Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Mother's Day worship today. I'm glad you are here and we are going to sing some love songs. There's not a lot of songs in the hymnal about moms, can you believe it? But there are songs about love and about family. So that's what we're singing today. And we're down to the Taos Net Tabernacle Trio today instead of the Taos Tabernacle Choir but stand together, we're singing hymn number 393. I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God. I'm a part of the family of God. Whether our physical family tree is big or not we've got a wonderful family here in this place and beyond with believers from all around the world who love the Word and love the Lord. And we gather together either physically or spiritually with them today and are grateful for it and pray that our family time together would be an encouragement. In Jesus name, amen. And you may be seated. Good to see each one of you, ladies and gentlemen. God bless you and welcome to worship. Very glad you're here. And you perhaps got a bulletin which has a mother on the front and our announcements, which are all fairly standard except we got the homemade spaghetti and meat sauce coming. Brenda's doing it right Wednesday and we will look forward to that. That's on. And then we've got Jared Bohem. Now, I don't know. I haven't looked. He's either going to die this week or next week. I'll warn you. I know you've come to love the guy in the what, eight or ten sessions we've had of Jereboham but his death is nigh up on us in our study of Jereboham. But it's been a fun study. So this will be the last week or one more. I'm not exactly sure we'll have that, but that's at 06:00. Got men's breakfast this week. All the other activities that are there that you will keep in mind. We are always delighted to have guests with us when we worship on this Mother's Day. Got several of our own who are out visiting their own mothers like Shelley and Kay are out. She went kay went to her sons to see her grandson have a wedding shower. Shelley and Kay are there and several others. And Linda. Glad you're back. Welcome. I was going to say, did you bring Warren? Well, we'll wait. I'll give greetings in a moment. Glad you're here. And the grands. Glad you're here with us today, too, with the beautiful girls back there, Dylan and Stephanie. Thanks for bringing the pretty girls this morning. And we have two guests from San Antonio or College Station. I'm going to let them decide. But part of the thing here at Talespress Baptist, America's greatest tiny church is that we embarrass our guests. We make them introduce themselves. And when they introduce themselves, they get a couple of things. One is they get a pin to go in our visitor map back there. So you'll each get a pin. One of you can put San Antonio and one of you can put College Station that way. We'll have two pins and a gift. I will give you evangelical garbage by Randy White today. That is the gift. But you have to introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, where you're from and why are you in Taos, New Mexico? I'm Gabe or Gabriel. Gabe and I'm from San Antonio and we are here to study the word of God deeper and learn from Randy. Thank you, Gabe. Glad you're here. I am Jaden Weatherly, also from San Antonio College Station. Same exact reason. We've been best friends in 6th grade. So we're both here to learn from Randy and just love Jesus and love his word. There is a group of college students that meets at Texas A and a university at in College Station and they use our material to train these young men and women to think dispensationally. And Gabe at least is part of that group and he brought his roommate. The leader of that group is going to be here next week and they're going to be here all week. And we are having right dividing intensive this week with these two young men and Trance will join and we'll train them to be right dividing thinkers. So we're glad they're here this week. They'll be here Wednesday night. Come treat them well. Makes lots of good stuff. If you have stuff like food, you want to drop by the church, drop it by. They'll eat it, won't you? They'll be here all week. That's the camper out back and we're delighted that they're here. Looking forward to getting to know them. I'll make them give a presentation Wednesday night so you can hear more from them and very glad the Johnsons are here. Where do you consider yourself from these days? Taos. Good. Glad you're home. Amen. Amen. Warren and Linda, we have missed you. Are you here for the long haul or are you going back soon? We're passing through to Canada for a few days and then we'll be back. Passing through to Canada? Yeah. It's a good stop. There'll be a time coming up pretty quickly. We'll be here for a long haul. We look forward to having you back after your Canadian venture. Yeah. In British Columbia or Penticton. The lake. There chili whack. If we have any listeners near Chili Whack, watch for two stray Texans who are who are trying to make New Mexicans. Thanks every one of you for being here. Happy Mother's Day to each one of you. And why don't you stand and give someone a greeting? Tell them hello and a greeting, a high five, a hug, a handshake, whatever it is you want to do. You. Yeah. I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God. I've been washed in the thousand as we travel this song for a part of the family the family of God and now we're going to sing about a little bit of love here. Turn to him. Number 107. Love lifted me and let's just sing all three verses of Love lifted Me. Whether it was your mother's love or the Lord's love, whatever it is, love lifted me 107 I was seeking Jesus name, your Master of the sea and I despair from the water me when I be out me all with me when I heart you ever to give up me in present ever rain love so might fall as long as you want love any forever love me to look up Jesus and play with saint. He will live you by his love out of the angry ways he's the master of the sea millows his will obey he or Savior wants to be saved today love lifted even me. Love lifted even me. When nothing else could help love lifted me. Love lifted even me. Love lifted me. When nothing else could help love lifted me. And why don't we turn to number 563 then? I love you, Lord love the I love me I love be my Lord I love be my savior love me, my God I love the I love me how much I love my actions will show on the second I'm happy. I'm happy. Oh wonder my choice are in one of my stand on the ground my gaze on the treasure and hold to be there with Jesus and angel and dress of you jesus Christ I am bless. My life and salvation my joy and my rest I may be my demo and I love be my soul my grace and my tongue my savior he smiles and he loves me and helps me to see I'll praise him. I'll praise Him with loud and fear my river shall Jesus and number 111 the love of God. Some beautiful poetry in this 111 all the greater heart and dunkin star and reaches to the sound I can remember. To in every child erection strong shall pass away and as we grow and take up strong with your shadow refuse to pray god love you shall still end up strong leaving grace to let us raise your leg and strong it shall. I'm already just releasing every song on the every man stride with you right along the ocean dry I got the strong container I'll measure strong and shall forever glory to Satan. And you may be seated, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. As we sang all the verses of all the hymns, we don't very often do that. You know why we did that this time? We did it on the first one because I knew there was one of the songs where it didn't ever stop well and we had to sing all of them. But I guessed the wrong one. And the second one we did because that's the one that the music never really just gave a stop and so I said, let's do them all. Plus we paid $0.35 for that M P three download, and I wanted to get my money's worth. And the love of God has such great poetry and insight that you just can't skip it like that second verse, it kind of talks about today, like, when years of time shall pass and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall. But here's the part when men who refuse to pray on rocks and hills and mountains call god's love so sure shall still endure all measureless and strong. We kind of live in those days, don't we? They're not going to pray, but they'll call on the mountain and ask for something there. So the love of God that last verse is very good. But I've got a sermon to preach here in that moment. So we won't go into any more poetry today. But our missionary of the month is the new Life Pregnancy Center. And if you give Mark to missions this month, it goes to our own local New Life Pregnancy Center. We appreciate Brenda serving on the board there and other volunteers and supporters of that here in our congregation. And this Mother's Day month seems like a good thing to say. Hey, there's a lot of people in Taos that end up with a crisis pregnancy of some sort and need some encouragement, need some counsel, need some training, need some diapers, whatever it is they need. And the New Life Pregnancy Center helps with all of that, building some good, healthy families in our community. So we appreciate that. So again, market gift, permissions, it goes to that, leave it unmarked, goes to the work of our church here and around the world. And I'm just amazed sometimes I will stop and give a little sermon. I'm just amazed sometimes that God takes a little church like this and always provides, doesn't he? I used to come from a church. I came from a church that sometimes we would have Sunday offerings topping the six figures on a single Sunday. And now sometimes I come in and I just sort of laugh when it's like $20 for that Sunday or 30 or 40. Some Sundays are better. Thankfully. But then I've learned, being here almost eight years, like, well, God always provides. Why should I worry about it? We just go one day at a time and he takes care of us and does quite well. And so thank you for your giving there. There's an offering box back there. You can give now or at any time. We'll have a little offitory. That's what we're going to have, a little offitory and then come into our sermon. Heavenly Father, thank you for the New Life Pregnancy Center, the work that they do, the believers there from various backgrounds, but all of them care about this one thing that we care about, too, and that's the sanctity of life and the safety of children and the care of young parents, moms or dads. And we're grateful for that ministry that they do and want to encourage them with our prayers and support this month. And as we come in just a moment into the preaching time as well, we pray that our insight into Scripture might set us free from some bondage maybe that we've had as we do some unlearning this morning on this Mother's Day. And I pray that all that I say and do would be true to the Word today. And if it's not that we would very quickly question the assumptions and get that right there. Heavenly Father, because we believe that thy Word is truth and it is the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our past, we come grateful today in Jesus name, amen. Let's have just a little time of music and then we will get into the preaching. And on this Mother's Day we are going to continue the series that we've had. But this is one of those series that allows us to be flexible and hit a topic that is meaningful for today, this Mother's Day, which is why I've got my pink tie on and my pink shirt and my vest and look like look my best for my mother. Happy Mother's Day, Mom. She'll be watching tonight. She watches at night and turn to Proverbs 31. How many of you ladies have been to a Mother's Day service before where the preacher stood up and said, now let's open our Bibles to the 31st chapter of Proverbs? And how many of you ladies deep inside said, oh no, not again? Do I have to hear about the Proverbs 31? Woman we are unlearning. Here is what this series is all about and we are unlearning. The way of the subtitle of the series is called Deprogramming Our Evangelical Minds or Mindset. And there's some things in the evangelical mindset I should have put a string in Proverbs. It's there somewhere. I know there are some things that of course this four or five times now we've gathered together and learned this and we'll be doing more over the next weeks. But this one of Proverbs 31, I would say is so pervasive that perhaps you've never heard a sermon on Proverbs 31 that was anything other than the standard evangelical view and didn't even know there was another way to take it and interpret the passage. And I'm going to give you another way to take and interpret the passage. And perhaps it's one of these passage which for the most part is only preached on Mother's Day or maybe the funeral of a Godly woman. We'll read a little Proverbs 31 or maybe if the pastor is doing a family series and he wants to tell women how deficient they are in their role in the family because next week he's going to tell the men how deficient they are and it'll be equal opportunity offending and all that. But other than that we don't look at the Proverbs very much or Proverbs 31 much. I want us to go ahead and look at this and question the assumptions about what it says, but let's go ahead and read the passage. If you've got your Bible open now to Proverbs chapter 31, verse eleven is where we will well, let's start with verse ten, actually, where the question comes up. Who can find a virtuous woman? Anybody? Several men were quick on that one. Yes, I found them. You don't want to get in trouble on Mother's Day, do you? Who can find a virtuous woman? Her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband does safely trust in her so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil. All the days of her life she seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She's like the merchant ships who bringeth her food from afar. She rises also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her maidens. She considereth a field and buyeth it with the fruit of her hands and she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength and is strengthened and strengthened her arms, that is. She has good biceps. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good. Her candle goeth out not at night. She layeth her hands on the spindle and her hands hold the distaff. She stretched out her hand to the poor yea. She reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She's not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry her clothing of silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates and he sitth among the elders of the land. She maketh fine linen and selleth it and delivereth girdles to the merchants. Strength and honor are her clothing, and she shall rejoice in the time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and her tongue is the law of kindness. She looks well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gates. Now I kind of wonder, ladies, especially as you read that, do you get kind of out of breath just reading it? Wouldn't you agree, ladies, that there's a lot there that the virtuous woman is supposed to do? And do any of you ever read that and say, I can't even boil an egg. I don't live up to this at all. This is so far from where I am. It's unattainable, it's impossible. I'm never going to be able to do this. And yet every time I go to the women's Bible study, we're going to study the Proverbs 31 woman and I'm going to be beaten down once again that I'm just a regular gal is all I am. And I think that we have. I'll give a confession of men and a confession of the church if I can confess on their behalf that we men who run the church have laid way too much upon women, especially at Mother's Day, on this particular issue, setting this forth as the standard of the woman of the mother of the wife. And honestly, on Father's Day, we don't really do the same thing. We'll talk about that here in just a moment. But the fathers sort of get by as they're sort of lazy scones anyway. But the woman is man, you got to be right up here nigh unto God in order to live up to this virtuous woman. Well, I think that standard view has some problems. Let me just read, as I put it on the outline, the Proverbs 31 woman a woman who's supposed to be trustworthy, a strong business woman, hardworking, an agriculture and real estate expert, a never sleeping retailer of merchandise, a seamstress who spins her own threads and makes exquisite garments. She's charitable, well prepared, well spoken, kind and praised. She's described as someone whose husband safely trusts in her and so much more. Well, yeah, that woman would be praised, wouldn't she, doing all of that? And in Hebrew, actually, Psalm 31, beginning in verse ten, is actually an acrostic. You know what an acrostic is? Goes through the letters of the alphabet, A through Z. If it were English, there's only 22 letters of the alphabet. Ladies, it's a good thing they didn't use the English alphabet. There'd have been 26 things on the list, but it goes through the Hebrew alphabet. So basically, Proverbs 31 is the A to Z of what a woman should be. Boy, we could have fun with this sermon, ladies. The A to Z of what you should be on Mother's Day. And you would probably beat me to a pulp before I was out of here. It seems like a burden. It seems a little unattainable. I went ahead and prepared a standard evangelical outline for Proverbs 31. I don't know if you can read it yet, but the standard evangelical sermon of Proverbs 31 would go something like this we have, ladies and gentlemen, a marvelous wife. She is trustworthy and committed. We have, ladies and gentlemen, a meticulous wife. She is industrious and resourceful. We have and you're supposed to be, ladies, you are supposed to be a merciful wife, compassionate and generous. We need a mindful wife, wise and faithful. And finally, ladies and gentlemen, we need a magnificent wife to be praised and honored. That is, ladies and gentlemen, all of you excuse me, just ladies, gentlemen, you're not included in the sermon. Ladies, you are to be marvelous meticulous, merciful, mindful and magnificent. No pressure at all. Ladies, have you heard that sermon before? Yeah. And it is a pretty high standard to live up to. And my guess is, if we were to go through some of these things, not only would most of you women say, I don't even know what I would do with a spindle and a disdaff, if that's how you say it, what is all of this? And that's in between my real estate dealings and my making the wine and my merchandising and all these kind of things, and I'm up late and I'm down. And then later we might preach a sermon that if we're going to preach an old fashioned conservative sermon anyway, we might find something in the Bible that talks about the husband as it wouldn't use the word, but the husband is the breadwinner. The husband is the guy who gets up and goes out and works all day and brings home the bacon and have a different role of the wife than it looks like here because this looks like a woman who could take over the world, doesn't it? And you say, I'm not even sure that that Proverbs 31 woman fits the overall scope of what I see of the wife and the mother and the scripture and the roles of the men and women. So what's up with here? I'm kind of burdened, I'm kind of confused. I don't know. Honestly, ladies, I think if you set out to try to be the Proverbs 31 woman, I will visit you during visiting hours at the mental ward because it is more than you or anyone else can handle. So what do we do if we don't want to take this standard evangelical view? So that you don't have to look at the standard evangelical view, I'll give you The Mother and child painted by Mary Cassat, I think is how you pronounce it in 1900. Beautiful little picture of a mother and child there. That's a little more what you think of in terms of motherhood, isn't it? Some of you mothers are probably saying, that I can handle. I can hold the baby and pat her on the back and sit there as I fix my hair at the same time. I can do this. But the Proverbs 31 thing, maybe it is going to provide some sense of inadequacy on your part. I won't make you ladies confess on whether or not a Mother's Day sermon has ever made you feel inadequate, but maybe you did. Go, I do know that I posted about this ahead of time on Facebook and that several of the ladies said, I hate Mother's Day sermons because I always go home feeling beat down, like I can never be that woman. Today, ladies, you have come to the right place. We're going to take a different look at Proverbs 31. But you know what kind of interests me is that here in the Bible, you have the A to Z of the Virtuous woman. You single guys now know what to look for, right there the A to Z of the virtuous woman. Good luck, Ryan. Yeah. Why are you still single? Where's the A to Z for the Godly man? What what chapter do we go to in the Bible to see the Father's Day sermon? Where is that? It's not there. Here. There's what you're supposed to be, man. That, of course, is Michelangelo's David. And does anyone know what he's holding in his hand? Just in case you've never studied the statue, it's the slingshot. That's right. This is a picture of David as he's going to kill Goliath. And by the way, I did crop the picture. He's not fully closed, but artistically, that was kind of to say, here's David going with nothing but his slingshot and his faith in God, and he is going to take this on. Now, you can pick up some messages like that in men through the Bible. I mean, you could pick up here's a real man, David as he does this and carries this on. Can I just say another side thought that's just totally free. But you all have seen the rest of David, right? And Western civilization has never had a problem with unclothed people in their classic art. And and for those of us who are modern, it always kind of, what do we do with this? I have about decided that in today's gender confused world, bring out the classic art. Let boys and girls see there's a difference between him and her. Something's different here. But that's just a free comment to do there. Now we get back to the sermon. So you can come to the Bible in sermons like David and Goliath, or you could find books or sermons or things that kind of set the A to Z for a godly man. But there really is no equivalent in the Bible of a Proverbs 31. So just not there. You would have to gather from here and gather from there and pick it to come up with that. That's kind of good for us men, isn't it, that this is what we've got that on Father's Day we can't go to the Proverbs 31 man or the Proverbs 32 man, or whatever it is. We are, in a sense, set free from that. Now, wouldn't you all agree with me that in the Bible, the role of the man in the Bible is as the head of the household and the head of society, he is the leader in social circles. Wouldn't that be a pretty good estimation of the man's role in the Bible? So why is it then, that the woman gets her A to Z list, but the man who is supposed to be the head of the woman, he just has to pick it from here and there. He doesn't have his A to Z list. What's up? With that. Now I think what's up with that is this, which is the premise of my sermon that maybe that's not an A to Z list of the woman. That if there's an A to Z list of the woman there should be an A to Z list for the man. And since there's not an A to Z list for the man and since this A to Z list for the woman is, shall we say, unattainable for any single woman, maybe I'll put it for it. Maybe this is not about a woman. You say, how silly. It talks about a wife, a woman right there. How could it be about anything else? Well, I want to give you another proposal. What if this is an A to Z list? That is a description of ideal Israel. This is what the nation of Israel is supposed to be. This is God's standard for collectively his nation. Now I think we won't do it but I think if you were to go back and read through that passage and say let's put this forth as the standard that God wants out of his entire nation of Israel, that's attainable. That's attainable because you've got more than one person trying to do it. And basically he says hey, I want you to be a nation that provides for its own, that creates wealth, that watches out for those who can't come along quite as well. That is a nation of kindness. That is a nation of prosperity. This is what I want your nation to be and that God is actually creating a blueprint for the nation of Israel. Now, why the nation of Israel? Well, because the nation of Israel happens to be the nation that he burst right? The nation of Israel is the nation that was his from the get go and he is designing the nation of Israel and he wants the nation of Israel to be the image of what it is to walk in relationship with God to teach the world basically what it is to be God's people. I want the world to see what a group of people who follow me in our mind how they are going to live. And this is that. Now immediately you probably would come in and say that wait a minute. You seem to be just kind of making that up for convenience sake on Mother's Day. That there's nothing in there that indicates this is for the nation of Israel and I'll give you that. It does seem like that. So I better bring forth some better evidence than let's just call it the nation of Israel because I could have said let's just call this the church. This is a picture of the ideal church. But I didn't say that because I don't think it's a picture of the ideal church. I wouldn't even say let's just call this the ideal nation. This is God's standards for the nations. I don't think this. Is God's standards for the nations. I think this has to do with Israel and Israel alone, and it is the criteria that God has given to Israel. You are the chosen nation now. This is what you've got. This is who you are supposed to be. And to begin putting it that way, then it becomes a positive example for the nation of Israel to follow. I think I got there's a nation of Israel picture. There you go. The judgment of Solomon. I kind of wanted a picture of King Josiah, but I couldn't find a picture of King Josiah that I liked, so I chose Solomon. This is Nicholas, Pope Nicholas, who did this in 1648. It must have just been, like, his pencil drawing, because Solomon looks sort of like a Razzled tazzled cartoon character. Nicholas, I think you could have done better. I've seen some of your artwork. You could have done this better. But I think it's just a little pencil sketch that he put out. You may remember here the upside down baby over here is about to be chopped in half. Give one to her. Give the other. And some of you parents, you might want to hang this picture up in the living room. You know, what the Bible says might not be exactly the best theology, but it might help in discipline. I chose the picture of the Judgment of Solomon, of course, because Solomon wrote Proverbs 31, and Solomon is sort of the picture though we know how the whole story goes, but he's sort of the picture of the wise King Israel in its zenith. Here it is. But we know that Solomon's Israel didn't even live up to the standards of Proverbs 31, which is maybe why, by the way, if my theory is right, why he says, this virtuous woman who can find it sort of gives the she's not out there. She doesn't exist yet. We're looking for her. Her worth is far above rubies. So the nation in its wisdom, Proverbs 31, then in this light and again, I'll give some evidence to say, I think you're just making this up. I'll give some evidence to say, no, I think this is a biblically responsible way of interpreting Proverbs 31 as an allegory. Now, that's kind of strange, because I am the guy that's allergic to allegory, right? I am the guy that says to spiritualize is to make spiritual lies good. You say that again, or did you get it? And here I'm kind of spiritualizing this text. I am not taking this text in a literal way. However, I'm also the guy that says we take the Bible literally. Always. Even when it's figurative, we literally take it as figurative. I think this is literally figurative. This is using a Godly wife as a picture of the nation. Now, if that is the case, you would come and say, Give me the evidence. Here is corresios the allegory of virtue and 1520 915 30, he painted this. He also painted one called the allegory of Vice. And she's not as pretty, but here's virtue. Virtue is the lady sitting there in the middle. And if we were to go through and study the artwork, all those ladies and angels and things around according to Croatia were were things like faith and hope and love, and she's surrounded by it. There's the picture. I think that Proverbs 31 is an allegory of the virtuous woman who happens to be Israel. Now, you're still waiting for the evidence, right? Give me the evidence. Exhibit A. I bring to you exhibit A. Exhibit A is that the book of Proverbs does not contain a single literal woman, not one. But there's lots of women in the book of Proverbs we could go through and read. And there's the adulterous woman, the sort of prostitute woman, there's the wise woman, there's all these female characters in the book of Isaac. Excuse me, in the book of Proverbs, female characters are all through the book, almost all the way. It talks about, hey, young man, watch out for this woman. Don't follow this woman down the path. So women are pretty prevalent and pretty prominent in the book of Proverbs. And yet only when we get to the last few verses of the last chapter do we say, that's a real woman that's talking about a woman. Everywhere else, we would say that's talking about vice, that's talking about immorality, that's talking about wisdom, that's talking about so if the book of Proverbs is this is an allegory for wisdom, this is an allegory for vice, this is an allegory for immorality, this is an allegory for responsibility, and they're all women, and then we keep going. This is allegory this is allegory this is allegory this is allegory this is allegory this is a real person that you're supposed to be in the pattern of it, wouldn't you say? Maybe this proverbs 31 woman is actually an allegory as well? And painting a picture just like has happened through all of the Proverbs, I don't know. Let's see if we can pull one. I should have given an exact scripture, but let's try to go back to Proverbs. I don't know. I believe Proverbs chapter five. Yeah, let's look at Proverbs chapter five, beginning in verse, verse one. My son, attend to my wisdom and bow thy near to mine understanding that thou mayest regard discretion and keep thy lips from thy knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman drop as honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil, and her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold on hell. Now does that sound like a real woman? But in a sense it's described the same way as the Proverbs 31 woman. Except the proverbs 31 woman is she does all this positive stuff. The proverbs five woman, she does all this negative stuff. Is the proverbs five woman talking about a real lady? No, it's really talking more about the wisdom a young man needs and some choices that he makes. And using this immoral woman, I guess we'll call, I use the King James strange woman. Using this strange woman, have any of you ever met a strange woman? Anybody? We'll drop that. Oh, yes, I forgot where we were. We have met strange women. You're right. We are in towels. Okay, so the strange woman never existed. The woman he's talking about here. But it's just like this woman, this woman of virtue, she never existed. That's not a real person. That's not a painting like we had David, Michelangelo's David, a moment ago. Okay, well, David existed. And that's artist rendering of there's a real man David. David's not an allegory David's, the real thing. But proverbs five, this strange woman, or here in Croatio's picture, this woman of virtue, that's just describing immorality or virtue using feminine terms that's done all through the Book of Proverbs. So I bring to you again exhibit A. And exhibit A is you'll find lots of women in Proverbs. None of them are real. They're all allegory until you come to Proverbs 31. Do we have an anomaly in Proverbs 31 that all of a sudden here it's a real woman? He doesn't give any announcement of that. I think that if you are reading it, I have been studying AI lately, artificial intelligence. And artificial intelligence is this cool little thing that we used to know it as garbage in, garbage out. But artificial intelligence is pretty good at regurgitating what you feed it, okay? And I think if we could feed artificial intelligence, nothing but the Book of Proverbs, it analyzes language very, very well. Scary. Well, artificial intelligence does. So it would analyze that language. And I think if we were to give it all the way up to Proverbs, chapter 31, verse nine, and say, give me a list of all the women mentioned, he would say, here's the strange woman, here's the immoral woman, here's the you know, it'd give us all. And then we were to say, okay, according to the way words are used, are these actual women or are they allegorical women? I think it said, well, they're all allegorical women. There's not an actual woman in there. Then going on that we would have to take the logic if we were real intelligence rather than artificial, we could take the logic and say, what about this last one? Now, the words themselves would say, stick to the context you got. Everything has been allegorical in women so far. Here it's allegorical as well. So then we have to say, okay, well, it's allegorical. But what's it allegorical of allegory comes from Greek. You boys here to learn some Bible this week, you should learn some Greek. So here is lesson number one, the Agora. Do you know what the agora is? It is the marketplace out in the agora. It's sort of the plaza. I'll say before you shut down all the businesses, it's the Plaza, the agora, everything goes and it's the Plaza in its greatest sense that you go there for business purposes, but you also go there to talk. You go there to hear the ideas, you go there to solve the world's problems and play dominoes. It's that the agora is what it is. We'll call it the marketplace. Agora alos means another. So an Allah agoras is another marketplace, okay? An Allagori comes from not the marketplace of this literal thing that we've described, but the marketplace that uses words in a little different manner. It's an allegory. Now, you know, you feel better, good an allegory. Do some research and see what a category is. Trying to think of other Agoros words. I'll come up with some, but that's your homework. Back to the sermon, ladies and gentlemen, allegory. I think we can see, okay, this is allegory, but what's this allegorous of? Now, we got to interpret that. Now we can't just interpret it by making it up ourselves. If we made it up ourselves, we might say, oh, Proverbs 31 is just an allegory for all. People who want to live virtuous lives, everybody who wants to be valuable. This is what used to be. And so then there are some who would take this sermon and say, in fact, probably any evangelical pastor who preaches on Mother's Day, that sermon that I showed you a moment ago, he's probably going to have a line in there to say, now man, this is for you too. And so they might take it in the sense of just, okay, this is allegory for everybody. But again, you can't just make it up yourself. Some making it up themselves would say, oh, this is allegory for the church. As I mentioned, this is how the church is supposed to be. And yet the church, the body of Christ, we haven't done much, nor are we expected to do a lot of real estate dealings and planting of vineyards and all that kind of stuff. That whole business world is going on out here and all that kind of stuff. So it's hard to say this is allegory of the church. Now. You could say, oh, it's allegory of society and it wouldn't be bad. I mean, I wouldn't mind living in a society that was described that way, right. But do you have any biblical basis? I'm saying it's allegory of the nation of Israel. Why do I say that? That's where I bring in exhibit B. In exhibit B, we discover that Israel is very often allegorized by a woman in scripture. In fact, I would venture to say, you remember how I used to always say, if I wasn't a Baptist, I would bet on this? Now I just say as a bet and Baptist, because I said that so many times that you're beginning to question. And really, as a bet and Baptist, I would bet, I will put money on it that if you find in the pages of the Hebrew scriptures a woman who's not a real woman, she's allegory of something. I'll say she's allegory of Israel. I'll put my money on it. She's an allegory of Israel. That's the woman allegory in the Old Testament. I don't even know if we have an allegory of a woman in the New Testament. So we'll leave this to the Old Testament. There she is. She's the allegory of a woman. Now, not always a good woman, not always a virtuous woman, right? You remember. Gomer. Not gohmer. Pile. Gomer. In the book of Hosea, you could argue and a few months ago, when we did the book of Hosea, we talked about this, you could argue that Gomer was a real person, that that literally took place. And I think probably so. But there's no way that you could argue this is just a story about an ancient prophet and his wife. Just a casual reading of Hosea. You would come to the conclusion this is a story about something other than an ancient prophet and his wife and their children, lo Ruhama and Lo AMI and Jezreel. Almost forgot the third one, who was actually the first one. All of the names, all of the things going on. Again, you don't have to be a literary rocket scientist to figure out this is allegory. And you can pretty well figure out, and I would say even most translators or interpreters of the word do come pretty quick to say that's allegory of Israel. Very clear. That's allegory of Israel. I think they're right. I think it is unfortunate that interpreters only find the bad allegories of Israel and never find the good allegories of Israel. But nonetheless, that's allegory of Israel. She's faithless, she's a prostitute. She goes off with other gods, other husbands and her children and the way they're allegorical of Israel. So you see that. You see it in Isaiah, you see it in Jeremiah, you see it in Ezekiel, you see it in Zechariah, where there's this allegorical woman, and she always ends up being Israel in good ways or in bad ways. That's who it is. So let me put this together in our evidence. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have presented to you that I don't think this is a real woman. You are charging a real crime against a real woman, but this woman does not exist. How do you know? Well, you're using a book that doesn't have a real woman in it anywhere. It has allegorical women all through the book. I think this one's allegorical. There's nothing in the text to give us any other indication than this is allegorical. And which woman is it allegorical of? Well, the broader book that it's in the 39 books, the Old Testament has a lot of allegorical women also and every single one of them is about Israel. And therefore I present to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the Proverbs 31 woman is an allegory of Israel. Now, you might say, oh, all those other allegories, they're bad gomer. Not if you meet a girl named Gohmer. Be careful, it's a bad sign. You all have a daughter. Don't name her Gomer now. But there's no good allegories of Israel. Oh, yeah, there are. You have a red Song of Solomon. The whole thing is about a bride, and she is a virtuous woman. Her worth is far above rubies, and she's described as a woman, as a good woman, as a beautiful woman, as a woman who provides all of the things that you would see in Proverbs 31. I suspect I haven't done it, and it would take a little work to do, but I suspect you could take Proverbs 31 ten through 31, and lay it on top of the book of Song of Solomon and find lots of cross references for each one of those things to say. When the Bible describes this bride, it's the same as when the Bible describes this virtuous wife or virtuous woman. Maybe we're talking about the same woman. And of course, my position on Song of Solomon is that the Song of Solomon is about the bride who is Israel. And furthermore, you remember that Isaiah talks about Israel becoming no more I think the word is hezbellah, but I don't want to get it mixed up with Hezbollah. So maybe I'm wrong on Hezballah, but it's some word like that in Hebrew. It says, she will no longer let's go with Hezbollah. Okay, that doesn't sound very good, so let's go with it. She will no longer be called Hezbollah. She will now be called Bula. Do you remember that? And then we sing about Bulaland sweet Bula land It's an aged thing. You all probably have never sung Sweet Bula Land, have you? But Bula means married, and Hezbollah is something like discarded, unwanted Israel. Never. She's not going to be Hezbollah anymore. We're changing her name now to Bula, an allegory of a woman, of a wife, of a bride, of the ideal, and very clearly an allegory of Israel. So I think that what we've got as we think of Proverbs 31 is it's an allegory. It's an allegory of virtue, but not just virtue in and of itself. It is an allegory of the virtues that God wants and desires out of his nation, his nation, Israel. I think that you kind of have two choices. One is you're going to take this literal and then preach the standard evangelical sermon, and what are you ladies going to do with it? Or you have the opportunity to take it as allegorical now as you take it as allegorical, you have the opportunity to say, who's the allegory? I think you can find nothing in the argument of Scripture to give that allegory to anyone else other than Israel. Israel, who is the bride of the Messiah and King Solomon in many ways, much like King David represents the Messiah or the king, here's my bride. And this is the picture of that which God wants out of Israel. And so it becomes this standard that Israel is to live up to in order to be the people of God that God has created Israel to be. Now, that fits in the framework of both the Book of Proverbs and I think of the Old Testament in general, and certainly the prophetic age, and certainly what God desires and wants out of Israel. So I think it's a different thing for Israel to come. And if I were in Israel today, maybe I would preach a sermon, the A to Z, of what God wants out of you, Israel. Here's what it is on Israel. Happy Israel day. If it were Happy Israel Day and I was in Israel, I'd bring up Proverbs 31. Says here's the A to Z of what God expects of the nation of Israel, his chosen nation, his people. This is what God expects. And probably the people, the Jews there would say, yes, this sounds exactly like what God expects of Israel. This is his desire for us. This is what the Torah teaches, this is the demands of the law. This is who we're supposed to be. But if I take it and say, ladies, this is the standard that God has set for you, I think you would agree, well, this is all really good stuff, this is all really nice, but how in the world am I ever supposed to do this? I'm having a hard time getting a peanut butter sandwich made for my kids, and I'm at wits end. I remember my mother used to have this pot holder, I believe it was, and it had this frazzled looking woman on it, and it said, deary is weary, deery is weary. So maybe you're thinking Proverbs 31 is this wonderful thing, but deary is weary. And do you feel the guilt of saying, I don't care if you're weary or not, it's in the Bible, ladies, come on, get out and do it. Maybe we male preachers should confess that we have used Proverbs 31 to lay way too much on our wives. Maybe any of you men going to go home today and say Proverbs 31? Woman she doesn't turn out the lights at night and go to bed and leave the dishes there. She never would have done that. She would have had lunch for us ready even on Mother's Day. Don't do that. Just a bit of advice, don't do that when you go home. The truth is, we could give nice tributes to our wives and they would be true, and we would mean it. But all of us men would have to say, she doesn't quite meet the standards of the Proverbs 31. Woman and all of you women would say, I like Proverbs 31, but boy, I don't quite meet the standards. And I want to free you from saying the A to Z list of everything good. The Bible, ladies, really is not calling you to be Wonder Woman. The Bible is calling Israel to be Wonder nation. And Israel as a nation can come and live up to those standards and can do it. And when it does, it will be the bride of Christ. So it's a standard for Israel. Isn't it amazing how and I'll conclude with this, but isn't it amazing how when you read the Bible, I'll go ahead and say literally, even though I'm taking it allegorically, but I'm literally taking it allegorically because I think it's allegory, when you interpret the Bible correctly, it frees you from a lot of burdens that you've been put under before. And we could take this scripture or 52 other scriptures and have one for every Sunday of the year, couldn't we, and say, here's a Scripture that we've interpreted in such a way that puts this heavy weight and heavy burden upon us. And remember what Jesus says you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And when we come to the Word of God and interpret it correctly, I think we do find a freedom in Christ, a freedom in the Lord, and a freedom in the Word that says, hey, you know what? I really do want to be a woman of honor and a woman of virtue and a woman who provides for the family in a wonderful way. I want that to be me in every sense that can be. But this whole list of A to Z thing, I can't quite do that. But guess what? I'm free. I don't have to. And I think that's the reason why there's no A to Z list for men, because this is not a real woman. This is a nation. God gives an A to Z list for his nation and his nation alone. All the other things about morality and virtue, we read by taking the Bible and reading it as a whole and rightly dividing the Word and figuring out what's for us and what's not for us, and understanding morality as it's revealed in the Scripture. And women have to do it just like men have to do it. You got to read and study and see what's in there. And some of it is kind of intuitive as a human. Just be human. That's what you should be. Be a good human as you go out and carry that out. So, ladies, I got to quit because it's time for you to cook lunch. You're freed from it. Have your husband cook lunch today. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the Scripture, taking a different look at it, saying, is there another way to read this? And seeing the allegory of the passage really of the book of Proverbs, just one chapter after another chapter and one verse after another verse of symbolic language. And yet then we came and made literal language for women. And who knows the turmoil that we may have put some of them in as they wanted to be this and strived to be this, but never really felt like they made it. Dear Heavenly Father, and I pray that this scripture helps free them from that so that they can live the virtuous life and the God of the life and the Christian life out of freedom and out of the strength of the Lord, rather than this grocery list alphabetical acrostic of that which is expected. We do know, dear Heavenly Father, that the nation of Israel never did live up to its expectations. And yet we also know that we read prophetically, that someday it's going to. And when it does, the land will no more be forsaken, but will be bula land. We'll be married. We'll be that virtuous wife, and we will be able to see all of these virtues embodied in the nation that is Israel, the people of God. And for this we look forward to Prophetically. In Jesus name, amen. Well, the good news is that God sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's good news on this Mother's Day, isn't it? That there's a gift of salvation that is offered to men, women, boys and girls. And we celebrate that today and would love to talk to you and visit with you about any of that. If you would like to do so. I hope you'll come join us again Wednesday night as we have some homemade spaghetti and meat sauce. Brenda, thank you. And it's always good. You can bring something to go along with it. And we'll study Jereboham, dead or alive. We'll study Jereboham Wednesday night, 06:00. Look forward to that. Thanks for being part of what? Part of the family of God. And God bless you as you go from here. Happy Mother's Day, ladies.