God's creative order, established at creation, is restored in believers through the New Covenant. The examples emphasize that this order is demonstrated in worship, particularly concerning the roles of men and women as outlined in 1 Corinthians 11. The core lesson is that submission to this divine order, reflecting Christ's headship over the church and God's headship over Christ, is essential for believers. The sermon concludes by applying this principle to personal commitment, urging listeners to give everything for salvation, mirroring the parable of the pearl of great price.
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Chapter eleven. First Corinthians chapter eleven and we shall begin our reading at verse one. First Corinthians eleven one. Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you brethren that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head.
But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head, for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn, but If it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.
For this cause ought the woman to have authority or power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God. Judging yourselves, is it commonly that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for recovering.
But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God. And may the Lord bless the reading of his words. Let's pray together. Our Father. We thank you for the word of God, for the direction that it gives us. And we pray that as we study this passage together, that thou wilt enable us to draw from it that which will give us peace of heart and joy in the Holy Spirit. Minister to our souls this morning, speak to us in this hour, in order that we may hear thy voice and that thy voice may be obeyed by us.
And we thank you for the privilege of asking and receiving in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Beginning in nineteen sixty or nineteen eighty seven, I wanted to say nineteen sixty seven, but in nineteen eighty seven throughout most of the year we spent on the first ten chapters of first Corinthians we haven't been in first Corinthians for some time and I want to finish our studies in first Corinthians and I'm going to do first Corinthians basically at night however I wanted to go through chapter eleven in the morning because there are more people here on a Sunday morning than there are on a Sunday night And not only did I want to go through chapter eleven Sunday mornings here because there are more people, but also because of the stress that is laid on the ending of chapter eleven when we get to that blessed portion that deals with the Lord's Supper, the importance of remembering the Lord.
Now the passage that I read this morning is one of the least understood, I believe, in the Word of God. This particular passage has raised more questions than you can hardly imagine. And of all the questions that I'm asked, especially by people who come to this meeting, is why do your women wear something on their head? Now, I'm not taking this passage to put anybody on the spot. That's never my position. I believe if a person does that, they're using the pulpit. If they would say something from the platform that they wouldn't say face to face with anybody, they're using the pulpit as a coward's castle.
And I'm not that kind of a person. I hope I'm not. And I think you'll understand that. My purpose is to teach the Word of God. When I was a boy, I was a Western Union telegram delivery boy. in World War II in the northern city. I rode my bicycle just every night of the winter delivering telegrams during World War II, and I rode the bicycle through snow that deep many a time. I fell off them. And when these telegrams were put in the tray above my desk, there are a lot of telegrams I wanted to change the words.
Because in those days boys delivered the news to mothers and to wives that husbands and fathers were missing in action, wounded in action, killed in action. I often wanted to change the message. I didn't like it. Sometimes I had to spend an hour at a home till neighbors could come in and help with those who got bad news. I wasn't permitted to change the language of the telegrams. And beloved, when we come to the Word of God, I have that same problem.
I didn't write the Bible. My job is to be a good telegram boy. My job is to faithfully proclaim the Word of God. Now the Church of Corinth was a divided church. They were divided over personalities. They were man-centered rather than God-centered. The Church of Corinth was not a God-centered church. They were gathered around human leaders. And because of that, Paul wrote what we call the introduction to First Corinthians. He took four chapters to deal with them to get their mind back on the person of our God.
And then in chapters five and six, Paul had to deal with problems that were in the church at Corinth. For they had some real problems in the church. There was sin that was there that was never dealt with. It was not disciplined. And Paul had a right to them to tell them how to deal with immorality. There was immorality in their midst. And it didn't leave them to weep over sin. They were glorying because they were occupied with each other rather than with the Lord and the commands of the Lord. Then in chapter six we find there was more wrong with them. They were going to court with each other and that before the unbelievers.
And we learn a lesson in chapter six. The lesson is just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right. That's the lesson of chapter six. If you want to live within the bounds of the law, fine. But God calls us to live righteously in the bounds of His word. And then when you get to chapter seven through ten, the apostle deals with things that they wrote him about. They wrote him concerning marriage. They wrote him concerning things offered to idols. They wrote to him concerning days. and therefore when you come to the end of chapter ten you read two magnificent verses in verse thirty one he says to them wherefore whether you eat or whether you drink to all to the glory of God in other words whatever you do you should do to God's glory that should be the whole mode of your life the glory of God is it for the glory of God.
Over every activity of your life you should have that written. That question. And you should be able to answer it. Is it for the glory of God? And then he wrote another verse. And that's found in verse thirty two. The very next verse he says, Give none offense. Neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentile, nor to the church of God. With that behind us we now come to the eleventh chapter. In verses one and two, these verses simply indicate the transition to a new subject.
Now I want to tell you where I'm going and where the bottom line is. And then you'll see the direction in which this message is going to go as well as the next, and I'm not going to get over sixteen verses this morning. And I want you to know what the bottom line is. God in the New Testament is always worshipped first of all as creator and then as redeemer. When you come to the great worship chapters of the Bible, God is a creator. And in the worship chapters of the Bible, God is first of all worshipped as creator and then he is worshipped as redeemer.
The one who provided redemption through the blood of his dear son on the cross on Calvary's Hill. Revelation chapter four comes before Revelation chapter five. In chapter five, bodies worshipped as a redeemer. Worthy as the Lamb that was slain. In chapter four, he is worshipped as a one who created all things and for his pleasure. They are and were created. Therefore, he's worshipped as creator and as redeemer, in that order. Now, here in chapter eleven, I believe what Paul is presenting in chapter eleven is the new covenant order of showing creative order in the universe.
You and I have been made partakers of the New Covenant. We have that in Matthew chapter twenty-seven. In Matthew, excuse me, chapter twenty-six, when our Lord took the cup that night that he had what we know of when he instituted the Lord's Supper, he said, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. And when you come to Hebrews chapter eight, and Hebrews chapter ten we find these words taken from Jeremiah chapter thirty one a new covenant that I make with you and that new covenant which is yet going to be brought in in its fullness in the millennial kingdom we are already partakers of it and God has given us the privilege of manifesting the new covenant in showing forth creative order.
When God created man, he created man that man should bring pleasure to him. You have that in the last verse of Revelation chapter four. For thy pleasure all things are and were created. We have cause and we have an effect. They are, they were created. Why? For His pleasure. And you know that man by nature does not bring pleasure to God. For man by nature is a sinner. Man is lost. And in our lostness we have gone our own way.
All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the problem with man and the very essence of sin is I want my own way. That's the essence of sin. And from that, every other sin that we can catalog flows. I want my own way. My will to my right to myself. That is the essence of sin. But when God saves us, When God saves an individual by showing him the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, God's remedy for sin, the only remedy for sin, what He does, we call it God's redempty work.
And to redeem means to basically restore. To restore. What does God restore? God restores what He didn't take away. He restores man back into fellowship with God. That's why the whole work of atonement is called in the New Testament reconciliation. By whom also we read in Romans chapter five, we have received the atonement, but that's in the King James, but a better word there, we have received the reconciliation. We have been brought back. And in those who have been brought back, What Paul is arguing in I Corinthians eleven is he is restoring creative order.
Where? He is restoring it in those whom he has redeemed. And therefore, because of this, I say it is the new covenant, not the old covenant. In the old covenant, the man covered his head. In the New Covenant, the man never covers his head in worship. You see, it is different. It is a restoration, as you have in the sixty-ninth Psalm and the fourth verse. Speaking of our Lord prophetically, when the sorrows of the cross came over him, we read the words, Then restored I that which I took, not away.
So I want you to know where I'm going. The bottom line is creative order restored by whom? Those who are partakers of the New Covenant. And this should bring joy to our hearts as the children of God. I'm a partaker of the New Covenant. I'll never forget when my dear Aunt Lizzie died. She was about ninety-eight when she died. And either ninety-eight or ninety-nine, she was one of the charter members of Old Salem Lutheran Church in the city of Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
And at the cemetery it was a cold day. And I was shocked when the preacher didn't take off his hat when he prayed. Would you be? I was. I really was. Now I want you to notice creative order expressed. And that's what you have in verse three. And to me verse three becomes the key to it all. If we can teach verse three and understand it, we have come a long way. He says, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man.
and the head of Christ is God. There is a principle here. The principle is that order and subordination pervade the whole universe and it is essential to its being. That's what this text is saying. It's like we say concerning creation. There is a design in the universe. and to have a design there must be a designer. So we say God created, as the Word of God declares. We do not submit to the doctrine of evolution. I believe the Word of God teaches that God created.
Now the principle that is in all of the universe is that subordination and order pervade it all. There's one thing that we learn when we look at the universe, there's order in the universe. Colossians one tells us why. By him, by Christ, all things were created and by him all things consist. There's a consistency to the universe so that penicillin will do the same thing for you if you're in Alaska or in Argentina or in North Carolina. There's a consistency in the universe. But then notice second, the head is that upon which the body is dependent. My body is dependent upon my head.
everything that my body does my head directs it to do if I'm driving my car down the street and I need to put on the brakes my head tells my foot what to do and I may do it so automatically because I've done it so often you see but my head still gives a signal to my feet to know enough to put on the brakes so you see in the human body the whole of the body is dependent upon the head and when it comes to the church The head of the church is our Lord Jesus Christ. And every member of the body is dependent upon him. First, we are dependent upon him for life.
There is no life apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ. Because the Word of God declares, ye must be born again. except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God and except a man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God so we are dependent upon him for life for the more we are dependent upon him to keep us in the way as the children of God we are totally dependent upon him to keep us for the word of God says we are kept by the power of God through faith and Hebrews chapter seven tells us that as our great high priest, he continuously makes intercession for us.
I am dependent upon him for all things. The air I breathe, and I do it so automatically, I don't even know I'm doing it. The air I breathe, the sunshine I enjoy, the rain that God gives us, and we can go down the list, we are totally dependent upon him. Christ is the head of the church. And the analogy of the head and the body comes to the forefront in chapter twelve, first Corinthians in a real way. Now the obvious meaning of verse three is very simple. The woman is subordinate to the man.
The man is subordinate to Christ. And Christ is subordinate to God. Now the subordination of the woman to the man is different from the man's subordination to Christ. And Christ's subordination to the Father is infinitely greater than man's subordination to Him. Now when you read in this passage of the subordination of Christ to the Father, remember It is consistent with his being of the same nature with the Father. It is as the incarnate God.
God incarnate. God coming in the flesh as we celebrate at Christmas time. God becoming a man. In the great work of redemption, he became subordinate to the Father so that he could say, I always do those things. that please the Father in John six verse forty he said I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me and this is the will of him that sent me that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing but raise them up again at the last day so here we have the subordination of Christ to the Father and therefore In the order of subordination, you are man subordinate to Christ.
And you have woman subordinate to the man. Now that isn't difficult. We're not talking about equality now. You see, Christ was equal with the Father. What you have is lovely equality with subordination. We're not saying the man is greater than the woman in this passage. We're just saying in this passage that God placed a responsibility on man that He didn't on woman because He created the man first. And because He created the man first, the man is the most responsible.
Now one of the sad things is that in today's world, man likes to shirk his responsibility and place it on his wife or on the woman. Now when it is said here that Christ is the head of every man, what he's really saying literally is he is the head of every believer. What we're dealing with here is church truth. We're not dealing with a world. When it says Christ is the head of every man, he's saying Christ is the head of every believer. We are dealing here with church order. But now we come to verse four. Here we not only have creative order expressed, as you do in verse three, but you have creative order expressed in relation to the man.
For you'll notice every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. You see, verse three establishes the divine order. And now what follows is the mandate that men and women should act in accordance with that order. Every man praying or prophesying. Now other words, in other words, it means taking part in public worship. Everyone taking part in public worship. In the early church, the public worship consisted of basically three things. Praying, prophesying, and singing.
These three things. Now, the apostle here declares that this should not be done by a man who has his head covered. That is a simple meaning of the text. Literally, to translate the text, it means having something on his head downward, that which would cover his head. Now, if he cover his head, the scripture here says, he dishonors his head. Now, I do not believe that his head here, and I wouldn't argue with anybody who would disagree with me, I believe that it has reference to his own personal head.
I don't believe it has reference to Christ, but rather to his own personal head. Let me illustrate that. If a commanding military officer appears at the head of his troops in the dress of a common soldier instead of in his official dress. He dishonors himself rather than his sovereign. And that's where the way I look at that text, his head. Now, if a man intends to represent the dominion of God, and that's his position, the God placed in man's hand dominion, as our brother Max Mills pointed out last Lord's Day morning, If God has placed in the hands of men dominion, then the man must act accordingly and not appear in the dress of a woman.
God had made a, he differentiated between the sexes. And the word of God tells us who have been saved by the grace of God and who have been brought back in the fellowship with him, he says to us, I want you to obey creative order. Now, you and I are living in an age where we don't always submit to what the Word of God says. And we try to get around it in one way or another.
And I'd like you to turn with me for a moment to a parable in Matthew thirteen. Turn with me to the Gospel by Matthew chapter thirteen. Now I'm turning to this for a reason. In Matthew thirteen these seven parables that our Lord gives concerning the kingdom of heaven have been interpreted in various ways. Those of us who are of a dispensational persuasion And I fall into that category. Sometimes we set our interpretations in concrete so that they cannot be moved. And when we come to Matthew thirteen and to the parable that's taken in verses forty-five and forty-six, the pearl of great price, all we say the pearl of great price is the church.
The merchantman is Christ. And we have our reasons for it. And I'm not going to argue with that. But I'm going to change it this morning for a moment. May I? You permit me to give you another interpretation. Suppose the pearl of great price is salvation. Now let's read it with that thought in mind. Verse forty-five, again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly pearls. Who when he had found one pearl of great price went and sold all that he had and bought it. What does salvation mean to you?
I want to close with that this morning and I'm not finished. You're going to have to give me a few minutes yet. What does salvation mean to you? Are you willing to give everything for it? You see, a lot of us, we say that the work of Christ and the salvation that we have in Him is the most important thing in our lives. And I challenge you this morning, is it? See, the story is told of the man who just loved pearls.
He loved it. And one day he went by a store. And as he went by the store, he saw this large pearl in the window. He just stood there and adored it. And he went in, he said to the man, he said, I want that pearl in the window. What is its price? He said, everything you have. He thought about it a while, and he said, I want it. Well, he said, it'll take everything you have. He said, how much money do you have? And he told him, he said, hand it all over. Oh, he said, I need to save some for guests. Oh, he said, so you have a car. He said, it'll take that too.
Where are you going? He said, oh, you have a home? You have a home? Yeah, he said, it'll take that too. He said, you have a wife? Yes, he said, it'll take that too. Children? Yes, it'll take that too. Children? Yes, it'll take that too. And the man looked at him and he said, You know, I want that pearl so badly. I give it all to you. Our Lord says, If any man will come after me, he has to esteem me greater than father, than mother, than brother, than sister.
He says it all. I want it all. No, my friend, do you want that salvation that's in Christ? You see, it commands all. The man gave it all, and he went out with his pearl, and as he was going out the door, the shopkeeper called him back. He says, come back. And when he came back, he said, here, I'll give you your money back. I'll give you your wife back. I'll give you your children back. I give you your car back but never forget they all are mine beloved and God saved us at the cost of his well beloved son he's given us all things and he says do you love me this morning the choir sang Lord Jesus I love you I know thou art mine my rock and my fortress my surety divine.
Do you want Christ more than anything else? That's the basis upon which you have Him. You have Him without reserve. It's not, Lord, I'm going to do my own thing. It's, Lord, I come to you and I bow to your word. I bow to your authority. Oh, my friend, this is what means everything to the child of God. Lord, I come and I receive. Have you ever come? You see, you can tell, you see the Gospels in First Corinthians eleven, for the gospel here declares the mind of God.
Oh, my friend, have you come? Will you come to him? He demands all. And once you've given all, he says, I'll give it back to you. And now you can really enjoy it. Remember, he says, it's mine. It's mine. Let's stand together and sing a stanza of a hymn. Number three hundred seventy-two will sing just one stanza of the hymn. Three hundred seventy-two. I hear thy welcome voice that calls me, Lord, to thee, for cleansing in the precious blood. that flowed on Calvary. I am coming, Lord, coming now to thee.
Let's stand together and sing the first stanza only. And if you're here without Christ, come to him today. If we can help you, remain behind. Brother... I hear thy welcome voice, thy call is voice to thee, thy friendly men, thy precious voice, Let's hold on Calvary.
I am coming, Lord, coming out to thee. God, seek when we end the flood. Let's hold on Calvary. our father as we bow in our holy presence we thank you that we can come and we can believe we can receive and we can magnify him who loved us and gave himself for us we thank you oh god that you take full responsibility for creating all things So we thank you most of all that you undertook the responsibility of saving sinful men, bringing us from darkness to light.
Now we commend to thee the ministry of the Word of God today. Take the word and deliver to every heart. Go with us to our respective homes. And may the peace of God which has us all understanding so garrison our hearts and our minds that we may realize what we really possess in our Lord Jesus Christ in his worthy name. Amen.