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Amen. First Chronicles chapter number five, the subject here of these genealogies has to do with the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh. So if you remember chapter one of First Chronicles gave us all the genealogies taking us from Adam and Eve all the way up to Israel. Then in chapter two, we got specifically into the tribe of Judah and getting us to David and so forth. Then in chapter three, we had all the sons of David. Then starting in chapter four, we start to go through all the 12 tribes and hitting up just genealogical highlights here. So in chapter four, we talked about the sons of Judah. And then at the end of the chapter were the sons of Simeon. We didn't get to that last week, but if you look at chapter four, verse 24, it says the sons of Simeon were Nemuel and Jamon, Jerib, Zerah, and Shaul. And again, we don't have time to go through that whole list of names. But the reason for grouping Judah and Simeon in chapter four is that if you've ever looked at a map of how the 12 tribes inherited their land, some Bibles have that in the back. Or if you just read the text, it's described this way. But the tribe of Simeon's inheritance was actually within the inheritance of the tribe of Judah geographically. It's sort of like the country in Africa that's called Lesotho. Who knows what I'm talking about? And it's basically surrounded on all sides. You know what I'm talking about. And it's surrounded, they're your relatives, right? Your cousins in there. Because the people who live in Botswana, they speak the same language as the people who live in Lesotho. Setswana, Sesotho is like the same language. But anyway, it's surrounded on all sides by South Africa. In fact, I'm thinking about doing a soul winning marathon in Lesotho, because that's the only way I can actually do soul winning in South Africa. So I'm just not sure if I'm going to be able to fly over that South Africa airspace. But you know, that's actually a pretty good idea. All the brethren from South Africa can just meet me in Lesotho. So I need to get in touch with the Lesotho embassy and figure that out. But that's kind of how Simeon was. The tribe of Simeon was like a little Lesotho if Judah is South Africa, if that makes any sense. If it doesn't make any sense, flip through the back of your Bible and look at the little map and you can see what it looks like. But anyway, that's why those two are grouped together. Well, chapter five puts Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh together because again, they're geographically grouped. If you remember, when the children of Israel had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years in the days of Moses, and they're about to come into the promised land, they were going to cross the Jordan River into the promised land, into Canaan, right? And eventually when they do that in the book of Joshua, there's a miracle where God actually parts the Jordan River just like he had 40 years earlier parted the Red Sea and they cross over into Canaan. Well, before they got to that point, the tribes of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh, they liked it on the east side of the Jordan River and they said, man, this land looks great. So it was sort of like, do you want to stay here or do you want to go across the river to what they haven't seen yet? I mean, they haven't seen Canaan yet. They don't really know what it's like. Moses hadn't even seen Canaan yet, but they decided the bird in the hand is better. They said, we, you know, this is the land we want to stay in. So they didn't go all the way into Canaan. They stayed on the east side of Jordan and they wanted that grazing land for their cattle. They said, you know, we have a lot of cattle and this looks like it'd be good for cattle. So we're just going to stay here. And Moses gets really mad. He's angry because he says, you know, I think you guys just don't want to fight. You don't want to go into Canaan and fight the battles. You want to take the easy way on this side. So they make an agreement where they say, no, no, no, we'll go fight. We'll cross into the promised land. We'll do the fighting, but we're going to leave our families here. And when the war is over, we're going to end up inheriting over here, okay? And that's what ended up happening. And what's pictured there symbolically is people that don't go all the way when it comes to living for God. They don't find God's perfect will for their life. They don't serve God to the fullest. They're sort of half in and half out. They're kind of in the promised land and they're kind of not in the promised land. And of course, if you study the Bible, these that lived on the east side of the Jordan River, you know, they ended up eventually fading away and not being part of the nation. You know, they ended up not doing any favors to their descendants by having that geographic border of Jordan between them and the rest of the children of Israel. So they didn't go all the way. They settled for second best. They were half in, half out. That's what these three tribes represent. And that's why they're grouped together in this genealogy. So it says in verse number one. Now the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, this is chapter five verse one. For he was the firstborn, but for as much as he defiled his father's bed, his birthright was given under the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel. And the genealogy is not to be reckoned after the birthright, for Judah prevailed above his brethren and of him was the chief ruler. But the birthright was Joseph's. The sons, I say, of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, were Hanukk, Palu, Hezron, and Carmi. So he starts to list off this genealogy about Reuben. But before he gets into the sons of Reuben, he explains that even though Reuben was the firstborn son, he did not receive the birthright. Now the right of the birthright in the Bible goes to the firstborn son. And what that means is that they get a double portion of the inheritance. So for example, I have six sons at this time, right? Is that right? Am I keeping track? OK. Something like that. I know there's 10 of them all together. So I have six sons. OK. Well, that means that if I were to die and my wife were to die and basically all my great possessions that I don't have were to be divided amongst my sons, you know, then they'd have to make change for a 10 or whatever. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, so if they were to divide up my possessions, then what they would do is they would make seven parts, not six parts. They would make seven parts, right? And Solomon would take two parts and everybody else would take one part. So he's basically getting double what everybody else gets, right? He gets a double portion because he's the firstborn. You say, well, why does the firstborn get a double portion? That's just what God said in the Bible. That's just the way it works. Now, I can see why. Because, you know, you make all your mistakes on your first kid. So they deserve some extra inheritance to make up for that. Like, for example, you know, Solomon's the kid that we vaccinated halfway. You know, halfway into the vaccines, we figured out that it wasn't good for him. He's the kid that we're sticking in the church nursery and, you know, making all the mistakes. So, you know, he gets a double portion to make up for the fact that we messed him up in his early years. Just kidding. But anyway, the point is, though, that the double portion goes to the firstborn. But aside from just the birthright or the double portion, there was also a special blessing on Abraham, right? And that special blessing that was passed down from Abraham to Isaac. And it was passed down from Isaac to Jacob. And then Jacob has his 12 sons. So there's a special blessing of being the one through whom all nations of the earth would be blessed. Because the Bible said of Abraham that through him all nations of the earth would be blessed. Well, in the New Testament, we understand what that blessing was. It's that Jesus Christ would come of the seed of Abraham. So there's that lineage of Jesus Christ, which is a great privilege and an honor to be that family. To be that one who brings us physically the Lord Jesus Christ. So that tribe is Judah, right? Because Jesus Christ is of the tribe of Judah. King David is of the tribe of Judah. And of course, we know Jesus as the son of David. So the Bible here is talking about three different people. We've got Reuben over here, and he is the physical firstborn son. So the birthright would normally be his, right? Then we've got the fact that Joseph was the one who his dad actually gave the birthright to. He gave it to Joseph. But then we have God's choice, which was Judah. God actually chose to bless Judah. And Judah is the one that he chose to be the progenitor of King David and ultimately our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you would flip back in your Bible to Genesis 49, and let's see how this works here. Genesis 49. Now, I believe that Israel was correct to not give Reuben the double portion. To not give Reuben the birthright. Because Reuben did something so wicked that he deserved to have that birthright taken away from him. And that's what Jacob did. That makes sense. But then it would go to the next son, wouldn't it? You know, if it's not going to go to Reuben, it goes to the next son. Look what the Bible says in Genesis 49, verse 1. And Jacob called unto his sons and said, gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days. Gather yourselves together and hear ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your father. Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. So he starts out sounding like he's going to bless him, right? So, you know, Reuben's probably like, yeah, I guess I am a pretty cool guy, you know? I guess I am most excellent. But then he says in verse 4, unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. Which is obviously the word where we derive excellent from. Excelling, right? Excellent. He's saying, no, actually, you're not going to excel. You ought to be excellent. You were the beginning of my strength, and you do have these qualities, humanly speaking. But because you're unstable as water, you shall not excel. He says, because thou winnest up to thy father's bed, then defilets thou it. He went up to my couch. Now, what in the world is that about? Well, earlier in the book of Genesis, the Bible tells us that Reuben lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine. So he actually slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, which is a very wicked sin. And because of that wicked sin of lying with one that his father had already lain with, you know, this concubine of his father. And I don't have time to show you all the verses in the Bible that talk about what a major sin that is. Obviously fornication is a sin. Obviously adultery is a sin. But lying with his father's concubine is an even far greater sin. And so he commits this wicked, disgusting sin. And because of that, he is cursed by Jacob on the deathbed. Not blessed, but rather cursed by him. You shall not excel. Well here's the thing. The next two sons are cursed as well. Because look at verse number five. Simeon and Levi are brethren. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret. Unto their assembly mine honor. Be not thou united. For in their anger they slew a man. And in their self-will they dig down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce. And their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. So notice, the first three sons have done major wicked acts that caused them not to receive a blessing from their father, but rather to receive a curse from their father. But then when we get to the fourth son, we see a great blessing. And who's the fourth son? Judah. Judah, thou art he, verse eight, whom thy brethren shall praise. Thy hands shall be in the neck of thine enemies. Thy father's children shall bow down before thee. This is a blessing. Judah is a lion's whelp. From the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down. He couched as a lion and as an old lion. Who shall rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come. And unto him shall the gathering of the people be, binding his foal into the vine and his asses cold under the choice vine. He washed his garments in wine and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine and his teeth white with milk. So he receives the blessing and he's the fourth born son. Now remember, Jacob has four wives, as it were, right? He has the two wives and the two concubines. He's got the two wives, Leah and Rachel. And then he has the two concubines, Zilpah and Bilhah. And remember Reuben, the son of Leah, who was older, he's the first born, he was the one who committed that act of fornication with Bilhah, the concubine that we discussed a moment ago. So what we see here is that Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah are the first four sons of Jacob. And they're all from his first wife, Leah, right? And the first three are cursed and then the fourth is the one who finally is blessed, right? Now flip over, if you would, to Deuteronomy chapter 21. Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible there, Deuteronomy chapter 21. The Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 15, if a man have two wives, and of course this is the case with Jacob because he is married to both Rachel and Leah. 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 first born 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 first born before the son of the hated, which is indeed the first born. But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the first born by giving him a double portion of all that he hath, for he is the beginning of his strength, the right of the first born is his. Now this is exactly what Jacob did, right? He made the son of the beloved, Rachel, the heir, the one who gets the double portion, the first born. Well, no, actually it should be who? Judah. Because Reuben blew it, Simeon blew it, Levi blew it, why? Because Reuben committed that filthy act that we talked about with Bill Hall, and then Simeon and Levi committed cold blooded murder. And so therefore, they've blown it, they're not going to get the birth right, they're not going to get that double portion, it should go to Judah. God chose who? God chose Judah, that fourth born, the one who's next in line, whereas Jacob chose Joseph. So the one who actually got the double portion was Joseph, because that's who Jacob chose. And so instead of there just being one tribe of Joseph, there became two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, so they inherit as sons of Jacob, so they get the double portion. So that's why there's this discrepancy here in 1 Chronicles chapter 5, if you want to go back there, he explains here that Reuben's the literal first born, but for as much as he defiled his father's bed, his birth right was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel. That was what Jacob did, that was the choice that Jacob made, he gave it to Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph. But then there's the guy who actually prevailed, verse 2, Judah prevailed above his brethren, and out of him came the chief ruler, but the birth right was Joseph's. So the Lord chose Judah to be the one who would bring us King David and ultimately our Lord Jesus Christ. So that's what's going on with those three tribes. Now truly Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, became great tribes and were fruitful and multiplied, but in the end the tribe of Ephraim and the tribe of Manasseh went to the devil, both of them, in the end, and they ended up becoming wicked nations, and it was Judah who remained faithful to the Lord the longest, and there were still people in that tribe of Judah, and later in that kingdom of Judah, and later in that Roman province of Judea at the time of Christ, when the Bible talks about the Jews at the time of Christ, we're talking about those of Judea, kingdom of Judah, and so forth. So that's the tribe that ended up being the most blessed by God, is what? The tribe of Judah. Reuben was not blessed. Simeon and Levi, what was the curse that was put upon them in Genesis 49? He said that he would scatter them in Israel. You know, he didn't want them to be too concentrated apparently. So remember Simeon had that weird Lesotho-type inheritance, right? But then they end up getting scattered. A lot of them end up moving to the northern kingdom, and they end up getting scattered all over the place to where there's not even a geographic location of Simeon anymore toward the end of the kingdoms there in the Old Testament. And then Levi, they got scattered all over the place because they ended up being the priestly tribe, so they're actually scattered throughout the whole nation of Israel from top to bottom. Okay. So let's read through this here. Let's jump back in. The sons of Reuben, it begins to list them, and then it says in verse 4, the sons of Joel. Shemaiah his son, Gog his son, Shemaiah his son, Micah his son, Reiah his son, Baal his son. Don't name your kid Baal, right? That's a false god. Berah his son, whom Tilgoth Panezer, king of Assyria, carried away captive. He was the prince of the Reubenites. Now here's an interesting thing about Baal though. Baal does mean more than one thing, okay? This isn't in my notes, but flip over to Hosea. I don't want to go too deep on this, but since we're preaching through a genealogy, you're going kind of deep at that point, right? We have to go a little deep, but anyway, I got to find this verse. It looks like it's Hosea chapter 2 verse 16 is the verse I'm looking for, but one thing that kind of made me wonder sometimes when I was reading the Bible, I don't know if you've ever had this thought, was when you see somebody named Baal, you're kind of wondering, like, why did they name their kid that when Baal's this bad guy? And then another thing that I wondered was why Saul's son is named Ish-Baal, you know? Why would you name him that? Because Saul seemed like such a godly man in the sense that, you know, he worshipped the Lord and, you know, you don't see him going a whoring after other gods, so you wonder, like, why did he name his kid that? Well, it turns out that that word has a couple different meanings, and that's what the Bible's alluding to here in Hosea chapter 2. He says in verse 16, And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi, and shalt call me no more Baalai, for I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name. Now, notice that word halfway through verse 17, Baalim, right? You see that word? What does that mean? We talked about this a couple of weeks ago when I was going through the names of God, how that I am ending is a plural, right, because we talked about Elohim ends in that em ending. Well, this right here, Baalim right here, what this is basically saying is multiple Baals, right? So Baalim just simply means Baals, but Baals sounds kind of funny, so Baalim, who's noticed that word before reading the Bible, Baalim, with the I am on the end, right? What that means is just various Baals, multiple Baals, it's a plural of Baal. Why? Because there are different Baals mentioned in the Old Testament, like remember there's one that's called Baalzebub, and that's where we get the word Beelzebub. But there were other Baal this, Baal that, because Baal is sort of a catchall word that means Lord or husband or master, okay? So basically, you know, it makes sense that they're going to call their God Lord, because we call our God Lord, right? We call him the Lord. But this is another word for Lord that the heathen are using to identify their false God, right? It's sort of like the word Allah means God, it just simply means God. But because it's been used so much about the Muslim God, if we say the word Allah, it has the connotation of what? Islam. I would never want to say that word, you know, I don't know what people that speak Arabic say, but it's like, speaking English, I wouldn't want to say that about God, because then people are going to think you're talking about the Muslim God, right? Even though the word Allah obviously comes from the biblical word El, which is God, it's just a spinoff of that. But you can see how you'd want to avoid the parents of evil, right? And not want to say Allah, so I don't know, maybe there's some Arabic Christians that could fill me in. I've gotten mixed answers from people, because I've asked Arabic Christians, you know, and I've had a lot of Arabic Christians say, yeah, we just call God Allah because that's just Arabic for God. But then I've had other people say like, no, that isn't, so I, you know, I don't know anything about Arabic, so I can't speak to that, maybe some Arabic Christians can fill me in and settle this once and for all. I'm not interested in learning how to speak Arabic, so I just want somebody to tell me the answer on that one, okay? But anyway, but when it comes to Hebrew, you know, there's this word Baal, which means Lord or Master or Husband, and they're using this for all these false gods in that Canaanite region of the Philistines and all these false gods, Baal this, Baal that. Like each town has its own Baal. Each group of people has their Baal. You know, the god of Ekron is Baal Zebub, which is where we get the term Beelzebub. So here he says, don't call me Beelai, call me Ishai. Now Ishai is the word for husband in Hebrew, my husband, Ishai, but Beelai also means my husband. It's basically two words that mean the exact same thing. You know, Ishai and Beelai both mean the same thing, but he's saying, don't call me Beelai, call me Ishai, why? Because he said in verse 15, he explains it, or I'm sorry, verse 17, for I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth and they shall no more be remembered by their name. So he's basically saying because there's all these Baalim, all these false gods of Baal, you don't want to use that term and be confused with those kind of people. So does that make sense? So go back if you would to 1 Chronicles 5. So this guy who's named Baal is probably just innocent because he's probably named that before it had become a big thing of like the Lord versus Baal, you know, the God of Israel versus these false gods, where it got to a point of, hey, we don't want to use that term. So when Saul named his kid Ishmael, I don't think he was paying homage to a false god by naming his kid man of Baal, Ishmael, you know. He's basically just saying man of the Lord, but he was referring to the true God, but later that would be misconstrued and so they say, hey, don't say Baal. So that's why we don't want to call God Allah, amen? So anyway, I don't know how I got off on that. Oh yeah, there's a guy named Baal in the genealogy. Where was he? Somebody help me find him. Verse 5, Baal his son, jump down to verse 7, and his brethren by their families when the genealogy of their generations was reckoned were the chief, Jeil and Zachariah and Bela, the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel, who dwelt in a rower, even at Anebo, and Baal-Meon, again another Baal being mentioned, right? And eastward he inhabited unto the entering in of the wilderness from the river Euphrates because their cattle was multiplied in the land of Gilead. Now remember, I mentioned that they dwelt in that eastern land because they had cattle and they didn't want to cross Jordan, they wanted to stay on that east side near the river Euphrates, because remember the river Euphrates is east of Israel, that's where Abraham crossed over the Euphrates in order to come to Canaan, remember? He was on the other side of the flood, also known as the Euphrates River. So it says in verse number 10, and in the days of Saul, they made war with the Hagarites who fell by their hand and they dwelt in their tents throughout all the east land of Gilead. So who were these Hagarites that they made war with? Who's the first person we think of when we see that name Hagarite? We're thinking of the biblical person Hagar. So is this the same Hagar? Well if we jump down to verse 19, it says, they made war with the Hagarites with Jeter and Nephish and Nobab. Keep your finger there, go to chapter 1. Keep your finger there, go to chapter 1. It says in verse 31 of 1 Chronicles chapter 1, Jeter, Nephish, and Kedemah, these are the sons of Ishmael. So we see that Jeter and Nephish are the sons of Ishmael. And then in verse 19 of chapter 5, it says that the Hagarites are Jeter and Nephish. So it's clearly the same Hagar, right? Because Hagar is the mother of Ishmael. So these are Ishmaelites. Now this third guy in verse 19 there, it says Jeter, Nephish, and Nobab. We don't know who Nobab is. So what makes sense is that maybe Hagar had some other descendants besides Ishmael, and Nobab is some other branch of the family if Hagar got remarried or something like that. So then instead of saying Ishmaelites, which would leave out Nobab, we say Hagarites because it's the Ishmaelites plus this other branch of the family of Nobab. Look at verse 11, the children of Gad. So so far verses 1 through 10, we've got the genealogy for Reuben. Now we're getting into the genealogy for Gad in verse 11. And the children of Gad dwelled over against them in the land of Bashan and Salcha, Joel the chief, and Shapham the next, and Jani and Shaphat in Bashan. And their brethren of the house of their fathers were Michael and Mesholim and Sheba and Jorai and Jachan and Ziah and Heber, seven. These are the children of Abbahel, the son of Hurai, the son of Jeruah, the son of Gilead, the son of Michael, the son of Jesheshale, the son of Jaddo, the son of Buzz. You know, I have a cousin in South Carolina named Buzz. That's a true story. Ahai, the son of Abdiel, the son of Gunai, chief of the house of their fathers. And they dwelled in Gilead, in Bashan, in her towns, and in all the suburbs of Sharon upon their borders. All these were reckoned by genealogy in the days of Jotham king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam king of Israel. The sons of Reuben and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, of valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword and to shoot with bow and skillful in war, were four and forty thousand, seven hundred and three score that went out to war. And they made war with the Hagarites, with Jeter and Nefesh and Nodab. And they were helped against them. And the Hagarites were delivered into their hand and all that were with them, for they cried to God in the battle and he was entreated of them because they put their trust in him. So when these three tribes went to war against the Hagarites, when did this happen? This happened in the days of King Saul. So in the days of King Saul, these three tribes go up against the Hagarites and the Bible says that God helped them. They cried out to God. They had put all their trust in the Lord and God helped them. God blessed them. And they won the battle, right? Verse 21, they took away their cattle of their camels, fifty thousand, and of sheep, two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses, two thousand, and of men, a hundred thousand. For there fell down many slain because the war was of God and they dwelled in their steads until the captivity. So not only does the Bible say that they were helped by God, that they called out to God, that God blessed them, that they trusted in the Lord, but then it goes so far as to say the war was of God, meaning that God wanted this war to happen. It was God's will that they fight this battle. Now are we today as Christians, or should we be today as Christians, anti-war? Now I will say this, ninety-nine percent of the time, yes. And I pretty much consider myself anti-war. I would say I'm against war because of the fact that ninety-nine percent of the time I am. Now there is a time when war would be appropriate or called for. You know, here's an example where the Bible said the war was of God. There were times in the Old Testament where the children of Israel were told to go to war. But war is a result of sin. War is a result of wickedness. God judged wicked nations in the Old Testament by sending the Israelites sometimes to go wipe them out because they were so wicked. We see that with the Canaanites and some of the other nations around them. But there are also times in the Bible where a king sins against the Lord, and as a punishment, the man of God tells him, from henceforth, thou shalt have wars. You know, that's your punishment. You're going to have wars. And in the book of the Judges, every time the children of Israel are doing good, they don't have wars. They have peace, right? People say, hey, the land had rest for 40 years. Forty years of no war. Forty years of peace. Then when they start worshipping other gods and committing sin, now all of a sudden, what happens? War is the result. So war is a bad thing. War is not a good thing. War is bad. People die, right? Widows are made, and that's somebody's husband or dad or son out there getting wiped out on the battlefield. And if you love violence, you're a wicked person. We shouldn't love gore and violence and people being brutally killed and somehow glorify that. It is a curse. It's bad. If we can avoid fighting, if we can avoid war, the Bible commands us in the New Testament, if it be at all possible, to live at peace with all men. So we are commanded to be at peace. If there's any way possible to have peace, we should be at peace. We should be peaceful. Even King David, the great warrior of the Old Testament said, I am for peace, but when I speak, they're for war. He's blaming other people. They're the ones who want to fight. So we should not be for war. We should not be these war hawks. We shouldn't have this kill them all, let God sort them out mentality. And I'm going to tell you something right now. The United States should not be involved in all the wars that we're involved in. And you can pretty much go back through history naming a whole bunch of different wars that we've been involved in. And I can pretty much explain to you why we shouldn't have been involved in any of those wars. You say, what about World War II? We should not have been involved in World War II. Who will they attack us? Really? Because we were already involved in that war from day one. We were already arming in 1938. And by 1939, when World War II broke out, you know what we're doing? We're shipping all the weapons to the Allies. We're giving money. And we're training them. And we're sending them supplies and troops and loaning them money. And then we're embargoing Japan, blocking Japan, messing with Germany. We were already involved from day one. So then after years of us basically being on the side of the Allies, then, yeah, then the Japanese bombed us after we've already been fighting against them de facto for years, OK? And Germany as well. But even more so than that, how about World War I? Why did we get involved in World War I? You say, oh, well, you know, the Germans were the ones. So what? The Germans in World War I weren't even Nazis. They're just Germans. And look at the outcome of World War I. Who won? Who won? The Allies, right? And what did that give us? That gave us Communist Russia, Soviet Union. And then we ended up with Fascist Italy. We ended up with Nazi Germany, Communist Spain. We ended up with all this horrible outcome in Europe that eventually led to World War II. And then at the end of World War II, oh, it's so great, we helped the Soviet Union win. Whoops. Wait a minute. We just handed half of Europe to the Soviet Union. Yeah, ask those people in Eastern Europe who lived in that Communist hell for decades how much they liked the fact that the Soviet Union won. You know, let the Soviet Union and the Nazis fight each other. You see, God has blessed us in America by putting us on the other side of the world. We are blessed. God has put this giant natural barrier between us and all the garbage that goes on on the other side of the world. So we have this giant ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, separating us from Europe and the Middle East and all the junk that goes on over there. All this Israel, Middle East junk. We have this great wonderful barrier known as the Atlantic Ocean. And then the Pacific Ocean, gigantic, to separate us from whatever goes on between China and Japan and the Philippines and Korea. We can just stay out of it because we're on the other side of the world. Okay. Nowadays, they're starting to get the intercontinental ballistic missiles, I get that. But if you go back, you know, 50 years, 100 years, it was even a better barrier. But it's still a barrier. It still makes it a lot harder for people to fight against us. That's why we won against England in the late 18th century. How did we do it? I mean, how did we defeat the greatest military power on the planet? How did little old United States, 13 colonies, defeat the British Empire? You know how we won? Because of the Atlantic Ocean, that's why. Because we're so far from them that their troops are so far from the home base, they can only spend so much time over here before they just start running out of the will to fight, running out of supplies, just wanting to go home. So basically, all the United States had to do to win was just not quit, not give up, just keep fighting. So I mean, all George Washington had to do was just keep escaping and just keep retreating and, you know, and just wear them down, wear them out slowly. Because how long can they fight? They can't bring their whole army over here. It's too far. So that's how we won. So there's this wonderful natural barrier that God has given of these oceans. So we should have been like Switzerland, where we're just neutral. You know, and that's what a lot of the founding fathers of our country said. They said, trade with all, alliance with none. You know, let's stay out of foreign entanglements. You know, the Bible says we should not meddle with strife not belonging to us. So we shouldn't just have our fingers in everything. We're going to police the world. We have this leadership role in the world. What, leading the way for sodomy? Leading the way for dope consumption? Leading the way for Hollywoods, harlots, and hookers? Is that what we have? Leading the way in drunkenness and dope addiction? Oh, we got to import, or I'm sorry, we got to export our wonderful culture so that we can strip all these women of their modest clothing and put them in short shorts and a tank top and tattoo their bodies and teach them to just go out and fornicate and sleep around and here's some birth control, here's some vaccines into the bargain. I mean, what in the world? Why don't we just mind our own business? And the Bible teaches that we should not meddle with strife not belonging to us. And we shouldn't be out there trying to create a one world system, a one world government, a one world empire. God ordained there to be separate nations. He didn't want us to all be under one government. We're supposed to have separate governments, okay? We're supposed to have separate countries and sovereign nations. So this particular war was of God, but in general, war is not a virtue. Peace is a virtue, right? The Bible calls Jesus the Prince of Peace. You know, the Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is peace. The Bible says from whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain, you fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not, ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your lust. The Bible says that war comes from lusting after and desiring things that don't belong to you. So if we want to know where war comes from, it comes from the love of money. The love of money is the root of all evil, and there are people who make money off of selling the weapons, selling the tanks, selling the equipment, and then they make money off the oil, and they make money off the opium, and they make money off the natural resources, and so there's a military industrial complex that is the unholy alliance of business interests and war. And this is why the United States is always at war and has been in a perpetual state of warfare even up to this moment. Our troops are always deployed somewhere. They're always fighting somewhere. It's always going to be that way. It's never going to stop. Why? Because then the money stops coming in, and there are people out there that are powerful people that want that money to keep coming in, and so warfare is not a blessing. We should not get out our popcorn and get all happy watching the bombs explode because that's what ever since the Gulf War, now you can watch the war live on TV, right? You remember that? I remember as a little kid, I was like, what, I don't know, 11 years old or something when that Gulf War was taking place, and I remember being at home getting out the snacks and the soda and watching it live, and ever since then, it's the same thing. We should just be praying to the Lord to give us peace, and it should just make us sick when we see people dying. We see people blowing up and getting shot and blown away, but a lot of you think that that's cool because of TV or movies or video games where it's glorified, but we should never get to the point where we're like, yeah, that's so cool. There's some people who, the gorier the movie, the better, right? That's how they'd say, oh, this movie's awesome because this guy is just ripped apart right on the screen. It's like, why would you want to watch that? That's sick. We should be horrified by that and not even want to see that, not even want to look at that. If you thrive on human suffering, you're a sick person, and anybody who would actually send people to die in a war for their own financial gain is a sick, evil human being. Super wicked. If you would actually sacrifice a human life for your financial gain, that's disgusting. Are there times in the Old Testament when war is called for? Yes. Are there wars that are of God? Yes. I do believe that if the United States were being attacked, we should defend ourself. I'm not saying, hey, just roll over and be wiped out. I say we would defend ourself, but you can't just keep sticking your finger in somebody's eyeball, just jamming your finger in somebody's eye. And then he finally punches you in the face, I was just defending myself. He punched me. Yeah, after I stuck my finger in his eye a hundred times, he punched me. And then I'm just going to just kill him. Self-defense. It's stupid, right? That's basically what we're doing. It's like, we pick a fight with somebody, but then we wait for them to throw the first punch so that we can say, well, he threw the first punch. And this is what governments have been doing for thousands of years. They provoke, and sometimes they can't get the other guy. Sometimes they're like, come on, punch me, come on, right here, punch me. And the guy just won't do it. So then here's what they do. They get their buddy to put on the camouflage hat here and punch him. And they say, he punched me. False flag. Nick comes over, puts on the camo hat, punches me in the face. It's a false flag. They've been doing it for years. You can go back thousands of years and find examples of this where they dress up in the other guy's uniform and attack themselves. And then they say, oh, we got attacked. Happens all the time. Gulf of Tonkin incident, anyone? I don't want to get too far off on that. We're going deep tonight, biblically and politically. So anyway, we don't want to take a scripture and isolate it and just be like, man, war is of God! Yeah! War! Yeah! We don't want to get that wrong attitude. We want to realize that this particular war was of God, but there's a lot of war that's not of God. In fact, even just by him saying the war was of God, you know what that implies? That there are other wars that are not of God. Because if all war was of God, this would be a meaningless statement, right? This is a particular incident where the war was of God. And in the New Testament, we're specifically told anyway to fight a spiritual battle, not a physical battle. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And of course, we got the DVDs back there on the shelf. Free for the taking. Take as many as you want. Babylon USA that explains exactly what I'm talking about right now in a lot more detail. But anyway, and everything on the back shelf is always free if you're new at our church. And selling things at church. It's not a house of merchandise. Verse 23 says, and the children of the half-tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land. They increased from Bashan unto Baal Herman. Again that word Baal keeps coming up. And Senor and unto Mount Hermon. And these were the heads of the house of their fathers, even Ephir and Ishi. That word comes up again. And Eliel and Asriel and Jeremiah and Hodoviah and Jadiel. Mighty men of valor, famous men, and heads of the house of their fathers. Now so far we've learned about Reuben and Gad and Manasseh. They fought a battle. God was in it. God blessed them. They won. Everything was great. Watch what it says in verse 25. And they transgressed against the God of their fathers. So their fathers were the ones who did what? Trusted in the Lord, fought the Hagarites. The war was of God. God blessed them. They won. They were helped. God blessed them. But then the children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren, however many generations, they transgressed against the God of their fathers in verse 25. And they went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land whom God destroyed before them. Now why does the Bible call this going whoring? Okay. Because basically God uses a parable of marriage to describe his relationship with Israel. It's not literal. It's just an illustration or a parable where he basically says, I'm like a husband to them, right? Their going after other gods is sort of like a wife cheating on her husband. It's like a spiritual adultery, right? So he's basically saying, I'm their husband. And when they worship a false god, they're committing adultery. And the Bible talks about that a lot in the Old Testament. That's like a common theme that comes up over and over again, which is again why God is being called Ishi or Baali because those both mean my husband, okay? So basically he's saying, look, you're committing spiritual adultery with these false gods, okay? And in the New Testament, he has something that's equivalent because we obviously in America today, we're not tempted by Baal Zebub and the gods of Ekron and the gods of Hamath. We're not bound down to statues of Ashteroth and we're not bound down to the Philistine fish god Dagon, right? But here's what the Bible says, you adulterers and adulteresses, this is in the New Testament, James chapter 4 verse 4, you adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God, whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. So the Bible calls us adulteress when we basically love the world. The Bible says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. So we see that worldliness, loving the things of this world, loving that which is carnal and of the world is like unto a man who's married and he's looking at other women, right? That's the same thing basically, spiritually speaking. So when we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, you know, we're being faithful to him. When we love our wife and we keep ourselves only unto her, that's faithfulness. But if we started to look at other women, that would be considered in our hearts committing adultery in our hearts, right, when he said if you look on a woman to lust after her, you've committed adultery already in your heart. And those who love this world and are enamored by this world and they look at those things and they covet those things and lust after those things and they covet the ways of the wicked, that is similar to unfaithfulness spiritually of the children of Israel when they were enamored by false gods. So they went a whoring. That's a pretty strong word, isn't it? I mean, when God says, hey, they went a whoring, notice he didn't say they had an affair. They had una aventura, you know, the Spanish word, right, a little adventure. No, it's not an adventure, it's not an affair, it's whoring. If a wife commits adultery, she's going a whoring. It's not called an affair or something like that. That's how our world tries to make it sound like it's not that bad. Adultery is as wicked as hell. You need to stay faithful to your spouse. But the Bible says that because they went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land whom God destroyed before them, the God of Israel, verse 26, stirred up the spirit of Pol, king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tylglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh, and brought them unto Hala, and Habor, and Harah, and to the river Gozan, unto this day. So notice these three tribes, they went bad before the rest of Israel went bad. Why? Because they're on the wrong side of the Jordan River. So they went bad first, they get carried away first, captive into Assyria, why? Because they went a whoring after other gods. They did not stay with the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And it says that they got carried away and they said unto this day. Now what does unto this day mean? Unto this day does not mean until 2018. Unto this day means when it was written, the book of 1 Chronicles, unto that day. So when was the book of 1 Chronicles written? Well 1 and 2 Chronicles are written after the Babylonian captivity, right? Because remember the events in 2 Chronicles take us all the way through the Babylonian captivity of Judah, all the way to returning from Babylon, and Cyrus, the king of Persia, and all that. So this is one of the latest books of the Old Testament. 1 and 2 Chronicles are some of the latest books. So they were still there at the very end of the Old Testament, and guess what? They never came back. Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh never came back. They got wiped out and they never came back. That's why if you just go on Wikipedia and type in tribe of Reuben, tribe of Gad, try to figure out where they live today, you know what it's going to tell you? They're gone. They went into Assyria and they never came back. You can't find them. So you can't find anybody today that you could point to and say this is a Reubenite. I'm sure that the Hebrew Israelites will tell you, but anyway, you know, you can't find any Gadites today or Reubenites. Why? Because they're wiped out. They got taken into Assyria until this day, which was a long time ago, but they never came back even after that. They would never be a nation again. They got wiped out. So that kind of brings us full circle. You say, Pastor Anderson, you talked about a lot of stuff tonight. You were all over the place. Well, let me tie it all together right now, all right? I'm going to tie it all together. What's the sermon about? 1 Chronicles chapter 5. It's about making mistakes that permanently ruin your life, right? Because how did the chapter start? It started out with Reuben doing what? Making a mistake that permanently ruined his life. Oh, I'm sure that Bilhah was gorgeous and I'm sure that he had such a great time with Bilhah, but was it really worth ruining the rest of his life and ruining his children's life and bringing the curse of his father and the curse of God on his life? I guarantee you it was not worth it. And so it's pleasure for a moment and pain for a lifetime. I'm sure he probably felt guilty right after he did it. He probably felt weird about it right after he did it, like why am I with this woman that's with my dad, right? I'm sure he thought about how weird that was and I'm sure he's embarrassed when Dad's bringing it up, you know, on his deathbed, you know, and he's kind of like, oh man, you know, he's looking for the exit. He went up to my couch! It's like, whoa, that's not what you want Dad saying on his deathbed, bringing that out. And you know what? How did Israel even hear about it? Well, the Bible says, you know, well, he went and lay with Bilhah and Israel heard thereof. I wonder how many people it went through before Israel heard about it. He heard it through the grapevine. So you know, this is a humiliation and embarrassment of Reuben, right? So we need to be careful. We don't go out and commit some horrible act that just causes us to be a curse and a byword, right? And then, what do we see at the end of the chapter? We see people doing what? Screwing up their lives and that of their children unto this day, where hundreds and hundreds of years later, that family's still messed up. Hundreds and hundreds of years later, the Reubenites and the Gadites and the Manasseh, they're still in a heathen land. They're still messed up. And we can even say thousands of years later, they've been totally wiped out as a nation. Why? Because they went a whoring after other gods. So don't go physically a whoring, like Reuben did. And don't go spiritually a whoring, like the Reubenites did. And I wonder if they went spiritually whoring, because their dad went literally whoring. Kind of ran in the family, apparently. So that's how the whole chapter ties together. Don't make a mistake that will ruin your whole life. It's not worth it. You know, when you're tempted, oh teenager, to commit fornication, just remember you're messing up your life. Just wait until you're married. Be patient. It's not worth it. Hey, I'm not going to lie to you and say that you're not going to enjoy it, because you know what? The Bible talks about the pleasures of sin for a season. Oh, I'm sure you will enjoy it for a few moments, for a few minutes. But you know what? Live with that for the rest of your life, and it's not worth it. Keep yourself pure. And you married men and married women, don't you dare commit adultery. When you find yourself in that situation where you're compromised with the opposite gender and things begin to happen, you better run out of there like Joseph. Flee that. Escape that. Don't play around with it and say, well, I'm not going to commit adultery. You know, I'm not going to go all the way. I'm just going to fool. No, no, no, no, no. You get out of there. You run screaming in the other direction. Fornication, adultery, it's not worth it. You're going to ruin your life. You'll ruin other people's lives. I mean, did Reuben just ruin his own life? Ruined a bunch of other people's lives too. Reubenite is just not a cool tribe. I think that, what does he have, a sandwich named after him? That's pretty much his legacy. I don't even know what's on it, but I don't want it. I'm not going to order it. What's on it? What is it? Pastrami, corned beef, sauerkraut, is that what? None of that sounds good. What? Thousand island dressing. It's what they put on a whopper for crying out loud. Reuben sandwich sounds like the worst sandwich I've ever even heard of. Some sandwich of some guy who went up to his father's bed and defiled it. Reuben sandwich, Jewish delicatessen sandwich, I'm not interested, forget it, skip it. That's his legacy, a dumb sandwich. You know what, Judah's legacy is a little better. King David, the Lord Jesus Christ. What would you rather have, corned beef and whatever? Or you want to be the one who brings us King David and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Even a chapter like 1 Chronicles 5, Lord, it's profitable for us. We need to learn it, Lord, even though a lot of people just skip this chapter. Too many names, too hard to read, but Lord, we need these truths today more than ever. We need to flee fornication. We need to abstain from adultery. We need to love you and stay faithful to you and not go a whoring after other gods or even the God of mammon or the love of money or the lust of the flesh. Lord, help us to be faithful.