LET US LIVE AS CLOSE TO THE WORD AS POSSIBLE
New Revelations That Have Crept into the Church
Sakkie Parsons
I share this writing with you in response to one of my writings about women’s head coverings, which was initially sent to me as a question. Afterward, a written discussion followed back and forth.
Right here at the beginning, I want to once again make the following very, very clear:
The gates of heaven are not going to open for you and me when we leave this life because of what we did or how we did it—or didn’t do it.
The gates of heaven will open for you and me because we arrive on the other side of the grave with Jesus.
However, I have also seen in my life—and continue to experience—that the closer you live to the Word and to what you read there, the better you hear the voice of our Lord, and without a doubt, the deeper your love relationship with Him becomes.
With my ministry, I try—among other things—to encourage Christians (and sometimes people who are not really Christians, but rather very religious people) to live as close to the Word as possible.
Believe me, the closer you walk through this life with the Word—Jesus Christ—the better you hear Him speak with you, and the more intimate and meaningful your relationship with Him will be.
As I mentioned earlier, when our Lord gave me this ministry, He also showed me that I must answer only from the Word, and solely from the Word, and nothing but the Word.
In light of the discussion that followed my writing about a woman’s head covering—and because some people want to disagree with the Word or debate it, or insert their own views or adopt the views of others—I want to share with you one of the many so-called “new revelations” that have crept into the church during my lifetime.
Of course, I could have spoken about several other “new revelations” too—like the topic of marriage and who may marry whom according to the Word, or about authority in the church and who may be the head of a congregation.
Coincidentally—for those who believe in coincidence—all these “new revelations” are in direct conflict with what “Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God” (1 Corinthians 1:1) wrote under the inspiration of our Lord. Yet they have now been altered through “new revelations.”
These are all, in my opinion, false revelations that have crept into the church during the 52 years I’ve been proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’ve written about them before and can share those with you if you ask. But right now, I want to focus on a different one that recently came up again in my ministry—although I’ve already written about it before.
Of course, I can only speak of the “new revelations” that I have personally heard or experienced during my lifetime of proclaiming the gospel of Jesus.
The particular one I will speak about now has made some people very unhappy with me—because I call it a false revelation. Still, I share it with you too. And I ask: If you believe I’m wrong in calling it a false revelation, then please, by all means, take the Scripture I use to show that it is false and explain to me where my reasoning from the Word is flawed—and how I should understand the Scriptures I’ve used—without contradicting the Word itself.
Because let us also remember who the Word is:
John 1:1–5
In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.
He was [continually existing] in the beginning [co-eternally] with God.
All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him not even one thing was made that has come into being.
In Him was life [and the power to bestow life], and the life was the Light of men.
The Light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it or overpower it or appropriate it or absorb it [and is unreceptive to it].
I now share with you one of the “new revelations” I experienced that spread like wildfire through the Afrikaans denominations. I believe it originated overseas and had probably already taken full root in English-speaking denominations—but I wouldn’t know for sure, as I moved only among Afrikaans-speaking congregations as an evangelist.
Let me go back a bit—many years ago, to the mid-1960s, before my conversion.
I was at the school for the blind in Worcester. Because I had no formal church affiliation and didn’t really have parents in the true sense of the word, the school sent me along with the other children who belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church to Sunday school and church. I was also catechized in the Dutch Reformed Church and was confirmed there.
Back then—in the late 1960s—I saw (because I could still see well at the time) that the men removed their hats before entering the church for worship, and inside the church, all the women had a head covering.
Then I didn’t go to church for many years because I wasn’t yet saved.
In 1973, I came to faith in a Pentecostal church, and I saw everything was still as it had been when I last attended the Dutch Reformed Church. The women still wore head coverings, and the men who wore hats removed them before entering the place where people were gathering to worship.
But as I began serving our Lord, I experienced that in the largest Pentecostal denomination at the time, women were wearing head coverings less and less. Apparently, a “new revelation” had now arrived:
“We live in a different time now, and times have changed. What the apostles—especially Paul—taught about a man not wearing anything on his head when coming together to worship, and a woman having her head covered, no longer applies to us.
So that part of the Word can now be set aside—it no longer has meaning for us today.
All the church leaders before us—our forefathers, even great leaders like the Reformers—apparently, to their misfortune, did not have this “great new revelation.”
All the other Pentecostal churches I visited—outside of that large denomination—stood firmly against this so-called “new revelation.” That was back when I had just come to faith and began my work in the church.
But the longer I worked for the Lord and the more I moved around, I saw—as I’ve already mentioned—that this “new revelation,” which is of course no longer new today, spread like wildfire through Pentecostal churches.
I’ll give you an example of just how fast it spread:
A pastor from a denomination that originally stood firmly against this “new revelation” invited me to hold a series of services. When we arrived, my wife was still sitting in the car. The pastor bent down to greet her through the window, noticed she already had her hat on, and said how glad he was to see that she still wore a head covering.
A little over a year later, the same pastor invited me again. As we stopped in front of the church, he once again bent down to greet us and told my wife she could take her hat off, because they no longer believed a woman needed to wear a head covering during a worship service.
My wife answered, “But Pastor, I still believe that I should wear a head covering when people come together to hold a worship service for our Lord.”
Let me now speak to you about this “new revelation” which is, of course, no longer new—and how we find it addressed in the Word.
Let’s first take a look at the Paul, which the Holy Spirit used as His pen to write 1 Corinthians.
We read at the beginning of 1 Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 1:1
Paul, called as an apostle (special messenger, personally chosen representative) of Jesus Christ by the will of God…
Then the Lord, the Word, continues to write through this “called apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God”:
1 Corinthians 11:3–5
But I want you to understand that Christ is the head [authority] over every man, and man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ.
Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head [and the One who is his head].
And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head [and the One who is her head]…
The Word continues writing through this same Paul, ‘called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God’ as His pen when he wrote:
1 Corinthians 11:10
Therefore the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, for the sake of the angels [so as not to offend them].
Now, I don’t know why I must act “for the sake of the angels” when we come together to worship, like I do – and I don’t for now, understand some things written in the Word of our Lord—but I certainly know what it means to be obedient, and I also know how our Lord views what I want to do versus my obedience to Him.
Let me share an example from the Word. I’ll summarize the story, but you can read it fully starting from 1 Samuel 15:1.
Our Lord gave Saul—whom He had made king—a command. Saul carried it out, but not the way God instructed him. He did it his own way.
And then we read how terribly our Lord felt about Saul—how He regretted making him king.
Then we read:
1 Samuel 15:22–23
Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
As in obedience to the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed [is better] than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as [serious as] the sin of divination (fortune-telling),
And disobedience is as serious as false religion and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
He also has rejected you as king.”
If you read further, you’ll see how absolutely fatal Saul’s actions were and how tragically his life ended.
Back to my topic:
According to the Word, when should a woman’s head be covered, and when should a man’s head not be covered in matters concerning the Lord?
Personally, I see that when a husband and wife pray or have quiet time together, they are “one flesh” before the Lord—one entity, so to speak—and these instructions may not necessarily apply in that private context.
But what I do clearly see when I read:
1 Corinthians 11:4–5
Every man who prays or prophesies with something on his head dishonors his head [and the One who is his head].
And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head [and the One who is her head]; it is the same as if she had her head shaved.
You cannot prophesy alone—who would hear your prophecy?
And every time the Word gives the example of someone prophesying, it’s in a group setting. So, every time someone prays or prophesies among others, these instructions apply.
So, there it is:
Whenever I am with others who can hear me pray or prophesy, this instruction applies—my head should be uncovered as a man, and hers covered as a woman.
If I do it this way, I know that while I am dealing with the Most Holy God, I am not doing anything wrong.
Especially since I read that the Lord, through Paul; “called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,” wrote:
1 Corinthians 11:10
Therefore the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, for the sake of the angels [so as not to offend them].
Now I ask everyone who has a problem with such a simple instruction—men to remove their hats, women to wear theirs—what has changed?
Have the angels in heaven changed in nature since the mid-1900s, such that we needed a new revelation from the Lord?
Has anything changed in heaven since the Lord used the apostle Paul to write much of what we, as Christians, are to live by in the New Testament?
Can someone please answer me?
What has changed among the angels, and what has changed—respectfully—within the heart of our Lord?
Where and how did our Lord make it known that many of the things He wrote through Paul—“called as an apostle by Jesus Christ by the will of God”—He has now changed His view on?
Have things in heaven changed?
Have the angels changed?
Has Jesus Christ changed?
No.
Of course not!
But I’ll tell you what has changed:
satan, because he knows his time is short—and now very short—has become more aggressive and more focused in leading as many people as far away from our Lord as possible before His return.
That’s why Jesus Himself asked this heartbreaking question, knowing the terrible price He would pay to save people from hell:
Luke 18:8
…However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find [this kind of persistent] faith on the earth?
Will Jesus still find faith—faith in people who truly try to live as close as possible to His Word and proclaim it that way, because they know and live it?
Hebrews 13:8–9
Jesus Christ is [eternally changeless, always] the same yesterday and today and forever.
Do not be carried away by diverse and strange teachings…
Contact me if you want to hear more about the false revelations that, from what I have experienced, started around the mid-1960s and have since (as satan surely says to himself, “thank goodness”) spread through almost all Christian denominations.
As for me—just like the Reformers who walked out of the Catholic Church after seeing all the wrong—they said:
“The Word, only the Word, and nothing but the Word.”
Sakkie