Female/Male Stuff

4/12/2001

Thursday Morning, April 12, 2001

Question: Hi, I didn’t know if there was any way you would be able to help me, as a sister, see the bigger picture as far as caution about pagan men in the world system. I can understand to some extent—as far as the externals. But I know I don’t see the world like I need to. I sometimes feel like I am eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that men are evil. But our enemy isn’t man; it’s satan, right? And satan lives in the hearts of women too, so why is it different with men? Help me understand? I do understand the idea of men’s minds and how they can work. Anyway, if you could help me to see a little better into all of this, I would appreciate it. Thanks,

Hey there : ). If you understand men’s minds and how they work (not how they “CAN,” but how they “DO” work)—then it’s not mysterious or confusing at all, really. We would always want the treasured, precious females and children to avoid being treated as unHoly by those described by God as “satan filling their hearts,” and “offspring of the devil.” If you didn’t know that pagan men’s minds are filthy and twisted (some people don’t), then you would need to know that in order to understand the necessity for acting wisely and conservatively. Jessica knows how dangerous and deceptive the world system is, NOW. And it’s not that men are “EVIL!!” per se, and women aren’t. But you have to realize, if you are discerning spiritually at all, that men DO notice women who are alone and vulnerable. Two or three disciples together, paying no attention to the pagan men, or with brothers around—those scenarios change everything in the dynamic of evil at work. You must know this: Delivery people notice every situation. Carpet cleaners, and door-to-door vacuum and meat salesmen… notice. Meter readers notice. Last month a meter reader was indicted on multiple counts of rape. As he became aware of people’s situations, he imagined, and then planned, and then acted. An 80 year-old grandmother was a victim recently of something similar. Waiters and salesmen flirt for a living. It helps their sales to entice women by hormones and flattery and fun, and women with men. It IS the world we live in, and, just as in the days of Noah, it will be Judged as such. Some who fashion themselves “big and strong and wise” will think all is fine and they’re above it all… and the Ark is stupid. “As in the days of Noah.”

It is a weird and perverted world out there. Jesus said HIS world was ALREADY “wicked and adulterous,” “crooked and perverted”—and is it BETTER now than then? I can’t imagine you believe it’s better now. I sure don’t. Probably, you have never OVERHEARD the conversations between men (and sometimes women, though this is more often the sin of fallen males) in the restaurant kitchen, or the Finish Line Shoe Store back room, or the hospital staff break room about, “Did you see that babe? Did you see how friendly she was to me? I’ll bet I could….” Those conversations happen in every locker room, break room, car dealership sales floor amongst salesmen, and every school hallway in the WORLD.

Would it be worth it to inconvenience ourselves a tiny bit to AVOID being the object of their perverted eyes and mouths and wishes and actions and conversations? What if we decided to BUILD in such a way as to avoid the majority of situations where our women and children were raped—with eyes or conversation or worse? We CAN build in such a way as to crush MOST of the problem! Do you realize that ALL IT TAKES for a bank officer to stop flirting with a sister who is trying to open a checking account—is for a brother to be sitting next to her, and be halfway awake and engaged while she is opening the account? Isn’t it worth a LITTLE trouble to “come out from among them and be separate!” says the Lord? I think so. And actually, the vast majority of the sorts of conservative actions we may take are RECOMMENDED again and again by the police department, even to pagan women.

(Now, there ARE ways to build wisely that are also very simple. For example, when you walk into a restaurant, scan the room for a waitress and then ask to be seated in “her!” section. THAT’S wise. You’re not being weird to anyone, or causing a problem after the fact when a guy is assigned to you. You’re just seamlessly, wisely setting yourself up, with no extra trouble, for a likely uneventful lunch. THAT’S good. And, if you’re in a library line and they switch people on you to a guy, if he doesn’t appear to be grotesque or flirty or preppy to the discerning among you, well, you’re in line with another sister anyway, so maybe stay in that line and don’t make a deal of it. Just don’t invite trouble by engaging him in cutesy dialogue or a warmth that is reserved for those that are in Jesus! Be wise.)

And surely it’s obvious, as you say, that satan lives in women, too. It is the MANIFESTATION of the kinds of evil they each (men vs. women, normally) are inclined to, that one should be wise to avoid. Women’s sins are more often those of emotion and control, and the resultant sins. They should be avoided just as vigorously! All such situations dealt a blow, “making no provision” for such situations. Just as you should open a public restroom door from the inside with a paper towel rather than your hand, there ARE things that the naked eye cannot see that you do not WANT touching you. If you don’t “believe” in germs on doorknobs, you’ll eventually become ill from someone you don’t know and have never even seen. And that is NOT to say that you are “paranoid” of germs, just because you use wisdom to avoid as many as possible. Paranoia is wrong. Lack of awareness is foolish—and is fatal for some. As disciples, we MUST be among those “hating even the CLOTHING stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 23). I think you must understand Mary’s emails as “art” and not “science”—as was her intention. But to miss her point will result in our friends’ and children’s eventual downfall in cases that might EASILY have been avoided! And what price can you place on the crushed hearts of those who are harmed by our negligence and naïveté. There ARE germs on the doorknob. We must NOT be so foolish as to think we have to be able to SEE them—to “believe” in them. Just because everything LOOKS fine on the outside, and happy-go-lucky pagans seem to do just fine in this “big bad world”—don’t be naïve. Only those who have never cried themselves to sleep over the destruction of a soul ravaged by the enemy can remain naïve.

I do understand that “how to function” (restaurants, libraries, whatever) can be a little confusing at times in this world where Philistines, Assyrians, Egyptians, Sodomites… and God’s People all share space. Can you imagine that situation—Egyptians, Sodomites, and Philistines all walking the sidewalks of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day, speaking and acting as they pleased? No way. God’s People were a NATION that stuck together, and were not intermixed in daily life and on their streets with the Assyrians and Sodomites. But it IS our situation, on our sidewalks and in our workplaces and markets. And to figure out how to live it out wisely is an art, not a science; a heart, not a formula. If the HEART for Life in Him: “Come out from them and be separate,” says the Lord, “and I will be your God, and you will be my People!” is missing, there is a huge problem. If excuses and exceptions and self-life are the true driving forces, there will be no chance of hearing or pleasing God in these matters. If there is, instead, a resentment of one’s self-life being “cramped”—that’s a problem. But, that wouldn’t be the case amongst the lovers of Jesus we know, if I know them at all. Glad you asked.