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1 Chronicles 3, we continue through these genealogies that take up the first nine chapters of the book of 1 Chronicles. This is some pretty heavy reading when you read all nine of these chapters back to back, but we know that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. These names have significance. They all represent stories and events in the lives of real people, and some of them really do have a message. You just have to pay attention and look at it a little more closely. Now, what does it say here in the beginning in verse 1? Now these were the sons of David, which were born unto him in Hebron, the firstborn Amnon of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, the second Daniel of Abigail the Carmelitess, the third Absalom, the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, the fourth Adonijah the son of Hagith, the fifth Shepataiah of Abital, the sixth Ithrium by Igla his wife. Now what's the first thing that you notice here in these first three verses that should just jump out at you right away is that King David has six sons with six different women, right? Because it's telling you, and it's not for no reason. He could have just told us, all right, he had this son, then he had this son, then he had this son. But he gives us the names of the mothers, and then that lets you know right away, hey, he's having six kids with six different women in the first three verses. Now if we know something about David, we know that David was a man after God's own heart. David was a great man of God. He was a great prophet of God. He was chosen by God to be the king of Israel. He was anointed by Samuel the prophet. He was given great power by God to go out and fight the Lord's battles. He was definitely filled with the Holy Spirit. So it's kind of confusing sometimes when we look at people like this and say, well, you know, if this guy was such a spiritual guy, if he was so godly, if he was so righteous, then why did he have so many wives? Why did he do that when God commands us to only have one wife? And it's pretty clear that God created man and woman in the beginning. And for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother in Cleveland to his wife, singular, and they too shall be one flesh. And the Bible is consistent in teaching that standard from Genesis all the way to the New Testament. The Bible never one time teaches that we should practice polygamy or have more than one wife. The Bible consistently teaches one man and one woman. So why is it that some of these great men of God had multiple wives and not only that, but they seem to have gotten away with it? You know, God doesn't even seem to bat an eye at it. Well, first of all, if you would flip over to Genesis chapter four, Genesis chapter four. First of all, let me just give you a logical argument against polygamy because some people will twist these stories, even though there's no scripture that tells us to practice polygamy. And on the contrary, there are scriptures that tell us that marriage is between one man and one woman. People will try to twist this to say that God wants us to practice polygamy or that it's okay to practice polygamy, that it's fine to do that. But let me first start with just the logical argument. The problem with polygamy, just from a logical standpoint, is that one half of the people in this world are men and the other half are women. And in typical towns and states and countries, this is the case because half of the birds are a boy and half of the birds are a girl. You pretty much have 50% men and 50% women. So what in the world sense would it make, you know, unless you're in surf city or whatever, what in the world sense would it make to have one man with three wives, four wives? There wouldn't be enough wives to go around. And here's the thing about that, that if you look at polygamous religions, you know what they always end up doing 100% of the time? They end up having the teenage brides and the child brides. If you go up to Northern Arizona where the fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, the FLDS, which is a spinoff of the Mormons, where they operate up there with Warren Jeffs and them, you know, they just keep marrying younger and younger, the bunch of dirty old men up there with their 17 wives or whatever, but they keep having to go to the teenagers and the children. And you notice that Islam does the same thing where they're constantly marrying teenagers and marrying children. Why? Because there just simply aren't going to be enough women to go around. Which doesn't make any sense because there are half men and half women, so it just works out that every man has his own wife, as the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7, and every woman has her own husband. So just from that logical standpoint, it doesn't make sense. What's the first mention of marriage in the Bible? I already quoted it to you from Genesis 2. The man and woman, those two are one. What's the first mention of polygamy in the Bible? Well, if you look at Genesis 4, verse 19, it says, And Lamech took unto him two wives. The name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other, Zillah. So the first thing we want to realize about the first polygamist in the Bible, or bigamist really because he only had two, is that he was of the sons of Cain. This is not of the godly seed of Seth, but this is of the sons of Cain, which is the bad side of the family. But not only that, it says in verse 23, Lamech said unto his wives, Ada and Zillah, Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech, for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech's 70th sevenfold. So here's a guy who ends up killing someone. So he's not exactly a poster child for righteousness, because he's following the footsteps of Cain and saying, well, I was even more justified than Cain to kill this guy. Now we don't know the story of why he killed this guy, but I'm not necessarily buying the fact that he was justified since he's invoking Cain, and we don't really know the whole story. We're just getting it from his mouth, coming home and telling his wives, hey, this is what I did. And we know that in the next breath, in Genesis 6, the whole earth's filled with violence. And people are killing each other in Genesis 6. So we have Cain commit murder, then we have this son of Cain kill someone, and then when we get to Genesis 6, the whole world's filled with violence. That's the progression. So this guy's not exactly a godly example, and so he's the first one that took two wives. What does the law of Moses have to say about polygamy? Go if you would to Deuteronomy chapter 17. Deuteronomy chapter 17, let's get the teachings of the law of Moses on polygamy. What did it say? Well, in Deuteronomy chapter 17, it specifically deals with the subject of having a king, which David was a king. And the Bible says in Deuteronomy 17, 15, thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose. That's David, right? One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee. Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses. For as much as the Lord hath said unto you, he shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away, neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. So you can multiply silver and gold, but just not greatly multiply silver and gold. But when it comes to the wives, it just says don't multiply wives. Don't have multiple wives. But what did David do? What did Solomon do? They multiplied wives, right? They had a bunch of wives. What did Solomon's son Rehoboam do? He had many wives. And even though he already had a ton of wives, what did he say about Rehoboam? He desired many wives. He still wanted more. Now let's stop and think about David himself. And if you would flip over to Deuteronomy 21, we look to Deuteronomy 17, look at chapter 21, let me ask you this. When David had all his multiple wives, was he satisfied with that? Was that enough for him? No, because even when he had all these wives and concubines, what did he do? He still committed adultery. I mean, it's unbelievable, isn't it? And when Nathan the prophet rebukes him, he compares him to a guy who already had like a whole flock of sheep and lambs, but yet he goes and steals his neighbor's one sheep. You know Uriah the Hittite had one wife. David had multiple wives, multiple concubines, yet he goes and lies with his neighbor's wife. It's wicked. And you know what you should learn from that is that having multiple wives is not going to satisfy you. Because that's what people would follow this in order to achieve is like, well, one wife isn't enough. I'm not satisfied. I want to have two wives or three or four or five, right? Well, are they going to be satisfied? David wasn't satisfied. Why? Because if you're not satisfied with one, you're not going to be satisfied with two either or three or four or five because there's just the type of people who are content with such things as they have and then there are type of people that always want something else and they're not happy with what they have. You know, Paul said, I've learned in whatsoever state I am there with to be content. So you learn contentment in whatsoever state you're in. Not like, well, if I just had a little more than I'll be happy, but I just had a little more money. If I, you know, I'm not saying I want to have as many wives as King Solomon. I just want three. That's it. You know? Well, okay. If you have three, you know what you're going to want? The fourth. Why? Because the Bible teaches that there are people that are content and there are people who are covetous. And so there's a polygamy is not the answer to satisfy man's craving for love and affection or for that physical relationship because of the fact that even a man after God's own heart, when he practiced polygamy, it didn't end up satisfying him. He still committed adultery. Here's another argument against polygamy in the Bible is that every instance of polygamy in the Bible goes badly. There's not a single story in the Bible where polygamy goes well. It's always bad. Okay. And we're going to get to that in the life of David in a moment, but think about some of the stories of polygamy that we can think of. You know, when Abraham added on Hagar to Sarah, was that blessed? Was that good? No. It went badly. They hate each other. They're at each other's throats. It's fighting their enemies. When we think of Jacob having multiple wives, they hated each other. They're fighting. It's not a happy family. You'll never find an instance in the Bible where this is a good thing. It's blessed. Everybody's happy. Everything's great. Okay. And right now we're just focusing on the Old Testament's teaching here. So look at Deuteronomy 21. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 21 15, if a man have two wives. Now is this God telling you, go out and get two wives? Marry two wives. It's okay to marry two wives. No. But he knows that people are going to do it. Even though it's not his will, it's sort of like when he said, my little children, these things write unto you that you sin not. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He's not telling you to go out and sin, but he knows you're going to. So he says, hey, if you do. So because this is a society where they have multiple wives, you have to have laws to govern that. And God understands that that's a part of their culture. Obviously if someone's married to two wives and they've sworn an oath to two wives and married two wives, then they have two wives. They can't just get rid of them. You know, those are their wives now. So they have to continue in that because you know, that's what they, that's the oath that they made. That's the vow that they made. So God is understanding of that and making allowance for that. It says in Deuteronomy 21 verse 15, if a man have two wives, one beloved and another hated and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated. And if the firstborn son be hers that was hated, then it shall be when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn. But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all that he hath, for he is the beginning of his strength, the right of the firstborn is his. Go to Exodus 21. Exodus chapter 21. Exodus chapter 21 and the Bible reads in verse number seven, and if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the men servants do. If she please not her master who had betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed to sell her unto a strange nation, he shall not have no power, seeing he had dealt deceitfully with her. And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then she shall go out free without money. So here, the Bible is again just saying if he takes a second wife, this is the law governing that. I'm not telling him, go ahead and do it, it's fine, it's my will, it's of God, and anything like that. Let's quickly, if you would, turn to First Timothy, chapter three, and while you're turning there, we'll go to the New Testament. While you're turning there, let me just give you some other examples of polygamy in the Bible, and let's see if these are blessed. Gideon was one who had a lot of wives, and Gideon had 70 sons. And you know, part of the reason why these guys would want to have a lot of wives, it wasn't just to gratify the flesh, but it was also because they wanted to have a lot of sons. They wanted to reproduce, they wanted to have children that would carry on the family name and the lineage, and because having children is a blessing. But again, we shouldn't go overboard on that. I'm going as far with that as I can with one wife. I've got 10 kids so far, and God willing, we'll be able to have a few more, or maybe even many more, right honey? Keep it rolling, keep it rolling. So the thing about that is though, I have 10 children, but it's all with one woman. That's what God gave me legitimately, what he blessed me with, saying, well I want to have 20 kids, 30 kids, 40 kids, so I'm going to multiply wives. Jerubel or Gideon was one who did that. He had 70 sons, and I'll bet you he was pretty proud of his 70 sons, right? But you know what happened to those 70 sons? They got wiped out, they got killed. They had this one evil brother who ended up slaughtering them all. He was afraid that they would try to take the lead. He wanted to become king. So Abimelech slew his 70 brethren. So Gideon's probably thinking, oh man, we're really going to carry on the family line here with these 70 sons. They all get wiped out. You know, David, in the scripture that we read in 1 Chronicles 3 where it's listing the sons with different women, well what were some of those sons that he had that he's so proud of? Firstborn Amnon. How did things work out for Amnon? If you know the story, he got killed. Well, but then there was Absalom. How did things go for him? He got killed, right? And of course, the infant son was killed, right? So I mean, these guys aren't being blessed when they have all these multiple wives and multiple children. It's just problems, you know, when they don't do things God's way. Now a lot of people's attitude toward this is, well, you know, okay, maybe having one wife is better, but God's okay with polygamy. God's okay with having multiple wives. But here's the thing. Even by that logic, shouldn't we want what's best in our lives? Shouldn't we want God's perfect will for our lives instead of just trying to figure out, well, what can we get away with? You know what I mean? Like what's the minimum godliness that we can hold to? Now, you know, we should be seeking what God wants us to do with our lives, not just what God kind of lets go or is okay with or is kind of lenient about. We should seek to do that which is God's perfect will and plan for our life. Now in 1 Timothy 3, there are the qualifications for the pastor of the church, the bishop, and also the deacon has the same qualifications. And he says, a bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach. So the pastor must be the husband of one wife. So a lot of people will say, well, the pastor can only have one wife, but other people in the church, but hold on a second. Why would God have different rules for the pastor as for the layman? I mean, there's right and wrong. It's not that God has different rules for the pastor and the deacon. It's that the pastor and deacon just have to live up to that standard in order to be qualified for that position. Now think about how silly this would be. If laymen were allowed to have two wives, and pastors and deacons are supposed to have one, how are you going to find pastors and deacons if they've already married two wives, once they have them, they can't just downgrade, like, see you, honey, you're out of here. I mean, once they've married two, they have two. So then it would be like, okay, well then how can this guy ever be a pastor or ever be a deacon? You know what God's saying is, monogamy is right. One man, one woman is what's right. That's God's plan. That's God's will. And people will go outside of that and have two, three, four wives, you know, don't pick them to be the pastor. Pick someone who's more godly. Don't pick them to be the deacon. Pick someone who's more godly. See, we should all be godly. We should all be following the rules that God has laid out. We should all be seeking God's will for our life, and then among those people that are living for God, we pick certain people and make them the pastor, make them the deacon. But we should all be striving to meet these standards. I mean, are any of these standards only for pastors? I mean, does that, hey, you know, the pastor's to be sober, but everybody else, drink up. You know, the pastor's to be given to hospitality, but everybody else, you know, shut and bar the door because, you know, it's us four no more. You know, the pastor's supposed to be blameless and have a good reputation, but you should just go out and just soil your reputation because you're not going to be a pastor anyway. I mean, isn't that kind of silly? If we look at the rest of the qualifications, it's pretty obvious that God doesn't want anybody to be a brawler. God doesn't want anybody to be soon angry or a striker or greedy or any of these things, but he's just saying, you know, you pick people that meet this standard to be a pastor, but everybody should be striving for godliness in their life, and part of that includes having only one wife because that's God's will. That's God's plan for us. Titus says the same thing. You don't have to turn there, but Titus chapter 1 verse 6 says, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly, again, that's the qualification for the pastor. First Corinthians 7, I already quoted it earlier, but the Bible says that to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, singular, and let every woman have her own husband, singular. So let's go back to First Chronicles chapter 3 now with that in mind. First Chronicles chapter 3, and while you're turning there, let's go to Second Samuel chapter 12, so keep your finger in First Chronicles 3 and look at Second Samuel chapter 12. Now Second Samuel is a passage that's parallel with First Chronicles. They both have to do with the life of David, and as I preach this subject tonight about having a multiplicity of wives, I want to be honest as I preach the Bible tonight and show you all the scriptures, because some people, it's like they have a certain agenda, they have a certain belief, they have a certain doctrine, and that's all they want to show you is only verses that support their view. But we should look at all the scripture and get a complete picture of what God teaches on the subject. We don't want to be dishonest and say like, here's what the Bible says, period, end of the story and not show you everything. Too many preachers are guilty of turning the same scriptures over and over again and then neglecting other scriptures. That's why I showed you the verses in the Old Testament where God said, hey, here's what you do in a situation if a man have two wives. I'm not trying to hide those verses because we want to comprehend and understand the totality of the Bible's teaching, not just verses that only support our position that say one man, one woman. Let's look at all the evidence, because there are certain verses that people would use that could indicate that God is for polygamy. And I showed you some of them in the Mosaic Law. Here's another verse that comes up on this subject about David himself, so it's very relevant to the topic tonight. And again, I'm just trying to show you all the evidence here so that you can understand the totality of the Bible's teaching here. Look at 2 Samuel 12, verse 7. And Nathan said to David, thou art the man, thus saith the Lord God of Israel. I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul. And this is the part where people get tripped up here. And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Therefore, as thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight, thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. So the argument from this verse would be, well, if God is the one who gave these wives to David, he gave Saul's wives unto David, then that means that that must be something good, because God would only give someone something good. This is their logic, if they would take this to say, see, the Bible's for polygamy. But that's really not what this verse is saying. What this verse is actually stating is just the fact of what happened. By God removing Saul from king and putting David in that spot, you know, David basically inherits everything associated with that position. And he inherited the wives that Saul had. He inherited that from Saul. God didn't just say, hey, David, let me give you a second wife, buddy. Let me give you a fifth wife. I don't think 11 wives is enough. Let me give you a 12th. That's not what God did here. What this is actually saying is that God took the kingdom away from Saul and gave it to David. And by doing that, there are things that went along with that. And what God's really trying to drive in here is that, you know, you were given these other wives and yet you still went after someone else's wife, even though you had all these wives that you got from Saul. You know, I gave you the kingdom of Saul, I gave you all these great things, and I gave into your hands Saul's wives. And that's not enough for you. You want something else. That's actually the context of what's being stated here. Now you say, but still, Pastor Anderson, you know, it says, I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives and thy bosom. He gave him the house. And what goes along with that is the wives and the bosom, because that's kind of like part of the showcase there. You know, you get that kingdom, you get everything that goes with it. But what we do see here from this verse and many other verses that talk about the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel, I will give you this, that in the Old Testament, God did overlook or put up with, you know, and you could use the word allow polygamy, but he didn't allow it in the sense of saying it's right, it's okay. It's always been a sin. But what God did do is he basically gave allowance for it, basically just understanding this is something that happens. This is something that's going to go on. And he didn't basically freak out about it. But he kind of let it go. He let it slide. So it would be like this. Let's say I have a job and at the job they have a rule, tuck in your shirt. But let's say the rule is not enforced at all. And I remember a job that I had when I was 18 years old where they had a rule, tuck in your shirt, nobody tucked in their shirt. Because it wasn't enforced. So I mean just nobody's tucked in their shirt. Well I walked in there and I always had my shirt tucked in because I read the rules and it was written down in the rules and even though nobody talked about it, it technically said tuck in your shirt and I wanted to follow the rules. So I had my shirt tucked in. And the owner of the company took me aside and he said, hey, you know, I like the fact that you tuck in your shirt. And he gave me a raise. So he liked that. But that's kind of what was going on in the Old Testament, I believe. Is that the rule was always to tuck in your shirt. But it's just God's choosing his battles with people. He's just trying to get them to at least not commit, just don't commit adultery. Just at least don't commit murder. Just at least just worship the one true God. Just don't bring in false gods. He had a lower standard in the Old Testament. I think that's pretty obvious from Genesis to Malachi that God had a lower standard in the Old Testament. The rules are the same. Right has been right. Wrong has been wrong. Obviously there are ceremonial rules that change. But I'm saying in general, the rules of right and wrong, the morality is the same. It's just in the Old Testament, he wasn't cracking down on it as much as he does in the New Testament. In the New Testament, man, he gets specific and gives you stricter rules. And this is what's so dumb about these neo-evangelicals who think that God softened up in the New Testament. It's the opposite. I mean, I read the Old Testament, I'm thinking, man, he was pretty lenient back then. You could get away with a lot back then. Just as long as you just worship the true God and just do a few basic things, it wasn't a big deal. You know, in the New Testament, you know, God's really coming down on people. And you say, yeah, but in the Old Testament, God would just kill somebody. Well, have you ever read the story of Ananias and Sapphira? That's the New Testament. Oh, man, but what about the plagues in the Old Testament? What about the flood? Well, you ever read the book of Revelation? I mean, in Revelation, he's wiping out more people than he ever wiped out in the Old Testament. You could take all the people God wiped out in the entire Old Testament, he wipes out way more in Revelation because the population of the earth is so much greater. He's wiping out billions of people in the end times. And so it's not that God got soft in the New Testament, it's that God got more strict in the New Testament. So I believe that in the Old Testament, he turned a blind eye to a lot of things, including polygamy. It's not that he was okay with it, it's just that it wasn't the biggest battle that he was fighting with people. So he kind of just let it slide even though it wasn't right. There were a lot of other things in the Old Testament that he let slide. He made it clear to them that he didn't want them worshiping in the high places. He didn't want them worshiping in the groves. But there were kings who did what? They worshiped the true God, but they did it in the groves. They did it in the high places. And the Bible says, but nevertheless, his heart was perfect with the Lord as God. Even though he had this one problem where he worshiped God in the wrong location, God's just happy at least that he's worshiping the true God. And at least he's a good guy. At least he's doing a lot of good things. So God doesn't just throw us in the trash or write us off because we have one thing wrong in our life. If we have one thing wrong in our life, we don't just get trashed. So God would take people that had some things wrong in their life and still use them and be able to turn a blind eye. But I want to warn you, he's stricter in the New Testament. Make the New Testament your primary study on how he wants you to live your life because he tightens things up more in the New Testament. Why is that? Because unto whom much is given, of him shall much be required. We have the entire Bible. We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He expects more out of us. It's like you'd expect more from someone who grew up in a Christian home than a worldly teenager that's at the public school. You wouldn't expect as much as the one who's been taught the Bible from the time he was a little child. So it's the same thing here. In the New Testament, we have a lot more going for us, positively. So God expects more from us in the New Testament. So don't say, well, polygamy is not a big deal. I'm just going to move to some other country and just get a second wife and whatever. First of all, you're just asking for a headache. It's not going to be as cool as you think. It sounds cool on the surface on certain levels, but it's not cool when you read about it in the Bible. So don't lean under your own understanding. God's plan for you is always going to be the best plan for you. So don't look for something else. And don't settle for the second best or the third best. Live God's perfect will for your life is that you have one wife and that you stay faithful to that wife until the end. Now there are some sins where God will throw you in the trash, as it were. I mean, there were guys in the Old Testament where they committed certain sins where he does wipe them out. Or they start worshipping other gods. And you know, when David committed adultery, that was a major deal breaker for him. He didn't get completely thrown in the trash because he repented, but he ended up losing the kingdom for a little while. And he ended up having it split from his sons. And he ended up having four of his children die. So if four of his children die, that's a pretty serious punishment. So you know, he didn't get away with that. So God did let a lot of these kings get away with polygamy, but he didn't let them get away with adultery. He didn't let them get away with murder. You know, when they did those things, they suffered. And I believe that adultery and murder are worse than polygamy for that reason. You know, polygamy is bad, but it's not the worst thing ever. There are a lot of other worse things. And in fact, today in our society, polygamy is illegal. And people have a really low view of polygamy, which they should, because it is bad. And even atheists and people that are just agnostic or just worldly people, even though condemn polygamy and say, hey, this isn't right toward women. And I agree with them, because it is pretty insensitive or unloving to your wife to take on a second wife or third wife. So they're right about that. But these same people don't bat an eye if you divorce your wife and marry someone else. Like to them, polygamy, oh, that's just the worst thing ever, having two wives at once. But to them, it's fine to have three in a row, just so long as they're not at the same time. But you know what, though? I think in many ways, and you know, people might get mad about this, but I believe that divorcing your wife and marrying someone else is worse than polygamy. Because at least with polygamy, at least you stayed with your vows that you made to two people. Now, you should have never made that vow to two people and still only be made to one. But at least you kept supporting and taking care of both. You didn't just forsake one and leave one high and dry, which is what a lot of people are doing when they divorce their spouse, leave their spouse. So I mean, in many ways, divorce is worse than polygamy. See, we have our ideas, don't we, about how bad things are and what's worse and what's better. You know, but here's the thing. God's got a different idea. You know, the Bible never says that having a second wife is adultery. But he did say that divorcing someone and marrying someone else is adultery. He said if you divorce your wife and marry another, you're committing adultery. But did he say, hey, you take on a second wife, you just committed adultery? No. Now, having a second wife is sin. And I made that crystal clear. From Genesis to Revelation, it is not right to have a second wife. It has always been sin. It has always been wrong. But there are worse sins in the Bible. Which is why when you read the Old Testament, it can seem like God's lenient toward this. It's just because God's lenient on a lot of things in the Old Testament. He tightens things up more in the New Testament. But even now, even in 2018, isn't God sometimes lenient with us when we do stupid things? I mean, do you want God to crack down on every single sin that you commit? I'm glad that God has grace with us and is lenient with us. I don't think he's going to be lenient on polygamy. Especially if you're growing up in the United States in 2018. I think if you go out and try this, he's going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. That's what I believe. But you can't just ignore the Old Testament scripture. You've got to take it all and grasp it all and learn it all and believe it all. And so we don't want to shy away from scriptures that make us uncomfortable. We need to read them, study them, learn them, understand them. Because God wants to teach us. And all scripture is profitable for doctrine. All of it. Including 2 Samuel 12-8 or any other verse that might make us uncomfortable because it goes against what the rest of the Bible teaches. Well, it's just that we're not understanding it properly. So we've got to bring it all into harmony. Because the Bible does harmonize. When there seems to be a contradiction, it's just that we're not understanding things right. There are so many things that seem to clash in the Bible for me until I get rid of my wrong idea and then it all comes into focus. Like, oh, okay, now I see what's saying here. And then it makes sense. Let's go back to 1 Chronicles 3 to finish up. I don't really have a whole lot to say tonight about this chapter because the main thing that it's about is about the sons of David. Chapter 1 was all about, you know, all of mankind's lineage and all of the nations, where they came from, all the way up to Israel. Chapter 2 was all about the sons of Judah taking us up to King David and his line. And then now in chapter 3 we're looking at the sons of David. We saw his six different sons with six different women. These six, verse 4, were born unto him in Hebron and there he reigned seven years and six months. And in Jerusalem he reigned 30 and three years. These were born unto him in Jerusalem, Shemaiah, and Shobab, and Nathan, and Solomon, four of Bathsheba, the daughter of Amiel, Ibar also, and Elishama, and Eliphelet, and Nogah, and Nephag, and Jephiah, and Elishama, and Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine. These were all the sons of David, well, besides the sons of the concubines. So I mean these are just only the sons that he had with his wives. Who are the concubines? These are the women that he's procreating with and sleeping with and they are exclusive to him, so they're not just women that he's just fooling around with, but these are actually women that belong to him but they're of a lower status, so he's not going to marry them as his wife because the women that he marries as his wife, they're of a higher status. So these are like a second-class wife in that sense or just the one that he sleeps with that's not even his wife, but it's just considered his women, this is part of his harem. And again, this is completely wrong and it led to nothing but problems for him. And everyone who did it in the Old Testament, say, why did he do it if he's such a good guy? Why did he do these things? Well, you know, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I mean, men have weaknesses and temptations and especially when they're in that position of power, you know, you don't think this is going on right now in the White House or whatever? I mean, I don't think Trump would ever do anything like that, you know. But how about, you know, a guy whose name starts with a B and ends in ill Clinton, but you know what? I guarantee you the Republicans are doing it too. I mean, you know, think about Trump's background and the stuff that he said and the life that he's lived. You think he'd be above this? I mean, if he could get by with this publicly, he'd be surrounded by wives and concubines if it were legal. I'm sure that they do it anyway. They just don't do it legally, you know, and that probably goes for a lot of these senators, congressmen, you know, the ones that aren't fags because the fags, they're committing fag acts with all these little, you know, what do they call them, the little interns or, I mean, they're a bunch of pedophiles. They're known pedophiles in Congress and in the Senate that have been called out and exposed and yet they continue to lead, right? It's out there. I mean, do a little research, friend, and they've got these Washington DC madams that supply Congress and the Senate with prostitutes, right, for those who go that way, they're straight, so they could be with all their prostitutes and then you got a bunch of child molesters that are for the sodomites, you know, that's their death style that they follow. But the bottom line is that people who get into these positions of power, it goes to their head or people who make millions and billions of dollars, it goes to their head and they just think that they just have the right to do this, to just have all these women around them and, you know, it's wicked and all, but, you know, say, well, everybody's doing it. No, not everybody does it. No, they don't because, you know, I guarantee you that there are some men in Congress and in the Senate that don't participate in this, that are faithful to their wife. Now, I know that's hard to believe, but out of 635 of them, there's got to be a couple, right? I mean, that are actually faithful to their wife. It's got to be out there, you know. I mean, I would assume that Ron Paul was probably a guy that was like that because he was one that would always like return extra money that he didn't use and he wasn't like one of these trying to make millions and millions because, you know what, these two things go hand in hand because the love of money is the root of all evil. So when you see a senator who's just making millions and millions of dollars through insider trading and other dishonest means and he's just making millions and millions of dollars at the taxpayer's expense, you know, then that's probably the same kind of guy who's going to surround himself with a bunch of beautiful babes and just say, well, I'm entitled to this. And the guy who doesn't do that and who lives a humble and modest life and does not let the love of money take over is probably the same guy who's faithful to his wife, right? Because it's greed versus contentment and whether that has to do with money. You show me somebody who's content with the money that they have and I'll show you a guy who's probably faithful to his wife. You show me the guy who's always lusting after more money and he's got all the Donald Trump how to get rich books lined up on the shelf and Robert Kiyosaki and he's got all the get rich books. That's probably the same guy who is looking to trade up for someone else or have something on the side. It's probably the same guy. You show me the preacher who's a multimillionaire. He's probably the one who's going to have the sex scandal as well. He'll be the next one that's called out, the Bill Hybels or whatever that gets caught doing this stuff because the love of money is the root of all evil and it leads you into these other diverse temptations and lusts. So power, money, these things corrupt us. If God keeps you a little bit lean, you know what, maybe that's just where you belong because God knows that if you get super wealthy and have the fancy house and the fancy cars and the big bank account, you might start getting a little too big for your britches and pretty soon you're a little too good for your wife and a little too good for your husband. Be humble, be modest and be content with such things as you have is the moral of the story so you don't end up with these guys. You say, well I think I can handle it. The power, the money, I think I can handle it just fine. The man after God's own heart couldn't seem to handle it, David. So if he couldn't handle it, chances are we might do the same thing. So you know what, if somebody gave, what would you do if you had a million dollars? Get rid of it as fast as I could. Get rid of it. Just like a hot potato, just get it out of my hands, just get rid of it. Just spend it all fast. I'm not kidding. Just get rid of it because I don't want to sit on that kind of money, get all high and mighty and you know what I mean? I just start making donations to fundamental Baptist churches that I like but I don't want to give them too much or I'll ruin them. Then the church will go bad because they got too much money or something. So I give them a reasonable donation. Hopefully if that ever happened there would be a lot of churches you could kind of spread it around, just send everybody like 20,000 bucks or something, just enough to kind of do something but not go too crazy with it. You know what I mean? Give them some money, pass it around, but just get rid of it. Just get rid of it all and find something to do with it. It'd be stressful. It would stress me out. I'd just be like, what do I do? I don't want this responsibility. I'm serious. Say, oh, don't you want to spend on what? What do rich people even spend all their money on when they have millions of dollars? What's the difference? Here's what I want to know. What's the difference between having $1 million and $10 million? What's the difference between having $10 million and $100 million? How could you even spend it all? It would be like a full-time job. You'd have to hire people, just spenders that would just spend money for you. How would you even spend it all? Here's the thing. You can only fit so much food in your mouth and in your stomach. Even if you ate the three awesome meals a day, how much could that possibly cost? That's why you get these idiotic meals where they put gold dust on their food. You know what I'm talking about? Or they have coffee that an animal drank and then urinated or something. Fermented coffee? Is that really a thing? Can you explain it? I'm sorry to put you on the spot. It's just some Japanese type of coffee. Doesn't it go through an animal? I don't think so. So where did I get that crazy story? It's from Bali. Tell me about it. It's like a rodent kind of animal. They eat it and they poop it out. Then it breaks the coffee being down. Then they take that and they're dying down. I'm glad that we had someone here that could fact check me. This is what it is. It's a little rodent, eats the coffee, and then defecates the coffee. I was thinking, number one, it's number two. Roast. Then they take that coffee and it's like, oh, this is a better coffee. No, I'll just stick with Folgers, thank you very much. I don't even drink coffee. But the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup after hearing that story. That's the kind of crap that people spend their money on. No pun intended. That's what they spend their money on. It's $500 and you get this cup of coffee and it's gone through an animal's bowels. Or you're eating gold. Gold's not food. I get all the metal I need in Fruity Pebbles with the copper and zinc and all that. No, I'm just kidding. I don't eat Fruity Pebbles. Every once in a while I do, but it's very rare. Just every few years. You've got to live a little. The point is, what can you eat? You have to dream up these crazy meals. Everybody knows that $30 or $40 gets you a real nice meal pretty much anywhere. You can get some really fancy meals for $30. You can get a pretty amazing meal at some places for $10. I went out to lunch with a friend today and my entree was $6.75. And it was awesome. I was real happy with it. I was at this Sun Asian place on 24th and Baseline. It's kind of tucked over there by the Ross and the Target. This message was brought to you in part by Sun Asian. Now I don't just walk into any old Chinese restaurant and just start eating because it can be hit or miss. It can go either way. Panda Express is kind of safe. But this place was good. Sun Asian, I think it was called. It was like $7. And you know what? I was real happy with it. But even if you just want to have a party in your mouth every single meal, that's only going to cost $100 a day per person to really go nuts and flame and yawn and everything. I mean, how much could it cost? But it's just stupid, isn't it? Just buying crazy $20,000 suits and a $15,000 bell. Vanity of vanity, sayeth the preacher. All is vanity. It's stupid. And everything is like that in life where it's just, oh, 10 wives. Oh, make it 20. He didn't love any of them. You know what? He's still up on the roof, lonely and bored, even though there's 20 wives in the house. It's better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with 20 of those wives, apparently, because that's what he's up there hanging out. Guess what? It's not what it's cracked up to be. That coffee is not what it's cracked up to be, okay? You know, none of it is. It's all stupid. And people spend their whole life seeking after that stuff. Well, you know what? You better get that out of your heart, because that love of money will lead you into all the other sins. It's the root of all evil. Get that love of money. Just quit desiring riches and all that stuff, and just be happy with what you have, with who you are, with what you do. You know, be content with such things as you have. And then the rest of the chapter here basically just goes through a genealogy, starting in verse 10. It runs through the kings. You know, the kings Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jorah, Maaziah. Pretty much, pretty close to the list that you'll find in Matthew chapter 1, where he kind of runs through all those different kings and everything like that. Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for the good and bad examples in the Bible, so we can learn from both, Lord. Help us to follow your perfect plan for our life by marrying just one woman and staying faithful to that woman for the rest of our life, Lord. Help every man in here to be a good husband. Help every wife to be a virtuous, godly, and helpful wife, Lord. And help us to follow your plan for our lives and not to be covetous of money and all the dumb things that the world offers. In Jesus' name we pray.