Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Mystery behind the Woman of Virtue *

* It’s Murder!*

* *

*New Beginnings Church*

*Women’s Day*

*May 15, 2005*

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*Proverbs 31:10*

*2 Peter 1:1-11*

 

*Introduction:*

I love a good murder mystery.

Murder She Wrote was a favorite but it has lost its appeal over the years.

It starred Angela Landsbury as Jessica Fletcher, the nationally known mystery writer.

She was a magnet for murder, thus almost anyone close to her, be it relative or friend, were sure to be arrested for murder.

Jessica would then come to the rescue and solve the mystery, right under the noses of the local law enforcement.

I also like Law and Order, especially Special Victims Unit, mainly because Ice-T is in a starring role.

The squad takes on high profile cases that the run of the mill police can’t solve.

Usually the crimes are gory or too gruesome for the general audience, but I enjoy the suspense of determining the real culprit.

But my all-time favorite who-done-it is Matlock, starring Andy Griffith.

Matlock is a middle-aged, silver haired, widowed lawyer in Atlanta.

He is frugal; he loves hot dogs, wears the same suit week after week, and rarely loses a case.

He knows that the answer to the mystery rarely lies within the obvious.

His fame comes from finding that one little thing that the killer has overlooked, something that others usually dismiss as unimportant.

*Why*, you are probably thinking, am I talking about mysteries?

Well, as I studied the passage that describes a woman of virtue, I was baffled.

Israelite women did manage the household and they performed the duties of wives and mothers.

They also had a measure of anonymity in life and were subordinate to their husbands.

They were an integral part of the community and they were protected as such.

A good wife was usually praised and honored; godly women were admired and valued.

Yet, I wondered why this woman was showcased.

Oh, there were many woman of old who became noteworthy, women who made the news so to speak, for their achievements.

Women were valued and honored to a degree, but they were always in a weaker position than a man.

Now, I am not advocating Women’s Liberation, but it was Jesus Himself that lifted women up, gave them new roles and equal status in His kingdom.

Yet, I was baffled about this particular woman.

The Lord kept telling me that there was a mystery; a mystery that I was overlooking.

Then, He showed it to me.

This passage in Proverbs is used many times as a standard, a model as the highness that we are to aspire to, and that’s fine, but God would have us to see today the real starting point leading to a Woman of Virtue.

Proverbs was written by Solomon, son of King David and King of Israel.

Solomon obviously loved women or he was trying to prove himself a real man, for he had 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Yet, he was a man who found life to be boring and filled with vanity.

There is some speculation of his authorship of chapter 31, but I believe it to be his, relating the descriptions that his mother gave of a perfect wife.

The woman in Proverbs 31 is given as the standard for the kind of wife that is to be sought out.

There was a song some years ago that said:  “If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife”.

The implication being that ugly women make better wives.

It has been my observation that most men don’t buy that logic, and those that have married the least attractive women have convinced themselves that real beauty is within.

Likewise, Proverbs 31 is describing a woman who may or may not be easy on the natural eyes, but rather one whose beauty is clearly observed from within, from her character.

The characteristics of such a woman are clearly laid out.

First of all she is hard to find.

You have to look hard and maybe long for there are imitators that will deceive you.

She is anxious to please her husband at all cost, his whim; his need is her pleasurable desire.

She is not lazy and uses her time well.

She is a good manager of the family’s household, finances and resources.

She never shops on a whim (uh-oh) or without pre-planning.

She accounts for every dollar and her husband always has enough for his needs.

She makes sure that the needs of the family are met and she often gives to the poor.

She is discreet, quiet and filled with wisdom.

She only speaks healing and comforting words and she never embarrasses her husband.

Like I said, she is hard to find.

But it’s not the perfect wife that I want to discuss today.

No.

I want to examine the aspect of virtue found in the Proverbs 31 woman.

I know for sure that this woman of was not born the way that she is described because no one is born perfect or virtuous.

There are none perfect, no not one.

In fact, the word *virtue* that is used here is not used in the way that many of us think of virtue today.

It does not mean chastity or pure, nor decent and moral, nor innocent, guiltless or faultless.

Just knowing what it does not mean should give us a sigh of relief!

We can find virtue used the same way in *2 Peter 1:1-11*.

Virtue in the original language and its usage in these passages refer to *excellence, strength and courage*.

Many women before us have been women of excellence, such as Hannah, the woman of grace and mother of Samuel, who, though barren, feared and trusted God more than the mocking and jeers of her husband’s other wife and vowed to return a man child to the Lord for His service;  women of strength like Abigail who so impressed King David with her beauty, humility, praise and advice that she became his wife after the death of her husband Nabal; and there was Ruth who left familiar land and family and told her mother-in-law “Where you Go, I will go, where you lodge, I will lodge, and your people will be my people, and your God will be my God; and women of courage such as Deborah, a judge in the nation of Israel who had to lead a general out to war; and don’t forget Esther whose beauty won her a queen ship and whose faith proved courageous as she said “If I perish, I perish”.

From this passage in 2 Peter we will see that in order to become a *Woman of Virtue*, a woman of excellence, strength and courage, a murder must take place.

Everyone knows that a murderer usually has a *motive to kill*, an *opportunity to kill* and a *weapon used to kill*.

*Motive:*

Motive gives us the reason to act and the object of our actions.

Without motive, almost any action on our parts is meaningless and just plain dumb.

We dress each day before we go out to avoid arrest.

We eat (sometimes too much) to avoid death.

We work to provide the necessities of life for our families and ourselves.

We cry to show grief.

We laugh to show joy.

We marry and are intimate to bring forth life.

We kill to protect life, but we murder to end life.

You see, some of us need to murder some things, and at the very least, to mortify some things from our members in a quest to become a woman of virtue.

In Colossians 3:5, Paul is not saying that we must mortify our physical or natural bodies, but rather the deeds of the body or sinful actions that plague us and would hinder us.

Paul says that these members of your body that do these things, they belong to you.

These evil desires lurk in “your” members.

They are not God’s and not even Satan’s.

They are yours.

Now, just what are these things that need to be mortified?

First and primarily, they are earthly; the concerns and the things of the world.

Worldly lusts and pleasures arise out of earthly mindedness.

Paul goes on to identify them in particular:

§        Fornication

§        Uncleanness of every sort

§        Sensual appetites and unholy desires

§        Covetousness and idolatry

It goes without saying that when these things are present and active in your life and being performed by your members, you cannot be a woman of virtue or a man of virtue either, for that matter.

But the problem is not always in the outward practice of such things.

Many of us have failed to separate ourselves from past actions or old ways of thinking.

Paul goes on to say that some in the body of Christ are actually children of disobedience, or still practicing and acting on these sinful desires.

Still others may not be outwardly practicing them, but they are plagued by them or guided by their former enslavement to them.

Most times when we come to the saving knowledge of God, no one tells us or helps us to mortify our past sins and behaviors, so the actions continue or the remembrance of them stunts our growth.

We kind of go through our spiritual lives trying to live up to the Proverbs 31 woman but with an often times secret mindset of a Rahab or a Jezebel.