Morning, family. And morning, saints. Good morning, house of God. We are all these things in Christ. It is good to be together this morning.
We had a family meeting last night. I thought it was very encouraging for me, and I hope it was for the rest of you. That Scripture keeps coming back to me: “Remember not the former things … behold, I will do a new thing.” We hope that the Lord will do a new thing—not necessarily something absolutely new. Sometimes the Lord has to recover something that we had a long time ago and bring it forth.
I am hoping that is what the Lord will do this morning on this matter of head covering. A lot of you sisters have your heads covered this morning with the sign on top of your head of authority. Some may be wondering, “What is the significance of this matter of the physical covering of the head? Is it really important? Is it significant?”
This morning, I hope the Lord will really show us the glory of what head covering is: its meaning of being under His absolute authority and headship.
As we go into this subject this morning, I just want to open with a word of prayer.
Lord, we do come under Your headship and authority this morning. Lord, we do recognize You as our Head in life as well as in the church. Lord, we do recognize Your authority this morning.
Lord, in no way do I want to misrepresent You, Your government, Your order, or the life that You have given to us. Lord, I want You to be able to express what is on Your heart this morning to all of us, that we might see the glory of God’s divine order and the glory of being under the headship of Jesus Christ.
We pray, Lord, that You will give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation this morning. Lord, we do not want to enter into a religious activity or take up a religious symbol. But Lord, we want to truly honor our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The first surprise I have is that I am going to be reading from Darby. If you all have been around a long time, you know I am a King James guy. But I tried to find a translation that I thought was as close to the Greek as I could. Actually, I like Wuest very much, but I did not think we got Wuest on that, so we are going with Darby this morning.
1 Corinthians 11:1-10.
Be my imitators, even as I also am of Christ.
Now I praise you, that in all things you are mindful of me, and that as I have directed you, you keep the directions.
But I wish you to know that Christ is the head of every man; but woman’s head is the man; and Christ’s head is God.
Every man praying or prophesying, having anything on his head, puts his head to shame.
But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered puts her own head to shame; for it is one and the same as a shaved woman.
For if a woman is not covered, let her hair also be cut off; but if it be shameful to a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, let her be covered.
For man indeed ought not to have his head covered, being God’s image and glory; but woman is man’s glory.
For man is not of woman, but woman of man.
For also man was not created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man.
Therefore ought the woman to have authority on her head, on account of the angels.
As you read that, it can seem very legalistic, does it not? But it is not at all. This matter of head covering is meant to be a sign of the reality of Christ’s authority being effective in your life and in the life of the church. It has a much greater meaning than just taking a symbol.
On October 1, 1972, my dear brother Kenny and I, for the first time, met at Llewellyn Miller’s house to hear our brother Stephen Kang. For the first time in my life—and I think Kenny’s as well—the Lord opened our eyes. It electrified our lives that night as we discovered that Christ is the Head of a Body.
He has a Body, a living, organic Body, and that Body is the church. The church is not an organization; it is an organism. I cannot tell you how that opened my life and my heart to the Lord.
I know that both Kenny and I, from that very time, had a passion that we would not only follow the Lord Jesus Christ and do it together, but that we would enter into this matter of being the Body of Christ. It became a passion of ours that the Lord would have what He wanted in this Body of Christ.
That was October 1, 1972. Interestingly enough, exactly one year later, on October 1, 1973, our brother Stephen shared on divine order.
At that time, we had been meeting together for a while—obviously, for a year. The sisters had been meeting many years before that, five or six years. A little bit of history might be helpful.
At that time, we had some sisters in their forties: Llewellyn Miller, Elsie Prince, Mary Ann Myes, Ray Walker, Yugurtha Woods, and Marzy Bruenton. They had been before the Lord. They had been to a conference in Wanaque, New Jersey, and the Lord had opened their eyes to see that very same thing.
Christ was after a house. Christ wanted His Body to be built up, that He might have that helpmate, that Bride that we see in the book of Revelation.
They came back, got together, and began to pray that the Lord would raise up something in Richmond for Himself—what He wanted organically. Our brother Stephen began to come down, I think, from New York once a month. He would share with these sisters, and they would continue to pray faithfully that the Lord would have what He wanted and raise up what He wanted.
They were, I would have to say, very spiritual sisters in the Lord. In 1972, a number of us brothers began to meet there as well.
By 1973, our brother Stephen came to a few of us brothers and said, “You know, brothers, you brothers need to begin to take the lead.” Honestly, I did not know what he meant other than that he wanted us to be more responsible. I got that.
He went to the sisters and said, “Sisters, we need to establish God’s divine order, that God’s divine work might be carried out.” They were encouraged to take a more supportive place.
You have to remember, these sisters were in their forties. Kenny and I were in our twenties. They were quite astounded that the Lord had brought to them some very young brothers, and now the Lord was asking them to take more of a supportive position.
I have to confess, I think it was very difficult for our sisters to begin to take that more supportive position. But they had it in their hearts that they wanted to do what the Lord had asked them to do and to represent Him on this earth.
They did begin to pray for us brothers, that we would take up our responsibility. I have to say, it was difficult at times. Sometimes they were very bothered that we were not taking up our responsibility as they thought we should, and they told us about it.
But that is part of being supportive, is it not? They did it in love. It was with a good attitude. It was really part of their responsibility.
The point being, in order for God to have what He really wanted in our midst, He needed to establish His divine order in our midst. It was a little difficult for a number of years, but praise the Lord, those sisters remained faithful. They continued to pray for us. They continued to be supportive.
Yes, they would come to us when they saw issues and problems. But that was okay. The Lord really touched the hearts of us brothers and said, “Indeed, we need to be more responsible.”
So we began to meet faithfully once a week, and we have been doing that for forty-five years: once a week to pray concerning the assembly, to share concerning the assembly, and to keep the assembly before the Lord’s heart.
When our brother shared in 1973 on divine order, that was the point at which the sisters were really challenged and us brothers were really challenged. The brothers were challenged to begin to take the lead, and the sisters were challenged to back off from the leading position because they had been leading. There is no doubt about it. That is what the Lord had, and that is what the Lord used at that time.
I say all of this to emphasize that God’s divine order is critical to God completing His work and establishing His work.
In those early days, this message really electrified our life together. I do not know a better word than “electrified,” but it really did bring us together. The sisters were praying for us, and we were praying for the sisters. Our whole purpose was that the house of God might be built, that His testimony might be strengthened, and that the Lord could have what He wanted.
At that time, honestly, brothers and sisters, we did not know exactly what the Lord wanted. That is why we began to search the Scriptures. That is why our brother continued to be faithful in coming to Richmond once a month to share with us.
We would listen to his word, and it seemed like the Holy Spirit made whatever he was sharing—particularly out of Corinthians—real to us immediately. There would be some testing. Something would come up, and the very issue we had talked about, we had to deal with.
I am grateful for what the Lord showed us in those early days. I hope that we can be refreshed in that same life that the Lord gave to us: all of us being one together with one purpose.
As our brother Kenny said last night, the Lord gave us a passion for Himself and for what He wanted, and a passion that He might have what He wanted as a testimony here in Richmond. We gave ourselves to Him for that purpose.
Brothers and sisters, by His grace, today we are still here. We have had our troubles and tribulations, but we are still here. I want to testify today, particularly to the sisters, that I really think the reason we are still here and still together is the faithful prayer of the sisters. I am grateful and thankful today.
This matter of God’s authority and God’s divine order—coming under the headship that Christ has established in His divine order—is important, that God might build His house and that God might have His Bride in the end.
We see her coming down, adorned as a bride for her husband, out of heaven, as we see in Revelation 21. That is coming, brothers and sisters, and we all want to be a part of that.
As we are talking about taking up ministry and encouraging one another, this ministry of being under the headship of Christ and taking up head covering is important.
First of all, the world rejects God, and the world rejects God’s order. Today, the United States is in great turmoil over the fundamentals of life.
In this Scripture, we talk about God being Head over Christ, Christ being Head over man, and man being head over the woman. All of these are fundamental to God’s divine order. That is the way God established His divine order, but we see the world rejecting God and rejecting God’s divine order.
I think it is very interesting that in the schools our children are being taught that we have to be gender-neutral. There is no male and female. They want to do away with male and female—God’s divine order.
Not only do they not want God; they do not want His order either. It is important to the world to destroy God’s order, and of course it is under the direction of Satan.
Teachers are being told—not all of them, perhaps, but I know in schools in California—that they cannot use the terms “boy” or “girl,” or refer to children as boys or girls. They are all students. That is gender neutrality.
The world will destroy God’s order if it can. God created man, male and female. Now they are saying that is a term we should not use. They say that how you are born biologically does not determine whether you are male or female. You decide. You make that decision. You are the head, not God.
Brothers and sisters, God set up this divine order when He created man. Remember, when He created man, it says God created man, and then it says He created them male and female.
When God was thinking about creating man, in His mind that man was male and female, united together. So He created Adam first, the male, and out of Adam came the female. We know that from biblical history, but that is very important. That is God’s divine order.
God created woman for man. But we have to remember that man, male and female, was created to serve God’s purpose. That is what we were created for: to serve God’s purpose.
The woman was to be Adam’s helpmate, to see that God’s will was done on this earth and to serve God’s purpose on this earth. That was the purpose of man. Remember, he was to take dominion over the earth. Unfortunately, he gave it up to Satan.
Eve was supposed to be Adam’s helpmate in maintaining that dominion over the earth. They were to be one together. Adam was to be head, and Eve was to be the body, serving the Lord together. It required both.
When the Lord made man and woman, they were not only physically different, but constitutionally different. Sisters, I have to confess that I do not always understand you. And I think sisters feel like they understand men, but I am not sure that you do.
We are built a little differently. We think differently. But that is not bad. Unfortunately, in the world, it is used to destroy one another. But that was not God’s intention.
His intention was that this difference might make us one whole thing, to complete the man that He was really after: this union of man and woman. We were really made for one another, and without one another, we are not really complete. That is the way God intended it.
This assault on God’s order is not new. It began in the garden of Eden. You remember how Satan went to Eve. He did not go to Adam; he went to Eve.
He had a subversive purpose in that. He wanted to overthrow God’s divine order. He basically told Eve, “You can become God. You can be like God.” In other words, “You can be your own head. You can make those decisions. You do not have to come under the headship of God.”
Eve took the bait. The Word of God says she was deceived—so deceived that she went to her husband and said, “Look what I have discovered. I can be the head. You can be the head. We can make our own decisions. We can be our own gods.”
Adam knew exactly what was happening. The words are very clear: Adam was not deceived. He understood what was going on.
But brothers and sisters, Adam uncovered his head by choosing Eve over God. In so doing, he disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So we find that that first family faltered. Satan was able to overthrow that family, overthrow God’s order and purpose, by destroying God’s order on this earth.
Today we find that man no longer has dominion over the animals like Adam and Eve had. He does not have that dominion. It was because the divine order had been destroyed, and they had not taken God as their absolute Head.
Eve should have consulted Adam and maintained God’s divine order. But Eve uncovered her head, brothers and sisters, and we know what happened. Man fell.
I have said before the Lord, “Lord, I do not want to offend my sisters in any way.” But it is so important that we maintain God’s government that we have to share the truth of God with one another.
1 Corinthians 11:3 says that the head of Christ is God, the head of man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man. This is God’s order. This is what God established in order to execute His will on earth through man.
It says God is the Head of Christ. We thought God and Christ were equal, did we not? They are equal. They are equal in life. But when it comes to carrying out the work that God has designed to carry out His purpose, a divine order was set up.
Christ voluntarily took the lower place and took God as His Head. He voluntarily took God as His Head. It was ordained that way.
You need to be very clear: just as Christ is not inferior to God, the woman is not inferior to man. We have got that straight, I hope.
Just as Christ was not inferior to God, even though He took a lower place, the woman is not inferior to man. God has given her the place of being the helpmate. It is the glory of God. It is His decision. It is glorious what He has determined to achieve His purpose.
Brothers and sisters, we are created to be one together, male and female, and one is not inferior to the other. It is a matter of taking up God’s divine order, that God’s divine purpose might be accomplished.
In fact, I can very easily admit that in those early days, those sisters that I named were much more spiritual than the young brothers that we were. They had much more knowledge, but not only that, they had much more experience with Christ. We needed that in the life of the assembly here.
I do not want anyone to come away with the idea today that in taking up God’s government, one becomes inferior to the other. In taking up God’s divine order, what we are really doing is taking the designed place for each of us, that His will might be done.
This order comes out of the Godhead. I like to say it is an organic order. We as Christians have the life of Christ in us. We have the DNA, and the fruit of that DNA is divine order.
If each one of us individually takes Christ as our Head, eventually we will take up this divine order, because it is His life that we are living by and under. This divine order is the fruit of divine life.
If we begin to discover God’s divine order, we need to have the right attitude to take up that order and live by that order. Let us read Philippians 2:5-9.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
Who, although He existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,
and being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him.
He did not cling to the privilege of being equal with God. In order to have God’s will done on this earth, brothers and sisters, He stripped Himself of all His rights as the Godhead and became basically a slave—a bond-servant—to God Himself and to man.
Because He covered His head under God, because He took the low place, God highly exalted Him. Our Lord Jesus took the lowest of the low places among humanity. He even came to serve us, not to be served, and to die on the cross that we might be set free from our sin and the death that was destined for us.
But now He has the highest place, at the right hand of God. So, brothers and sisters, whatever place God has designed for us, we should glorify Him in taking it up under His headship and authority, keeping our heads covered under Him.
God created this earth. He created man. He created the trees and the animals. He created everything. All of creation was for His Son.
But when man fell, when he uncovered his head before God and was taken out of the garden, God did not give up His plan. His plan was to redeem that, that Christ might have that helpmate that the Father so desired for Him: Christ the Head and the church His Body.
The Godhead made the decision that God would head up all things. There could not be two heads, or there would be chaos. It was not God the Head and Christ the Head. God was Head, and Christ submitted under the headship of God.
Christ came and took up Calvary’s cross that the Father’s will might be done. Coming under His headship, He gave up all His privileges and rights, and even came in the form of a man. He voluntarily took that lower place and made God His Head.
What does it mean when I say He made God His Head? I think it is very clear in the Word of God. He was always saying, “I can do nothing of Myself. Whatever the Father tells Me, that I do. I cannot just say what I want to say. I listen to the Father, and what He says, I tell you.”
The Lord even said, “My time is not My own. It is not in My hands. But when My time comes, I will obey the Father.” He was under the headship of the Father.
That is what it means to take Christ as your Head. He is Lord of your life. He is over your life.
When Christ was baptized, He was taken into the desert for forty days and forty nights without food and water. Most men would have died. Then He was tempted by Satan.
What was Satan’s temptation? Really, it was to upset the divine order. It was to get Christ to act on His own, to uncover His head.
Satan said, “You are starving to death. You are thirsting to death. The Father is supposed to be taking care of You. You need to take care of Yourself. Just turn these stones into bread, and You can take care of Yourself.”
But Christ said, “No. I live by every word of God.” In other words, “I come under the headship of God. He is My Head. I will not uncover My head by doing this out of Myself.”
Then Satan took Him to the pinnacle of the temple and said, “If You are really God’s Son, cast Yourself down. He is not going to let You get hurt.”
But Christ said, “The Word says not to tempt God, not to test God. I am not going to uncover My head by jumping down to prove God. He would not want Me to do that.”
Then the enemy came with his best shot. He took Him to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world. He said, “If You will just bow down to me, make me Your head, I will give You all the kingdoms of the earth, and You do not have to go to the cross.”
Of course, he did not have the authority to do that. But the point was that he was tempting Christ to uncover His head before God, and He would not.
This tactic of the enemy has been going on since the time of Adam and Eve. Today, we are appalled at what we see going on in the United States, but this has been going on ever since the beginning: the attacking of God’s divine order.
In life, Christ and God are equal. But to carry out God’s plan, Christ took the lower place. He kept His head covered. This is God’s divine way: maintaining God’s government, keeping our heads covered in absolute submission and obedience to God. Then God’s purposes can be achieved.
In Galatians 3, it says that in Christ there is neither male nor female. It seems to be a contradiction, does it not? But that is not true.
In life, God and Christ are equal. In life, there is neither male nor female. The Lord Jesus is not partial to males or females. The sisters were more spiritual than we were because they had exercised their life before the Lord. They had grown in the Lord. They had been willing to take up the cross and follow the Lord.
In 1 Corinthians 11, it says Christ is the head of every man. When it says Christ is the head of every man, it includes male and female there. Listen carefully, because I do not want anyone to misunderstand.
Every redeemed one, whether you are male or female, sister or brother, has to come under the headship of Christ. He is your covering. You need to keep your head covered under Him. You should give absolute submission and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, both brothers and sisters.
Romans says that we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. He is the Head. We do not present our heads; we present our bodies to the Lord Jesus.
There is only one Head, and that is Christ. We keep our heads covered. In other words, “Lord, I am Yours. You can do with me as You choose. I will take whatever place You decide for me. I will come under Your headship and authority.”
That is what it means to make yourself a living sacrifice: “Lord, You are my Head. You are my Lord. You are the Head; I am the Body, and I offer my body as a living sacrifice.”
In Ephesians 1:22-23, it is very clear that Christ is Head over the church. He is Head over all things to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
The fullness of Christ is to be manifested through His Body, but it will not be unless He is the Head. That is how important head covering is in the life of the Body. We are united together under the headship of Christ.
The Word of God tells us to hold fast the Head. What does that mean? It means that we all keep our heads covered under Christ.
If we do that, we will come together in unity, because He is the Head. If we decide that we need to take up a little headship on our own, not only are we going to clash with Christ, we will clash with one another.
Maintaining the headship of Christ is important to the life of the assembly. Each one of us has that responsibility: every member under the headship of Christ.
As we do that, receiving the life of Christ, we are able to share the life of Christ with one another. The Body is built up from within because it is sharing the life of the Head. That is how important every member is. We must keep our heads covered.
Then it comes to the most difficult part. It says man is the head of woman.
I have already said that the family is part of God’s divine order, the building block of the church. The family is to be a unit, serving God together and bringing the enemy under the feet of Jesus in their family and household, that they might serve Christ together as a family.
The husband and wife, in the Lord and His grace, are equal. But the husband should take the lead, and the wife should be supportive. That is God’s divine order.
Brothers, I will speak to you first. It is our responsibility in our families to make sure our head is covered under Christ. You cannot run the family if you are going to be the head in yourself.
You are the head only because your head is covered under Christ. Do you see? If you are trying to run your family and you are not under the headship of Christ, it is going to be chaos.
So we must, as heads of our family, keep our heads covered. How difficult it is for sisters to be submissive when the brother, when the husband, is not under the headship of Christ. It is difficult.
But the Lord does not say, “It is okay, sisters. If your husband is that way, you do not need to be submissive.” It is not that at all.
The brothers should be submissive to Christ. They should love their wives. They should be trying to encourage their wives and strengthen their wives’ lives in the Lord. They should be willing to lay down their lives as a living sacrifice for their wife and for their children.
That is what we are called to do, just as Christ laid down His life for the church. That is a tall order and responsibility. Sisters, we need prayer. We need prayer to take up our responsibility. We need that supportive prayer.
If we both take up our responsibility under the headship of Christ, then the divine order can be maintained and God’s work can be done through the family.
Husbands under the headship of Christ should always give absolute obedience and submission to Christ. The wife should always give absolute submission and obedience to Christ. He is Head of both the brother and the sister.
But in the family and in the church, God has asked sisters to voluntarily take that lower place in His divine government and be the ones who, through submission, can help their husbands maintain their headship under Christ. They come under the covering of their husband as well.
There should be submission. There should be that submissive spirit. But I will not say that there has to be absolute obedience, because we can be wrong. We can give wrong directions. We can do things that are not really the Lord.
For instance, if your husband said, “I do not think you ought to be fellowshipping there with those other people. I think you ought to be staying at home with me,” the Lord said, “Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” It is the Lord’s will that we be together.
Yes, you should support your husband, but at the same time you would have to say, in a submissive spirit, “I have to obey God.”
Remember Peter and the disciples. They were locked up and eventually told, “We are going to release you, but you cannot speak in the name of Christ.” What was their response? “We have to obey God.”
“We will be submissive. If you decide to put us back in prison, we will go there. But we have to obey God. We cannot stop speaking in His name.”
I hope that helps us all. It is the work of the enemy. He has been doing it since Adam and Eve. Frankly, it is very difficult for brothers to take the lead. I think part of it is that they do not really give themselves totally under the headship of Christ.
For the sisters, it is more difficult to be submissive. For the children, it is difficult to be obedient. We find that in all our families.
This shows the ever-present tactic of the enemy to destroy God’s divine government, that he can destroy God’s final outcome of having that helpmate for His Son.
Christ is Head of the church. He is the divine government over the church. In 1 Corinthians 11, it is clear that when the church is in life, brothers and sisters are equal. In the grace of God, we are equal.
Sisters can be, and many times are, more spiritual than the brothers. They are willing to yield more under the work of the cross. But in the functioning of the church—when we come together in meetings, prayer meetings, and times together—the brothers represent Christ.
They should not have their heads physically covered. Their heads are covered under Christ, but they should not wear a physical head covering because, in the church, they represent Christ, and Christ is the Head of the church. There can only be one Head.
Therefore, as we gather, brothers should not have caps on. Their heads should not be covered. It is dishonorable because we are dishonoring Christ as Head.
But it goes on to say that sisters represent the church. They represent the Body of Christ. The brothers represent Christ the Head; the sisters represent Christ the Body. It is the same Christ, but one represents the Head and the other represents the Body in the church.
It is a testimony. It should be a testimony to the reality of God’s divine government in the church. It is not a matter of equality; it is a matter of God’s divine order in the church.
All brothers and sisters should keep their heads covered under Christ. But in the functioning of the church, Paul says the sisters should wear a head covering.
This should only be carried out in spiritual reality. Sisters, if the Lord touches your heart in this matter of maintaining the testimony of God’s authority in the church, you should wear that head covering.
I do not want anybody to do this as a religious act, to take it up and cover your heads when it is not real in your heart. But if it is real in your heart, please take it up. It really is a testimony.
Because of the place of submission God has given the sisters, they have a special ministry in the church of being supportive. If that is your heart, you really should wear the sign of authority on your head: a head covering.
It goes on to say, strangely enough, that this actual wearing of a head covering by a sister is a testimony to the angels. It is a testimony to man. It is a testimony to the brothers in the fellowship.
It is a testimony to good angels, because the good angels saw the other angels fall and never be recovered. When you and I are born, we are unfortunately born in a rebellious state. We all want to be heads.
I know that was true of my little babies and children. They think they are the head of the family, do they not? They certainly demand that attention and that place.
We are born with that spirit that seems to be contrary to God’s order. But Christ took the low place that He might deliver us out of rebellion and bring us back into unity with the Father, in union with the Father and Himself.
I think the angels are absolutely amazed at God’s grace. When they see the head covering on the woman, they say, “They are under the headship of Christ. It represents God’s authority, and they are in the church.”
I think they are really amazed at what God has been able to accomplish by His grace: that He could bring a rebellious creature under His headship and authority willingly.
I think it is also a testimony to fallen angels. They were able to successfully attack Adam and Eve, and down through the ages they were unsuccessful in attacking Christ. We are in Christ, brothers and sisters. We are in Christ.
When the fallen angels look in the assembly and see that physical sign of head covering, it tells them that their tactics have failed and that their doom is imminent, because Christ is in authority.
The physical head covering is an outward sign of an inward reality. It should be an inward reality in your heart. It should not be a legal thing that you do as a religious act.
You might ask, “Does it really matter if I wear a physical head covering?” Sisters particularly, I have to say yes, it does matter.
If in your heart you really make Christ Jesus your Head, and in your heart you want to support God’s divine order in the church by taking that place of submission and support, then I think it does matter.
The prayer of the sisters through the years has been the great support, and I am so grateful. If your heart is right before the Lord, if you want to have Christ as your Head, if you want to take that place in His divine order under His headship and authority, yes, I think it makes a difference. It is more than a religious symbol.
It is similar to baptism. Baptism is a sign as well. When you take up the act of baptism, you are declaring publicly, “I am the Lord’s. I have been purchased at Calvary’s cross by His blood sacrifice.”
It is a testimony that you no longer belong to the world. It is a public confession that you are His and that you want to follow Him.
It is also a testimony that you are in Christ now, that you have been buried with Christ. The old man has been buried, and now you have been raised with Christ—buried with Him in the water and raised. That is a public testimony to a spiritual reality.
The same is true of the Lord’s Table. It also is a sign. It is a public declaration. When you take this Table, it shows forth His death until He comes: that death that has bought you and purchased you.
It looks forward to His coming. When you take that Table, it is a public demonstration that you are living by the life of Christ. He is the Bread of Life. You are living by His life. It is a public declaration.
The principle is very clear in the Word of God. Romans 10:9-10 says:
If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness;
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that He died for us and that He was raised for us. That true belief in our heart brings us salvation. But the Word says, “Confess with your mouth.”
The Lord wants us to publicly confess what has spiritually taken place in our lives. He wants us to make that public confession.
That is what the physical head covering is. It is a public confession.
Brothers, when we see the sisters with their heads covered, it should deeply touch our hearts that we have a responsibility to lead in the family and in the church.
It should deeply touch us that we need to be under the headship of Christ and function under His headship. It is a testimony to us, a reminder to us that they have taken that place, that lower place.
I guarantee you, God will highly exalt the sisters. They have taken the lower place. It should remind us that we should take our lower place before Christ as our Head and take up our responsibility.
My prayer is that there be no misunderstanding of what has been said. I pray that the enemy will not be allowed to manipulate anything that has been said today, because maintaining His divine government, particularly in the church, is extremely needed.
It is absolutely needed for God to fulfill His purpose, brothers and sisters. That is how important it is. That is why I think, in those very early days, the Lord impressed our brother Stephen that if we were going to be a true testimony to Christ, His divine order needed to be established in our midst.
Today, forty-four years later, it is a reminder that divine order is still needed in order to carry out God’s plan.
Last night, we got together, and I am really thankful for that time. I sensed a sense of being together, wanting to be more together, wanting to serve the Lord together.
In those early days, we really had a passion for the Lord. We wanted Him to have what He wanted. When we were challenged with this matter of divine order in our midst, we were thrilled. We were overwhelmed. We were electrified in our spirits.
We saw that in taking up God’s divine order, He could accomplish His plan to have His Bride, and that without that divine order, we would be a hollow testimony.
May the Lord encourage us all. Brothers need to pray for the sisters. Sisters need to pray for the brothers. We both need to maintain our headship under Christ as Head of our lives.
Lord, we come today. We thank You for Your precious Word. We thank You that You desire us, Lord, to be a part of Your great plan and to carry out this matter of becoming that precious helpmate to Christ in eternity to come.
Lord, I do not know what to say other than that it takes Your Spirit. It takes revelation to really see. Otherwise, it will be taken as legal and as a law, and that is just not the case, Lord. You never intended that.
I thank You, Lord Jesus, that You have given us an opportunity, forty-four years later, to share these things. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
By the way, I know we will have a little time to sum up things in prayer, but that message from October 1973 is available on the testimony ministry—Christ Testimony and Ministry.
I woke up at 2:30 last night and said, “Lord, I have not listened to that tape for forty-four years.” I did not know it was forty-four years at the time. So I got up and listened to it, and once again it stirred my heart. I pray that you might do that.
We also have a little book that we distributed a few months ago on God’s divine life and God’s divine order, which Stephen shared with us in 1991. Many were moved as a result of those things.
Also, there is a book by Lance over there that each family can take. It is free, and it is also on headship or head covering. There is a chapter on head covering in that.
So, Lord, once again, I just want to close in prayer and say, You are Lord. We testify that today, in Jesus’ name. Amen.