This is Truth Time.
We're noticing instead of preaching the gospel, the American pulpit has become a place to promote their political and social
causes.
The pulpit is not the place to promote Republican or Democrat, climate change, illegal immigration. No, but it's being misused this and every Sunday at churches across America. And now, according to Missouri pastor Stuart Allen Clark, the pulpit is also a place to use misogyny to demean and humiliate women.
Misogyny is alive and well in the church.
The pastor says that husbands have the quote, "A divorce weight," and women should be careful not to reach this weight.
After this become a story, women from all walks began to comment on various social media platforms saying they, too, had been subjected to misogyny in their churches.
Feeling dehumanized as, as they sat and listened to this sort of rhetoric coming from the church pulpit and within their own evangelical circles.
So, sadly, this is not isolated to the state of Missouri and Pastor Clark.
So here he is.
I'll let you hear it for yourselves. Why is it so many times that women, after they get married, let themselves go? Why is it? Why do they do that? Now, look, I'm not saying every woman can be the epic, the epic trophy wife of all time, like Melania Trump. I'm not saying that at all. Now, most women can't be trophy wives, but you know, like her, maybe you're maybe a participation trophy. I don't know, but all I can say is not everybody looks like that. Amen. Not everyone looks like that, but you don't need to look like a butch either. But you say, how can I do that? Oh, I'm so glad you asked that question. I'm so glad you asked that question because you're in my office, you and your husband, and we're talking about your marriage, and you've asked me this question about what can I do about that. All right, if you were sitting in my office, here's the first thing I'd say to you, and boy I hate to say this, this is why I don't do marital counseling anymore, and that is weight control. So, how important is this? Let me tell you something. I have a friend, he has put a divorce weight on his wife. That's how important this is. You know, makeup. Makeup is a good thing. You know, one little boy said to another little boy, why do girls wear makeup and perfume? He said, because they're ugly and they stink. You don't want to be ugly and stink. Scientists have discovered, by the way, a food that diminishes a woman's sex drive. It's called wedding cake. Yeah.
That there from good old boy, Pastor Stuart Allen Clark of the General Baptist Church in Maldene, Missouri.
And just curious, how many of you had already guessed that he was Baptist?
Clearly, this guy suffers from being anal retentive.
Hey, when you go out of bounds like this, when you veer away from the parameter of scripture in order to tell your female audience that they need to lose weight because maybe their man has a, quote, "Divorce weight," this is a telltale sign that you're reaching for a power grab.
You're a manipulator.
A control freak.
These pastors need to mind their business and stay out of the bedroom.
Stick to the Word of Truth rightly divided.
But you see, that's just it.
Most churches are being led by someone who has no clue how to rightly divide the gospels.
And that's what it is.
That's the correct definition, by the way.
To rightly divide the word of truth is to rightly divide the gospel of your salvation.
To divide the gospel of your salvation from the gospel not of your salvation.
The Bible presents more than one. And when you don't know how to rightly divide them, parts of the Bible will not make sense.
And that's the reason some of these cemetery preachers preach a dead gospel. It's dead.
Your good news is not there.
Their dead gospel has no life for you today.
So, they don't rightly divide the gospel and wind up feeling the need to reach into personal areas where they don't belong.
Maintain a certain weight and aspire to look like Melania Trump?
She's a trophy wife?
And that's going to keep your husband happy?
Many husbands don't find her that attractive.
Let's get that clear.
See, this is merely subjective.
With all the objective evidence God gave us in his word, and this guy, a preacher, chose to take the pulpit and talk about subjective truth.
But I guess I shouldn't be surprised by men like this.
Small-minded men who are trying to overcompensate for their smallness.
Someone should really explain to this fella.
Maybe give him the definition of hypocrisy.
Because as he stands here in this video preaching about women's weight, I'm noticing that he himself is overweight.
And by more than a few pounds, I might add.
The irony.
The irony of this guy.
This reeks of hypocrisy.
What a double standard.
Misogyny is indeed alive and well in the church.
As damaging to women as this is, let us not forget that where there are women present in church, there are most likely also girls.
I wonder how many young girls were in attendance here at this Baptist church.
Sitting right there with their mothers, listening to this garbage.
And if there were any real men there, they would have abruptly got up, took their family and walked out.
He wouldn't be able to sit idly by without leaving or maybe even raising a voice of objection.
But many of these followers of the scamvangelicals, they won't walk out, even if it is a raging misogynist behind the pulpit.
They'll just sit there and lap it up.
Instead of using his position in the church to preach about the new life we have in Christ and to build others up, he chose to guilt trip the women into losing weight.
As if they alone bear the responsibility of a troubled marriage.
Just another one of our churches, another preacher we can add to the ever-growing list of preachers who do not use their pulpit wisely.
The absence of good news, the gospel.
Used to, the church was actually used for that, regardless of whether or not the gospel that saves was being preached.
At least they were preaching a gospel.
Women and little girls in the room, sitting there, listening to this toxic sermon.
Shameful.
It's no longer good enough to guard our children from what comes from Hollywood.
We have to guard them from what comes out of the pulpit.
In many churches, women are underestimated, underappreciated, marginalized.
Is this really what we want them to hear?
Pastor Clark is a painful hemorrhoid to the body of Christ.
And what he's doing here is body shaming.
It's harmful.
It does no good.
It does nothing but give females a complex about their weight, about their body image.
Being in Christ has nothing to do with what you look like.
It's not about the flesh.
That's what he should preach on.
The world's made up of a large portion of those who've fallen to the visual society.
But we, now that's a different story.
We are a peculiar people, zealous of good works, Titus chapter 2.
Our Redeemer gave himself for us to live in peace, not vanity.
There is no peace in being hyper about your looks.
No peace at all.
Now listen, I'm an advocate for exercise, for eating well.
But I'm not consumed by it.
And I'm not going to call myself an ambassador, a minister of reconciliation, and turn this mic on and preach about it.
And I can assure you that, for the most part, people don't attend church expecting to hear about how overweight they are.
The church is no place for that.
Preachers are dishonoring their platform.
Truth is sometimes hard to face, but let's face it, most scamvangelical churches today have rabid wolves in the pulpit.
It's just a fact.
And if you don't know this, research it.
The gospel is undervalued.
God's word, period, is undervalued.
And sadly, even women are undervalued.
I hear many, many preachers and teachers.
You can find them on radio, YouTube, and you can hear their blind allegiance to those that they refer to as, quote, "The church fathers."
You'll hear this a lot from the Calvinists.
They're real bad about making idols out of men.
They didn't get the memo that told us that we have only one church father, only one, the apostle Paul.
Paul said it himself.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, I have laid the foundation.
Flip over, chapter 4, he said, for though you have thousands of instructors in Christ, yet you don't have many fathers.
In Christ Jesus, Paul said, I have begotten you through the gospel.
There's your church father right there.
And in that same chapter, he said, I beseech you, be followers of me.
We're to be followers of him, as he followed Christ.
But we're not to worship him.
We don't worship Paul.
There's only one worthy of our worship.
It's not Paul.
But we follow him out of great respect for the office he was given.
But these we have today are followers of men, many men.
They follow guys like John Knox.
Let me, let me read. I have some quotes, some quotes from some of these fellas.
These fellas that some have turned into idols.
Let me share a few.
John Knox, a 16th century Scottish clergyman, a Protestant reformer, he said, "The woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man. Nature, I say, paints women further to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish. And experience has declared them to be inconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment or leadership." That, taken from something called the first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women. John Calvin.
Now here's one that many make an idol out of.
John, a French theologian, a pastor, one of the Protestant reformers, on the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to women rather than to men, he said, "I consider this was done by way of reproach, because they, the men, had been so tardy and sluggish to believe, and indeed they deserve not only to have women for their teachers, but even oxen and asses. Yet it pleased the Lord by means of those weak and contemptible vessels to give display of his power. On this account, all women are born that they may acknowledge themselves as inferior in consequence to the superior male sex." So, John Calvin thought women to be despicable and inferior to men. Interesting.
Martin Luther, a German priest theologian, Protestant reformer of the 16th century, he said, "For a woman seems to be a creature somewhat different from man, in that she has dissimilar members, a varied form, and a mind weaker than man."
And he goes on to say, "Though she was a most beautiful work of God, yet she did not equal the glory of the male creature." Thomas Aquinas, called a doctor of the church in the 13th century, said, "But a woman is naturally of less strength and dignity than man."
And he said, "As regards to the individual nature, a woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex, while the production of a woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence."
Now, these are so-called church fathers, that some would have us lift up on a pedestal.
Listen, you hear us say it over and over, like a broken record I guess, but if you don't rightly divide, you'll end up with some puzzle piece beliefs that won't fit in anywhere today.
In the book of Luke, chapter 2, verse 23, we find this, As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.
Why did Martin Luther say the woman does not equal the glory of the male?
It's quite obvious. Luke 12, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.
Nothing about the female.
No, according to God's law, the only gender the Lord called holy was the male gender that opened the womb.
Every male, not female.
You need to get this.
But watch, when we allow the timeline to progress, you see God's word is perfect, and when we follow his timeline, we see that conversely, Paul, over here on the other side of the cross, and after the Lord revealed the mystery to him, said in Galatians, chapter 3, verse 28, There is now no difference between male or female, for we're all one in Christ Jesus.
Things changed, but you won't get that by following the so-called church fathers.
They didn't recognize the change.
They didn't follow the instruction of 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, to rightly divide the word of truth.
If you're out of Christ and under Israel's law, there was a distinction.
In Christ, no more distinction.
Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, doctor of the church and Latin father said, "I don't see what sort of help a woman was created to provide man with. If one excludes procreation, if a woman is not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she
be? To till the earth together? If help were needed for that, man would have been a better help for man. The same goes for comfort in solitude. How much more pleasure is it for life and conversation when two friends live together than when a man and a woman cohabitate?" Augustine was a nut job, plain and simple.
He also said, "The woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that the whole substance may be one image. But when she is referred separately to her quality of helpmeet, with regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God. But as regards the man alone, he is the image of God, as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one." So, according to Augustine, a man is the image of God with or without the woman, but a woman is not the image of God unless she is with the man.
So, why not blame the woman's weight for marital problems?
Can you not hear what the church fathers said?
Watch what you eat and make sure you don't reach that divorce weight.
So, let's hear some more encouraging and inspiring good news from our, quote, "Church fathers."
Jerome, priest, theologian, doctor of the church, and Latin father of the 4th and 5th centuries, he kept it short but not so sweet. He simply said, "The woman is the root of all evil," end quote.
Clement of Alexandria, theologian and Greek father, 2nd century, he said, "Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman. The consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame."
Origen, theologian and Greek father, 2nd and 3rd century, said, "Men should not sit and listen to a woman. Even if she says admirable things or even saintly things, that is of little consequence since it came from the mouth of a woman."
Tertullian, the father of Latin Christianity, 155-245, he said, "And do you not know that you are an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age. The guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway. You are the unsealer of that forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law. You are she who persuaded him who the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man."
Folks, this is pure garbage, and it comes from people that many today hold in high esteem.
If you're saved, you're a part of the body.
Male or female, doesn't matter.
We're his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Pastors like Clark should step down.
Find something they're good at.
The pulpit is for those who are willing to be workmen who won't be ashamed when they stand before Christ at the judgment seat. And yes, we will be at the judgment seat.
We'll cover that on a later date.
One who won't be ashamed because you took the time to put forth the effort to rightly divide the gospels.
Fellas, when we learn to see our wives as a gift, and not some, some subservient object, we can truly appreciate her.
There'll be no room for looking down on her, on what society deems to be a physical flaw.
If our focus remains on Christ, we won't find the time to focus on such nonsensical matters.
Listen, you and your wife are one.
You should share the same focus.
At the end of each day, you and your wife collectively should be able to look back on it and ask yourselves, what we did today?
Did it honor God and glorify the Lord?
Both the man and the woman are image bearers of God.
You only get two educations. The one you're given, and the one you give yourself.
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