Equipping Eve: More Sad Church Signs

The Need to Equip Christian Women in Truth

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 Ebendroth, 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. I am your host, Erin Benzinger, and it's good to be with you again. It is a beautiful fall day as I record this. The sun is shining, the breeze is blowing through the trees, the leaves are still cleaning for dear life, but they will be coming down soon.

But I love fall. I complain a little about the chill, but I do love fall. It's one of my favorite seasons, partially because I am one of those people who likes everything flavored pumpkin, because I think that's magnificent.

So I am accepting all gifts of pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, etc. that you want to send me. Thank you very much. Okay. Not really. You don't have to send me baked goods. That's fine. I actually enjoy baking, and I love when my house smells like fall from baking something pumpkin-y.

So maybe I'll go bake a pie when we're done here. But anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about today. As much as we would love to have one of those women's shows that focuses on knitting, baking, and babies, that is not what we do here at Equipping Eve.

Truth, False Teaching, and the Darkness of the World

What we do here at Equipping Eve is we seek to equip you ladies, ladies, with fruits of truth from God's Word. The idea is that if you know the truth inside and out, you know what God's Word says, then when you hear a false teaching, or you just hear something that's kind of not right, maybe a little half true, half false, you're going to recognize that, because you are immersed in the truth.

I don't need to sit here and spend my time and yours talking about the false. We need to focus on what's true. We need to focus on God. We need to focus on Christ. We need to focus on His written Word, the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, and keep our focus on Him, because the days are getting darker.

That's no surprise. The Bible tells us that that will happen. But if we're all focused on the world, and we're all worried and concerned about what's going on in the world, we forget that the Word has told us exactly how things are going to go down.

The Word has told us that the world would be getting darker and darker, and that people would just continue to spiral deeper and deeper into their sin. Always, man has been in rebellion to God, always.

But we see it celebrated, and we see persecution for those who do not celebrate sin. But we don't lose heart, do we? We shouldn't, ladies. We should not lose heart because God already told us that was coming.

And you know why that's a comfort? That is a comfort because God is in control. He must be, because He knew that this was going to happen and told us, warned us. He not only knew that it was going to happen like this, He ordained it.

He ordains the end from the beginning. He is sovereign over all. Let us not forget that. It's so easy to lose sight of that. And it's so easy to lose sight of that in the midst of, say, an election season, or even if there isn't an election, just something big happens in the news.

It wasn't too long ago that someone hacked into some main server and Twitter and some other websites, all went down for hours. Well, that's kind of a big deal that someone's able to do that. Don't fret.

Don't fret. We are told not to worry. We are told to trust in our God, to trust in our Lord who has promised to protect His children and care for His own. Now what that protection and provision looks like, we don't know.

Perhaps it does mean persecution in this life. But remember, ladies, if you belong to Christ, oh, the next life is so much better. We are promised so many eternal, precious promises. That is why we look to Christ.

That is why that is where our focus is, because that is our future. That is our eternity. He is our future hope. He is the glory that awaits us. So you know what? Let this world bring whatever it wants to bring.

We have Christ. And that is so much better. He is so much. So now that I am done with that little soapbox, let's look at a little bit of crazy like we do like to do here at Equipping Eve. We sometimes take some teachings or quotes from some false teachers and just take a look at them really for their ridiculousness.

Is that actually a word? I don't know. I should look that up. But anyway, the wonderful thing about what I am going to read you here shortly is that it kind of leads into the topic that I wanted to talk about today.

So there you go. And if it doesn't perfectly lead into that topic, we'll make it lead into that topic. No, it actually does. It segues rather nicely. So I was watching Twitter the other day when Twitter was not down.

And I saw Christine Kane. Now she is a pastor with Hillsong Church. She's very involved in ending human trafficking, like human sex trafficking. She has a whole organization arranged for that. She's also, I believe, one of the founders of a women's ministry called Propel or Propelled something to that effect.

She has preached for Stephen Furtick and others. She is a very popular author, teacher, etc., etc., quote unquote, pastor. She's also very, very good at missing the point of scripture and teaching you falsely.

So she has a lot of skills. So she tweeted something from Instagram, actually, the other day. And so I saved it and was kind of taking a look at it. She must have been getting some criticism, would be my guess, based on what she writes here.

So it's Christine Kane, quote, over the past year, I've been doing some deep personal reflection and making some big decisions about what and who I will and will not allow into my future. I'm so grateful for where I've been, what I've had the opportunity to do, but I'm no longer going to try and carry what was into what is now.

Going to my mom's funeral last week made me even more aware that our life on this earth is but a vapor. And so I would like to stop. Obviously, it appears as though Christine Kane's mother recently passed away.

And so we certainly do sympathize with her and we are sorry for her loss. And we certainly hope that her mother truly knew the Lord Jesus Christ so that she is with him in eternity. But I do not know what her spiritual status was.

So we do send our sympathies out to Christine Kane because it's never easy to lose a loved one. And so I certainly don't mean to pick on her in this particular case. And you'll see as I read down, there's really one particular thing that I want to focus on here, but just trying to give you some context.

So okay, so she's come to the realization that this life is a vapor, it is too short, she says, to waste. It is too important to waste, it is too much of a gift to waste. Celebrating my 50th and losing my mom within days of each other has been profoundly sobering.

I'm not getting younger and she is no longer on earth. Time is ticking. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to give you random lists of things I've decided matter most for me now that I'm half a century old.

I probably have less time on this earth ahead of me than I have behind me so I want to make each day count. And you know, that's not really a bad thing. That's commendable of her to consider that we must be very deliberate with how we spend our time.

It doesn't matter if we're 50 years old or 25 years old, we don't know. We're not promised tomorrow, let alone another 25 or 50 years. So she says, number one, I'm here to please God, not man. I would say then she should probably stop disobeying God by teaching and holding authority over men the way she does.

She says, number two, I'm following a calling, not building a career. Three, I'm going to be more loyal to my future than my past. I don't know what that means. Four, I'm not going to allow other people's limits, opinions, fears, insecurities to define my future.

Again, I don't know what that means. Five, I'm going to lead as many people to Christ as I can in my lifetime. Wow. Okay, so she does not have a concept of God's sovereignty, especially His sovereignty over salvation.

Number six, I'm cheering everyone else on as they obey Christ's call for their life. Seven, I'm going to create as many pipelines as I can to see a generation of young women propelled into their purpose.

Eight, I'm going to mobilize as many people as I can to join the fight against slavery. Nine, I'm going to keep moving forward. Ten, I'm going to enjoy the journey. Eleven, I'm going to keep dealing with my stuff so I can be more fruitful.

I don't know if she means sin by stuff. I don't know. She does not say. She says stuff. Number twelve, I'm not going to worry about being dismissed, overlooked, ridiculed, ignored, misunderstood, rejected.

I'm going to be obedient, loving, kind, and generous. Number thirteen, other people do not get to decide my future. Fourteen, I'm going to continue to take risks. Fifteen, I'm going to live unoffended.

She says you actually have the power to decide to take control of your life. There's more in you than you know. You can do hard things. Don't waste your life trying to prove something to someone who really doesn't care about you anyway.

Be faithful to Jesus. He sees, he knows, he cares. But yet it's all about you and the control that you can take of your life. You can do all these things. You, you, you, you, you are so amazing. You can do it all.

You're wonderful. Just take control. Okay. Well, we have a problem. Don't we? We have a problem. Do we have control of our life? Do we take responsibility for all of these amazing, wonderful things that we do when we make these lists like Christine Cain has made here?

Church Signs and the Illusion of Self-Rule

Now. Okay. So we've read that. Now recently we talked about a church sign that I saw. I see a lot of church signs. I pass a lot of churches on a daily basis and sometimes they leave the same little catchy phrase up for months.

Sometimes they change it and then I say, oh, that's another bad one. I might have to talk about that. And so we all understand that church signs are notorious for bad theology. It's a church sign. It's like Twitter.

How much can you accurately say in that much space? And usually, not always, but usually the churches that have church signs with little catchy phrases are not theologically, doctrinally sound churches.

And so they're really just there for entertainment as far as I'm concerned at this point. So I pass this church sign and it's actually still up and it's been up most of the summer. It says, Jesus, you either live for him or live for yourself.

There's a lot of implications there. We could go a lot of different directions there. So I have control to decide whether I live for Jesus or live for myself. But what struck me about that church sign, and again, we all understand that church signs are not designed to teach good theology.

It's unfortunate, but they just aren't. It struck me how much a non-believer driving past that church sign would say, yeah, true, and I choose to live for me. Why would I live for somebody else? That doesn't even make sense.

Because the unregenerate believer is completely selfish and has no concept of self-sacrifice and taking up your cross daily and being a slave to Christ. They have no concept of that. They think that they have control of their life.

They think they want control of their life. And so of course they're going to live for themselves. So that church sign is doing nothing for the unbeliever. The unbeliever is driving by saying, well, yeah, okay, and I'm not living for Jesus.

Jesus won't let me do all the cool fun stuff I want to do. So okay, I live for myself. Yay. Thanks for catching on, church. So is there any element of truth to this church sign? Now there is a little bit.

I mean, obviously we can't live for Christ and for ourselves. It did bring to mind for me the verse from Philippians 3. Let's see. Ladies, if you'll turn to Philippians 3 with me, we will start in verse 12.

Paul writes, not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude. And if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you. However, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.

Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has, even to subject all things to himself.

Go back, ladies, to verses 18 and 19, Paul is describing these unbelievers, they are enemies of the cross of Christ, their end, their sure and certain end for eternity is destruction. He says their God is their appetite, their glory is in their shame, they set their minds on earthly things.

They, in other words, live for themselves. So, indeed, we are slaves to ourselves, slaves to our sin before we are saved. Our God is our appetite, our glory is in our shame, our God is our appetite and our lusts and our desires, our sinful lusts and our sinful desires that are just completely tainted by our sin nature, by our fallen, sinful nature.

And so, in saying that we, quote unquote, live for ourselves, we're really just slaves to our own sinful nature, right? Are we not? You see, we like to think that we have our own will, that we're making our choices and this and that, and unbelievers, yeah, I'm going to choose to live for me, not live for Jesus, but you are a slave to someone, you are living for someone or something, you have no will of your own in that you can only choose according to your nature and your nature is fallen and sinful, and so you are a slave to sin.

Slavery to Sin and Freedom in Christ

Turn back with me, ladies, to Romans 6, verses 20, and following Paul writes,. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness, therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed?

For the outcome of those things is death, but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So again, God is our belly, our end is destruction, unless we are saved by Christ. The wages of sin is death, unless we have obtained eternal life through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but this very clearly talks here in Romans 6 about being a slave to sin, and if we are saved, we are freed from that bondage to sin and then become enslaved to God.

So we go from having one master to having another. Turn also with me ladies now to John 8, John 8, verse 31, John 8, verse 31, are you there? Okay. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

They answered him, We are Abraham's descendants, and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. And how is it that you say you will become free? Side note, I love this passage because it's hilarious to me.

We're Abraham's descendants, we've never yet been enslaved to anyone. Apparently they completely forgot about those 400 years in Egypt. Moving on, verse 34, Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son does remain forever. So if the son, capital S, makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, yet you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you.

I speak the things which I have seen with my father. Therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father. They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham.

But as it is, you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father. They said to him, We were not born of fornication.

We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and have come from God. For I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I am saying?

It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe me?

He who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason, you do not hear them, because you are not of God. There's a lot in that passage, but ladies, friends, do you see how Christ talks about being a slave to sin, but he goes a step further saying you do the deeds of your father.

You have the nature of your father. And your father is the devil. That's why you are a slave to sin, because your father, whose nature you have, is the devil. He was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in truth.

There's no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. And that, says Jesus, is why you don't believe me, because I come from the Father, and you are not of God.

You cannot believe me. And so it's not just a matter of living for ourselves and being enslaved to our own sinful nature. It's a matter of being a slave to the master of the devil. Ultimately, we are slaves of Satan, are we not?

We share his nature. He is our father. But the beautiful thing, ladies, about salvation, about Christ, is that when he saves us, we transfer our slaveship from one master to another, from the worst possible master, our sinful nature and Satan and certain destruction, to the master of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the most perfect, amazing, wonderful master anyone can ever serve.

Christ the Perfect Master and the Meaning of Slavery

John MacArthur wrote a book a few years back called Slave. I'm sure many of you have read it. It's a wonderful book. And he actually has also preached a sermon called Slaves for Christ. And in that sermon, he describes a little bit about what it means to be a slave.

And he talks about two words that we see in Scripture, and that is kurios and doulos. And he says those are two words that describe both sides of a relationship. He says, if there's a slave, there is a Lord.

If there is a Lord, there is a master. If there's a master, there's a slave. You don't call yourself a master if you don't have a slave, and you're not a slave if you don't have a master. That's why the New Testament never even bothers to defend the idea, as it were, of whether or not when you come to Christ, he is your Lord.

That is patently obvious. When you confess Jesus as Lord, you are at the same time confessing yourself as a slave. There's no other way to view it. Kurios and doulos are the two sides of the relationship.

A slave is someone whose life belongs totally to someone else. Absolute ownership, absolute control, absolute subjection, absolute obedience, absolute loyalty, absolute dependence. Slavery, then, was a social relationship between two persons, where one had nothing, willed nothing, and received nothing but what the master authorized, desired, and provided.

Now, he says, if you don't grasp that idea of slavery, and a lot of us miss it because it's hidden from our English text, he says you're missing the essence of what it is to be a Christian. John MacArthur says, you are a slave of Jesus Christ.

You are owned. You have been purchased by his blood. You have been bought, not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, 1 Peter 1, 18 and 19. You have been purchased, Revelation 5, 9.

You have no independent rights. Slaves had no rights. Slaves owned nothing. They could not own their own property. In the eyes of the law, they were not citizens. They could not hold public office. They were completely under the discretion and provision and protection and care and abuse, in an earthly sense, of their owner.

John MacArthur goes on, and he's reading from Colossians 3, and let me just read that to you quickly. Colossians 3, 22 says, slaves, in all things, obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord, rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve, says Colossians 3, 22.

MacArthur makes a point here in this sermon. He says, what that text actually says is, quote, it is the Lord Christ to whom you are enslaved. Enslaved, he says, in other words, because of your slavery to Christ, you conduct your earthly slavery in a way that honors Christ.

If you're a master, you conduct your care of the slaves in a Christ-honoring way. If you're a slave, you conduct your life in a Christ-honoring way. The New Testament doesn't condemn, doesn't condone, but regulates slavery by calling for the highest kind of Christ-honoring conduct, and then condemns abuse on both sides.

So that gives us some background on slavery. Now, turning to MacArthur's book, Slave, he gives a little background like we just skimmed through on slavery back in the time of when scripture was written.

And then he says, but unlike the Roman slave market, where slaves were selected based on their positive qualities like strength, health, and physical appearance, God chose his slaves with the full knowledge of their weaknesses and failures.

Isn't that awesome, ladies? We were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.

That's from 1 Corinthians 1. Indeed, says MacArthur, he mercifully elected us to salvation in spite of ourselves, saving us not because of any inherent goodness in us, but according to his own eternal purposes and for the sake of his glory.

He goes on, he says, the gospel calls all men to faith and repentance, but as we've seen, the sinful heart hates God, and given the choice, will always choose sin. We just talked about that. Thankfully, God's sovereign grace includes not only the gift of salvation, but also the repentant faith necessary for receiving that gift.

Thus, while sinners are wholly responsible for rejecting the gospel, God alone deserves the credit for the salvation of believers, having initiated, accomplished, and provided everything, including the means by which believers are able to respond to the gospel.

As Richard Baxter so vividly expressed, quote, so then, let deserve to be written on the floor of hell, but on the door of heaven and life, the free gift. Indeed, indeed, and that is why Christine Kane, if we go back to that, that is why you can say that you're going to lead as many people to Christ as you can in your lifetime, but it's not about you, and it's not about how many people you can get to pray a prayer.

It's about Christ. It's about proclaiming his gospel, the true saving gospel, and calling people to repent, and then trusting the Holy Spirit to do his job. It is not our job to save people, and you can get people to pray a prayer, but it does not necessarily mean they are saved.

God is in control of all things, especially the salvation of men, so Christine Kane can take control of her own life all she wants, but that scares me. I don't want control of my own life. I want my Lord and Master to be in control.

I want him to be in control of the salvation of souls, lest I never sleep again because I failed to be convincing enough to get that person saved. No, no. Salvation is God's work. God's work alone. One more quote from John MacArthur's book, Slave, and then we'll close, ladies.

John MacArthur says, Unlike sin, Christ is the perfect master. But the contrast cannot be overstated because it could not be any starker. Sin is the cruelest and most unjust of all masters. Christ is the most loving and merciful.

Sin's burden is heavy and loathsome. Christ's yoke is easy, and his burden is light. Sin traps its slaves in darkness and death. Christ brings light and life to all those who have been made alive together with him.

Sin diverts, deceives, and destroys. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Insofar as slavery to sin consists of everything hateful, harmful, dreadful, and despicable, so slavery to Christ entails everything good, glorious, joyous, and right.

Isn't that amazing, wonderful, glorious, beautiful, precious, priceless truth? Ladies, if you've been saved, you know it is. And that is why we wouldn't dream of keeping our focus on anything except this perfect master, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Closing Exhortation and Program Sign-Off

Okay, ladies, that's it for today. 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, donotbesurprised .com or equippingeve .org.

Thanks for listening.