 You love her. We love her so much. Give her a great big hand clap as she comes, Joyce Meyer. Faith is something God gives you that you need to use and release in your life. It's a powerful force. I believe that God wants us to be blessed, but I think he wants us to have prosperity with a purpose, not just some kind of selfish, self-centered thing, but he wants us to be equipped to reach out to other people. But here's how I feel about it. If you don't want to have nothing, it's okay with me. Why fight about it? Which is why right now you better write that PO box and not just get the book and not just get this, which is exclusive to Jim and Laurie, not just send in 35, but you need to send in $3,500. You need to send in $35,000. You need to send in that $100,000 check because you know God has blessed you. You know what a blessing this ministry. As clear as I'm talking to you now, the Lord spoke to my heart. Then very few times I've ever heard God be this articulate with me and I'm telling you word for word, these words came into my heart. I'm not asking you to witness to him. I'm asking you to brush his hair. I thought, I don't have a hairbrush. You know, I was supposed to be thoroughly equipped under all good work. I do not have a hairbrush. I walk over, I get right in front of the man, his head's hanging down like this. I lean down like this. I said, sir, little lady, if you want me to hear you, you're going to have to speak up. Sir, now have the privilege of brushing your hair. This is your coronation. I thought this was going to be like a moment for me. Like, oh my gosh, I'm hosting my first conference, but I hear God saying, this is your moment. God broke something in the spirit. People have just been saying, oh, she just hollered too much. And she just sweat too much. And she got all that holiness stuff and all that righteousness stuff. And so people were doing things quicker and it looked like they were getting ahead. But what God did, what he gave me that is that it pays to be righteous. That the reason why he's let you be here this weekend is because he's going to call you deep with the intention, if you'll follow him, of blessing you so big, of performing such an astounding miracle that your outburst of gratitude will look more like just a silent implosion. I don't know if you've noticed this, but when you look at all the women who want to be either pastors or just preachers, there seems to be a lot of jockeying to see who is the king of the female preachers. Women are competitive, just as competitive as men. Sometimes it shows up in different arenas, but make no mistake about it. They are competitive. And that even spills over into ministry or so-called ministry. But the question is, with all this jockeying for power, position, for fame, prestige, the question is, are any of them qualified? Now, be clear. Being qualified is not the same as having ability. The Bible is crystal clear on this. First Timothy 3.1 makes it clear who's qualified to be an elder or pastor. First Timothy 3.1 says, this is a trustworthy saying, if anyone aspires to the office of an overseer, he desires a noble task. And when we look at the qualifications in verse 2, it says, therefore an overseer must be above reproach. And here it is, the husband of one wife. And the word for husband is the word for Andra, which is clear that this has to be a male, not a female. And then just in case someone wants to disagree and want to kind of fudge the lines a little bit, Paul has already made it clear in the previous chapter in chapter 2, verse 11, he says that let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. That's the key submissiveness. He says in verse 12, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she's remained quiet. Notice, I do not permit a woman to teach over a man or to exercise authority over a man. So it should be clear from the scriptures, there's no way around it, that women cannot lead over men. But now the question is, why then do they want to preach? And what should we do about this? Is this a cultural issue or is this a biblical truth for all time? So to get a good picture on this to find out where this all came from, the genesis of this, if you will, is the book of Genesis. Recall in chapter 3, where after the fall, he's speaking to the woman he says in verse 16, to the woman he says, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing in pain, you shall bring forth children. And here it is, your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you like it or not. I understand that this is the 21st century. And that doesn't sit well for a lot of women. It doesn't sit well for a lot of people, period, specifically women. But God is clear and God did not stutter or equivocate on what he was saying. And so notice he says that your desire to the woman shall be contrary or against the man. She is going to battle and want, in many cases, what he has or what he's doing. This old adage of who wears a pants in the house. Well, now the adage is who's wearing the pants in the pool pit, who is in charge, who is trying to usurp authority and to lead men. Again, we're not talking about ability. There are some women, let's just be honest, there are some women that are gifted that have the ability to speak, but having the ability to speak does not mean that you are called to speak or in leadership over men. Now, is there a role for women? Yes, there is. We'll talk about that in a little bit. You're going to find that women who believe that they can preach or men who believe that a woman can preach or be a pastor, they're going to turn to a couple passages to make it seem as though it is okay. One such passage is in Galatians 3 28 where it says there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. One of the arguments goes like this, Paul kind of had to mature on his belief. And so he came around to saying that there is neither male nor female. However, they're comparing this to what was said in 1 Corinthians. The problem with that assessment is that what Paul said in 1 Timothy was written after Galatians. But then more to the point, he's not speaking about whether they are the lines have been broken down and there's no difference in the roles and genders and so forth. No, they're still literally male and female. And so that's his whole point is that everyone can be saved. We're all one in Christ Jesus as it pertains to salvation, but not as it pertains to leadership. Another passage that also gets misapplied and kind of bent out of shape and used to justify women being able to preach is found in the book of Acts in chapter 2 verse 17 says, and in the last days, it shall be the God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. And then again, verse 18 says, even on my male servants and female servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. And so included in that is male and female and they shall prophesy. Well, the word for prophesy means just to give a revelation of God. And so can a woman give a revelation of God or from God? Sure they can. The question is going to be, can a woman hold a position of leadership, especially one over man? Well, can a woman show the gospel? Sure. Can a woman make a defense of the gospel? Absolutely. Can a woman give her testimony? Sure. Can she serve? Yes. The question is how? The Bible again is clear that she cannot function in the office of this leader of a pastor. Can a woman be a servant as a deacon? Sure. Can she function as an official deacon in the office of a deacon? No, she cannot. But what you've noticed when you've seen these women, the Beth Mores, the Whiting of Binams, the Paula Weiss, even the Priscilla Shires and so forth, the Sarah Jakes, what you're going to notice often are two things that come from them. And this is indicative of virtually every female preacher. Their, quote, ministry is characterized by two things. One, emotions, emotionalism, and then two, bad doctrine. When we speak about emotionalism, what's oftentimes happening is they will bring up or interject words that try to conjure up emotional thoughts. I had this strangest feeling that God spoke over my heart went, I built you for this. Their goal is to elicit feelings from you so that you can relate to them. It's not so much what they're saying is to get you to feel a certain way. And then also we see bad doctrine that accompanies them. In Romans 4.17, the Bible says that we serve a God who calls things that do not exist as if they already existed and he speaks life to dead things and they come back to life. So that's how powerful your words are. You can speak life into dead circumstances in your life and you can see the resurrection of power of God in your life. I didn't even know if it was proper to say, but I felt like in order for Zacharias and Elizabeth to stay faithful that they had to be willing to forgive God. I want to be honest and say that when you didn't answer that prayer that I got bitter because I thought that I could pray and ask you to do something and that you would come through for me. But the reality is that part of us forgiving God depends on us realizing that we have to trust him. Now the reason why we shouldn't be surprised or alarmed to see bad doctrine accompanying them well is because if I'm going to neglect and ignore the first teachings such as the order that God has arranged for male and females to serve if I'm going to ignore those doctrinal teachings those doctrinal stances well then it's no problem for me to go ahead and ignore any other doctrinal stances or to just make it up as I go. And as plain as day God put a picture in my mind of a metro bus stop in Houston and I jotted down on a note what I felt like God was saying. He didn't talk to me out loud. I felt it in my spirit. I jotted down on a piece of paper take money with you. I will show you who to give it to. I mean you know and I thought that morning what if I'm making this up and I thought well you know what so what he's not going to despise me because I thought I understood him to say so and so. And of course a person like a Bethmore doesn't have a problem with making things up. Virtually every female preacher virtually everyone is going to tell you how they have literally heard from God. Now we won't get into the whole issue of how does God speak if he does speak and so forth we won't get into that. But all of them for the most part I haven't heard one different will say that God told them something. God spoke to them and they moved. Priscilla Shire and I'm hoping that you'll join me for a six-week journey as we talk about how we can hear and discern the voice of God in our lives. Do you really expect and anticipate that the divine voice of God can be heard by you? Do you really think that he loved you enough to die for you but doesn't love you enough to then talk to you? I had the strangest sense and the reason why I believed it was God is because this could not have been further from my mind and it sounds just like something he would say. God didn't call me to the world. I've been sent an assignment to do things in the world but I'm called to the church. Now you need to be clear when a person wants to bring in God and say that God told them to do so well then for them that trumps even God's work. You don't have this special revelation or you're not in tune to the spirit like you should. You don't trust God. You don't have the kind of faith in God like I do. And I don't have to ask for I don't have to pray for things. They hijack me because I'm faithful. I used to live in heaven. I know he's faithful. I know his works is through faithfulness and as long as you dumb Christians don't have faithfulness you can dance all you want to. Now let me be clear. A woman does have a role to play in ministry. Obviously we talk about the family just like the man has a role in the family. She does too. And I understand that some people have a problem with this whole issue of submitting but truth be told even the male who is a pastor has to submit. We ought to submit one to another but there's an order in how we do so. And any person male or female that is not willing to submit is not fit or worthy of serving and also let's be clear not even worthy of the kingdom itself. But then we also talk about the role that a woman would have with her children or even as it pertains to the church. Women are too as we're told in the scriptures the older women are to teach the younger women. Women can teach children. And there are certain things that aren't necessarily outline roles in the body that you may find a woman giving some leadership to but not exercising authority over. Can a woman sing in the choir? Well sure she can. Can she sing over the entire body? Sure she can. Can a woman come on stage and give her testimony? Sure but we're not talking about her operating in a capacity that gives her charge or leadership or that asserts her authority over any males. But notice you see that more and more today. And what has happened is you've seen these subtle encroachments. What I mean by that is this. Notice how Priscilla Shire, notice how she's introduced even by I get it this is about her promoting a book but she's introduced or the topic or the discussions introduced how would her and her husband rather than her husband and her even in the discussion here the husband does not have authority or does not take preeminence in the introduction. In the Priscilla Jerry world does God speak audibly? That you certainly know of that God speaks to you. I've never heard the audible voice of God babe have you? You might think that's a small thing that's kind of nitpicking but it certainly is not and then another example is notice how when it's time to pray who's praying. So evidently so clearly for them that they will never doubt again that they have not heard from you and experienced you. Lord I'm asking that the church they attend would be on fire. When sin shows up when things show up out of order they don't typically happen in a fashion where it's over and it's easy to take. They're usually subtle in the beginning and then they grow and by the time they've gotten too big and out of hand it might be too much to control but it started off something small a little bit here a little bit there and then what happens she wants more and more and more authority more power because let's just be honest even with me and it can be intoxicating and it can be contagious. I survived NBC and ABC and CBS I survived every network from around the world my face is on every newspaper all over the world you're too small to shake me. I was on TMZ the only Christian in the history of the world my name is in the encyclopedia I'm number three in history according to the internet I have already made history so this right here is just the will of God excuse me but you're a little late somebody said well Dr. Biden why are you doing that why are you doing that because I'm a prophet why are you doing that because God sent Elijah to confront the lion prophets wherever I go God rules when I walk on White House grounds God walks on White House grounds when I walked in the river God walked in the river when I go into the dry cleaner that dry cleaning place becomes holy I had every right and authority to declare the White House as holy ground because I was standing there and where I stand is holy now there is a difference between a woman who gets up to speak before other women and other males happen to hear it or if a male desires to go and listen to what she has to say well that's not on her and she's not trying to exercise authority over the man however if her intention is to go out and seek a male audience or to seek to teach men now we've got a problem and then let's let's also be clear this isn't something that's just happening in churches or happening just with these women people that want to be pastors or preachers you see it happening in a subtle fashion even even on social media platforms where women seek to teach men women seek to enlighten men you've got women who seek to make men stronger by their teachings but I'll submit to you that any man who may possibly become stronger by the teaching of a woman the leading of a woman he's not he that's not a strong man anyway but you'll notice also this that a lot of these women on these platforms rather than catering to a female audience maybe talking to singles maybe talking to married women maybe talking to homemakers maybe talking to women in general they seek to teach and lead even men therein lies a problem because now she's seeking to usurp her authority over males again if a male happens to tune into her channel or go to her page or what have you that's not on her and so there is no sin there but if her intention is to go after the biggest audience possible which necessarily includes 50 of the population men well then we've got a problem and God is not in that and so since Paul tells us that God is not the author of confusion and everything that ought to be done decently in order be clear when you see a woman up leading a church exercising authority over church teaching over men Paul is clear that is not allowed and when you see that happening leave because it's going to become more and more the norm you'll see it happening over and over again and there'll be less objection by the majority of the body less and less Christians are going to object as the day grows near well make sure that you do your job you be vigilant especially you ladies and make sure that you take a firm stand for the word of God no matter what the cultural norms or expectations are amen