Look at verse 20. Let's look at the fourth church, Thyatira. What was wrong with it?
Now withstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel,
which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach, and to seduce my servants to commit fornication,
and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. Now keep your finger here in Revelation 2. Go back to
1 Timothy chapter 2. Keep your finger there in Revelation 2. Let's go to 1 Timothy 2.
The Bible says over in 1 Timothy chapter 2, it says in verse 11 of 1 Timothy 2,
let the woman learn in silence with all subjection, but I suffer not a woman to teach,
nor do you serve authority over the man, but to be in silence. Look at verse 12 again. But I suffer
not a woman to teach, nor do you serve authority over the man, but to be in silence. Let's read
it a third time. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor do you serve authority over the man,
but to be in silence. And in case you weren't sure about what that means, it says in 1 Corinthians 14,
let your women keep silence in the churches. It's not permitted unto them to speak.
If they have a question, let them ask their husband at home, for it's a shame for a woman to
speak in the church. So when we're in church, it's a man that needs to be up behind the pulpit
preaching. It's a man that needs to be teaching doctrine and teaching God's word. Now if you go
back to Revelation 20, I think it would be strange indeed for you to not see the exact wording
from 1 Timothy 2 in this passage. Because I read it three times, right? I suffer not a woman to
teach. What was Thyatira doing? Look at verse 20. Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which called
herself a prophetess, to teach. Okay, so let's say we were to take that dependent clause there,
which calleth herself a prophetess, right? Let's just kind of put that in parentheses for a second,
and then let's read the statement without that parenthetical dependent clause. Thou sufferest
that woman Jezebel to teach. Right? That's the sentence structure there, if we were diagramming
the sentence. You're suffering, right? That's the verb. The woman Jezebel. There's your direct
object, right? To teach. Prepositional phrase, modifying the direct object. What are we saying
here? Don't suffer a woman to teach. You're suffering that woman to teach. Now, you say,
wait a minute, Pastor Anderson. The problem isn't that they were suffering a woman to teach.
It's just that they were suffering that woman to teach. You know, that woman Jezebel to teach.
You know, suffering other women to teach would have been fine, but just don't suffer that woman
to teach. Why? Because she's seducing the servants. I submit to you that every woman preacher is
wicked as hell, because what would motivate a godly woman to defy God's command and preach
in church? Think about it. You say, well, if it's a good teacher, it's fine. Any woman preacher is
a bad preacher, because she's ignoring the word of God. And if she's ignoring the word of God that
says I suffer not a woman to teach, nor do you serve authority over the man, but to be in silence,
if she's defying the scripture in 1 Corinthians 14 that says let your women keep silence in the
churches, what other scripture is she defying? A lot, because she's a wicked person. If she were
godly, she would follow God's plan for her life. So how could you have a godly female pastor?
How do you have a godly female preacher? Not going to happen,
because of the fact that they're in defiance of God's will right there.
Well, Joyce Meyer, she's wicked, and she needs to grow out her hair like a woman and quit having
a man's haircut and quit looking like the Joker while she's at it. But that Joyce Meyer
preaches lies. She wrote a whole book called God's Not Mad at You. No matter who you are,
no matter what you've done, God's not mad at you. God's angry with the wicked every day,
Joyce Meyer, and he's angry with you every day, Joyce Meyer. You need to write a follow-up book
called God's Mad at Me. Chapter one, woe unto me. I'm wicked. Call me Jezebel. It'll be like,
you know, Moby Dick starts with the famous words, call me Ishmael. Maybe she could write her own
classic literature that starts with call me Jezebel in the first three words. I'll tell you
what's wrong with our churches today. Women have been put in authority in our churches today.
Now look, I love the fact that our church is filled with women who are involved in the work
of God. I mean, we have a lot of ladies in our church that are deeply involved in the work of
God. And I'm not just talking about the cleaning that they do, although that's appreciated.
I'm not just talking about the meals that they prepare, although that's much appreciated.
I'm talking about they go out there and do soul winning. They go out there in the highways and
hedges and preach the gospel to every creature. That's the female preacher we need as a soul
winner. And I thank God that we have ladies in our church who are involved with the work
of the church and they're involved with soul winning and they're involved in the program
and they serve, whether it's playing the piano or playing the trumpet or, or whatever service
they perform out there, soul winning and the service that they perform to their own family
and raising godly children and, and doing everything that they can to serve the Lord.
But women are not in leadership in our church. They're not an authority in our church,
and they never will be. They never will. It's never going to happen. Women are not to usurp
authority over men in the house of God, and they're not to teach the Bible. That's a man's
job to get up. And you say, well, certain women's issues need to be preached by women.
Hogwash, I'll preach the whole Bible myself as a man. I'll preach Proverbs 31 all by myself.
I'll preach all the women's passages. Why? Because as a man of God, I can preach the
whole Bible. I don't need to bring in a specialist to talk to the women. Well,
they'll take it better from a woman. Well then you know what? Then then maybe they just won't
take it well then. Maybe it's just going to hurt then, but it's going to come from a man
behind the pulpit. Look, we need men to teach and preach, and this is not disparaging of women.
It's just that men have a role and women have a role. Look, there are qualifications for the
pastor. There are great men, godly men, righteous men who don't meet that qualification because of
something in their past. It doesn't make them any less of a Christian. It just means that they
can't take that particular role of pastoring. And today the independent fundamental Baptists
have put way too many women in charge of way too many things, and they have way too many women
teach in the Bible. They'll have women teaching Sunday school classes to teenagers. Well, it's a
teenager. Well, it's just the children or whatever. Well, you know what? You're raising those children
to grow up and listen to women preachers. Why do you think Joyce Meyer is so popular? You think
that came out of a vacuum? I guarantee you it's because the adults who are listening to Joyce
Meyer right now, they grew up in churches with a man for a pastor, but they were down in the
children's department for a decade listening to female preaching. So then that's what they grow
up and crave. I'm telling you, the stuff that you do when you're two, three, four, five, six years
old, the foods that you eat, the music that you listen to, all that stuff is going to be what you
are set for life. You're always going to like that stuff. You're going to be programmed like that.
And so when you grow up in the Sunday school department where the preachers are women,
you grow up in the teenage youth department, you've got a female preacher preaching at you.
Well, it's just going to make sense for you to just, you know, I like Joyce Meyer.
You queer little sissy. Listen to a man preach to you for a while.
Any man who loves Joyce Meyer is a queer little sissy. There I said it.
Put that in your Pope and smack it. So number one, what's wrong with our churches today?
One, not enough soul winning. Let's ramp up soul winning. Let's do more. Let's not scale it back
to two times a month. Let's do more soul winning. Let's provide more opportunities. Let's get people
out more. Number one, little or no soul winning. Number two, scared to death of their own shadow,
scared of being persecuted, scared to stand for the Lord. Number three, what are they doing?
They're allowing fornication and grievous sin in their church.
And that also has to do with fear of confronting people and fear of preaching hard. Number four,
what's wrong with them? They're suffering women to teach. They're putting women in authority
and they're putting women to preach and to teach the word of God. They're having women lead and
it's a flop. It's a failure. And it's not that women, look, I'm sure my wife could get up and
preach a real face ripping of a sermon, but that doesn't make it right. Right's right and wrong's
wrong. And no woman should ever be allowed to get up and teach and preach in the house of God.
Leave that to men. And you say, well, they have to do it because the men aren't stepping up,
you know, so then the women have to... How many preachers do you need in a church? You only need
one. Put everybody in the same room and preach to them. But they got to divide it up into 50
different classes. Where'd God tell you to do that? And they're like, we don't have enough
teachers. Well, why don't you not divide up into 12 groups then if you don't have enough teachers?
Why don't you just all get in one big room, knock out some walls and make one big room,
put everybody in there and preach to them. And if you don't even have one man that can get up
and preach the word of God in your church, why don't you just close the doors and go join a real
church? And you know what? More men would... Look, we don't have a shortage around here of preachers.
I mean, I could think of 10 guys in this church that I could put behind this pulpit in a pinch
that would get up and preach a good sermon. There's no shortage around here of men that
could get up and preach the word of God and teach. And I'm saying they'd preach a good sermon.
They'd preach an edifying sermon. People would walk out and they would have got something
and they would have enjoyed it. Maybe there's no qualified teachers and preachers in these churches
because maybe it's just a weak pastor and a weak church that they're not raising up pastors.
They're not raising up young preachers. They're not raising up the next generation of men.
So they have to turn to the women to take over and lead and step up to the plate because the men
are too lazy or too bored with the whole thing or too into the things of this world. Well,
it's a shame and it's what's wrong with our churches today.