereign over all of it. And that, ladies, is one of the greatest, most amazing, most comforting truths when you stop and think about it.

Because that means that nothing is out of God's power, that nothing surprises him.

You may be shocked that you lost your job or your husband lost his job or you lost a loved one unexpectedly or whatever.

Pick your terrible situation. Pick a good situation that you didn't expect.

God knew because God ordained it. And if you are his child, then he has promised to provide for you.

He has promised to care for you. It doesn't mean that you will always have lots of money and a big house and fancy cars, but it means that he will provide for your daily needs.

We see that teaching very, very clearly in the Sermon on the Mount. Read Matthew 6. Our God is sovereign.

He will care for you. And Paul tells us in Romans 8, 28, we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love

God, to those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

And these whom he predestined, he also called, and these whom he called, he also justified.

And these whom he justified, he also glorified. And that is the ultimate promise and the ultimate good that we know is waiting for us.

If we have been saved, we know ultimately, no matter what happens here on earth, no matter what our circumstances are, we have an eternal inheritance in heaven.

Blessings immeasurable that we cannot begin to fathom. An inheritance, riches, blessing that we don't deserve, that is given to us by the grace and mercy and goodness of our

Lord Jesus Christ, who lived perfectly obeying the law that we cannot obey, who died as a perfect atoning sacrifice for our sin.

His sacrifice was acceptable to God the Father and who was raised to life three days later. He is the reason that we have the promise of that eternal inheritance.

He is the sovereign God, the sovereign Lord of the universe. If you want to picture some sort of a chess match between God and Satan, fine.

But know this, my friend, God not only knows

Satan's next move, he has ordained it all for his glory.

All of it is for the glory of God. And when we paint a picture of God that has him weak and reactionary and wringing his hands, wondering what to do next, searching around, who can

I find to help my people? We blaspheme the

God of the universe. Perhaps Priscilla Shire did not intend to paint such a picture.

Perhaps she was just trying to illustrate the idea of the ongoing struggle between darkness and light, which we know because we battle ourselves.

But it was a poor choice of illustration. And unless you explain it properly, you have deceived thousands of women who now think that God is reacting to Satan's next move.

And so I'm not here to pick specifically on Priscilla Shire. However, I would warn women away from her because I do not believe that she accurately handles the word of God.

I think that her associations would lead me to believe that she does not accurately understand the word of God.

Because if she did, she would know that the people she is associating with are false teachers.

I'm not here to stir up trouble. I'm not here to get ratings by naming names.

I'm here to warn you about a picture of God that's floating around out there that is biblically false.

So go to the word of God if you want to know what God looks like.

If you want to know the character and the nature of the God you serve, go to his word. Psalm 104 is just an amazing start.

There's so much more. So ladies, until the next show, get in your

Bibles, get on your knees and get equipped. Thanks for listening. 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 not be surprised dot com or equipping eve dot org. Thanks for listening.