Not The Wearing Of Gold.
By Verbal Bean
Praise God! I have some copies of an Associated Press International article, covering the history of the ring, and it’s helpful in teaching why the Bible said, “Not The Wearing Of Gold” (1Peter 3:3).
A ring’s entire history shows it is wrong. It started out wrong.
The first diamond ever worn was in honor to the goddess Venus, the goddess of love. Brother Williams showed pictures of the temples that they had over there, to worship her. The priest would get drunk in one temple, and go to the virgins (they called them virgins), to commit fornication as a form of worship to the goddess Venus. The diamond was placed on the ring to honor her. It started with a barbaric people. A man would capture his wife. He would’t court her, he’d capture her. He’d pick one, and he’d say to his tribesmen, “That’s the one”, and they would trap and catch her. Then they would tie a weed around her finger to subdue her spirit. Later, it became rawhide, and then it became bone, ivory, and iron. Every name involved with that wedding band is what we’re supposed to be against.
Egypt introduced the silver and gold part, then the diamond was added in honor to the goddess, Venus, and then Pope Innocent III reached out and said, “We’re going to make this a law”, and he instituted the wedding band into the Catholic church with God saying all the time, “Not the wearing of gold”.
It’s ridiculous to say it’s for protection, because it is not. We need not the gods of gold for our protection. The protection God gave and prescribed was that a woman be with shamefacedness, and sobriety. If she has the kind of spirit God wants her to have, she doesn’t need any protection. I’ve often said if one feels like they’re about to be kidnapped, or somebody starts flirting with them, to say, “Thank you Jesus, praise the Lord”! That’ll stop ’em.
The error is that gold is the symbol of deity, and you shouldn’t be wearing it. The common mistake of mankind is attempting to make the invisible, visible, and then worship it. This is an invisible covenant between a man, his wife, and his God. When you say “I Do” or, the signing of that license, there is an unvisitable covenant you enter into, with your wife, your God, and you want to make it into a visible form. That’s the common sin of mankind. To make the invisible, visible. Since gold is a symbol of deity, it is an error to wear it, and there’s no place for argument.
One woman called me, and fused about three hours on an article I wrote on rings. She said, ‘I’ll have to admit most of them wear it for the show, and I realize rings are not a protection to you because if a man wants to commit adultery he wants that woman to have a ring on her before he goes into that motel room to begin with. If she hasn’t got one, he’ll give her one. That’s no protection.”
That’s common knowledge. If men are going to live that way, they want that woman to have a ring, whether married or not.
But she said, “You don’t know what it means to me.” All three statements she made condemn her. “You just don’t know what it means to me.” Praise the Lord!
I had another woman say she wasn’t going to take hers off. She was ironing one day, and all of a sudden she burned that one finger. The only one she burned, and it was burned so badly she had to pull that ring off. I prayed for it. You can say what you want, but I’ve had God work with me!
I’ll tell you another experience I’ll never forget. In Brother William’s church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there was a woman that came from up north to be there in the Bible College, and she was stubborn. She said, “Nobody will get my ring off! I guarantee C.P. Williams, or nobody else will!”
Brother Williams has been fighting rings for so long until he was weary. Nobody knew what he was thinking, but this is his testimony. He went to that morning worship planning to get up and tell his congregation, ” I’m tired, do what you want to about the ring subject, I’m tired of fighting.” He thoroughly had made up his mind to say that.
Here sat this woman from the north. Nobody knew what Brother Williams was thinking, but several knew what the woman thought, because she had made her brags, “Nobody can get it off”.
Just before it was time for Brother Williams to get up there, having planned it make this statement, and release them from the message of rings, that woman screamed to the top of her voice! When she finally got control of herself, she stood up and told her story.
She said, “I came here determined nobody would get these rings off of me, but while I was sitting here, it was as though a knife cut my rings on both sides! They popped off of her finger and fell on the floor. It looked like they had been cut on both sides! I know who got those rings off”!
Brother Williams got up there, weeping, and said, “folks forgive me, but I had planned to let down on the message this morning, but God came and rescued me! I want you to know, from here on, I’m preaching against rings! Praise God! God will defend His message if you’ll let Him!
Our women are so different, if they are dressed like they ought to be. If our holiness women act, and dress like they ought, men will know they’re religious women, with shamefacedness and sobriety. “Whose adorning let it be the hidden man of the heart” (1Peter 3:3-4).
If a woman has a quiet and meek spirit, she’s not going to expose herself to temptations or need to fight flirtation.
Stay with the message, and don’t weaken it. An Evangelist can be a blessing to a Pastor, if he’s prayed up, and won’t just go to slamming, but go in with love and compassion.
I believe in preaching hard, and I preached at one place. “You rebels come on up here”! It wasn’t Verbal Bean saying that, it was the attitude of God towards that service. If you have God with you, you can say almost anything and get by with it, but if it’s just you, you’re going to destroy souls.
An Evangelist can be such a blessing to a Preacher. He can preach on things, that would almost destroy a church if the Pastor would happen to touch on it, because the Pastor knows. They know he knows it, and it’s hard to believe that he got an unction from God to preach on it, they have to believe that’s God. That’s one reason I never wanted the Pastor telling me about the troubles of the Church, because if God wanted to use me I didn’t want that hanging over me that he had already told me. It’s a tremendous advantage, so don’t let a Pastor ever tell you. Just say, “Brother, let’s just wait on the Lord”. It will be a lot better that way.