A Women’s Role in the Body of Christ 1 Audio

I want to begin the evening with a reading from the Book of Ephesians chapter 5, beginning at verse 21. There's 21 and following says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Why have Submit to your husbands as to the Lord? For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, or which he is the Savior." Now as the church submits to Christ, so also, wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but poorly and blameless. In the same way, husbands thought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body but he feeds and cares for it just as Christ does the church. For we are members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect for husband. I was in a meeting recently and the worship leader was singing the song, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look for in his wonderful face and the things of this world will be strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." And they came a point in the service as the song was being sung. It was being repeated. And all of a sudden something rose up in me. It was a hard feeling for me to put into words. The best I could tell you is that there was a yearning in me. It was very strange, strange to me. The pastor of the church sent the same thing and he was walking back after he had given some instructions up front. He was walking back to where he was seated with his wife and he went right past me and I stopped him and I said, "I really believe that the bride is yearning for the husband." There was a woman who God has gifted in my mystery and she was miming the song. She had been instantaneously moved by the Holy Spirit to go up front and to start performing a mind. And as I looked over and I saw her, what she was mirroring in that moment, she was physically looking as if she were looking intently in the face of the Lord. And it's hard for me to explain to you what happened. She was doing externally what I was feeling on the inside. I was surprised. It's really caught me by surprise because this is a feeling and an emotion that was very different for me. And for just a moment I realized that there was a yearning in a man for Christ and I really couldn't explain it. So I got up to preach and the Holy Spirit instructed me even as I was getting up to let aside my prepared text. And he started to give me revelation and together with the fellowship at the moment, that church fellowship, we began to experience something that for me was throwing the door open. It was a hungering and a yearning for Christ and then the Lord began to put flesh to this revelation. And I want to share with you some of the flesh that he gave me in this revelation. I'd like to begin by reading the last part of that reading I just read from Ephesians 5. He started at verse 21 and went through to verse 33, but I want to focus on verse 32 and that's where I want to start. This Paul said after having talked about husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, wives to bitty husbands as onto the Lord and so on. After that he comes down to verse 32 and he says, this is a profound mystery but I'm talking about Christ and the church. And also the Lord began to open up for me. What a feeling. I began to see this. Now I had revelation of this scripture before but it wasn't put together with my personal feelings in the matter at the time. I had revelation intellectually and I taught on this passage before but I never felt so drawn in to the revelation as in that moment orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. Now this scripture is normally preached to teach as a foundation the relationship of Christian husbands and Christian wives within the body of Christ. But what he's saying is this is a profound mystery, this relationship between Christ and the church. That's a profound mystery. But I want to use something with which you are already familiar as it means of unlocking and revealing this mystery to you. That's why he says, but I show you I am displaying to you, I am presenting to you this mystery of Christ and the church. And to unveil the mystery of Christ and the church he refers to the relationship between a husband and a wife. And he says by implication he's saying you should be very familiar with the relationship between a Christian husband and a Christian wife. You should be familiar with that. So I am using this very familiar thing to reveal a mystery to you. So the vehicle is not the emphasis. In this passage he's not emphasizing the relationship between a husband and a wife. In this passage he's emphasizing the relationship between Christ and the church. That's such plain. Therefore, who represents what in this mystery? In other words, he gives us a passage of Scripture that talks about husbands and wives. But he's really not talking about husbands and wives, he's talking about Christ and the church. Therefore, who is the husband? Obviously, Christ. Who is the wife, the church? That is why throughout the passage he's saying, "Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord." And if we miss the point, he says, "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body." And then he goes on, in case we miss the point. I mean, he's delivering the point of Christ in the story or in the analogy. So he says verse 24, "After twice referring to Christ in the church, verse 24, he says it another way." Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also, wives should submit to their own husbands in everything. By now, we have bludgeoned with the idea that the wife is the church. And he's telling the wife to submit to her husband. Why is he using the relationship between a husband and a wife to talk to the wife? The church that is the wife of Christ. What is going on here? Obviously, he's trying to say to the church, "Men, you are the bride of Christ because the church is comprised of both men and women." So when he talks about the wife in this story, he is of necessity, if he's using the wife to talk about the church, he's including both men and women in the wife, in the role of the wife. In the same way, when he talks about the husband, he's talking about not just a physical male in his role, but he's talking about Christ in his role. Why is he doing this? To what purpose? The reason is that men do not know naturally how to respond to the wife. to a man as a woman. But when you are the bride of Christ, male and female in relationship to Christ, you are a woman. How then does a man learn to be a woman? Because Christ has given him a wife to instruct him how to be a woman. Glory to God. Hallelujah! At all of a sudden, I realized I was sitting on the front row, actually standing on the front row, at living water in Big Spring, Texas, feeling like a woman. But I was a guy. I was a man. But something within me yearned for my husband, the Lord. There is nothing strange about this. Our minds have been contorted and twisted by homosexuality and the teachings of us and the practice of homosexuality only and publicly in our nation today. And so men have been cultured in our society to refuse and reject the role of being a woman in relationship to the husband who is the Lord. And because we have rejected that, we have used this passage to teach how men are greater than women and therefore women must submit to men unconditionally as a condition of being a Christian. That's nonsense! The role of a Christian woman is a precious role. I'm not saying this to be charitable. When men reject the role of Christian women, they have no way of learning how to be a wife to Christ. How does it learn it? Are we in fact, as men of God, the bride of Christ, we better be, because the bride is the one for whom he's coming. And whoever is in the bride, he will take with him to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And if we're not going, we've got more troubles than wondering about these feelings. Christ gave us the Christian woman who by the Holy Spirit is equipped to demonstrate submission without being a doormat. As we understand the role of the Christian woman, we see it not as a confining, degrading, demeaning thing, but we actually see it as what God requires of each one of us as the bride of Christ. And there's no possibility, I repeat my brethren, there's no possibility of a man in Christ learning how to be an appropriately submissive bride unless he accepts fully unconditionally the role of his wife to him. There's no way! What I think of how the Scripture has been used by churches and by men to abuse women, to demean and degrade them, to exclude them from the legitimate ministries to which they're called, I can't help but think how far we have missed the revelation of the mystery. I want to tell you something that I believe is revolutionary. It is this, my brethren, because the Christian woman is a type of the church. She is able to do, the Christian woman is able to do everything that the church is able to do. Of that, I'm sure. If by now you have concluded that I've stirred up the edges of all things that are sacred, now I'm sure that you have concluded that I've gone over the edge. You know, I had a good friend. I had a good friend one time and I was, he was very concerned about me because I was talking to him about some of these things and he had lunch with me and he said to me, "Sam, you know, I'm concerned about you," said, "you've gone off to depend. You know, something rolls up in me, I wanted to say, "Oh, you know, that's not true." You know, Lord said to me, "From where he's sitting, you're not just off to depend, you're in over your head." So I said to you, "I said, "Oh, brother, I appreciate your generosity to me. But the truth is, I'm not just off to depend. I'm in over my head." And if it broke by I swear to him, at least he was aware that I was normal, from his standpoint of normalcy. I want to explain what I mean by what I just said, that because the Christian woman is a type of the church, she is permitted to do everything that the church is permitted to do. I want to add a caveat. What is the church able to do by itself? Apart from Christ, what can the church do? Nothing. So the church is under the covering of Christ, the head. That's from 1 Corinthians that says, "Now the head of every man is Christ and the head of every woman is a man." In that description of headship, it was talking about not covering on the head, but of authority, the covering of authority, being under the authority of. So the church does everything because the covering on the head of the church is Christ. It's a sign that the church is properly under the authority of Christ. Let me back up and explain all of this. You see, the kingdom of God is established pursuant to an original grant of authority from the Father to the Son. Jesus said in Matthew 28/18, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." So there is no authority left over for anyone else if it says all. All means all. Not some, not most all means all. So all authority in heaven and on earth is fully vested in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that, any other type of authority must be delegated authority. That is, authority derived from that source. The church has all of the authority of Christ that he has given into it by his delegates, the Holy Spirit. That is why Jesus said concerning the Holy Spirit. When he comes, he will take of what is mine and he will make known unto you. You will make it known unto you and he will bring glory to me by taking of what is mine and making it known unto you. All that the Father has, he said, is mine. That is why I say he will make it known unto you. So Jesus gave an exclusive delegation of authority to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit distributes into the church the authority of Christ in the form of gifts to men according to Ephesians 4 verses 11 and following. Actually verses 10 and following. So in that way, there is authority in the church, properly coming through a line of delegated authority, originating with the original grant of authority from the Father to the Son. So whenever the church does anything, it does it as part of the delegated authority to the Lord Jesus Christ. In that sense, you see, the head of the church is Christ. He is the covering that legitimizes the use of his authority. Apart from the covering of Christ, there is nothing the church can legitimately do. Because there is no authority. But once it is under the covering of Christ, it is capable of doing anything he wants to do by his spirit. The woman, Christian woman, it says, now, why submit to your husband's death to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. That is what I was just explaining. As Christ is the head of the church, the church is able, under his headship, to do everything that he is doing. In the same way, under the proper covering, that is, under the proper authority of Christ, the woman is capable of doing anything and everything in the church. The issue is not what she can do. The issue is the authority by which she does it. The issue is not what the church can do. The issue is whether or not Christ is permitting it to be done. If Christ is doing it, the whole church can do it. If there is that legitimate delegation of authority, under the covering, the woman is able to do anything that the church is able to do. Because is a representation of the church because many have refused to open up opportunities for women to minister, then they have excluded the women from participation when God would not have excluded her in the first place. So whenever the scripture say, when Paul says, "In the assembly, I do not permit a woman to teach or you serve authority over the man, the issue is not whether or not she can teach." The issue is whether in doing so, she is usurping the authority that God has put to cover her. If she is not usurping authority, then she's not in violation of this principle because if the church is not usurping the authority of Christ, it is not violating the principle of his total authority. What we have done, you see, we have moved into the church, first we've moved the church into a building and then we've moved to pulpit into the church and then we've called a ground on which the pulpit stands holy ground. And because we have done that, we see the role of a woman within the context of this aberration that we've created. And that's what has oppressed women. It's the doctrines of men that have oppressed women, for there is no freedom or legitimacy for anyone, man or woman, within the doctrines of men. 300 years passed after the church existed before it owned a building. And even longer period of time passed before they brought in a pulpit and pews. I'm not saying the church can't meet in a building, but everybody knows that the church is not a building. And yet we call the church, we say there's a sanctuary. I thought God didn't dwell in temples made with hands. Because I thought that it's spirit fellowships with the human spirit and that's holy ground. If it is really true that the church is comprised of people, how does it that we could call any room constructed by human hand is sanctuary? What is the basis of it? How is it suddenly that yellow carpet and the wooden pulpit is suddenly transforming of the area into holy ground? And we don't think we have the only thing that makes void the law of God is the traditions of men. We're constantly trying to fit the holy thing into the permissible conveniences that God allowed us. So God permits us a convenience at times of having a building. And then we transform the building into the thing itself, the holy thing. And in the process we walk away and turn our backs upon the truth. So we see the church then within the context of these trappings and we use the trappings to entrap the freedom of the bride of Christ including the women. When we do that, I want you to know, when we do that, we not only impinge upon the lawful freedom of the children of God who happen to be female. We also limit our own freedoms as the children of God who happen to be males. Because we do not allow ourselves to experience the fullness of the freedom of the bride of Christ under the lordship of the head who is Christ. If my view is correct that the Christian woman is a type of the church, how is it then that we are not limiting and restricting ourselves as men to the same strictures that we place upon women? How? If we are the bride and in the eyes of the Lord, we are a woman, how is it that we do not accept for ourselves as men? The same restrictions that we demand of the woman? Or is it that we think that it's a male thing? Because we are men. We have certain lofty exalted positions vis-a-vis the women. Or should tell you something about God? As we relate to the Father, there is neither male nor female. The only purpose that I can find in the Scriptures vis-a-vis the purposes of God, for which the woman was created as a woman in the New Testament, is that she marvels for us what we should be in relationship to our husband who is Christ. Otherwise, as she stands before the Father, she is neither male nor female. It's only as she stands in relationship to male, to humans, that it's an appropriate designation of male and female. And once we understand, and that's the purpose of appropriation and those sorts of things. But once we understand vis-a-vis God, His gift to us of the Christian woman is a living allegory of the church. Then whatever the woman, the church, is able to do under the covering of the head, the physical woman is able to do under the lawful covering principally over her husband. See, we don't really get it. We are living today in a great type. The fullness of the type will be realized at the time the bride is caught up to be with the bride through. How are we to keep that in front of us day by day? The relationship of the husband and the wife has been given to us. I want to digress here for a moment and come back. I want to do a segue and then come back. The importance of understanding the marriage relationship between Christ and the church is directly at the heart of understanding how it is that we have a relationship with the father. So this is no small matter. I know that there's a great deal of preaching on covenant in the body of Christ today. And men are always wanting to cut covenants with other men. So that humans wanting to cut covenants with other humans so that we could have a very special relationship within the relationship of Christ and the church. I want you to understand something about covenant. God has never entered the covenant with a man with a human being. Now, since you may have already concluded, as this guy, you know, I just don't know about him, then hold on, hold on, walk with me through it. Hear what I'm saying. In your mind, you're already saying, I know that's not right because there was a covenant with Abraham and there's a new testament covenant. God did not enter a covenant in which he required anything of Abraham. God entered into a covenant with himself because God's interest was in having children. He qualified Abraham for something called being a third-party beneficiary as the one through whom he would keep this covenant with himself. What was the purpose and point of God's covenant? He said, God said, "I intend to make of you, Abraham, a great nation. And in your seed, I will bless all the nations of the world. Why? Because in the end of it all, God wanted sons." That's why he raised up the first of his sons, Adam. The Bible says, "An Adam was the son of God. From the dust of the planet that God had recently made, he formed and fashioned with his own hands of being that he called Adam. And he said, "Let us make him in our likeness after our own image." So in the image of God, God created Adam. Why? Because Adam was a prototype, the first one, like a seed. The earth itself is like a seed in the inky blackness of space. From the dust of the seed, he raises up his seed within his seed to produce four God, what he's after when it's all finished. When it's done, there won't be churches and covenants with people and all of that. When it's done, when the earth has come, when the world has come to an end, what God will have is His family, His children. The Bible tells us that at the end of the millennium, when the earth is full of the earth, the earth is full of the Christ has ruled and put all rules subject to him, then he will hand up the kingdom to the Father and God will be all in awe. That's the purpose. You know what someone is after in the beginning when you look at what the result is, when it's gone through all of its processes, where it ends up is where he intended that it should end up. So it tells us clearly what his intention was before he started it all or as he started it all. That's the purpose and the whole thing was to have children. Do you suppose that for one moment God would rely upon the integrity of Abraham to have this result? God tells us not to lean to our trust in the armor flesh. Do you think that he would ignore his own advice? Which man is capable of faithfully producing and keeping a covenant with God? No, that wasn't it. God swore on the North to himself because there was none greater than himself and he confirmed the oath. He confirmed his covenant by the integrity of his person. That's the only basis upon which he could form a covenant. And so he qualified Abraham to see whether or not Abraham was worthy to be the beneficiary of the agreement that God made with himself concerning having his own children. So that's why he had Abraham sacrifice Abraham's own future. Because at his age this was all he had coming. This was the son of the promise and he asked him to give the son of his promise to him. So in a sense Abraham was cut off from his own lineage because in his heart he was willing to kill his son. Because of that God elected that this would be the seed through whom God would fulfill his promise to God. That's why Abraham had the benefit of God's covenant with God. And the new covenant, that truth is all the more apparent. Because the book of Hebrews the tenth chapter tells us that God entered once into the holy place to offer himself as a sacrifice to God. That's the new covenant. God end God. And out of this covenant, out of this covenant, there comes the third party beneficiaries, those who benefit from the covenant without being either the party of the first part or the party of the second part. It's like this. When you have a marriage, the marriage is not between you and your children. The marriage is between you and your spouse. Many families failing to recognize that this is the truth have lived for their children to their substantial regret. It is not appropriate for the children of a family to be treated as part of the covenant of marriage. The covenant of marriage is between the two spouses, the husband and the wife. The children are the third party beneficiaries of something they have no say in. They benefit by virtue of the covenant between the two. When you explain to you how this works between the father and the son, the covenant exists between the father and the son, and because the son was obedient even to death on a cross, the father highly exalted him and gave him a name that is above every name. That is his inheritance. It is not that the son has the large bulk of the estate and the rest of the sons of God have small apportionments of that estate. In other words, it is not that the father decided to give to the son most of the authority. The father gave to the son all authority. If he gave to the son all authority, how come we share in his inheritance? Now there is a covenant and this one is called the covenant of marriage between the son and the bride. Because of the covenant of marriage between the son and the bride, the father has chosen to accept the bride because she is in the one he loves. To scriptures come to mind. First, no man comes to the father but by me. Because we do not have a lawful right of entry into the presence of the most eye, apart from the one through whose flesh we come by this new and living way. The second thing that is true is he is the beloved and you are accepted in the beloved. Why do you think he told the story about how Jesus told the story about how a certain king was making a wedding feast for his son? The one story about how he issued these wedding garments because he had first a student in vacation to his best friends, invited guests and they had all sorts of things they were doing. One had brought some lamb he had never seen, another had brought some oxen that he had never tried and so on. You know, to people like that you could sell lamb and oxen anyway. Of course there were just making convenient excuses. They sent out into the highways and the hedges to find as many as might be found and they were told, "Come in, come in. Those who were invited were not worthy. So bring in the street people. Bring in the ones under the bridges." And as they came in he gave them a wedding garment and he invited to sit at the table of the feast prepared for the lamb. I read in the Revelation the 19 chapter that the wedding of the lamb has come and the bride has made herself ready. Bright garments, white and clean were given to her to wear and we're thrilled as an aside. These garments stand for the righteous acts of the saints. So the Father prepares the feast for the Son because the Son is the one whom He loves. And because this is the one whom the Son loves, if you kiss the Son you will live. Hallelujah. Yes, men, kiss the Son. And there's nothing homosexual about that because you are a woman when you do. You're a woman when you do. You understand now the significance of the role of women. In short, we have no access to the Father apart from the relationship of a bride. The bride of the lamb. The Father will not recognize a relationship between you and him apart from the Son He loves. He will not. No man comes to the Father but by me. Because he is the way, the truth and the life. The life of God is in Christ. That is why He gives us His Spirit to transform us into street people, into residents of the Kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit works the work that transforms us because the Holy Spirit is. He operates in and He brings to us and we're able to participate in the Spirit of the bride groom. The Spirit of the bride groom has been put in our hearts to cause us to love our husband, the Lord. And what I was feeling as a man, sitting on the front view of this particular church, I had the feelings of a bride and they were new to me because I wanted to look in his wonderful place. Glory to God. You ought to see the women in this audience. Talk about rapture. The men are still kind of, you know, the little bit is a little bit harder than the men. women, they were not the standards. Women are the standards. understand this. You see, we do not have a covenant between the Father and ourselves. It would negate the validity and the place of the Son. What would be the role of the Son if you could have a covenant with the Father apart from Him? What is all this about being in Christ? Why not accept the fact that He just died as a Savior, move Him out of the way and as a Father and us? Why is the Scriptures about if any man be in Christ? He is a new creation, that He has been reconciling the world to Himself in Christ. Second Corinthians 5. What's this in Christ? It means that there is a relationship that the Father recognizes with His Son and whomever the Son loves is accepted in the house of the Father. And the Father says, "I was spread out at bank with the lights of which has never been seen when the day that my Son's bride is joined with Him forever in the courts of heaven." Because He says, "The Son has met with my approval. I can trust Him to bring home a bride that is acceptable to me." That's what it means when it says, "Or, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things that He suffered and being made humble even to death Him across, God exalted Him and gave Him a name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every home shall confess to the glory of God that Jesus Christ is Lord." The Father cannot recognize anyone apart from the Son. He cannot, because He gave all authority to the Son. Now, you need to see in the church, it is not that God has, that Jesus has the lion's share of the Father's reward. It is that He has all of the Father's reward. Now, this is easy to understand, really, if you think about it in the context of marriage. My wife being married to me has total access to everything that I have or that I am because we're one. She often reminds me of that, by the way. I was getting too serious here. If we are one, then whatever I am, she is. Whatever I have is earth. You see, we do not have the portion of the Lord's estate. We have all of it. In Him are all the riches of His grace. I think that's a pretty good deal for a woman, if you ask me, have all of the riches of His grace. That's not a bad inheritance for the bride. Isn't it awesome? Not bad for the bride. She did all right. She did all right by His grace, by His grace. And I found that there was this thing stirring in me that I wanted, I longed for, my husband, the Lord. When I see and understand how my wife differs to me, I now don't see it as her weakness. I learned something. I tell you about my wife a little bit. Listen, I have been married for, this may will be 19 years, we started out fairly young. She knows me, she knows how I think. She understands what moves me. If she approaches me from the standpoint of an argument, she knows that she probably won't get very far. Early in our marriage, I was attending law school and as any uninitiated young law student, I was being somewhat impressed by all this process of legal education. So I found one day that I was saying to her as beginning conversations with her with such expressions as, "Isn't it true?" She said to me, "I will tell you something. I knew you before you started all this." And I don't appreciate being cross-examined. But over the years, she and I have grown together and the respect that she shows to me pays off abundantly in the harmony and peace that we enjoy. She will come to me now and she will say, "Well Sam, I thought about this particular project or this particular thing and she would say, "This is what I think. But I recognize it as a decision as yours. I'm leaving it with you. Do whatever you think. You know what I do? Most of the time, I do exactly what she tells me that she thought. Because when I wear it, sometimes I do it a different way. But if it pleased her, if that way pleased her, it's my big deal. I'm glad to show her my affection. As if she came in and threw the things down and said, "This is the way we're going to do it, I would probably come up with ten other ways to do it and insist on nine of them and not hers." Women know something about, women know something about how to approach a man. Men know they're on our rescue. Most decisions, you know, all way on the road and they want to go ahead and head with you and hammer things out. There's no particular joy. There's very little there by way of building relationships. But a woman knows how to approach a man. A godly woman knows how to approach a godly husband. That's where we learn how to approach a husband, the Lord. With all deference and respect that is due to him. And if he chooses not to agree with us, if we come deferentially to him, he will explain why he's doing it differently. Because I know that. Because he says, "I will not despise. I will not despise. It broke him in a contrite heart." The Lord says, "I won't despise you when you come broken in contrite. I will put you away. When my wife approaches me with an attitude of humility, I never reject her. I always see how I can bless her. If I see it, if I'm foolish enough to see her deference to me, that God gave her to teach me, if I'm foolish enough to think of that as weakness, then I miss the whole point. Now because the Lord has shown me, when I see her approach me that way, the Lord will quicken in my heart. How should I notice this? You haven't been so humble. You've been trying to persuade me of what you want. And I'm likely to resist you. I can think of ten different ways to do it. And not one of them would be yours. Hallelujah. We're coming to the end of the hour and I want to wind it up with this. In the book of Matthew, chapter 25, there's a story about the husband coming for the bride. And it says simply, "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins who took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom, and five of them were wise and five were foolish. They that were wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps, and as the bridegroom carried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was made, the whole the bridegroom comeeth, going out to meet him, and all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps, but the foolish set on to the wise, heaves of your oil, for our lamps have gone out. But the wise answered saying, "Not so. Lest there be not enough for us and thee. But go you rather to those who sell and buy for yourselves. And while they went away to buy, while they went away to buy, the bridegroom came. And they who were ready went in unto the marriage and the door was shut. After a while came also the other five virgins saying, "Lord, Lord, open unto us!" And the answer then said to them, "Depart from me, your workers of iniquity, I never knew you." This is the season when the bridegroom is announcing by his spirit, his return. And the bride is awakening. Men and women are awakening to feelings of longing for the return of our husband, the Lord. And that's what I was experiencing. So the Lord has begun to work in my heart the feelings of a bride group, of a bride for the bride group. I urge you now, those of you who are listening, work in the studio audience and until I urge you to recognize that the Holy Spirit is preparing the bride for the advent of the bride group. One of the ways of preparation is to receive the role of the woman, knowledge that in this story you are the woman if you belong to the Lord. Let the Christian women instruct the men concerning the relevance of this great mystery. It's not primarily about husbands and wives. It is primarily about Christ and the church revealed in the relationship of husbands and wives. Glory to God. I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you, but the Lord richly bless you. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Amen.